University of Virginia Library

On The Inside

Not Enough
Tickets

From Doug Doughty

THERE HAVE BEEN TWO RECENT high water marks in
Virginia basketball history. First the Cavaliers' move from Old
Memorial Gym (seating capacity 3,500) to University Hall) in
1965 and second the Wahoos' victory over North Carolina in
the first round of the 1970 ACC Basketball Tournament. The
first incident represented Virginia's commitment to a big-time
basketball program and the second incident symbolized its
success.

But, as with other places that have successful big-time
basketball programs, Virginia has found that most of its
students would like at one time or another to see the team
play. With an estimated student body of 12,000 and seating
capacity at UHall of 7,600, quite a problem could come up if
more than 7,600 students wanted to see a game at once.

IN ADDITION, if Virginia is to finance the recruiting,
traveling, equipment, etc. that it costs to run such a program
it needs the money that gate receipts from season tickets
provide. Thus, if you let in approximately 3,800 paying
customers to each game, that leaves only 3,800 students that
can see the game.

The present problem of oversized demand for basketball
tickets can be traced to that victory over North Carolina in the
tournament. At practically every conference game held at
UHall since that win there has been a capacity crowd. At one
game, against Maryland two years ago, a reported 9,500 fans
swelled the stands, the aisles, the bathrooms, everywhere to
watch their national-caliber team in action.

Things haven't reached that point again, but in 1970-71,
when the Wahoos went 16-8, there was a ticket policy such
that every student presenting an ID could enter the game and
sit or stand anywhere. Although fire marshals were to limit
crowds by the end of the season, no student was ever turned
away and crowds, though enthusiastic in their support of the
Wahoos, were headaches for each other and especially UHall
officials and the omnipresent fire marshals.

WISDOM AND FORESIGHT became the precedent of last
year's ticket policy, as for the first time tickets were rationed
to the students prior to the games. For the Maryland game,
early in the season, tickets were to be distributed, per ID, at
the UHall ticket offices. The offshoot was that fraternities sent
pledges, organizations sent lackeys, and dorms sent their
representatives carrying about 50 IDs apiece. The tickets were
gone within 45 minutes, all 3,800 of them and over half the
people were dumbfoundedly standing in line without tickets
when the dust lifted.

After that debacle, tickets were given out more
conservatively. The individual allotment was four tickets for
ID-toting students. Although to the mind of Director of
Intercollegiate Programs Steve Sebo, "no one evercoming to
the door of a Virginia game has been turned away", there was
still enough fear of seatlessness that lines started early in the
night for game ticket pickups at 8:00 the next morning.

THE PROBLEMS ARE that not everyone who goes to a
school that has more students than seats in its arena can go to
the games, and not everyone likes to spend his evenings lying
on the floor smoking cigarettes at UHall or Memorial Gym.
The problem is universal: every team in the conference has had
to turn away students, except for Wake Forest where a 10,000
seat arena can well accommodate 3,000 Wake students.

Student Council, after review of other ticket programs
decided to sponsor a program this year similar to that at North
Carolina, and its proposal has been accepted at UHall.

THIS NEW SYSTEM has as its biggest advantage the
elimination of long lines. Basically, it sets a pickup time (5:00
in the afternoon) and ticket seekers are asked to come into
UHall and sit in appointed sections. UHall will be open all day
but only 1,900 students will be allowed to sit in the seats.Each
student will be allowed to bring his ID and that of another. At
5:00 the sections where the students will be sitting will be
called randomly and the best tickets will be distributed in that
same random fashion.

Presuming that not all of the 1,900 people will have two
IDs, there will be a sign-up sheet for anyone not making the
cut-off, and the seats remaining out of the 3,800 will be given
out to those people on the list. Ticket Manager Larry Stanley
will call the people on the list who get the extra tickets, which
he admits, "will be a lot of work".

OBVIOUSLY, AS THE SCHOOL ENROLLMENT
INCREASES, the old problem of not enough tickets will
recur. Mr. Sebo sees that problem as being alleviated on two
angles: "We plan to place more of our games on television and
also we hope to increase our scheduling." The TV games
would be a definite bonus–the thrill and pageantry might be
reduced but you'd still get to see the games. On the second
count, more games might cut down the demand of the
less-than- hard-core fan to see such schools as Baldwin-Wallace
play, but everyone will still want to see the UNCs, N.C. States
and Marylands.

There are several possible alternatives to this system. First,
how about letting the student compete with the public and
buy his own tickets? A modification of this is the athletic
department's sale of student season tickets for $25. But the
athletic department refuses to curtail the revenue it gets from
the $20 student activities fee and let students pay their way.
"The fact that each student can get into football, basketball
and baseball games on his ID card, generates some warmth
within the student body" explains Mr. Sebo. Although the
money it gets from the student activities fees runs only a third
of the athletic program (gate receipts and donations the other
part) it will contribute greatly to administration, equipment
and general upkeep of athletic areas.

OTHER ALTERNATIVES SUGGESTED include
something like the Purdue plan, where there are red ticket
holders and white ticket holders. Each group of ticket holders
gets to see half of the games. Definitely, all of the students
would not get even a chance to see all the games.