Well folks, its’ that time of the year again. No, not basketball season. It’s “debating the way student tickets for UConn Men’s Basketball games are distributed” season.
Ever since the school decided to change the system from allowing students to camp out for “first-come, first-served” tickets to the online lottery system, a debate has occured every year. The majority of students at UConn do not like the current system. In fact, current UConn Junior Brian Kowalsky had this to say about the current system, “It F***ing sucks. It’s a terrible system and it leaves the majority of hardcore basketball fans searching for tickets like scavengers, while some of the lucky people who do win don’t even like basketball.”
Kowalsky speaks for many students(including your’s truly) when discussing his anger and hatred towards the online lottery. There are 2,600 student tickets available for home games at Gampel Pavilion, which means only 16% of students are lucky enough to attend one of the best events UConn has to offer. The online lottery system doesn’t allow the hardcore Husky fans the opportunity to EARN their tickets. UConn Basketball tickets are in such high demand, students should earn their tickets, which means allowing them to camp out and wait in line for “first-come, first-served” tickets.
The lottery allows students who don’t care about basketball or would rather make money off the demand for tickets, the chance to win and resell the tickets for much more than face value. “I wanted tickets so badly last year, and since i didn’t win in the lottery, I had to scalp the tickets for close to $200,” said Junior Caroline Stackhouse.
The lottery just isn’t working here at UConn. The demand for tickets is too high because we produce top-quality basketball teams and students love to be a part of that. UConn is one of the few “Big Time Sports” schools(schools whose athletic programs bring in the majority of revenue to the university(ENTER JIM CALHOUN RANT HERE)) who does not have a “points-like” system that is used to disperse tickets, or who does not use the old “first-come, first-served” system.
Big athletic schools such as the University of Florida, University of South Carolina, UCLA, University of Texas, and the University of Maryland use a “points” system where students garner “points” by attending athletic events other than the big time sports(football and men’s basketball in most cases). The more “points” a student has when it comes time to buy tickets for the big time sports, the more likely he or she will recieve tickets. This means the hardcore fans earn their tickets to the big time sports, which means the student section will be filled with students who really care, who are really knowledgeable and who really support the teams. There won’t be any students showing up late or leaving early, which means the student section will be the best quality. It also means the attendance at the other athletic events will increase, creating a better atmosphere at those games. This system is a win-win for the students, athletic department and all athletic teams. UConn needs to take a look at a system similar to this because this online student lottery just isn’t cutting it anymore.
As you can probably tell, I did not win tickets in the lottery once again this year, and this is my reaction to that unfortunate news. Anyway, I can’t wait for basketball season just like many of my fellow UConn students. Tickets or no tickets, I’ll still be cheering on my Huskies.
BUT IF YOU’RE SELLING TICKETS PLEASE LET ME KNOW 
AND VOTE BELOW!
This sh*t is bananas.
Your blog is so informative … ..I just bookmarked you….keep up the good work!!!!
$200 seems pretty reasonable for a secondary market for something you paint as very desirable.
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The “points system” makes absolutely no sense, as not everyone cares about every sport, and most people don’t have time to go to a whole bunch of different games. Heck, I don’t really care about football, and that draws more people than basketball.
Linking tickets to ID’s and other stuff is just nonsense, it doesn’t add…ress the fundamental problem of supply and demand, which anyone who understands some of ECON 101 could address.
There is one and only one fair and logical way to do it, and that is a per-game auction system that is transparent and electronic. It would have a starting price, and allow people to put a max bid in, and up their max bid if the going price goes above their previous max bid.
Some games, like Men’s Gampel, might go up a lot, while others, like XL or Women’s wouldn’t, and that’s fine, because that’s the market speaking.
A nice feature too would be to allow groups of friends to bid together, so they’d all get them or not get them. This is a supply and demand issue, and the only way to fairly solve it is to reduce demand to meet supply, and the only way to do this is to increase the price through an auction system.
The reason that athletics should care is that they are giving away probably $100K or more of ticket revenue to students who are re-selling tickets, when they themselves could be getting this revenue through an auction.
I’ve heard people hate… on this idea before, but any other solution is blatantly ignoring and arbitrarily doing a run-around on the laws of supply and demand.
FYI, I did win the lottery this year, it’s the first time I entered, but I still acknowledge that the auction system needs to be put in place to make it fair and market-based.