Pollard On Student Section

CyStalker

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Jul 16, 2012
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I'm sure that this idea will not settle well with the students, but it has been something that I have thought about in regards to overselling the student section vs low student attendance. Students purchase their season tickets just as they do now. If they plan on attending a Saturday game they must actually pick up a ticket one week prior to the game. If more tickets are picked up than allotted seats, it would be no different than it is now, students stand in line to get in, refund for those that are came, but did not get a seat. If only half of the allotted tickets are picked up by the students, then Pollard can over sell the other half to general public the week prior game. The students that plan on going will make that effort, if that effort is too much, they probably wouldn't go any way. Just a thought.
 

klamath632

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Students are mad they have to stand in line to sit in the lower level? Seriously? Kansas opens the door for student section seating 2 hours before game time and the people that sit in the lower level have been sitting in line for HOURS before that. My father's job advice is "behave as if you have the promotion you want to have, not the job you currently have". If ISU fans want their program to be top tier, then they need to behave as if they already are top tier. Recruits notice when fans support their teams in nasty weather or against less desirable opponents. Don't wait until the program is elite to attend regularly or they will never get the recruits to be elite.

**** My ****.
 

cyfanbr

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I'm sure that this idea will not settle well with the students, but it has been something that I have thought about in regards to overselling the student section vs low student attendance. Students purchase their season tickets just as they do now. If they plan on attending a Saturday game they must actually pick up a ticket one week prior to the game. If more tickets are picked up than allotted seats, it would be no different than it is now, students stand in line to get in, refund for those that are came, but did not get a seat. If only half of the allotted tickets are picked up by the students, then Pollard can over sell the other half to general public the week prior game. The students that plan on going will make that effort, if that effort is too much, they probably wouldn't go any way. Just a thought.

As a student I am actually ok with that. Although, I think the bigger problem is that Bball tickets are sold as a package with other sports. Imo if they sold it separately attendance would be better
 

cyclonez7

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As a student, I made sure to not get student tickets so I have a ticket to all of the games and don't have to stand in line.
 

CynadoAlley

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Nov 28, 2010
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I'm sure that this idea will not settle well with the students, but it has been something that I have thought about in regards to overselling the student section vs low student attendance. Students purchase their season tickets just as they do now. If they plan on attending a Saturday game they must actually pick up a ticket one week prior to the game. If more tickets are picked up than allotted seats, it would be no different than it is now, students stand in line to get in, refund for those that are came, but did not get a seat. If only half of the allotted tickets are picked up by the students, then Pollard can over sell the other half to general public the week prior game. The students that plan on going will make that effort, if that effort is too much, they probably wouldn't go any way. Just a thought.

As a student, I like this. Only potential problem is if kids couldn't get the time to go pick up the tickets if it is a designated time (work, exams, etc.). Could make them available to pick up all week long, or a couple days a week. The students that have tickets and just don't bother showing up would be pretty unlikely to make the effort to pick them up. Then those open up to the public and the place will be packed.
 

sadam

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Jan 8, 2014
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That's an interesting choice of how to describe it. I guess I thought that getting a ticket this year was tough for most people, so it would almost be the opposite of "shove." ISU has a good product on the floor.

That's a fact. My mother just bought my wife and I two tickets to TCU game and paid $170 for them on stub hub and no they are not that great of tickets. It makes me angry that people are getting tickets and letting them go to waste while other fans would kill to be able to go to the game and are buying ****** tickets for $170. I would have personally never spent that kind of money on tickets but it was a birthday present and surprise so I couldn't tell my mom she could have gotten onto this website and paid much much less for tickets.Don't be a lazy *** and you could make some damn good money selling your tickets.
 

IcSyU

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Nov 27, 2007
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I'm sure that this idea will not settle well with the students, but it has been something that I have thought about in regards to overselling the student section vs low student attendance. Students purchase their season tickets just as they do now. If they plan on attending a Saturday game they must actually pick up a ticket one week prior to the game. If more tickets are picked up than allotted seats, it would be no different than it is now, students stand in line to get in, refund for those that are came, but did not get a seat. If only half of the allotted tickets are picked up by the students, then Pollard can over sell the other half to general public the week prior game. The students that plan on going will make that effort, if that effort is too much, they probably wouldn't go any way. Just a thought.
That's a bad move if you're athletics administration. Your future donors are the ones sitting in the student section. You don't want to add barriers to entry, especially ones that put a heavier load on the ticket office to sort out. You're adding to the load the ticket office has to take on with no additional value and risking a ton of money if you take away students and the University says that's fine but we're not increasing the student fee going to the AD since you're eliminating some of the student use.

Now I'd argue not a dime of student fees should be going to the AD but that's a completely different issue.
 

swarthmoreCY

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That's a bad move if you're athletics administration. Your future donors are the ones sitting in the student section. You don't want to add barriers to entry, especially ones that put a heavier load on the ticket office to sort out. You're adding to the load the ticket office has to take on with no additional value and risking a ton of money if you take away students and the University says that's fine but we're not increasing the student fee going to the AD since you're eliminating some of the student use.

Now I'd argue not a dime of student fees should be going to the AD but that's a completely different issue.
I'd argue more should be.
 

CyFan61

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As a student, I made sure to not get student tickets so I have a ticket to all of the games and don't have to stand in line.

And then do you sneak into the student section and steal a seat from someone that did wait in line?
 

Max57

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Dec 18, 2008
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Simple answer for next year: Reduce the student allotment to the average student attendance this year. Sell the remaining tix in the balcony starting with the top row of seats.

