Student organizations endorse ticket plan

Students looking for basketball season tickets may be surprised this year. A proposal put… Students looking for basketball season tickets may be surprised this year. A proposal put forth by Pitt’s student government boards seeks to sell tickets to a greater number of students and, at the same time, reward fan loyalty.

The plan, endorsed by the presidents of Student Government Board, the College of General Studies’ Student Government, and the Graduate and Professional Student Association, would take the tickets for the 17 home games and break them down into smaller packages, which could be obtained through a series of lotteries.

“I think it will really work, and it would be a good system to distribute highly coveted seats,” said Brian Kelly, president of SGB.

According to the proposal, the 1,400 available student seats will be sold in a series of three lotteries. Students seeking tickets will be given lottery numbers at the beginning of the season, and their numbers will remain the same throughout the three lotteries.

Those chosen in the first lottery will have the opportunity to buy the package for the first three home games at a cost of $10. Ticket packages not bought by lottery winners will be sold to the general student body on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Students who use all three tickets in their three-game package will be given double entry in the next lottery. Students who use only one or two tickets will retain their single lottery numbers, while students who use none of their tickets will have their lottery numbers wiped from the next drawings.

The two subsequent ticket packages will offer tickets for four home games each. Tickets for the six games scheduled during winter break will be sold individually to students for $5 each. During the break, student seating will be reduced from 1,400 to 1,000 seats. The athletics department will sell the additional 400 tickets — which usually go to students — to the general public.

“So instead of making a profit off the students, they can meet their [profit] goals from the public,” Kelly said.

Kelly and those involved in talks with the athletics department resisted what they saw as attempts to raise the season ticket price to more than $100.

“In the negotiations, they came in thinking that tickets would be over $100 for the season,” Kelly said. “It’s just pricing students out of games, and that’s not how we want to do it.”

Chris Mead, a graduate student at Pitt, has been able to buy season tickets for four years, and he is against any kind of price increase.

“I think for non-students, it should be over $100, but student tickets should be extremely limited in price. I think students shouldn’t have to pay to see their fellow athletes play,” Mead said, commenting on the chances of success for the proposal and for avoiding a price increase.

“The University is never going to change anything when it comes to making money,” Mead said.

Kelly also said that the athletics department wanted to take the 400 student seats located in the upper level, to help meet the department’s goals.

“We don’t have enough tickets to be giving away student seats,” Kelly said.

When asked to comment, the athletics department responded only via e-mail, stating that a meeting is being scheduled to finalize ticket plans for the year.

“Any discussion with the media at this juncture would be premature,” the e-mail stated.

The athletics department believes a decision will be reached next week.