Student tickets drop in price

Tickets for the Pitt football team’s trip to the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Day go on sale to… Tickets for the Pitt football team’s trip to the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Day go on sale to the public today, and while there was initially not going to be a discounted student rate, Student Government Board president Brian Kelly has forced the issue.

Originally priced at $85, ticket prices for the event have recently been lowered by the school’s athletics department to $50 for students. Kelly proposed a $5,000 SGB grant that was passed late last night, however, which will lower the cost to $25 for a student ticket to Pitt’s first-ever Bowl Championship Series game.

The game, which will be played in Tempe, Ariz., is on Jan. 1 at 8:30 p.m. Kelly has realized that the biggest obstacle for most students who want to go to the game is its location and the price of airfare and accommodations. He said, however, that students can create travel plans to fit their own budget if they look hard enough.

“Students are pretty thrifty when it comes to travel arrangements,” he said. “We just want to let students know, though, that the price of the tickets has been lowered before they buy them for $50.”

Packages advertised on the Pitt athletics Web site range from $1,347 to $2,082 per person, depending on the number traveling. A Pitt student, if traveling with three others, would pay $1,347 for a package that includes round-trip airfare, three nights of accommodation and a special Tour Desk at the hotel. None of the packages include a ticket to the game itself, however.

Kelly said that many students are finding it cheaper to fly out of other cities. Carriers like Southwest Air fly out of Columbus and Buffalo for less money and other students have found Cleveland as a possible location to fly from.

“If students have friends or family in Arizona they can figure out travel arrangements easier on their own,” he said.

While he said the athletics department and Pitt Program Council is not likely to put together any travel packages, because of the difficulty in transportation, he said that some ideas are still being bounced around.

“We may run buses to Cleveland or other places students are flying out of,” he said. “We’re looking at all options, but the ticket prices have at least been lowered.”

Another concern has been that Utah fans may try to buy the tickets from Pitt before Pitt students get the chance. Utah is expected to have a high turnout at the game since it is the school’s first undefeated season since 1930 and first ever BCS bowl.

About 15,000 tickets were allotted to Pitt. Thirteen percent of them, Kelly said, will be held until next Wednesday so that students can arrange travel plans. He hopes that the lower ticket prices will entice more students to consider the trip more seriously.

“The Students Activities Fee is supposed to give more students access to events like this,” he said. “We are trying to do anything possible to get students to go.”

The game will be nationally televised on ABC.