The new ticket policy for University of Wisconsin football
games is absolutely unacceptable. As a first-year student who was not awarded
tickets in the 2007 football season lottery, I was looking forward to a new
ticket policy more than most, especially after I ended up paying more than $400
for a season’s worth of football tickets that should have cost me only a
fraction of that. Ignoring the fact that the largest problem of the old system
— the issue of students entering the lottery simply to resell their tickets —
has not been addressed at all, there are still other major flaws with the new
system that are evident immediately upon looking over the press release. I can
only imagine how the creative students of University of Wisconsin will find
ways around this idiotic system.?
Since I was already a victim of the lottery system, I was
happy about being able to attend every football game next year without worrying
about how my terrible luck would affect me. Thanks to the now-universal lottery
system, I will probably miss out on tickets again every year of my stay at UW,
and those who want tickets simply to resell them are in prime position to abuse
the system and price-gouge the true fans.?
The replacement of tickets with wristbands, aside from being
childish, will just be another easily abused system once the security guards
start to look only for color.? Once they become dependent on the system,
wristbands from previous games can easily be worn between sections while giving
the guards a sense of security that they’re doing their jobs. Another problem
is the presence of long sleeves during cold weather games makes this policy
completely useless. Last season coach Bret Bielema said “I’d love to walk
into Camp Randall and see a sea of red of everybody in the stands.” I
don’t think a technicolor tribute to every other color of the rainbow in the
student section is what he had in mind.
While I was never able to take advantage of the reserved
seating area of Section P, I know it provides a worthy seating area for the
truly die-hard fans of the Badgers who have been here for years, who know every
step of the “Time Warp,” every word of “On Wisconsin” and
who don’t screw up the hand motions of “If You Want to be a Badger”
— even during that tricky part. Section P has the duty to gather and lead the
rest of the student section and the stadium several times per game, such as
leading UW’s complicated wave, and I don’t see how a section diluted with less
experienced fans can do that.
I am amazed no one at the Athletic Department saw all the
defects of this new structure. When comparing the systems, while the old one
was clearly flawed, it seems the university fixed only the things that weren’t
important and decided to leave all the tougher, more significant problems for
someone else to deal with. I can only hope this issue will be fixed before
August when — no matter what — I’ll be in the stands cheering on my Wisconsin
Badgers.
?
Steven Shutt
UW freshman, computer engineering