Or, don't make them part of the student package. Sell the BB student tix separately: $100.00 (that's about $6 per ticket).


It's great basketball folks. What are you doing at 3:00 PM on a Saturday in Jan/Feb?
 

IcSyU

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Nov 27, 2007
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Simple answer for next year: Reduce the student allotment to the average student attendance this year. Sell the remaining tix in the balcony starting with the top row of seats.

Or, don't make them part of the student package. Sell the BB student tix separately: $100.00 (that's about $6 per ticket).


It's great basketball folks. What are you doing at 3:00 PM on a Saturday in Jan/Feb?
You're making a "simple" solution on something that isn't simple at all.

Jamie has already sold the seats multiple times so he's sitting on $175 for each of those seats + the student fee associated with it. When he has to justify the student fee it isn't going to help his cause for asking for an increase if he says, "Yeah, we cut basketball tickets down by 1,000." The AD makes about $2.8 million dollars in student fees (2012's was $80/student roughly). Keeping the fee the same instead of being able to increase it even 1% would cost him $28,000.

Assuming you only sell 1,500 tickets (rough average attendance) to students you're leaving 2,000 tickets on the table at $125 each and you're going to have the same problem next year because the 1,500 students aren't all going to show up every game.

$28,000 + (2,000 x 125) = $278,000.

With 1,000 tickets leftover of the student allotment, you have to sell them at $250 each to break even not including a student fee issue.

This also doesn't account for the fact that basically no freshman would be able to get them. Alienating your future donors isn't a good business plan.

The people who want tickets are the cheap people who just want a seat in the building. There isn't much money to be made there at this point in time. Now if the balcony corners were garnering $250 for season tickets it'd be different but at $150 there's no good business reason to remove student seats. If anything, I imagine they'll actually oversell even more and lottery the big games (which comes with an even bigger set of issues).
 
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CyFan61

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Simple answer for next year: Reduce the student allotment to the average student attendance this year. Sell the remaining tix in the balcony starting with the top row of seats.

Or, don't make them part of the student package. Sell the BB student tix separately: $100.00 (that's about $6 per ticket).

It's great basketball folks. What are you doing at 3:00 PM on a Saturday in Jan/Feb?

LOL, this is probably the worst idea yet. Let's sell our student tickets by weighing UMKC and Iowa attendance equally.
 

Jordanj6502

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Jan 9, 2010
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Students are mad they have to stand in line to sit in the lower level? Seriously? Kansas opens the door for student section seating 2 hours before game time and the people that sit in the lower level have been sitting in line for HOURS before that. My father's job advice is "behave as if you have the promotion you want to have, not the job you currently have". If ISU fans want their program to be top tier, then they need to behave as if they already are top tier. Recruits notice when fans support their teams in nasty weather or against less desirable opponents. Don't wait until the program is elite to attend regularly or they will never get the recruits to be elite.

Kansas sells GA tickets to fill out behind their student section. Also, KU students get to "camp out" indoors. Additionally they require students pick up tickets in advance so they know how many are available to resell to the general population, guaranteeing a full house.

ISU does none of those things, and the only GA tickets are the students. The comparison isn't equivalent.
 

aeroclone

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Oct 30, 2006
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I was out of school before it was implemented, but I wonder if the new ticketing system does hurt attendance a bit due to the fact that it makes more work for giving away tickets. My freshman year back in the paper ticket era I didn't buy season tickets, but it was never an issue getting to games. Most nights, someone would be walking around the dorm trying to give away their extra ticket because they had an evening test or they had to work or whatever. Transferring a ticket between students just took a second.
 

audiokiwi

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Nov 11, 2013
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And then do you sneak into the student section and steal a seat from someone that did wait in line?

Can't really do that anymore for the big games since they start letting students in an hour before the rest of the public now. For the other games it doesn't really matter (seeing as that's the point of this thread)
 

Rhoadhoused

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Kansas sells GA tickets to fill out behind their student section. Also, KU students get to "camp out" indoors. Additionally they require students pick up tickets in advance so they know how many are available to resell to the general population, guaranteeing a full house.

ISU does none of those things, and the only GA tickets are the students. The comparison isn't equivalent.

I don't see any reason not to just do this.
 

cyhiphopp

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Kansas sells GA tickets to fill out behind their student section. Also, KU students get to "camp out" indoors. Additionally they require students pick up tickets in advance so they know how many are available to resell to the general population, guaranteeing a full house.

ISU does none of those things, and the only GA tickets are the students. The comparison isn't equivalent.

I'd love to be able to buy a GA ticket for behind the student section for a reduced price.
 

VeloClone

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I was out of school before it was implemented, but I wonder if the new ticketing system does hurt attendance a bit due to the fact that it makes more work for giving away tickets. My freshman year back in the paper ticket era I didn't buy season tickets, but it was never an issue getting to games. Most nights, someone would be walking around the dorm trying to give away their extra ticket because they had an evening test or they had to work or whatever. Transferring a ticket between students just took a second.

Years ago you essentially couldn't unload a student ticket. Your ticket was a punch card which you could give to someone to use, but they then had the rest of your tickets so it better be someone you know and trust. I am pretty sure attendance wasn't an issue back then. Of course you didn't have a way to see every single game outside the building. Only a select few were televised.
 

carvers4math

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My kid is a die hard and wouldn't miss a game. A lot of the students seem to be bandwagoners and probably didn't go because of the three game skid. I think we will be a lot better next year despite big losses in Kane and Ejim, depending on how Saturday works out I suppose. That may affect student attendance next year.