New Student Basketball Ticket Policy

Submitted by goblue7612 on

Looks like they VASTLY oversold basketball season tickets, and thus they need a new policy since they sold 4500 student tickets and only have seats for 3000. Information found in http://michigandaily.com/sports/athletic-department-announces-new-baske…

"Students will have a 72-hour period to select individual tickets to an upcoming group of games. If a student fails to use claimed tickets to two or more games, he or she will not be eligible to claim tickets for upcoming games."

"Though he does not anticipate that students who purchased season tickets will miss out on games they want to attend, they will review an individual’s attendance to determine who will receive entry to the Wolverines’ marquee fixture against Michigan State."

I thought someone had mentioned a policy like this for football tickets that they wanted to see in the sad picture thread.

I imagine ticket holders are pretty upset by this. The ticket office is essentially selling 4500 tickets, and taking the money, but only providing 3000 tickets. One question that is unanswered is what happens if more tickets are claimed than there are seats? Is it first come first serve? Also, it's real risky to sell your unused tickets because if the buyer ends up not using it, you get punished, severely.

Seems like the ticket office didn't plan ahead well, they should've just cut off sales when they hit 3000 and moved everyone else to a wait list. But in the email they sent on April 23, they said "The deadline is May 3 at 5:00pm. Student basketball ticket policies are available at www.mgoblue.com/ticketoffice under Students.  To be guaranteed a seat you should order now." Guess they couldn't do that after saying that.

Take your anger to them at @DaveBrandonAD and @HunterLochmann, or more conventional email methods.

goblue7612

September 17th, 2013 at 11:40 PM ^

You received a refund for the games you weren't given a ticket to. Do you think the students will get a refund for the games they don't submit a claim for? I personally don't see the athletic department passing up that money by saying that they had a right to go to the games they just chose not to.

I can see students not submitting claims to games they're not sure if they can attend as they are scared of losing the privilege to go to games later in the season.

a2_electricboogaloo

September 17th, 2013 at 11:46 PM ^

They have always double sold tickets in prior years too.  Students rarely fill up the student section (there was only a 46% attendence rate last year for students with season tickets), so in prior years they would estimate the number of students who would be there, and then sell the tickets.  They never ran into problems with this until last year, when we started to get good and a lot more people showed up.  If they didn't double sell tickets, then there would be about 1000-2000 empty student section seats at most non-major games.

goblue7612

September 17th, 2013 at 11:48 PM ^

Ok, I thought when you said "It doesn't explicitly say that students won't receive refunds to games not attended in that Daily article, so maybe they will." that you were talking about tickets they don't claim. I imagine a lot of games they will end up double selling those tickets as you say, and if it is to the general public, I imagine it will be at a higher cost (it has to be at least face value otherwise it hurts season ticket holders). The ticket office is just praying that there isn't a game where more than 3000 students claim a ticket.

P.S. John Navarre is the best.

Jon06

September 17th, 2013 at 11:38 PM ^

In addition to obviously owing students who get denied tickets to the MSU game refunds. I don't see how it's conscionable otherwise.

Actually, I don't see how it's conscionable period, unless there are no single game ticket sales until students have a decent chance to make their claims.

SkyMaizeSunBlue

September 17th, 2013 at 11:50 PM ^

Students who do not like the new policy can request a full refund, and the Athletic Department plans on emailing season ticket holders with an outline of the new process before the end of the week. If a student does not request a full refund, she will not receive a refund for games not attended during the season.

goblue7612

September 18th, 2013 at 12:42 AM ^

Untrue. In previous years, you could sell the games you couldn't go to and recoup your cost for that game. Now that's a serious risk as the person you sell to can choose not to go to the game and affect your status.

Geaux_Blue

September 18th, 2013 at 7:15 AM ^

If its a scalp effort or you're not actually making sure a quality ticket is used properly. Other schools kids take it as a grievous insult their student section isn't packed - UM students in this thread seem more concerned with getting their $16 back. I guess I'm in the crowd that doesn't actually believe this 2-3 claim error issue will become the apocalypse.

kzooblue2016

September 18th, 2013 at 12:01 AM ^

I can appreciate a measure of trying to make Crisler full, but I don't know if this is the right way to do it. It seems like more of a money grab, the way to make sure all students show up is to switch to a Breslin Center type setup. The situation doesn't really address (or maybe it does, I'm not sure about how it affects this system) waiting in line for over 8 hours for good seats to a marquee game and how much that sucks. As much as I love Michigan basketball, I don't particularly want to go to preseason cupcake matches, but now I am required too for the MSU game. Also, this in no way guarentees 3,000 strong turn out for South Carolina State. The overhand method of selling AND implemeneting the design afterward is pretty low. 

Geaux_Blue

September 18th, 2013 at 12:44 AM ^

Should they have just sold the first 3000 tix first come first serve and all you diehards could've fallen victim to not getting tix while casual fans, scalpers only showed up to 1/3 the game or would you prefer to guarantee a spot by being consistent fan. That's the split. It's not about anything else - I have no problem with the athletic dept getting fed up with seeing prime seats wasted bc kids wanted to go to 3 games and the idea they oopsed 1500 seats and this is their solution is idiotic.

miaamark

September 18th, 2013 at 8:44 AM ^

You are proving my point.  (Just saying that does not mean anything)

By setting up straw arguements for what I will or will not attend, you are trying to paint every student as only showing up for four games.  I attended every home game the past two years.  Despite me buying the tickets - there is no guarantee that the ticket I bought will be honored.  

