Students interested in purchasing football tickets for next year can opt in to purchase on myBama between 8:30 a.m. on April 4 and 4:30 p.m. on April 6.
Vice President of Student Affairs Stephen Swinson said in an emailed statement that the purchasing process that was implemented last year was successful and will be reused.
“The software was able to handle the student traffic, because we knew how many students were interested in purchasing tickets through the opt-in process,” Swinson said.
After opting in, students will receive an email informing them of what day they can go online to purchase.
Tickets go on sale April 18 through 22. Each student will be assigned a day to purchase tickets, and tickets will be sold on each day on a first-come, first-served basis.
“By separating the on-sale days by credit hours, there will be less congestion for the software to handle and students have a good chance of being able to purchase tickets,” Swinson said.
For each day, the University will allocate tickets based on the percentage that each group represents in the total group of students.
“For example, if 27 percent of interested students fall between 31 and 60 hours, 27 percent of the tickets will be allocated for that day,” he said.
The purchasing schedule is as follows: Monday, April 18: graduate/professional students, Tuesday, April 19: 91 or more credit hours, Wednesday, April 20: 61-90 credit hour Thursday, April 21: 31-60 credit hours Friday, April 22: 0-30 credit hours.
“No one is guaranteed to get tickets just because they opted in during April 4–6,” Swinson said. “There is a high demand for student tickets and we are working to ensure as many students as possible get into the game.”
Swinson said the SGA hopes to ease the process by selling tickets during the school year, not during the summer.
“This year we have enhanced communication with the student body by conducting the sale in April instead of the summer,” Swinson said. “There is a high demand for student tickets. Our goal is to simply provide the opportunity for as many students as possible to attend football games.
“Those who violated the student football ticket attendance policy last season are ineligible for this year’s sale,” he said. “We believe this will increase the likelihood for students who attend majority of the games to receive student football tickets.”
Andrew Stevens, a junior majoring in marketing, dislikes the system and wishes the purchasing process were more hands on.
“I hate that I have to purchase my tickets online, and I don’t even get the actual ticket,” Stevens said. “It is annoying how I have to get online and purchase them that way, and then use my ACTion card as my ticket. I wish we could just go back to the old fashion way, people get in a line and wait, and then they are handed the actual tickets.”
Jessica Stone, a freshman majoring in fashion retailing, is content with the process.
“I don’t have anything to compare it to,” she said. “I had no problem purchasing my tickets last year. This seems like a carefree and easy way to get tickets. There are so many students here, I don’t see how they could make it any easier than it already is.”
