UGA-Florida ticket hike delayed

Fans attending Georgia's annual football game against Florida in Jacksonville won't face a ticket price increase for at least another year.

Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity told the Athletic Association's board of directors Thursday that an increase for the cost of attending the rivalry game won't come before 2012.

The board is likely to be asked to vote on the plan at its next meeting in May.

Florida's athletic board already approved a $10 per ticket increase in December, but McGarity is waiting before recommending an increase at Georgia.

"It takes two of us to tango, so to speak," McGarity told the board at the meeting held at The Georgia Center. "We're not ready to make that move yet."

Tickets for the game are $40 for regularly priced seats and $70 for club-level seats and haven't increased since 2007.

Georgia and Florida split tickets to the game evenly.

The Bulldogs are coming off a 6-7 season and have lost 18 of its last 21 games to the Gators.

McGarity said the plan he expects to present in May will include increasing prices for the game in two- or three-year increments.

"We've got to get with Florida," said McGarity, who worked in Gainesville for 18 years before he returned to Georgia in September. "We did not settle on an amount. We just know there would be an increase, but we want to be up front and be ahead of the game and let people know ahead of time."

McGarity said he wanted to announce changes before donors made their contributions to the "Hartman Fund." This year's deadline was Feb. 15.

Contributions tied to football tickets this year are now at $22.5 million, down from $22.7 million last year. The number of donors making contributions stands at 13,742 from 14,002 last year.

In action taken Thursday, the board approved $1.4 million for an improved video board at Sanford Stadium to provide 'HD video quality.'

"The technology is staggering how much can come in three or four years," McGarity said.

Georgia currently has a 25 foot high by 46 feet wide screen that went up in 2005 as part of a new scoreboard.

The enhanced video capability will allow the picture to encompass the entire scoreboard, which is 52 feet high by 76 feet wide. That scoreboard will be gutted for the renovation.

"It allows us to have a full palette to do what we like," McGarity said.

The technology, provided by Daktronics, allows for different formats, including using the game score, game cloc