Posted August 26th, 2006 by Brian
Filed under: Basketball
It will be harder for UT students to get tickets this upcoming basketball season as the athletic department has announced they would be cutting 1,600 guaranteed seats. There will still be the same number of student tickets for the lower bowl (1,200) but only 840 in the upper mezzanine level. According to senior associate athletic director Doug Messner only twice in the last two seasons would students have used all 2,040 of the tickets still guaranteed for them.
I’m encouraged that the athletic department is taking steps to improve attendance and game atmosphere, but I’m not completely sure this is the answer. The reason student attendance is low for most games is because those upper mezzanine seats are terrible and even the majority of lower level seats are behind the basket and high off the court. If they designated more lower level seats for students then student attendance would increase. Put students behind the opponent’s bench and the Erwin Center is immediately a louder and rowdier place to play.
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