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.

goblue16

September 17th, 2013 at 9:23 PM ^

I didn't buy the student tickets this year honestly I couldn't afford it but I do want to go to a few games anyone know wr I can buy individual student tickets?

a2_electricboogaloo

September 17th, 2013 at 10:45 PM ^

I highly doubt you can get individual game tickets.  But I'm guessing you can buy tickets off anoterh student and get them transferred to your MCard (like they were last year).  It will probably be pretty easy to get tickets for you, as I'm guessing students who claim tickets to games they cannot make will sell them, to get someone to go, as not to incur penalties.

a2_electricboogaloo

September 17th, 2013 at 10:50 PM ^

Valid point.  I'm honestly not sure.  Maybe if you transfer your ticket to another person, the strike will go on them if they don't go.

So hypothetically, if they don't show up twice to games they had transfered to them, they won't be able to receive transfers in the future.  it's probably not how they will do it.  But that how i'd set it up.

agold1002

September 17th, 2013 at 9:30 PM ^

I am actually furious about this.  As a current student with season tickets, I dont even understand the policy?  Can I claim tickets to every game?  Also, if i cant attend a game, can I sell my ticket to someone else?

As some one who not only attended almost all of the home games but also games at indiana, osu, msu, the palace (both rounds) and the final four and championshp game, i do not understand why I do not have a gaurenteed ticket to every game this year.

 

tbeindit

September 17th, 2013 at 9:36 PM ^

Basically, how it works is that you get to claim tickets to games.  If you claim tickets and don't use them twice, you lose your right to claim tickets.  As far as I can tell, everyone can claim tickets to every game.  I assume it will basically be whoever claims the tickets first.  The MSU game is the only one based on attendance.

I agree with the anger, but to be fair, a lot of people will dump their tickets because of this and you are going to have no problem getting tickets to 90% of the games.  The upper section wasn't filled for almost all of the home games last year.  From what I can see, there will be 4 games that will be competitive: Arizona, Wisconsin, Indiana, and MSU.  MSU is attendance based.  Wisconsin and Indiana are later in the year so the hope is a ton of people are dropped by then.  Not going to lie, Arizona will probably be chaos.

To me, if they had made all four of these games attendance based, the ticket system would be great because the seats would be practically full for every game.  As of now, there's probably going to be a lot of angry students for some of these games.

moredamnsound

September 17th, 2013 at 11:37 PM ^

I base my feeling about the Michigan Basketball student fanbase on observations I made from my three seasons of owning student basketball tickets:



2008/09 - very few  students, lower expectations

2009/10 - bunch of students  in the seats because of the year before's success

2010/11 - very few students in the seats because of the year before's failure



I assume this continued

It's not as automatic as football tickets are. For a lot of people it doesn't matter how good football is expected to be, they'll get tickets anyway.

For basketball, the blame is twofold:

1. the reactionary, judgmental fanbase

2. the athletic department for not realizing that we have a reactionary, judgmental fanbase

I like your dedication, I wish everyone had the same.

 



 

SotoWolverine

September 17th, 2013 at 9:34 PM ^

This is absoluetly horrible. I'm a huge Dave Brandon supporter but this is just flat out greedy. You promised the kids tickets, you better provide them tickets. Let them sit in the upperbowl. I mean not providing a seat to 33% of the people that paid for one is a crime. Not allowing a student to attend the Michgan State game they paid for, just because they couldn't attend a Wednesday Night game on a school night. That is just wrong. 

As an Alum, I am very disappointed and saddened. 

miaamark

September 17th, 2013 at 9:46 PM ^

So D. Brandon. Lets say you just contracted with a company to build a new track. They start building the track but stop after 300 meters because f**** you.

Bando Calrissian

September 18th, 2013 at 2:28 AM ^

As someone who bought five years of student tickets when literally no one else was, who sat in an empty section in the maize seats for many a game for my freshman year because no one else showed up and I didn't feel like trying my luck sneaking into the bleachers, and spent the next three years in roomy bleacher seats that were half sold, indeed. Fuck you, Dave Brandon.

Overselling student tickets is bush league. Turning "will I get in tonight?" into a high-risk game is a ridiculous waste of students' precious time, and an easy way to piss off the people you expect to donate money to your Athletic Department in a few decades.

a2_electricboogaloo

September 17th, 2013 at 10:10 PM ^

All 3000 would almost never show up.  Last year, we had games where we had probably around 1000 studnets there (weekday games against bad opponents), and then we had games the students showed up in force.  This is a to account for the wildly varying number of studnets attending, so they don't give too many or too few seats to the studnets.  You can oversell it because all, 4500 will almost never show up (except for certain big games).

