Trust me when I say there’s a time and a place for Bruce Barton. Fortunately, this is one of those. No more will he be the man that nobody knows around here.

WVU’s 2-year-old plan to reseat the Coliseum takes hold next season and ends a lengthy period of confusion and stubbornness among many who didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand the concept.

In short, the Mountaineer Athletic Club wanted a clear and fair way to allocate season tickets by giving the highest bidders the first shot at seats. Consequently, longtime buyers of season tickets might be displaced by someone who hasn’t been around as long, but who is giving more.

Right or wrong, the loyalty element isn’t as valued as the monetary element today. That’s the name of the game. The funny thing, though, is that it seems to be working for the Mountaineers. Requests and thus revenue are both trending upward.

There’s widespread contentment and approval of the new plan, which for the first time assures the highest-level donors their choice of seats at the Coliseum, which has a capacity of 14,000.

As of May 31, the deadline for Mountaineer Athletic Club donors to return their season-ticket intent forms, 1,352 new and returning donors submitted the necessary paperwork. Last season, 1,220 MAC donors requested season tickets.

The donors who sent in season-ticket intent forms for this coming hoops season requested a total of 5,718 tickets, an 8 percent increase from 5,131 for the 2012-13 season.

The uptick in MAC donors and number of tickets requested is obviously encouraging and will provide a revenue boost for the athletic department, but it should also help generate more money through gifts for WVU at a time when dollars are needed to keep pace in the Big 12.

The surge also reinforces the notion that the reseating plan was, in fact, necessary.