Student tickets went on sale online today and sold out in just 59 minutes. The previous record for selling out the 21,000 plus student section was 13 days set last year. From what I understand if you weren't sitting in front of your computer at 9:00:01 on Thursday morning to fill out the online application you probably don't have a ticket this year. Reader "Pete the Streak" shared this story with me via email.
She finally got through at 9:45, entered all the required info and received the life-giving confirmation number.
Not 5 minutes later, she got a call from her friend, who'd just had the door slammed on her fall term; she'd gotten the screen that said "Sorry. Sold Out". She's ready to pluck out her eyes.
If you remember, earlier this year Penn State announced a lottery system to distribute student tickets. After a huge public outcry they went back to the first-come-first-serve method. Now I'm sure there are probably a few kids out there thinking the lottery thing probably wasn't a bad idea.
I feel bad for the die hard student fans that couldn't get a ticket. Because I guarantee you some students got tickets that are less deserving. I can remember my days in the student section. There was a good portion of girls there paying more attention to the boys sitting behind them than the action on the field. They spent much of the game talking or their cell phone about where they partied last night and where they were going after the game.
Now you can say there are women out there who like football too, but come on. 99% of sports bloggers are male, and 99% of the people who comment on sports blogs are male. That's not a coincidence. Men like football more than women. Now I'm not saying women shouldn't be given tickets. I'm just saying I feel bad for guys that didn't get tickets so the Gamma-Mu's could show up in force.
The other thing that bothers me is you know there are kids that bought tickets with the intention of just selling them for profit. I hope there is a serious crack down on scalping this year. Anyone caught scalping should have their tickets revoked and banned from buying tickets to future seasons. And anyone caught selling their tickets to Notre Dame fans should have a special place reserved for them in Hell.
If it were me, I would make a few changes to the ticket process. First, I would find the GPA cutoff for the top 21,000 students. Say it's 2.4. Anyone over 2.4 is guaranteed a ticket if they want one. Any tickets that are left over are distributed to those under 2.4 by lottery.
Somebody in a message board suggested putting the tickets on the student ID cards and having them scanned to get into the stadium to prevent scalping. This sounds like a pretty good idea, but there are some details to work out. How would students sell their tickets? You would have to set up something online where students could buy/sell tickets at face value. I would also be afraid that the student ID system would lead to many kids stealing ID's to see if they could slip through the gate. (Hey, look for the line with the oldest guy with the thickest glasses scanning ID's.)
But seriously, kudos to the student section. The enthusiasm is amazing and it's easy to see why Kirk Herbstreit called them the greatest student section in the country.