JefeGringo
Junior
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2011
- Messages
- 1,805
If this is legit, UGA has some pretty lame *** students; at least ours can complain about having to take a 45 minute bus ride. From the comments...
Michael Smith posted 10 days agoContributor I
I just graduated from UGA recently and I will tell you exactly why student attendence has taken a nose dive. It isn't the price because home football tickets for students are only $8 a game. There are several other factors that have turned students away.
1) First of all, they changed their student ticket policy about 4-5 years ago and took away paper tickets. Instead, the give you an "e-ticket", where you must swipe your student ID card in order to use the ticket. This ****ed off a lot of people because we could no longer sell our tickets if we couldn't make the game.
2) Since you cannot sell your ticket, if you cannot attend the game, you have to donate (you don't get your money back) the ticket back to the University so they can re-sell it to someone else for another $8.
3) A few years ago they came up with the stupid "strike" rule to bully students into using their tickets. If you had a ticket and did not donate or use it, you got a "strike". If you get three strikes, you can no longer receieve athletic tickets for the rest of your college career.
4) Last year they started giving Freshman priority over upper classmen. This moronic decision doesn't need an explanation.
5) Going back to the paperless tickets problem. You aren't assigned a seat anymore and it is first-come-first-serve. This forces you to show up when the gates open and sit for and hour and a half to two hours before the game starts. Now, I don't really know who wants to sit outside in the middle of August or Septemeber when it is 90-95 degrees with the humidity of the South is smothering you.
6) Performacne is an issue. UGA usually falls on its face 1-2 times per year and couple that with 12 or 12:30 kickoffs and it's harder to show up with enthusiasm. Ask any studnet and he/she will tell you that they are more likely to show up for a night game than a mid-morning/afternoon game. Right or wrong, it's just how it is.
7) On hot days people usually try to stay hydrated. But in Athens and most college games, you better drink all you can before and after the game. They don't let you bring your own water or even have a water fountain in the stadium like some places do (Turner Field) and they charge you an arm and a leg for concessions.
These are only a few reasons but it's enougth for a lot of students to refuse giving their money to the athletic department.
Number 5 did crack me up.
In my humble opinion, those are all valid reasons. My wife made a small fortune selling her tickets at UF. If the students pay the athletic fee, they should feel free to do what they want with the ticket. And very few people want to arrive in the stadium 2 hours beforehand. Thats absure. The are voting with their feet and the administration better listen.
