For those who say the students show up at games... Link to article about attendance

rizolltizide

Hall of Fame
Jan 4, 2003
14,825
19
157
57
st pete, fl
How many of y'all are going to complain like this when we're a top 15 basketball team and Coleman is half-empty on a Tuesday night because half of Tuscaloosa is at Cypress Inn eating mediocre catish?
That's been falling on deaf ears for years and will continue to do so. I think, also, that more people today are enamored with their computer/phone than actually going out and experiencing the world, and as a result I think some places may actually be overbuilt for the future.
 

theBIGyowski

All-American
Aug 4, 2005
3,645
35
67
42
Cumming, GA
I still think making the football games free for students with an ID would fix a lot of the problem. That way the people who want to go to the game can and will. They will spend more money on concessions than they would on a ticket anyway. Making it free also takes away the idea that they bought their way into the game. It becomes a first come...first served thing that again rewards those who want to be there. Basketball is done the same way...so it's not a crazy idea. Take 5,000 of the 17,000 seats away and give them to Tide Pride.

Everybody wins...and I finally get off the wait list.
 

glasscutter256

All-American
Jan 31, 2009
2,173
29
67
Huntsville
I think part of this whole dilemma is just growing pains. When the expansion was finished, the University wasn't sure how to divide up the extra seating. Hopefully they will make some adjustments. I don't like the empty block up there, but I also don't like a lot of the non-student fans leaving early or not showing up to the game. NO ONE IS BLAMELESS!!!! I think people on both sides of this argument have some entitlement issues.
When I was a student, we always complained about not having enough seating. We had to get there 2 hours before just to get a seat. I really resented the rest of the stadium being empty until right before game time or half way through the first quarter. We were crammed the whole game. I think the student section is important because they are the leaders for making noise and impacting the game. They are definitely louder than the rest of the stadium. I wish more of them would show up. I think some combination of all the suggestions would benefit.
I read through most of the pages and I'll try to summarize what I think are the easiest fixes.
1. Oversell the student tickets. Open to the whole school, not just those who have tickets
2. Eliminate freshmen only getting half the tickets.
3. Cut down the number of available student tickets and give those either to Tide Pride or general admission.
4. Allow students to redeem their $10 ticket as opposed to converting it to a student guest and paying the $80 to try and sell it themselves.
5. Eliminating block seating for the Greeks.
6. Don't split the student section into upper and lower sections.
7. Students that don't show up by game time will forfeit their seats to general public.

In general, I would love to eliminate as much as possible, the scalpers who raise ticket prices. By making more tickets available, it should cut down on the price of tickets a little on the black market. Hopefully the university makes some adjustments in the near future.
 

BAMA1979

All-American
Nov 15, 2006
4,269
0
0
Mobile
I pay tuition. Which means I am paying around a 1000 for a ticket. Do you pay that? I go to school at the University and keep it running do you do that? I have more right to do anything or not at the University than you by far.

When y'all can fill the rest of the stadium then complain. Plus again it is a school for students and it is student athletes therefor it is for students not you
.
This is absurd.
 

BradtheImpaler

All-American
Nov 16, 2010
2,001
0
0
Sugar Hill, GA
yeah, i dont understand not going to most games as a student. i went to all of them until my sr. year when i had a job that required working saturday nights. and most of the years i was there, we had to trudge to legion field for most of the games.
What he said. Especially the Legion Field part. On a one-lane 20-59.
 

MBA_99

1st Team
Jan 11, 2010
913
37
52
A, A
Wow, crazy thread. A lot of students are about to get a valuable lesson in the laws of supply and demand. Isn't the waiting list for Tide Pride, for which people pay $250-1000s plus full seat price, still over 10,000 long? If you think something like this won't resolve itself in one year you aren't going to get very far in life.
 

JIB

Suspended
Nov 2, 2011
1,431
0
0
Sterrett
I was there for Fran and some of Shula. I got tickets every year. Went to every game, even a few at Legion field.

I haven't read the whole thread, but is the left hand side of the upper deck on the new part of the stadium for students too? There were close to 1,000 open seats during the game .

I think the students have been spoiled and they ought to cut down on student tickets. They clearly don't value them.
 

rgw

Suspended
Sep 15, 2003
20,852
1,351
232
Tuscaloosa
Wow, crazy thread. A lot of students are about to get a valuable lesson in the laws of supply and demand. Isn't the waiting list for Tide Pride, for which people pay $250-1000s plus full seat price, still over 10,000 long? If you think something like this won't resolve itself in one year you aren't going to get very far in life.
I think the AD deserves some blame because they listened to the students more than the hard statistics. 17k is clearly too much student seating given the typical numbers...even previous to the south endzone expansion and the increase of the student body.
 

bamajag600

3rd Team
Apr 27, 2006
214
1
42
Hawaii
I read the CW article and all 14 pages of this thread. The thing that I take from this is that there is a failure of the University and Athletic Department to address the issue of unused student tickets which causes a large section of empty seats.

