Even an embattled football coach with an uncertain future couldn’t overcome the power of the pocketbook for Kansas University football fans.

KU football set a single-day record for season ticket sales this week, attracting 7,600 fans to purchase 2010 season tickets on Monday, the first day they were available.

One potential reason for the sales?

Kansas Athletics had marketed a special promotion, offering $2,000 worth of Williams Athletic Fund points as a bonus for every football season ticket sold during a two-hour window from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. Monday. For the next two hours, the bonus was $1,500 worth of points.

For the remainder of the day, the point value dropped to $1,000.

The bonuses took the place of the usual bonus, which is $500 worth of points but is limited to $2,000 per person. Monday’s bonuses had no such limits.

The Williams Fund is the fundraising arm of the athletics corporation, and seat locations are assigned based on how many points a donor has accrued over a lifetime.

Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director, said the planning for the promotion had been in the works for some time — it pre-dated the investigation and eventual resignation of football coach Mark Mangino.

“We want to be proactive,” he said. “We’ve been talking, literally since last July, about what we’re going to do for football season tickets in 2010.”

Marchiony said Kansas Athletics would examine the effectiveness of the promotion before deciding whether to offer it again in 2011.