For those of you loathing the hours of waiting in line for a football ticket during those hectic fall days – those are soon to be extinct.
But if you’re a die-hard fan that cherishes the Oregon ritual of camping out for tickets with friends, well, now maybe you and your ticket-line-waiting friends can all party Saturday night in a traditional social setting, get up just in time to log onto the Web, get your ticket and pretend like you made an adventure out of it.
It’ll be better for your grades and overall mental and physical health, after all.
In case you haven’t heard yet, University officials will soon vote on allowing both football and basketball tickets to be distributed online through the athletic department’s Web site.
Although it’s still an imperfect system, it comes across as sheer brilliance compared to the previous process – I’ve already dedicated plenty of inches of column space complaining about it.
No longer will you wait up to five hours in line. Say goodbye to people cutting in line. Save money and storage space by not having to buy sleeping bags and a tent to pitch to house you and other friends on the slab of concrete outside of Autzen Stadium.
You’ll actually be able to attend classes on Monday before home football games. Professors can now breathe a collective sigh of relief knowing you may actually show up for lecture at the beginning of the week.
Chalk up a win for the academic side.
And it’s about time they got one. It’s been awhile since they’ve scored a point in the battleground versus athletics. All it took was some students complaining after realizing they were constantly having to choose between their grades or the weekend’s biggest social gathering.
Come fall, you’ll go online during your class registration period on Sundays and hope your Internet connection moves faster than all of your peers.
Each academic class is now allotted a percentage of the 5,000 plus tickets available to students. Freshman get 13.5 percent of the tickets, sophomores 18.6 percent, juniors 19.7 percents and seniors 31.4 percent.
And to ensure there isn’t a black market, once you register for a student ticket, it’ll be burned on to your student ID card and that’s all you need to show come game day.
However, if you don’t show up, there will be penalties and you’ll forfeit your chance to attend the next home game. Fortunately, you’ll be able to relinquish your ticket if you know you won’t be able to go ahead of time. Otherwise, be prepared to find a look-a-like you’re comfortable handing your ID card to.
While I’m sure there will be those of you lamenting the loss of what’s become an Oregon tradition among the hard-core fans, it’s about time that the University started implementing 21st century technology into the ticket-distribution process.
Besides, you can arrive 12 hours before kickoff if you’re still interested in building the elitist fanbase. No one’s stopping you there – you just can no longer brag about your place in line in front of the EMU or Autzen ticket office after you pitch your tent 36 hours in advance.
But really, this should have happened ages ago. Lines at the ticket offices have been a problem for as long as I’ve been here; I just wonder what took so long.
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