If students want to attend the Sep. 1 football season opener against Wisconsin, they’ll have to shell out $4.50 to get in the door.
But that’s still less than what it could have been.
In the past, tickets for non-conference games have been free to students. But rising ticket values mean the Athletic Department can no longer afford the free tickets, and other options on the table would have required students to pay up to $15 per ticket for the two games before school starts.
The Athletic Department Finance Committee, which handles the amount of money the department receives from the student incidental fee, managed to lower that number. The committee only had to find a little more than $22,000 from other sources to make the department agree.
The deal needed to be sealed during the ASUO Student Senate meeting Wednesday night — and it was, as the senate granted the ADFC $10,000 out of the general surplus. The remaining $12,000 is coming from the McArthur Court subsidy.
The major debate of the meeting, however, was not the ADFC’s request of $10,000, but the Ad Club’s request of $10,395. The request was turned into the senate Monday afternoon, which aroused concern and triggered a two-minute recess minutes after the meeting began.
Senate rules dictate that all requests over $999 must be submitted to the senate at least one week in advance. And senior political science major Alan Tauber argued that another rule, 12.5, states the senate cannot suspend its rules for any reason — which is what some senators suggested doing in order to hear the Ad Club’s request.
“Can’t do it — too bad, so sad,” Tauber said, standing up. “See you next week.”
But many of the senators disagreed.
Senate President Peter Watts said not only has the senate set precedent for disregarding the one-week rule, but that minutes earlier the body had voted to hear the ADFC’s request, which also came in less than one week in advance.
Watts said that what the senate does for one group, it must do for the other — regardless of whether they are major or minor programs. And in the end, the majority of the senate agreed, granting the Ad Club’s request.