Miscommunication regarding the sales process for away game football tickets led to confusion among students, said Stephen Swinson, SGA vice president of student affairs.
“From my understanding, students knew about the sale, which is one of our most important goals,” Swinson said. “After speaking with several students, there seems to have been some miscommunication on how the process works and the important dates to remember.”
Swinson said the Student Government Association will address the issues with the Athletic Department in the near future.
“We will work with UA Athletics to advertise the sales process at a much earlier date for next season,” Swinson said. “Also, it is important that we simplify the process in a fashion similar to what the SGA and Athletics accomplished with the home game on-sale this past summer.”
Students had the opportunity to apply for away game tickets between Aug. 23 and 25 and pay for them by Aug. 27, Swinson said.
After all requests were received, students were sorted by UA earned credit hours from highest to lowest. Each game was then filled until the allotment for each game was full, Swinson said.
University students receive 12 percent of road game ticket allotment, which varies from game to game.
Morgan Duffy, a UA graduate student, said she thought the process was pretty efficient.
“I liked how the e-mail told you what the actual criteria were for each game,” Duffy said.
For each game, there were a number of hours required in order to purchase tickets, Duffy said. The LSU game required the most, 164 UA credit hours for graduate students and 115 for undergraduate students.
There were separate pools for graduate students and undergraduate students, Duffy said. Eight percent of the away game tickets went to undergrads and 20 percent went to grad students.
Duffy said she had to have friends remind her about the dates to purchase tickets because the dates were only posted in the e-mails.
Taylor Bryant, a senior majoring in marketing, said overall, it was a fair process.
“The SGA did a much better job for selling both home and away game tickets this year,” Bryant said.
Bryant said he did not get a ticket to the LSU because he did not have the hours required.
“It kind of rubbed me the wrong way when I saw the minimum requirement of 115 [hours] for underclassmen,” Bryant said.
Bryant said his major requires 120 hours to graduate and other students like fifth-year seniors and double-majors would already have more hours.
Andrew Parten, a senior majoring in biology, said he did not try to apply for tickets to away games because he is a transfer student.
“Because it’s based completely on UA credit hours, and it’s my second year here,” Parten said, “I didn’t meet the hour requirements.”
