This year, UA students looking to buy football season ticket packages won’t have to race 15,000 of their peers to acquire the tickets that sell out online in less than 75 minutes.  They’ll just have to take one extra step.

Under the SGA’s reforms to the student ticket sale system, students will need to indicate that they want to participate in the season ticket sale for the 2010 season by completing an online form under the Student tab on the myBama homepage. The form can be filled out any time between 8:30 a.m. Central time on Tuesday, April 27 and 4:30 p.m. on Friday, April 30. Immediately upon submission, students will receive a confirmation email in their Crimson e-mail account.

Without completion of this form, students will not be eligible to buy season tickets.

With this specific reform comes a more fair process, one that more efficiently protects the first-come, first-served system students want, SGA President James Fowler said.

“This is a crucial step to allowing the system to work,” he said.

The form, according to a statement by the SGA, will determine a student’s number of credit hours and assign him or her a day to purchase tickets based on which credit hour category they fall under. Students with 0-30 credit hours will purchase tickets on June 14, those with 30-60 hours on June 15, those with 61-90 on June 16, and those with 91 or more on June 17. Graduate students will purchase tickets on June 18.  The system only counts hours earned at the University and does not include AP or transfer credit.

Depending on the demand expressed through the number of online submissions of the participation forms, a percentage of the total number of season tickets will be allocated to each day. According to University Relations, each season ticket package will be $35, payable by credit or debit card.

“Season tickets will be sold on a first-come, first served basis,” according to the SGA statement. “A limited number of season tickets will be available each sales day.”

Fowler and his staff said the changes resulted from student dissatisfaction with last year’s system.

“We identified the problems in that last year, the system was overloaded,” Fowler said, referring to the server crashes experienced last year on April 6. That day, more than 14,000 students seeking season ticket packages logged on to rolltide.com and waited in online waiting rooms for their chance to purchase tickets. Many students, especially those who used computers connected to the same server, experienced technical problems and were kicked out of the waiting rooms.

“We identified that that system wasn’t working properly…it wasn’t a true first-come, first-served system,” Fowler stated. “[This step] allows us to break down within grades and still base it off of demand, so that it’s fair for students. Each class will have a fair shot at a first-come, first-served system.”

The SGA established a ticket commission to solve problems with last year’s system.

“We looked at student polls that showed that over 80 percent didn’t want a lottery-type system,” said SGA Vice President of Student Affairs Stephen Swinson. “We wanted to secure that first-come, first served system.”

Fowler said his administration considered a lottery system, but discarded the idea after student opinion polls showed a widespread unpopularity for that approach.

To further streamline the system, Fowler’s administration acquired the help of Assistant Athletic Director for Ticketing and Tide Pride Chris Besanceney. Besanceney called the collaboration a “team effort.”

“For one thing, there are going to be more tickets available to students,” Besanceney said. “Secondly, we want to spread apart the on-sale days, based on credit hours.” He added that the new system should cut down on technical problems.

While the responsibility for acquiring new seating for students from the roughly 8,800-seat addition to the stadium’s south end zone rested with the previous SGA administration, Fowler said his goal is to increase the number of students attending the games, in line with Besanceney’s statement that more tickets will become available for students.

“We want to get more students into the game, period,” Fowler said. “So we’ll continue to support the donation list. [There was] a 7 percent increase in students after using the My Football Donation list. That’s been a successful system so far, and we look forward to even larger success this year.”

Fowler and his staff also dispelled rumors that students on academic probation, or with a GPA of 2.0 or under, would be ineligible to participate in the purchase of tickets this year. Fowler’s staff indicated his staff considered that idea, but felt it was a step too far combined with the other major reforms. While off the table for now, Fowler’s administration said the ineligibility of students in these circumstances could be discussed in the future.