University of Virginia Library

Stuart Pape

Basketball Tickets Anyone?

The inequity and absurdity
of the new ticket policy for
basketball games was vividly
illustrated by the spectacle
which occurred Tuesday
evening at University Hall. Any
lingering doubts that the new
system was an improvement
were quickly dispelled as a
large crowd of students,
perhaps a thousand, waited in
vain in the cold for tickets for
the Maryland and
Baldwin-Wallace games.

The new system was
developed, it was said, in
response to the difficulties
experienced by students last
year in getting in to the more
popular games. While all
students did eventually get in,
some had to wait until halftime
and others presumably left
before then. It has been alleged
by the supporters of the new
plan, mainly athletic
department personnel, that
there will no longer be
problems with students having
coats on seats, or having to
come at 5 p.m. or so, for an 8
p.m. Varsity game.

Neither of those two
justifications holds up under
even a casual examination.
Surely the problem with coats
taking up seats could be
eliminated by hiring more
ushers and having them police
the Hall before the game starts
instead of standing around
shooting the breeze.

"Advantages?"

Anyone who waited out at
U. Hall Tuesday night will
testify to the fact that all that
has happened with the new
system is that the time of
waiting around has shifted
from the day of the game to
the day on which the tickets
are first made available. Some
advantage!

Additionally, a collateral
advantage of the old system
was that since students were
forced to arrive early to get
seats, there was always a large
crowd for the freshman games.
Now students still wait, but on
the sidewalk around U. Hall
and need not arrive on the day
of the game until the last
moment, if at all.

Aside from the fact that
both of the two most quoted
"advantages" of the new
system failed to materialize, a
host of new problems surfaced.
Since students will always want
to sit in groups, individuals
were allowed to come to U.
Hall to get tickets with as
many I.D. cards as they could
carry. The individual who was
first in line because he showed
up at 12:30, carried fifty cards.
There were others in line with
more than 250 I.D. cards.

As a result, the enterprising
fan got a friend to wait out in
the cold while he sat at home.
The fan who went at 4:30 to
get a ticket for himself and a
friend couldn't get any ticket
at all since everyone ahead of
him had gotten so many. Not
only does this produce a
situation whereby students
who waited in line were shut
out and justifiably
disappointed if not angered,
the possibilities for scalping are
incredible.

First, there will be the
student who got I.D. cards for
students who later decide not
to attend the game. Then there
will be the student who
gathered cards from students
who never intended to go. In
both instances someone is
going to have lots of tickets to
dispose of and a large market
of hungry basketball fans. A
third possibility also exists. As
long as one student can obtain
large numbers of tickets,
students will be encouraged to
hire themselves out as
professionals willing to go to
U. Hall very early in the day
and guarantee a tickets to
anyone willing to pay a
nominal amount.

The possibility of scalping
and other business practices
with respect to the tickets can
of course be eliminated by the
promulgation of a limit on the
number that any single student
may obtain. But, even with
that problem eliminated, there
is the threshold question of
whether or not any system
which limits the number of
students who can go to the
games should exist at all.

There is no question in my
mind that the answer is no.
Students are required to pay an
activities fee, a large portion of
which goes to the athletic
department. To deny a student
admittance to an athletic event
is in effect to charge him for
nothing. Unless the University
is willing to reimburse those
students who are unable to get
in to see the games, there
would appear to be a valid
complaint here.

Camping Out

Furthermore, it is the
students who support the team
most vigorously and regularly.
If one wants to concede that
the basketball program is really
only a business enterprise in
disguise, then limiting the
number of students who can
see the games to 3,800 is fine,
since the rest of the seats will
be taken up by more profitable
customers. I think though, that
our basketball program still
falls into the category of a
program, not a business. Of
course money has to be made
and the bills paid, but is there
all that much more to be made
this way and more importantly
is it worth alienating a
substantial portion of the
student body?

The people who will be
upset will not just be those
who failed to get tickets to the
Maryland game since it may
very well be someone else the
next time. Those who lost out
this time will be sure to arrive
much earlier next time and
pretty soon people will be
taking their sleeping bags from
the dorms and moving them
out to U. Hall the night before
the tickets are distributed.

Playing Games

There have been several
suggestions for a more
equitable scheme, including
gathering the student body in
Scott Stadium and dropping
the tickets out of a 7 Society
plane, or having a contest
wherein students would submit
statements of twenty-five
words or less on the subject of
"Why I want to go to a varsity
basketball game more than
anything else." The answers
could be given to the English
Department for evaluation or
the language department if we
get rid of the requirement and
they need something to keep
them busy. We could have
separate categories for all of
the various foreign languages.
Of course there would be a
new question for each game
and we could get a mix of
education and sports.

On a serious note though,
the old system seems to be the
preferable one. Sure you
waited, but you got to see the
freshmen play as well as the
varsity, you were assured of
getting in if you arrived early
enough and you didn't have to
worry about being the 200th
person in line only to find out
that all 3,800 tickets were
taken up by the people in front
of you.

A frequent justification for
the new system, if it can be
called that, is that most of the
other schools in the ACC have
similar set-ups and have had
them for years. That argument
is conspicuously unpersuasive.
So what? Virginia has always
prided itself on its many
differences with other ACC
schools, why suddenly rely on
what they do as the standard
of excellence?

It would be unbelievably
satisfying to find out that we

still have an athletic program
that is geared to those who
compose the University
community—faculty and
students, and not a business
operation hiding under the
cloak of athletic respectability.
Maybe then, students at Duke,
UNC, and Maryland will say
that "All of the Virginia
students get to go to their
games," and for once someone
in the ACC will follow our lead
instead of the other way
around.

It's obvious that Mr.
Corrigan and the ticket people
will have to reconsider their
new plan. Hopefully they will
respond to the student body
and not the income statement
and reinstitute a policy
whereby those students who
want to see the Amazing
Cavaliers can. It has been a
long time since we had a
winner, how about giving us
the opportunity to see them
play?