The idea of the ASUO giving no-growth to the athletic department’s budget and demanding more tickets is a comical proposal that will likely backlash, in spite of all of their reasoning. However, with all the news that’s come out lately from the John E. Jaqua Center for Student Athletes and other things we find distaste with, we’re totally cool with the student government pushing the department on transparency.
Asking for more tickets at lower prices is a good way to make the department unable to take us seriously.
It’s just what was attempted with Lane Transit District last year, much to the chagrin of many of the negotiators. Former ASUO Sen. Ian Fielding was particularly irked by the proposed changes to the LTD budget in an attempt to find money for other programs.
“I think it reflects highly on the ASUO when we hold to our agreements,” Fielding told the Emerald.@@checked@@ He sarcastically added, “But if you were to go back on that agreement, which I wouldn’t recommend, you could save money there.”
The problem is the proposition of less money for athletics was also offered last year, which Bri Woodside-Gomez@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Woodside-Gomez@@ said in the same article, wouldn’t work. Woodside-Gomez was last year’s Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee chair and remains on the committee this year.
She said last year that going about negotiations wouldn’t work like it would with other contracts on the committee.
“It’s not like ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ — they’re selling a product,” she articulated.
We trust this judgement — at this point, thanks to three-straight BCS bowl appearances and a nigh-unprecedented Rose Bowl win, the University has an elite football program.@@after just one win?@@ We do not stand in a position where threatening the department with money is going to do much of anything.@@really?@@
This is not to say we do nothing. It’s just that trying to pressure athletics with no-growth is not the wise way to pursue a better bargain.
The way we must move forward is by making the rumors of the resolution a reality and rallying students — by standing on the street corners and handing out those fliers that they hate so much, but are now for a cause that they actually agree with — to agree that student tickets are too expensive and that we don’t want corruption to fly here.
We agree that there aren’t enough tickets and that we pay too much for them. But the way we go about reminding the department of their obligations is not by endangering services that many students are now enrolling to partake in; it has to begin with the resolution that is sitting unmentioned, waiting for a working group to complete the text for ASUO Senate.
This resolution should include three key things: The 14 points that athletics signed upon in a nonbinding agreement in 2004, points all members of the Senate can agree to as well as an agreement and plan to informally connect regular students.
Together, such a resolution would offer so much more than a hard-line from the student body president or even from a majority of the ACFC: a strong, but broad student voice of opposition. @@Because hey, we can’t think of a situation funnier than the ASUO demanding someone else be more transparent.@@ @@lol. Tell me I’m wrong, Frank@@