| 16 September 2009
If you weren't aware, the MU athletic department changed its student seating policy this season to change student seating from reserve seating to general admission. And in case you weren't there for Saturday's opener, this has caused mass chaos for just about everyone involved. The Tribune's Joe Walljasper has a great article that gives the breakdown of the whole situation. I would encourage you to read it so you understand all the issues involved in making the decision.
I'm amazed that the athletic department didn't realize this was going to cause one giant clusterfuck. You could've talked to literally any student that has experience going to Mizzou home games and they could have told you this wasn't going to end well. I'm going to summarize what the situation is real quickly.
In the past students have signed up for reserved group seating when they purchased season tickets which guaranteed them a seat in the GA bleacher section. According to Walljasper's article, in the past 10,000 bleacher seats were allotted for students and that worked fine until the team blew up in '07. That led to over 12,000 student season ticket sales in '08 and forced the athletic department to sell discounted hill tickets to many students who were squeezed out and they of course felt left out.
This off-season the university decided to give more students the chance to sit in the student section by changing the seating to general admission and by reducing the amount of space allotted for each student from 18 inches to 14 inches. This created an additional 2,500 student seats and hypothetically gave all student season ticket holders an equal shot at every seat in the student section.
But it also generated enormous lines to get into the stadium because ushers were forced to check student IDs and put wristbands on each student's wrist so they could get into the student section. This caused many fans to miss kickoff despite getting to the stadium with plenty of time left before the start of the game. It also cuts down on the time you have to tailgate.
And students weren't the only ones who had to deal with this problem. There are actually reserved seats in the GA section, which the students and ushers failed to realize. So students filed into those seats and long-time season ticket holders were squeezed out of their seats that they paid good money for.
So as you can see, it's a messy situation. I don't know why the university thought this was going to be a good system to switch to. Here's my opinion: Next season they need to switch to the old way of doing things. I understand the need to adapt and make changes to accommodate rising attendance numbers. Maybe they can go ahead and decrease the space given to each student if that adds more seating and doesn't negatively impact reserved seat season ticket holders like the ones quoted in Walljasper's piece.
Switching back to the old system would push some students up onto the hill, but honestly I don't care. Send out a mass e-mail to the students telling them that bleacher space is going to be limited and if they want to guarantee themselves a seat then they need to get their group seating forms filled out early. If they fail to respond then tough look, enjoy the rock M. It's not like they're totally missing out on a chance to go to the game. But priority needs to be given to those who fill out the forms on time and pay good money for their seats.
Instead we have a system that makes everyone's gameday experience less enjoyable.
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