CU strives for suite success.

• Author: Schley, Stewart
• Position: Sports Biz - University of Colorado

FOR PURE GRIDIRON MISERY, GARY BARNETT'S OFF-season is hard to beat. But here's another job that hasn't exactly been a cakewalk up in Boulder: peddling $50,000 stadium suites while the entire University of Colorado football program hung in the balance of a notorious sex scandal.

Add to that an immensely disappointing 5-7 season; the waning months of a lousy economy; and a picturesque mountain town full of distractions.

And selling them within the shadow of a major-league market where the Big Four pro franchises all play in freshly minted buildings decorated with their own luxury suites--all of them competing for the same corporate budgets.

"During the last three or four months, it's been difficult," says Dave Giordano, a CU Foundation official who is quarterbacking the suite-sales effort at Folsom Field. "We just went into a holding pattern."

The way the game plan was originally drawn up, by now CU was supposed to have leased 85 percent of its stadium-suite inventory, or 34 of the 40 climate-controlled suites that tower over the east side of Folsom Field.

But those projections were made in 1999, before the tech boom fizzled and back when the names most commonly associated with CU's football program were Moschetti and Sykes, not Lisa Simpson and Katie Hnida. Nobody could have predicted Colorado's economic collapse or the humiliating recruiting scandal that would follow.

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Despite the circumstances, CU actually isn't far behind on its projections for the suites, which seat 18, cost 50 grand a season and, coupled with new individual club-level seats, could generate more than $2.5 million annually for the CU athletic department.

Leading up to the Sept. 4 season opener against Colorado State, Giordano and his team had sewn up deals for three-fourths of the plushly carpeted, security-patrolled, attendant-serviced private suites that deliver a stunning view of the field and the Flatirons beyond. Tenants include familiar CU backers such as Coors Brewing Co., Pepsi and StorageTek.

For Giordano, who received an MBA in marketing from CU in 1992, presentation matters. It's tough to sell a $50,000 deal over the phone, so Giordano and his three-person sales team work to convince prospective tenants to schedule a personal tour. Once inside a suite, it's easy to imagine closing deals and schmoozing for hours with key clients, which is largely the point for buyers. "The world is so busy," says Giordano. "And Saturday's a...