As of Monday, University of Wisconsin students will finally know if they have the winning numbers to the most-talked-about lottery on campus: the raffle to see who will receive season tickets for men’s basketball.
The UW Athletics Department said they will sell 2,100 season tickets for men’s basketball instead of distributing a proposed 1,500 season vouchers along with 2,250 complimentary four-game packages to students left out of the full-schedule tickets. The department will redo the lottery today and notify students receiving tickets Monday.
The decision to distribute the tickets this way is a result of an online survey taken earlier this week by UW students who applied to sit in the student section. A UW Athletics release shows 52.63 percent of the 3,082 voters wanted to get the whole season or nothing, while the remaining 47.37 percent called for a share of season tickets or getting the free four-game packages.
“[This] makes it the best [decision]. That’s what they wanted,” Steve Malchow, associate athletic director, said. “The whole idea was … meeting our customers’ needs and wants.”
The online survey and subsequent plan of action is a result of a computer glitch that left out 625 of the more than 3,700 students applying for men’s basketball season tickets.
Everyone who applied for basketball tickets was supposed to be entered into a lottery to see who would receive the 2,100 seats open to students. A student was entered into the raffle numerous times based on year in school and how many times he or she has bought basketball tickets before.
Because of the technical mix-up, the Athletic Department held a town-hall meeting Monday to discuss concerns of students and ways to alleviate the situation.
Aside from fixing the lottery’s omissions, Malchow said all of the students receiving tickets will be notified at the same time via e-mail. Students receiving tickets before were notified incrementally, giving those informed earlier an unfair advantage to wait in line.
“We’re actually releasing the names in three ways,” Malchow said, adding students receiving tickets will also have their names posted at Gate A at the Kohl Center and at the Athletic Department’s website. “One thing we learned in this is using backup files.”
Malchow added the department is doing everything it can to prevent technical problems in the future.
UW junior Jeff Harding said he voted for the 2,100 season tickets, all-or-nothing alternative, calling it the “lesser of two evils.”
“I’d rather have a shot at going to all the games,” Harding said in an interview. Harding added that, ideally, all applicants would be able to get tickets and suggested more seats in the Kohl Center be dedicated to the student section.
Malchow did say he was a little surprised students turned down the chance to get into four games for free.
“The fact that students turned down free tickets was a bit surprising to some of us,” Malchow said. “That tells we have some really passionate fans.”
However, Harding did say he appreciated that students were able to add their input as to how they wanted their season tickets to be distributed, and noted it is a difficult task for the Athletic Department to please everyone.
“Someone’s going to get hurt,” Harding said. “It’s a fine line [the Athletic Department has to] walk.”