MainStreetMagic

September 17th, 2013 at 10:21 PM ^

They paid for those tickets, they should be able to decide what they want to do with them.  If not a single student shows up for any game other than Michigan State, but they paid for those tickets, there should be an open seat for every single one of them.  If you want to do a straight lottery system, where the students KNOW that they won't be able to get tickets to all the games and they pay ONLY for the games they attend, then fine.  Announcing a new policy after students already paid full price for what they thought was a full suite of tickets, and then telling them to deal with it or you get a full refund, its 100% crap.  Guarantee that this was in the works when they started selling them.

Geaux_Blue

September 18th, 2013 at 12:11 AM ^

What exactly?

A) you have a receipt therefore you win? Sorry, offered refund is an out
B) it's always been that way? See every shift in increased popularity in sport
C) you only want to go to 1/3 the games but pay discounted rate by AMERICA? If its C, just be honest. You can't be bothered for body bags and want prime time. The problem is you, in several ways, hurt the program by doing so. And the program has chosen to stop that.

grumbler

September 18th, 2013 at 2:31 PM ^

The argument that students "hurt the program" by not showing for every game is premised on the idea that the program, not the students is what Michigan sports is about.

There are plenty of sports franchises built around 'the program" already.  Don't try to drag Michigan there.

And this has been the straw, for me.  We need to get rid of Brandon and all those he has brought into the department.

M-Wolverine

September 18th, 2013 at 3:52 PM ^

Students seem to think sports is their bread and circuses.  It's not. It was something for students to do together, and students started watching it to show their support.  So the "program" was first in the chicken and the egg. Actually if you want something that caters to the fan it's actually pro sports that are designed that way.

Profwoot

September 17th, 2013 at 10:04 PM ^

This doesn't seem as ridiculous as the initial reaction suggests. It seems that only 46% of the total number of student seats across all the games were filled last year, so hypothetically, overselling by 50% won't even compensate for half of that. This will definitely be an issue for a small number of popular games (maybe only one or two, frankly), but for the rest of the games, everyone that wants to go can go.

a2_electricboogaloo

September 17th, 2013 at 10:04 PM ^

I actually really like this.  I just graduated this year, and had tickets last year.  I loved going to games, but it's very difficult to make them all.  It showed in the student section too.  It got to points where there were games where there were barely any studnets, to games like the OSU and Indiana games last year, where it seemed like half the upper bowl was filled with students.  Essentially this makes it so you sign up for what games you are going to before hand, so they can alot seats accordingly.  If you want to go to every game, you sign up for every game.  Otherwise, you sign up for what games you make.  

They have to add some sort of incentive or punishment to make people actually go to the games they claim.  Otherwise, people could claim every game, and not show up to any of them, which would really screw the ADs numbers for how many seats to give students.

This is a much better system than other schools with popular basketball programs.  For example, Duke uses a lottery system for its tickets, and you get what games you are drawn for.  This way you could hypothetically go to all games, you just would need to claim them in advanced.

TheGhostofChappuis

September 17th, 2013 at 10:16 PM ^

"This way you could hypothetically go to all games, you just would need to claim them in advance."

Right.  And if you don't use your claimed tickets, you forfeit your right to claim other tickets. So you've paid for the product, but if you don't use part of it, you can't use the rest.  And what if everyone claims?  Well, then somebody is getting screwed.  Were it not for the offered refund, this would be actionable fraud. 

 

a2_electricboogaloo

September 17th, 2013 at 10:23 PM ^

I don't see why it's a big issue.  If you can't make a game, don't claim a ticket.

I'm assuming they'll have some system in place where you can give your ticket to someone else if you can't make it, or cancel your claim in advanced.  It's essentially a way to punish no shows.  Yes it sucks if you claim, and you can't make it, but barring an emergency, it would be really easy to avoid.

miaamark

September 18th, 2013 at 8:16 AM ^

Even if you go to every other game there is a chance you can't go to a big game because you didn't "claim"a ticket. I would argue that by purchasing a season ticket you already "claimed" a ticket. Lets say they oversold the OSU football game by selling 165000 tickets. You don't get to go because ,although you already bought a ticket, you werenot quick enough to "claim" yours. The only way they think they can get away with this is because in their minds, "f*** them, they are just students.