While University of Wisconsin junior Ryan Connors cheered his Badgers to victory over the Tar Heels of the University of North Carolina, he already knew he would have a decent seat at the next UW home game.
Connors had commissioned one of his friends who did not attend the UNC game to start waiting outside the ticket window at the Kohl Center in order to exchange vouchers for student-section seats at the next game at Camp Randall.
This would not seem so unusual, not in a city rated best college-sports town by Sports Illustrated on Campus, except for the fact that the next home game was a whole three weeks away.
Those who waited for the better part of a month were rewarded with coveted seats at the highly anticipated Ohio State game, which will be played Saturday night before a national television audience. For this prize, students suffered through freezing nights, sacrificed free time, and endured the occasional abrupt awakening by a UW Police officer.
Duke University and the University of North Carolina were not mentioned in Sports Illustrated on Campus’ rankings, despite having two of the most successful basketball programs and rabid fan bases in all of college sports. UNC employs a lottery system after being overwhelmed with students camping on the scene, eliminating the teamwork of spot-staking systems in which one student might hold the place of 40 or more ticket holders. Duke allows 1,500 students to camp outside its arena every home game, supplied with such amenities as Internet ports.
However, Duke and UNC do not have multiple fan bases for different sports like UW does.
Last Sunday, supporters of Democratic presidential nominee hopeful Howard Dean gathered in the small cement corner in front of the Kohl Center ticket window.
“Did you camp out for this rally?” one man clad in Dean propaganda asked a girl sitting in a roped-off area.
“No, we’re here for tickets,” the girl said from her air mattress.
“Football tickets?”
“No.”
“Oh. Hockey tickets?”
“No.” The girl sighed and leaned back. “We’re the basketball group.”
The circus-like atmosphere of the rally seemed to summarize the current state of the UW ticket trade: Chaotic, but sufferable for dedicated fans.
