This is part one of the Emerald’s two-part series on the University’s ticket distribution program. Part two will be published in Tuesday’s edition of the paper.

Students at the University are becoming more and more frustrated with the e-ticketing system that is in place to distribute student tickets to University athletic events. The system does not seem to students as a “first-come, first-serve” system as it is said to be. Rather, it seems like a random acceptance of only certain computer IP addresses. The website through which tickets are distributed, www.GoDucks.com, is often either under maintenance or experiencing traffic too heavy for the servers to handle each distribution day. It seems to many that the e-ticketing system cannot handle the University’s large demand for student tickets. So, why switch from a tried-and-true system?
Transition to a problematic system
In theory, the e-ticketing system has more advantages than disadvantages. But in practice, students are frustrated with the system, and since e-ticketing has been in action, the loudest-voiced problem has simply been the lack of tickets.
The ASUO purchases 32,076 tickets for students from the University’s athletic department for the season at half-off face value. The student government is allowed this discount as long as it contributes to the Duck Athletic Fund, a source of scholarship money and athletic booster programs. Although the ASUO is struggling to pay for the seats it has already purchased, it is willing to buy more to accommodate student demand.
But the athletic department cannot offer the ASUO more student tickets. Seven years ago, the ASUO had a chance to buy all of the tickets offered to it  — 5,700 tickets. It passed on the chance to buy the whole allotment of tickets, and the athletic department took the rest of the tickets the ASUO didn’t buy and sold them to season-ticket-holders. Once season-ticket-holders have their tickets, the athletic department has no more say in the use of the tickets. Therefore, those tickets are gone until those who have the season tickets sell them back to the University.
Garrett Klassy@@CE@@, a University assistant athletic director, says he knows students are unhappy with the way the ticketing system works.
“We get a few phone calls each week on Monday after distribution,” Klassy said. “But the system is working correctly as to each student section. Each of the grades are selling out within minutes every week, and the system is doing what we provide it to do.”
The system he’s referring to is the Paciolan@@CE@@ ticketing system. On March 9, the University renewed its 25-year partnership with the company of Irving, Calif., for five more years.
“The combination of Oregon’s strong athletics programs and Paciolan’s powerful ticketing system has enabled UO to be one of the leaders of digital ticketing in college athletics,” the company wrote in a press release.
The University and Pacolian work together every year to tweak the system and attempt to make the distribution system easier to work and manage.
“The system we have today isn’t the same system that we used the first time we had electronic distribution,” Klassy said. “We’re always looking at adjusting, but it’s a bigger picture than just athletics and the ASUO.”
The biggest adjustment voiced by the student body is the desire to acquire more tickets and rightly so; though Autzen Stadium looks filled with students on game day, it may be surprising to see the actual number of students who get tickets to games, and how many seats they get.
Ten Percent

Autzen Stadium’s seating capacity is 54,000 people. Last year, the University’s undergraduate student population was 23,398. Including the student season tickets sold this year, the athletic department sells 2,418 tickets to the ASUO for nonconference games and 5,448 for conference games. This means that only 4.5 percent of the stadium belongs to students for nonconference games and just more than 10 percent for conference games.
This year, the athletic department has offered 1,500 student season tickets for $250, which means 1,500 fewer tickets are being given to students who couldn’t get season tickets. This reduces the number of tickets students can be offered by 62 percent for nonconference games and 27 percent for conference games. Furthermore, students without those season tickets are now far less likely to obtain admission to the Civil War game, as guaranteed tickets are reserved to those students who have been to every home game.
It should be noted that the lopsided nature of Autzen Stadium has always been seen as another Oregon kink fans love so much. But if the stadium was built up on the north side as it is on the south, the stadium could add 14,000 seats, if mirrored. No plans of an addition have been made public as of yet.
Also, even though student season tickets seems considerably less than regular season tickets ($250 for students versus $531 per regular-season ticket in the same spot), every student is already paying for student tickets. ASUO President Ben Eckstein said every student pays a portion of the $1,519,000 the University is giving to the athletic department this year for student tickets.
“Even though there is no direct cost, every student shoulders the cost of the tickets in some way,” Eckstein said.
Klassy urges students to look at other top-25 programs in the country. He believes many of the bigger schools are experiencing the same problems as University students every distribution Sunday.
“There are cases out there where we’re at a percentage of students that can go to our game compared to our stadium size where we’re at a higher number than most top-25 teams in the nation,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that we don’t have a larger stadium, but that’s something that we’re dealing with right now.”