Last week Georgetown students received letters, sent to their home addresses, offering them the chance to buy men’s basketball season tickets. The letter noted the increased price of the package—$100, up from last year’s $90—and included a form to fill out and return to the Athletic Department. The only problem? There was no return address.
This most recent mistake only serves to exemplify the Athletic Department’s pattern of inconsiderate behavior when it comes to student ticket sales. Last season, they limited the number of season tickets that were sold, despite the fact that there are almost always empty seats at the Verizon Center, and offered season tickets to freshmen first, shutting out some senior fans who had waited three years to watch the Hoyas’ road to the Final Four. Fortunately, the Athletic Department rectified that policy this year by enabling all students to buy season tickets.
But one of last season’s biggest problems still stands: not all students will be allowed to sit on the lower level. The first students to arrive will receive wristbands that guarantee prime real estate on the lower level, behind both baskets. Those unlucky enough to miss out on the coveted wristbands will be relegated to the distant 400 level, according to Director of Ticket Operations Kim Frank, making room for alumni and other full-price ticketholders downstairs. Nevertheless, Frank expects to exceed last year’s sale of more than 2,000 season ticket packages.
“[The upper level] is not as good as being in the lower court—I don’t think that’s a secret from anybody,” Hoya Blue President Raymond Borgone (MSB `08) said.
“[But] it’s a better experience to be there and upstairs than to watch it from your couch or dorm.”
Students bring energy to the games that middle-aged fans, even devoted alumni, just don’t have the power to match. They have the passion to taunt visiting players, and a few of them might even know all the words to the fight song. Universities across the country, including Duke University, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Kentucky, have far superior student seating, and Georgetown must follow suit.
College basketball players are not professionals, they’re our peers. The Athletic Department should give Hoya fans the opportunity to watch their classmates play ball up close.
