[Husker] Student tickets

[Rod Wellman]

According to this article, many freshmen who wanted season tickets got left out:

http://www.dailynebraskan.com/news/errors-high-demand-few-freshman-get-football-tickets-this-season-1.2618106

It's a shame that students can't get tickets.  I've always felt that any student who wants one should get one.  They're the reason for the school in the first place!  I don't buy the argument that the sellout streak would be in jeopardy.  I know this year is a bit odd in that there's just a lot of interest with the entry into the Big 10.  Other years, maybe interest by the students wanes a bit.  But with modern ticketing technology, it's not really an issue.  It would be possible to reserve a ticket for the entire student population.  Give them a deadline to purchase their season tickets.  After that, they get "released" to the general public.  This would be a great way to allow some avid Husker fans who don't normally have the means to get regular season tickets. Next year, those seats go back into the student block and get re-released if the students don't buy them...just repeat every year.  This would be a great way to get a large student body into the games, and in years where maybe they aren't "as interested" in going, the general Husker fan population can fill the void.  You can also charge full ticket price to these "general Husker fans" instead of student ticket prices, for some added revenue in "down years".  You know how Husker fans are:  those tickets would be snatched up in a heartbeat.  

Of course, if the student population is 20,000, then that's about 10,000 seats "taken away" from current season ticket holders to be able to ensure that every student who wants a ticket gets one, so that probably wouldn't fly.  But wait, there's an addition being built!  There you go:  start a new student section in the South endzone, and put the Freshmen and Sophomores up higher.  Take the 10,000 "up higher" seats from the ticketholders in the North endzone and give them 10,000 seats in the new addition.  They're up high, too, but on the sideline...an improvement they can't argue with! 

From the article, it looks like the students are allotted 8,500 seats.  That's ridiculous.  Do you wonder why Texas A&M is considered such a loud and boisterous place to play?  Their students get up to 30,000 tickets.  This comes from Bill Byrne's recent "Wednesday Weekly" article on the Texas A&M Website:  

> Yesterday, another first happened for us. We had to suspend sales for student ticket options. Going into this season we increased the allotment for students by 1,500 tickets from the total issued last year (28,528). This is the first time in my career here that we have reached a point where we have had to curtail student ticket options. We held approximately 30,000 seats for our students, and we are currently at 30,356 ticket options. When the registration process began back in April for the fall semester, our students had the opportunity to select the football or all-sports options. Demand for sports passes was above average for the first four months, and then sales greatly increased the past two weeks. With the tremendous support we have received from the 12th Man, expect chairs on the track surrounding the field for most of our games this year.

I'm just saying:  if SOMEBODY (you know who) wanted to make it a priority to get every student in the game who wanted to be there, it could happen.  Would it open a can of worms (like students getting tickets only to sell them to someone else)? Yes, but those could be dealt with (just make it a rule that students CAN'T transfer their tickets to someone else...require a photo ID at the gate).  Would it be a "hit" on revenue?  Maybe, but a prohibitive one?  I don't know.  I realize that no matter how you slice it, removing 10,000 seats from the general public and giving them to the students is going to impact revenue.  And the new addition is being built on the premise that those are "sold" seats and will provide a return on the investment.  But, there are plenty of "reserve" funds floating around and again, if it was a priority, it could be made so.

It also ties into recent discussions on the "atmosphere" at Memorial that Sam McKewon wrote about lately.  Bottom line is that I believe there should be a LOT of students in the house. Our stadium is much too friendly to opposing teams for a few reasons, but this is one of the big ones in my mind.  I don't know if you could "fix" the other ones (a mature fan base who don't get off their duffs, and in-your-face video boards that tend to distract and disrupt the overall energy level of the crowd).  At least this one could and SHOULD be remedied.  Like I said in the beginning, the students are the reason for the University in the first place.

Rod W.
Sioux City, IA