......and it just keeps getting better.
Click here for linkThe Wall Street Journal, after an exhaustive look into Auburn’s ticket practices and the financial management of a program that had lost $866,000 in 2013, published a story recounting the odd and complicated manner in which the AU athletic department sells tickets.
Included in that story is one sentence that ignited a mini-firestorm among Auburn’s top-level donors: “(One donor) … also had purchased 60 tickets to Auburn’s win over Oregon in the January 2011 national-championship game in Glendale, Ariz.”
Among groups of longtime donors, that sentence became the topic of conversation.
Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs acknowledged that it prompted one donor to set up a meeting just so he could ask questions about the 60-ticket purchase. On fan message boards, the rumors began to swirl.
Behind the scenes, the Auburn ticket office and media relations office were dealing with the fallout. After the Wall Street Journal left, other reporters showed up – all mostly asking the same questions and being provided the same vague answers.
An extensive search by the Advertiser through a number of public records, including property and construction records, business records and other financial information, provided no proof of a quid pro quo between AU officials and the top ticket buyers.
What those records did show, however, were personal and business relationships between Jacobs and Jimmy Cleveland, and also between Cleveland and executive associate athletic director Tim Jackson, who was the director of AU’s ticket office for 12 years (1992-2004) and currently serves as the director of Tigers Unlimited.
Jacobs, who purchased his home lot from Cleveland in an Auburn subdivision, still co-owns an $800,000 home with Cleveland on Lake Martin. That property was also the reason for a now-defunct LLC Jacobs entered with Cleveland in 2007.