Reviewing the Mississippi State South Loge

The Mississippi St. Bulldogs, like every other school in the country, is constantly looking for ways to increase revenue. One of the ways to do this is to provide more premium seating. In an effort to do just that, the Bulldogs introduced their newest premium seating called the South Loge back in July.

If you click on the tweet, you’ll see people were not impressed by this addition. The complaints were wide ranging, but mostly, people said they looked awful.

I didn’t voice my displeasure, but I did share many of those criticisms. But after the first game of the season, Stephen Agostinelli, aka @sixpackspeak on Twitter, sent out a pretty glowing review of the seats.

So I thought my son Jackson and I would give them a try for the Kentucky game. We enrolled in the Blitz program this year, and 24 hours before the game starts, I get a text to claim my tickets. When I get that text, there is an option to purchase an upgrade, and the South Loge is one of the upgrade offers through Maroon Memories.

After spending a game in the seats, here’s what I thought of the entire experience. Let’s start with the negative, and I have three.

Cons for the South Loge

The most obvious is they are quite the eyesore. I don’t know if there was a better way to do these seats, but they don’t look like something people want to plop down serious money for. So that’s the first complaint.

The second is simply the view when game action is on the North side of the 50 yard line. They’re end zone seats, so you’re going to have a tough time seeing things when the ball is on the opposite side of the field. It’s during these times you find yourself looking at the jumbotron quite a bit.

The last is the acoustics. The sound bounced around all over the place, and whenever there was a penalty, I had no idea what was being called because there wasn’t any way to understand what was being said. I had to consult Twitter to find out what calls were being made.

Pros for the South Loge

There really are some nice perks for these seats. So let’s break down where the value is found in these tickets.

My son and I can easily drop over $100 for concessions over the course of a game, especially if we end up getting to our seats around lunch time and the game lasts close to supper time. Well that is taken care of for you with the South Loge seating.

There’s a tent right at the entrance that offers a variety of options for people to eat. For the game against Kentucky, I had a choice of hamburgers, hot dogs, Italian sausage, sliders, and something else but I can’t remember what it was. Chili was available for those who wanted to turn their hot dogs into chili dogs. Side items were homemade potato chips, pretzels, mixed nuts, and they even offered goldfish for the kids. You even had an option with tortilla chips and queso to make your own nachos. You could also get crackers and a cup with a wide variety of cheeses. There were cookies to help satisfy your sweet tooth.

I opted for the Italian sausage sliders. They were cooked great and the accompanying peppers and onions really made the sandwiches quite delicious. To say the least, I was pleased with our dining options.

If you’re thirsty, there was sweet and unsweet tea in the tent for those who prefer tea. But if you wanted a soda, there were bins setup all throughout the seating area that was full of canned Coca-Cola products. Instead of spending 7 to 10 bucks for a drink that likely gets watered down, you can always go get you a drink out of a bin. I probably had 6 Diet Cokes simply because I could.

As great as the food options were, the staff the school has setup to basically help you in whatever way they can are extremely polite and bend over backwards to make your game experience an enjoyable one. They were constantly asking if Jackson or I needed anything, and if there was anything they could do to make the game better.

If that wasn’t enough, they went far above the call of duty at one point. I signed Jackson up for Bully’s Kids Club before we entered the stadium. It comes with a number of perks, but one of them is a drawstring backpack. Since we were about to enter the stadium and the backpack isn’t clear, one of the Bully’s Kids Club staffers gave me a voucher to pick up the bag inside the stadium at the Maroon Memories tent.

The problem with this though is there is no way to access Maroon Memories from the South Loge. You would have to leave the stadium to get to the tent which is located inside Gate A, and if you leave the stadium, you don’t get to come back in. Well one of the friendly staffers took Jackson’s voucher for the backpack and picked it up for us. It might not have been a big deal to some, but I thought it was a really cool thing for them to do.

But the biggest selling point is for the incredible photo opportunities you get while sitting in these seats. I took this video as the team was getting ready to enter the stadium.

If you didn’t watch the video, here are some pics to give you a better idea. I was going to upload them all here, but for some reason, they keep uploading upside down, and I can’t get them to flip. So here are some tweets I sent out with pictures.

Final Verdict

I absolutely enjoyed my time in the newest premium seating available for Mississippi State football games. So if you’re wondering if these seats made my gameday experience better, they most certainly did.

Is it worth the price? Well, that is going to vary from person to person and budget to budget. If I remember correctly, the price for one box was $14,000 for six seats to all seven games. There’s no way I could do that, but having it available for much less through Maroon Memories is something I certainly could see as an occasional splurge. If you can treat it that way as well, then I think you would have a similar opinion if you gave it a try.