TO THE EDITOR:
After reading the article on the drop in use of tickets for basketball games (“Students get fewer tickets to UNC basketball games,” Feb. 25), I can’t help feeling like the University isn’t using common sense.
They wonder why tickets have dropped to the point where hundreds of tickets are unused but they fail to remember that by increasing the ease of acquiring tickets (a few clicks and you’re signed up for the lottery), they’re lowering the value of the tickets to the students.
UNC wonders why students feel free to let their tickets go unused and the answer is staring them in the face: we didn’t have to do anything for them. Anyone, basketball fanatics and people who have never been fans in their lives, can sign up for the lottery with the same amount of time and effort (which is near zero).
I’m not suggesting that we institute a Duke-type system where we camp outside for a month (…idiots), but would it be so difficult to imagine having to go register at a specific office for the lottery instead of having it online? This way, the fans who actually remember and care about the games go and the students who aren’t particularly fans don’t bother.
This increases the value of tickets and would make students think twice before not attending games they have tickets to. That way, maybe my friend that doesn’t know what the ACC is or who Roy Williams is doesn’t get Phase 1 tickets when I don’t get any.
Michael Hardison
Freshman
Political Science and PWAD
