The season we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived. Mississippi State’s Men’s basketball team opens its home schedule Sunday against Nicholls State. But some of the excitement that should be focused on the 14th ranked Bulldogs has slipped away. Instead of talking about the return of SEC Player of the Year Lawrence Roberts and last year’s SEC steals king Winsome Frazier, students are talking about the ticket fiasco in the athletic department.
Selling season ticket packages seems like a good idea. It will stop people from camping out outside the ticket office Sunday nights, something that could be dangerous if we lived anywhere but Starkville. It might even improve attendance to Monday morning classes. Seems like a win-win situation. But the athletic department fumbled.
For future experiments with season ticket packages the wise men in the Bryan Building may want to look at what other schools have done.
First we’ll tour the SEC.
Florida: Florida implements a technologically savvy system for reserving seats for basketball games. Gator students are allowed to “sign up” for seats by logging on to their student account and reserving seats for the next three games.
After logging on, the students have a choice of registering for one game, two games or all three games. To punish students who reserve a seat but don’t show at game time, those student’s accounts are flagged and they are not allowed to reserve seats for the next three home games.
To be eligible for tickets a student must only carry one hour of academic credit.
Not ready to jump into the 21st century? Maybe you’ll like Kentucky’s distribution method better.
Kentucky: Kentucky holds a lottery on Monday nights for full time UK students. Students must be inside Memorial Coliseum before 9:15 p.m. (eliminates skipping Monday morning classes).
Upon entering the gym students are given a number. At exactly 9:15 p.m. the doors to the gym are locked and officials on the floor call out groups of numbers.
If the number handed to the student at the door falls within that range, then that student comes to the floor and is able to purchase $5 tickets for that week’s games. Any remaining tickets go on sale in the ticket office Tuesday for $5 each.
And for those outraged at the idea of having to pay for basketball tickets, be glad you aren’t a Razorback.
Arkansas: Arkansas students can purchase a full 18-game season ticket package for the low price of $108. But for the Arkansas students who aren’t members of the Walton family, they do offer mini packages for only $30.
There are three packages to choose from. Each package offers five games and games are spaced throughout the season. Each package includes at least two SEC home games. But in order to see all eight SEC home games students must purchase all three packages. That adds up to $90. Students might as well spring for the $108 plan.
Now lets move outside the SEC to see what the rest of the country is doing.
North Carolina: The Carolina Athletic Association (CAA), a student organization, is in charge of the distribution of men’s basketball tickets. They run their distribution much like Kentucky.
Students pick up a numbered bracelet at certain times throughout the week, and then on Friday a range of numbers are picked. Distribution of the tickets starts Saturday (once again keeping students from skipping class) at 7 a.m.
The tickets are handed out one by one until all the tickets are gone. Students who got numbered bracelets but did not fall within the range are welcome to come to distribution because unclaimed tickets will be handed out to other student with bracelets.
For UNC students who just want to be at the game and don’t care if their seat is somewhere along the catwalk, the CAA offers The Ceiling Fan program.
This program reserves the last few rows of the upper deck for 500 dedicated fans. Participants in the Ceiling Fan program are reserved a seat all year and can not participate in the weekly distribution.
Texas: The Longhorns offer an all-sport pass (LASP) that provides access to all ticketed home sporting events. The pass can be purchased in the fall for $70 and it covers football, men’s and women’s basketball, soccer, volleyball, men’s and women’s tennis, baseball and softball.
The pass can also be purchased just for the spring for $35 and covers men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s tennis, baseball and softball.
For non-LASP members, there are 1200 student seats reserved in the O-zone (official name of the student section at UT). Students line up outside the student entrance of the Frank Erwin Center on game night with a valid UT ID.
The first 1,200 through the doors are seated in the lower level. After these seats are full, the LASP members are directed to the remaining 2,800 student seats in the mezzanine.
Now with five additional models to go by, maybe the athletic department can pick a plan that works at MSU.
-Jennifer Edwards can be reached at [email protected].