Reselling Student Tickets

[chapman]

We had this same discussion for the Georgetown game last year.  Basically some of the counterarguments to not changing the system that I brought up then (which I believe are still valid) are:

-While pricing is different, comparing reselling privledges with that of non-student tickets is NOT apples-to-apples.  On one side, you do have a specific target group (young alumni, friends of students, students without season tickets) which is willing to pay a premium.  On the other hand, you have a lot of people not wanting to sit in the student section because standing up the whole game, being amongst drunk and rowdy students, and for games that demand a premium resell price needing to arrive more than two hours early as opposed to two minutes before tipoff to get a better seat make tickets much less appealing and will lower the going value of resold tickets.

-The reselling posts you see are offers.  It doesn't mean the ticket was sold, and even if it was, it very likely was not at the asking price.

-The student section is what, 3,000 or 4,000 seats?  And you've been able to find no more than a handful of Craigslist/Facebook postings attempting to resell the tickets.  Is it really worth causing inconvienience for 3,500 to try to prevent 30 from selling their tickets?  I know for a fact that it's common practice at UW to apply for season tickets with full intent of reselling the whole season for a profit, and this is hardly on that level.

-Probably half the student section during some winter break games are non-students.  As these are cupcake games, most of them probably get their tickets for free and went with a student they know.  Would it really be necessary to stop them from going, which will cause some students not to go as well, and further lower attendance at these games?  Even for conference games, is it really necessary to have a hundred or two hundred empty seats to make sure twenty tickets weren't sold at a premium?

-To go along with the above, this reselling occured or will occur at (maybe) significant premiums for at most Wisconsin, Georgetown, UConn, and Syracuse?  I know many students who wouldn't go to the Wisconsin game because of finals, UConn is during the week, and Syracuse is after spring break has started.  Should there be 1,000 empty seats for the Big Three on Senior Day? 

-If the student section is reduced, it will only make all these problems worse.  How often is the entire upper deck full except for the student section part that freeing up those seats would really be beneficial?  The UW problem of selling season tickets to another student for a hugely inflated price would be even worse.  If an ID is required in addition, there would be empty seats all over the place.

[Skatastrophy]

I've never had a problem with students selling their tickets.  Mostly because I've never seen a significant portion of the student section that were dressed in the other team's colors.

Yeah, you'll see some older folks surprised to find themselves surrounded by rabid fans (They'll probably shell out for assigned seats next time).  You'll also see the random UW@Madison fan surrounded by gold (if he's willing to put up with the verbal abuse, then have at it!).

Until I see a critical mass of student tickets being consumed by opposing fans I'd consider this a non-issue.  If the students would rather make a couple bucks than go to a game, let them.  I'd rather have butts in the seats buying pop/beer and food to support MU playing at the BC.

[🏀]

I've always supported the notion to cut down the student section size. However, there are issues with it as well as it was discussed with the AD.

Most importantly, the games that the students aren't going to weren't going to be sellouts anyway, so those seats would probably be empty anyway. I don't know how the group tickets are doing these days, but more could be given away if that is an issue.

I think as attendance hopefully continues to increase this issue will be brought up again. In 2005, they took one of the student sections away, but I think it was given back. I would like nothing more than the students having to camp out to get Fanatics tickets like in the past. That would be sweeet.

[rugbydrummer]

This happens at every other school for every sport.  Students buy season tickets to Wisconsin football, and then resell half of the games.  I don't understand why anyone here really cares other then some poor college students are making a few bucks.  Most likely, they don't make anymore money off ressell to even cover the cost of the season.

You sure about that?

let's see... $85 for a season of student tickets
9 BEAST games, 1 home WU game ... well, you don't even need a calculator to do that math!

THEREFORE:  i think one could average $9/ticket, and thus break even/ +5

@  The General:
you know, they've been threatening students with that from day 1, and i have yet to know of someone or personally be affected by that "policy".  it's more of a scare tactic than an enforcement in my experience.

but.... it's a risk people take

also,... for other aforementioned reasons, it would be really dumb to put the tickets on your MU ID.  Maybe a separate MU BBALL Season Ticket card instead? 

[drewm88]

Plus, I'm financially capable of floating several rounds of Miller products for everyone around me. I think I would be a lot of fun to have in the stands.

AC- I'd like to invite you to sit with me in the student section for every game from here on.

[bs4173]

AC- I'd like to invite you to sit with me in the student section for every game from here on.

Ditto, AC. I was the one who said that whole "old people in the student section aren't fun" thing.  if they were like you say you are, i'd be all for it. Fact is, the people over 25 years old that actually sit in the student section really aren't.

sitting in the student section during the game is like making out during Schindler's List - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLW0bM38Kks

[drewm88]

My take on the situation is leave it alone. Very few people are selling their tickets for profit, and I would guess a decent portion that sell do it to cover the cost of the whole season. Meanwhile, I frequently take visiting friends or family to games, especially over break. If they switched to the ID system, it would prevent that and just leave a lot more empty seats.