As Guns N’ Roses yields to the Auburn fight song, the manufactured smoke rises and the party’s officially starting.

The fireworks launch from the scoreboard showing Hugh Freeze leading Auburn from the dark tunnel and into the sun-splashed September afternoon. The moment is peak college football as nearly all 88,043 Jordan-Hare Stadium occupants whoop it up as Auburn jogs through the marching band to its sideline.

That steady stream was down to a trickle when the modern twist on a sacred moment went easily unnoticed. The final few to run the tunnel wore neither uniform nor staff gear but tailgating gear and with cameras in hand.

Welcome to the Jungle, indeed.

Those easily overlooked participants before Saturday’s showdown with No. 1 Georgia were part of the next wave in the college football economy. They were customers of Auburn’s VIP Gameday Experiences’ newly expanded menu of unique offerings no fan really ever thought possible.

Running through the locker room tunnel is on the high-end of the list Auburn introduced before the 2023 season. The range begins at a $30 tour of Auburn football’s Woltosz Performance Center all the way up to the $1,200 ultimate experience that included running with the team out of the pregame tunnel.

It’s part of the growing industry offered at schools around the country as the battle for fan engagement and athletics revenue continues. From videoboard messages to family photos on the 50-yard line to the adrenaline surge of running with the team, schools are finding new streams of revenue without building a single new luxury suite or club lounge.

Pricing runs the full spectrum from USC charging up to $1,700 to run out of the tunnel at home games with Utah and UCLA to a $10 birthday message on the Mississippi State video board, the idea is to inject a personal touch to the Saturday trip to the stadium.

“Now more than ever, it’s easy to stay home and watch on TV in the air conditioning and not have to battle the elements,” said Daniel Watkins, the senior associate AD for marketing and revenue generation at Auburn. “So it’s important for us, we’re tasked with new ways of keeping you engaged and interested in attending our events.”

It’s no secret attendance numbers have been slipping across college football as the race to expand stadiums flipped into shrinking the coliseums and issue more premium offerings.

Watkins was previously at Mississippi State where they ran the similar Maroon Memories since 2016. They wanted to ramp up the existing program, and through three home games, Watkins said things are going well.

Prices vary from game to game on the different experiences as web traffic on the program’s site increases each week. They sold 224 separate packages for the Georgia game, Watkins said, when they added the $1,200 ultimate package that combined the top offerings.

“It sold out in five minutes,” Watkins said.

Auburn VIP experiences

Meanwhile, in Starkville, the Maroon Memories program continues with similar offerings. The outlier would have to be the ride in the Bully Cart as the costumed mascot leads the team onto the field in what amounts to a supped-up golf cart. For the Nov. 8 visit from Kentucky, that’ll cost the patron $300.

“It’s really only limited to what we can think of,” said Spencer McNally who now heads the Maroon Memories program.

There, you can stand in the tunnel as the team exits since the space doesn’t allow for a fan to join the jog. That offering is sold out for the rest of the season, though.

Auburn’s experiences are sold on a week-to-week basis. Its site goes live at 9 a.m. CT on the Monday of each game week, first come, first served.

“We don’t want to get too crazy with our pricing,” Auburn’s Watkins said. “We want this to be somewhat affordable for people to do while also trying to figure out what the best price point is.”

When you’re talking about an athletics department with $174.6 million in revenue in the most recent annual NCAA budget filing, it’ll take a lot of $30 pregame photos to make what the accountants call a material impact. Running with the team is limited to four to six people at Auburn while the Mississippi State tunnel moment has about the same capacity. The price at Auburn to run with the team ranged from $500 against Georgia (when unbundled from the ultimate VIP package) to $375 on Sept. 16 for the Samford game.

Videoboard messages are the most popular offering at Mississippi State where 10 bucks gets your note on the screen for the Oct. 7 Western Michigan game.

A pregame sideline pass was $75 for last week’s visit from Alabama or $50 for the Western Michigan. There are a few tack-ons if customers want to make the experience a core memory. McNally said they’ve had marriage proposals in the past.

“We can do it as a disguise if you bought a sideline opportunity and it turns into a proposal,” McNally said while noting there’s a different fee for something like that.

Other schools have a range of offerings unique to their program.

Florida, for example, has a $750 price tag on a pregame meet and greet with former coach Steve Spurrier ahead of kickoff against Florida State. The ultimate package on the Swamp Moments site has a $6,000 price for a group of up to six people. They will get to help set up the Florida locker room before the FSU game, experience Gator Walk, watch the team run through the tunnel, sing “I Won’t Back Down” from the field on the third quarter and join the marching band for the alma mater and fight song postgame.

A few other notable experiences include:

• Maryland sells the experience of opening the iron gates to welcome the team out of the locker room pregame.
• Ohio State sells the opportunity to help lead the O-H … I-0 cheer from the field. The experience listing notes it’s intended for children 12 and under.
• Washington allows you to sound the siren for $300 or $150 to retrieve the kicking tee during the game.
• For $500 at Florida, one can stand on the pregame sideline for the two-bits cheer and snap a pic with the 2-bits sign.

Ultimately, these programs are low-cost solutions to liven up the game day experience.

“Our overhead costs are extremely low,” Auburn’s Wilkins said. “We have a mass of student interns that’s willing to put a smile on, greet these people and welcome them.”

It all comes down to logistics, Watkins said, and that credit goes to Emily Adams of the fan experience team. She’s in charge of the game day intern army of up to 15 to 20 tasked with guiding purchasers through the experience.

“When the fans run out onto the field,” Watkins said, “there are some interns who are running out there with them to make sure they’re not running into a place they shouldn’t run.”

So far, they haven’t.

Either way, they’re still figuring things out as the redefinition of VIP experiences continues in the battle to keep fans coming to campus instead on picturesque Saturdays like last week in Auburn.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.