Last week’s piece “ASUO Athletics Request is Farcical” (ODE, Jan. 18) argued that by demanding more tickets for a lower price from the athletic department, the ASUO would make students look silly. This, after the athletic department asked for an even higher price for the same insufficient student ticket package this year and the ASUO said no.
I disagree with the author’s analysis of the situation. I would suggest we look silly when we continue to be suckered by the athletic department. This whole year there’s been a campus-wide discussion of how there aren’t enough student tickets. We can’t keep paying the same amount of money for an insufficient package from athletics. If a service is not good enough for the price asked, you don’t pay that price. That’s actually the basic principle of the free market.
In the editorial, Sen. Bri Woodside-Gomez@@http://www.blogger.com/profile/03753194457475225390@@ is quoted as having said “It’s not ‘Let’s make a Deal’ — they’re selling a product.” She seemed to forget that selling a product successfully depends on a deal between two mutual parties. If we want a better deal as consumers, why would we not exercise our consumer power?
What this editorial seems to call for is for students to continue to allow themselves to be taken advantage of by our own athletic department — an athletic department we help fund with our tuition dollars, as the author rightly notes.
The athletic department should be happy to oblige. The University belongs to the students and the departments exist for us. Without every single tuition-paying Duck in the classroom there would be no Ducks on the field and no tickets to sell.
I’m glad we have an athletics program and I’m glad it rocks. They just need to remember who’s boss around here.
The piece calls for students to make some noise about the issue of athletics staying accountable to students and that’s good — students should be organizing around this. But you can’t just say, “I’ll keep signing on to this rip-off but I’m also going to go rally students against it.” We have the power over this business deal — we can decide not to take it anymore.@@Sure, but see the thing with a boycott is … you usually lose access to the thing. And see, if you cause us to lose football tickets, you’re fucked.@@
I’m glad that the ASUO is fighting for a better deal for students, because a lot of students have been put out by the current bad deal. Addressing our concerns is what the ASUO is there for, and I’m glad that this year the ASUO has been starting to buck up and do just that.
Sam Chapman@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Samuel+C+Chapman+@@
University student