The 12,000 number has been thrown around a few times for the lower bowl. If that is correct than it would seem that this would be a reasonable number for the student section since that is around the average for attendance.

The big issue then would be restructuring the student ticket allocation. If they don't, you will have around 8,400 students sitting in that 12,000 seat section (70%). There has to be a system put in place to allow students to purchase tickets for a game they intend on going to, and removing the issue of students who are buying the tickets with the sole intent of reselling them.

- I believe adding extra rules (staying through the 3rd quarter, forfeiting bowl games, etc) is NOT the answer.
- The tickets should be NON-transferrable.
- If you can't or decide not to go, turn your ticket back in. Heck give the student back their $5 or $10 bucks or whatever it is.
- A simpler system that gets tickets to students that truly intend to be there will result in fewer no-shows. At a certain point before the game (15-30 min) any unused seating could then be sold to other students in a "last-chance" line. The line would likely be relatively short knowing that there would be a small amount of tickets coming available.
 

bamabelle1991

All-American
Jan 1, 2009
4,040
179
87
South Alabama
Wow! I have missed a lot of drama today! The only thing I have left to say is I hope I do a better job raising my children than the parents of some of the students posting in this thread! Wow!

I do hope that sweet, AlexD will come back and reevaluate the situation when he is paying "real world" prices for Bama tickets and he sits on the TP waiting list until he has grandchildren. By then, maybe I will have tickets, too! :)

Peace, Love and ROLL TIDE ROLL!! It's time to pack for Hotlanta!!
 

MBA_99

1st Team
Jan 11, 2010
913
37
52
A, A
I think the AD deserves some blame because they listened to the students more than the hard statistics. 17k is clearly too much student seating given the typical numbers...even previous to the south endzone expansion and the increase of the student body.
Maybe so. Everyone PM me if you want to bet money Mal Moore and Nick Saban don't reconcile this in 2013. I'd love to retire soon.
 

BamaDude06

1st Team
Sep 15, 2006
928
0
0
I can think of a least one "major" flaw with their data. When the University says there are 17,000 student seats they are including the number of ticket packages sold, the number of seats reserved for the MDB, the number of seats reserved for non football athletes etc. In the case of the MDB, their seating section is somewhere in the 900-1000 seat range, yet their members don't scan in. There is nearly 1,000 of your empty seats each game right there. I'm guessing that is not the only problem with the data.
 

J4Bama

All-American
Mar 24, 2002
2,657
379
202
46
Sarasota, Florida
I think the AD deserves some blame because they listened to the students more than the hard statistics. 17k is clearly too much student seating given the typical numbers...even previous to the south endzone expansion and the increase of the student body.
It's not just the AD. I was at an event two years ago and someone asked Dr Witt about the student section then and he said that he would not take away any seats from the students. Here we are, two years later and the problem has gotten worse. Here's hoping the new president does something about it.
 

UA All the Way

All-SEC
Dec 22, 2005
1,200
0
0
Las Vegas
I've been on the wait list for years....if thousands of seats are going unused open them up to Tide Pride members!

When I was a student we went to every game. And we sure weren't winning national championships left and right either. Ridiculous.
 

Comin2yourCity

BamaNation Citizen
Oct 14, 2012
47
17
32
To fully understand the problem with attendance you need to be aware of the student body make-up. A large majority of students are from outside of Alabama, many who are here due to receiving scholarship $$...not because of their love for the school or the football program. My daughter is a Junior and EVERY friend I've met is from another state and on scholarship I'm not condoning the apathetic attitude... I just see that football is not as important to a large population of students.
 

crimsonaudio

Administrator
Staff member
Sep 9, 2002
63,414
67,193
462
crimsonaudio.net
To fully understand the problem with attendance you need to be aware of the student body make-up. A large majority of students are from outside of Alabama, many who are here due to receiving scholarship $$...not because of their love for the school or the football program. My daughter is a Junior and EVERY friend I've met is from another state and on scholarship I'm not condoning the apathetic attitude... I just see that football is not as important to a large population of students.
Welcome, and that's a completely reasonable excuse for the empty seats.

It still needs to be addressed.
 

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