Severely discounted?  That has absolutely nothing to do with anything.  I bought tickets to every game - I am not guaranteed a seat to every game.

 

 

Bando Calrissian

September 18th, 2013 at 2:23 AM ^

We're a long way from the dark ages of the Amaker/early Beilein era. My senior year, there were less than 500 student basketball ticketholders. Like, far less than 500. The bleachers were sold to the general public. This is unbelievable.

snoopblue

September 18th, 2013 at 3:53 AM ^

Ahh, Michigan Athletics taking a page out of American Airlines' playbook. Nice, can I get bumped up to a club seat @ a better game?

Not giving people what they paid for is not good. Not compensating them over and above what was initially promised (almost like saying sorry) is like a slap in the face saying we don't care. Especially to students. "College" basketball, right?  I'd expect the AD to hear a ton of negative backlash and eventually spin this into some kind of positive. Maybe a lottery? Winners get their tickets as promised but those not picked get a sweeter deal to maybe a few select games (tickets/travel to Puerto Rico or NCAA Tournament)? and giveaways. Jerseys, basketballs, club seats - whatever, just not the M-Den Teddy Bear

I hope they remembered to reserve seating for the Band. Then again, I also heard it might be too expensive to transport the band from Reveli to Crisler. =)

 

 

miaamark

September 18th, 2013 at 9:36 AM ^

Tend to?  Sorry students don't get to tend to anymore.  The rest of the spectators do.  

 

Paying more for the tickets should not entitle you to different rules about attendance.  You have a ticket - you should have a guaranteed seat.

Team 101

September 18th, 2013 at 1:46 PM ^

I am not sure it is accurate that the rest of the spectators are any more dedicated than the students are in their attendance.  The student tickets carry restrictions that make it much more difficult to transfer the ticket than a non-student ticket.  A student cannot send an email to everyone at her office and say "Free Basketball Tickets to South Carolina State - First Come First Serve" and give them away.  Student tickets cannot be sold on StubHub and it would be extremely difficuilt if not impossible to sell them to someone on the street.

It would be interesting to see the reaction if non-student tickets could not be transferred and if the holder had to claim their attendance in advance and lose their tickets if they fail to show up.

I think the students are being picked on because they have nowhere else to go.

Aren't we supposed to be encouraging them to study rather than wait outside in cold weather to go to a basketball game?

There has to be a way to fill up the seats in a way that is more respectful to the students.

miaamark

September 18th, 2013 at 9:38 AM ^

Tend to?  Sorry students don't get to tend to anymore.  The rest of the spectators do.  

 

Paying more for the tickets should not entitle you to different rules about attendance.  You have a ticket - you should have a guaranteed seat.

 

If you don't think students should be a part of the college game experience - become a Piston's fan.

NOLA Wolverine

September 18th, 2013 at 1:42 PM ^

Oh I'm sorry, did we all miss those 3 game packages to buy tickets? The only choice they give us is "all or nothing." If you wanted Notre Dame and Ohio State for less than $500 dollars this year, then you paid $300 for the rest of the shit games they'll play at home this year. If they want students to use every ticket, then sell game tickets individually. 

jmblue

September 18th, 2013 at 11:08 AM ^

That sounds paranoid.  First, this is hardly a "shitstorm" - 99% of the general public won't know or care.  Second, why would he want bad publicity from students, who are current and potentially future customers?  

It's far more likely that Brandon neither came up with this plan himself nor is personally monitoring the reaction.  The man's got 27 sports programs to oversee.  He's got a lot on his plate.  

 

Soulfire21

September 18th, 2013 at 9:13 AM ^

Honestly, this is a good idea.  Student attendance hovered around 57% for most games last year (barring the big ones, of course).  So if that rate remains relatively stable, an assumption I know, that means that of the 4500 ticket-holders, roughly 2500-2600 would be in the stands during any given game.  It's a smart way to increase student attendance.

It may be bad for big games (and probably really only against MSU). 

Soulfire21

September 18th, 2013 at 9:13 AM ^

Honestly, this is a good idea.  Student attendance hovered around 57% for most games last year (barring the big ones, of course).  So if that rate remains relatively stable, an assumption I know, that means that of the 4500 ticket-holders, roughly 2500-2600 would be in the stands during any given game.  It's a smart way to increase student attendance.

It may be bad for big games (and probably really only against MSU). 

SeekingSun

September 18th, 2013 at 10:00 AM ^

I was a student season ticket holder for BBall for the 1989-1993 seasons (yep, also went to the infamous "time out" Final Four).  The Fab Five years they moved to general admission for students tickets (meaning in the middle of December we were camping out at Crisler Arena for reasonable seats to the Duke game) and still had so many people wanting tickets that my last season they split the season, so student season ticket holders actually only got half the games (either Indiana OR MSU - at that time OSU was *meh)

This new plan actually seems like a more reasonable alternative than what I experienced in the early 90s.

 

miaamark

September 18th, 2013 at 10:40 AM ^

My guess is that they sold you tickets for half the games.  Not that they sold tickets for all the games to you and then said that you could only attend half.

I know, the current students could get lucky and be able to go to all of the games that they bought tickets for.  But they might not.