WCU breaks revenue, donations records for athletics, revises Catamount Club levels
Following a banner year for revenue generation and fundraising for the athletics program at ĚđąĎĘÓƵapp in 2025-2026 with all-time highs in ticket sales, donations and booster organization membership, the Catamount Club is announcing benefits package updates, including a new top tier called “The Royal Banner” level.
The Catamount Club received more than $7.4 million in gifts and pledges during the fiscal year that ended June 30, with a total of 2,915 members on the rolls for the coming athletics season – a new membership record for the club.
Donors committed an official tally of $7,474,568.45 in total gifts and pledges during 2025-2026 to support various athletics priorities. Nearly $3.9 million in cash gifts received for immediate use includes:
* $1,331,965 to the Catamount Club fund for unrestricted needs
* $1,188,681 for facilities improvements
* $916,825 cumulative giving for sports-specific funds
* $295,441.07 designated to individual scholarships
* $163,369 in miscellaneous support such as Alston Awards, athletics director fund and revenue share support.
The remaining $3,578,285.80 is in the form of planned gifts and pledges.
The contributions came in the final year of the multiyear “Fill the Western Sky” campaign, an effort to raise a minimum of $100 million for the university’s academic, student engagement and athletics programs. The third comprehensive fundraising effort in university history, “Fill the Western Sky” was the first with a significant emphasis on seeking financial support for upgrades to WCU’s aging athletics facilities.
“Catamount Nation has stepped up and answered the call to help equip our student-athletes with the resources they deserve – and must have – in order to compete for Southern Conference championships,” said Kyle Pifer, WCU director of athletics.
“Our fans and supporters have been energized by the success of many of our teams, with eight of them achieving finishes among the top three in the conference and a SoCon championship for the women’s outdoor track-and-field program,” Pifer said. "They are providing generous financial support of our efforts to upgrade our long-neglected facilities, and they continue to bolster scholarships for student-athletes and programmatic funding for all 16 of our intercollegiate teams.”
Elsewhere in the athletics program, the division set several financial records this past year, said Chad Gerrety, WCU’s senior associate athletics director for external affairs.
“Catamount football season ticket revenue and single-game revenue reached all-time highs. Catamount baseball also set a record for ticket sales revenue. Overall ticket sales, which combines all ticketed sports – football, men’s and women’s basketball and baseball – shattered the all-time record high,” Gerrety said.
The athletics department also saw best-ever revenue growth in sponsorships, parking sales and game day concessions.
“In all, nearly $1.7 million was raised in external revenue, excluding funding generated from the Catamount Club,” Gerrety said. “This was more than $200,000 higher than the previous record set during the 2023-24 athletic season.”
On the attendance side of the ledger, Catamount football once again led the Southern Conference in terms of home crowd size last fall, with an average attendance of 10,987 in the cozy confines of E.J. Whitmire Stadium. That puts WCU at the 20th spot in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision for average attendance out of 129 programs across the country.
Highlighting last year’s Catamount football season was a Nov. 8 Homecoming battle against Mercer University, which saw 14,513 fans pack Whitmire Stadium, the third largest crowd in the facility’s history and exceeding the venue’s 2025 official capacity of 13,970.
The football team ended the season in second place in the conference and enjoyed its fourth straight winning season, the longest streak in program history. The seven victories for the year represented the third consecutive seven-win season.
The women’s soccer team concluded 2025 in second place in the conference, posting its first unbeaten season in away games.
Catamount baseball finished as SoCon regular season runner-up and collected 30 wins in consecutive years for the first time since 2013 and 2014. It marked the program’s best regular-season performance since 2017.
The softball team earned the second-most victories in program history at 24, trailing only the 41 tallied by the 2006 squad, to earn third place in the conference standings.
The women’s indoor track-and-field team claimed the silver medal in the SoCon championship meet, its highest finish since 2019, while the men finished third and took bronze.
In the outdoor track-and-field arena, the men’s team earned second place in the conference finals, the fifth runner-up finish in the past six seasons, while the women’s squad stood at the top of the conference, the outdoor program’s first championship since 2018.
In an effort to continue the momentum from 2025-2026 and to help the Catamount athletics program keep pace in today’s evolving collegiate athletics environment that includes the emergence of the transfer portal and payments for name, image and likeness, the Catamount Club is updating its membership levels and benefits packages for the first time since 2019.
The adjustments feature the creation of the premier “Royal Banner” level, which includes the opportunity for seating in the Chancellor’s Club, a new game day hospitality area located in the Western Skybox addition on the west side of Whitmire Stadium. The moniker for the new membership level is a nod to the “Fill the Western Sky” campaign, which takes its name from lyrics of the “Catamount Fight Song” that go, “Wave the royal banner high, and let it fill the western sky. So, fight on, you Catamounts. Fight to victory.”
A chart detailing the updated membership levels and benefits packages can be found on the Catamount Club website.
“These changes are vital to maintaining the financial strength of our department and ensuring that we are able to continue to provide a first-class experience for our student-athletes,” Pifer said. “What makes ĚđąĎĘÓƵapp special has always been the people. Thanks to Catamount Nation for continuing to support our student-athletes.”
The additional resources that now available to the athletics division have helped fund improvements to the football stadium above and beyond the westside stands expansion. This fall will see the debut of an upgraded video board, new turf, better lighting and a modernized media center.
These improvements are designed to help make the game day environment even more formidable. Stadium capacity will increase to 14,000 spectators. Recent football locker room improvements and the addition of an auxiliary weight room in the Ramsey Center are already serving all of Catamount student-athletes through thanks to increased support.
Although WCU has already surpassed its season ticket sales record set last year, Catamount football season tickets, which represent the best value for fans, are still available. Single-game tickets and parking permits also are now on sale for all games.
Fans can purchase online at , call the Catamount Ticket Office at 828-227-2401 or purchase in person at the Catamount Ticket Office from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The 2026 football season kicks off at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, with the home-opener against the Colonels of Eastern Kentucky University. The game is being promoted as “Blackout Whitmire” with free black WCU T-shirts to the first 3,500 fans through the gates and 4,000 blackout thunder sticks to Western Carolina students.
The game, to be played under new LED stadium lighting, will represent the debut of WCU’s $40 million stadium renovations, including the $37 million Western Skybox expansion with a football operations area, modern media center and spacious hospitality facility and an upgraded video board and a new artificial playing surface.
The game also will feature the 15th annual Freshman Run and WCU’s first-ever drone light show, courtesy of Vannoy Construction and produced by SkyElements. The home-opener is presented by Ingles and media partners Kiss Country and Star 104.3.