When it rains, it pours. After rewriting the Badger football ticketing experience yet again, the athletic department has decided to tweak the ticket policy of yet another sport.
When students register for the men’s basketball lottery Sept. 8, tickets will be available in one variety: watered-down. Those looking to experience the full glory of all Badger basketball will have to resort to scalping or subterfuge in order to gain the privilege of cheering on their team.
Starting this year, men’s basketball tickets, still distributed by weighted lottery, will only be available in half-season packages. The rationale behind the move is obvious: to increase the student body’s access to games. And while it does just that, by allowing approximately thousands more students to get “season” tickets, the shift fails to address a greater issue.
The number of seats in the student section will remain embarrassingly low for a premier Big Ten program. Just like last year, only 2,100 Grateful Red will be allowed to root for the Badgers, and therein lies the problem.
To increase student access to games, the athletic department should have first enlarged the student section rather than resorting to ticket redistribution gimmicks. There are students who go to every game and cheer hard every time, so why penalize them? Why not open up a bit more space in the Kohl Center to those loyal to the Cardinal and White?
After all, everyone else is doing it. Currently, only about 12 percent of our arena is reserved for the Grateful Red while the Michigan Wolverines allot 15 percent (depending on demand, they accommodate all student ticket requests) and Michigan State designates a full 20 percent of Breslin Center seats as the Izzone. Similar emphasis can be noted from Illinois to Duke, where student sections are given more prominent seating, greater representation or both.
At least the athletic department gave us an umbrella: Coupled with the decision to abolish full-season ticket packages was a more reasoned and welcome adjustment to the ticketing system. This season, seating will be determined by order of arrival, just like football. The voucher system has two advantages: First, it allows people more flexibility in choosing with whom to sit. This may be a minor modification but is welcome nonetheless. Second, it means those fans who arrive earliest will get the best seats — a much better gauge of loyalty than the BCS-like formula previously employed to determine seating assignments.
Furthermore, the voucher system will not cause the headaches of “she’s-in-my-seat-but-he’s-in-her-seat” that occur regularly every autumn. The chairs at the Kohl Center (instead of bleachers) and smaller sections are enough to allay any fears to the contrary.
By axing full-season tickets, the athletic department is squandering whatever goodwill it may have garnered by switching to vouchers. Given its recent history, goodwill is something it can’t afford to waste.
