Think of it this way: you aren’t making yourself richer, you’re making another Husky poorer
Admit it—nothing is sweeter than receiving the annual UConn email with the subject line “BB TIX.”
It tells students that the basketball season is finally here and the promise of a national championship is on the horizon. Students immediately click on the email link, sign up for the lottery and cross their fingers for awesome seats. By design, seniors rule—they have the best chance of winning and, of course, the lowly freshman have the worst odds. Some students win every year, and some never win.
The opportunity to buy season tickets to the nationally renowned UConn Huskies seems like a great system on paper. But it’s not. The system is greatly flawed.
Once lottery winners are chosen and notified, they’ll have an opportunity to buy any—or all—of the four groups of tickets. Tickets for the Men’s team are an astounding bargain—$5 a game. Lady Huskies even more so at $2 a game. For the 2015-16 season, there are 10 men’s home games at Gampel making the total package $50.
Since half of the team’s home games are played at the XL Center in Hartford and the other half are played at on-campus Gampel Pavilion, there are four types of student season tickets available. Students can purchase Women’s XL Center tickets, Men’s XL Center tickets, Women’s Gampel tickets, and Men’s Gampel tickets. Naturally, the Men’s Gampel tickets are by far the highest in demand because of the effortless commute and the competitive ecstatic atmosphere in the on-campus arena.
Now here’s the rub: within minutes of the athletic department notifying the winners, greedy non-fans started posting their season tickets on UConn’s unofficial 25,000+ member Facebook page, “Buy or Sell Uconn Tickets”.
Flipping your UConn student-priced season tickets is unethical for many reasons. For one thing, the program is not meant to be “free money” bonanza—in reality, you are simply blocking out other students who are true fans of the team. The greed of profiteering at the expense of real fans in the student body is appalling and wrong.
If you want to play the lottery, go to 7/11 and buy a scratch ticket. Sure, you’re a college student and you could always use the money, but all other college students are in the same boat.
The true fan now has to pony up $150 to buy your tickets off of Facebook, when your cost basis was only $50. ![]()
Reselling individual tickets is less of a problem. Admittedly, students have unpredictable schedules and it’s difficult to be available for every single home game—particularly over winter break. It makes sense to sell a ticket to a game you can’t attend, and hopefully, you’ll sell it to a fellow UConn student for something around the amount you would be willing to pay if you needed one.
Gilbert Guo, a junior, communications major, transfer-student from Ithaca lost the lottery this year. Being an avid fan he still wants to go to as many games as possible. Throughout the season he’s developed a strategy for buying tickets at the lowest possible price:
“If you buy from friends, they’re willing to give you a deal. If you buy in advance. . .tickets will be sold for lower. If you’re knowledgable about basketball, you will know what kinds of games are worth what price.”
In arguably their biggest home game of the year, UConn hosts Ohio State on December 12th. For some reason, there’s a preconceived notion that Ohio State is a powerhouse in every sport, yet through seven games their basketball team is sub .500. Just the name of a nationally recognized sports program causes fans to go into a frenzy, causing the demand for tickets to rise.
Already, the the greedy profiteers are out in force to feast on their desperate prey. The UConn ticket Facebook page has seen people attempting to sell their student ticket versus Ohio State for $60 and more—a 12-fold profit—which is just about the the starting price for non-student tickets on StubHub.
While it’s unfortunate to realize that these ticket-flippers are our schoolmates, it’s time for the administration to figure out a better way to allocate this precious commodity, which is a fundamental component of the UConn college experience.
If certain students don’t value the privilege of seeing a perennial contender for college basketball’s national championship, then they shouldn’t be permitted to participate in the lottery and block out more deserving fans.
