Students who attended every home football game this school year under the impression that it would give them a leg up on getting a ticket to the highly anticipated Civil War game got a rude surprise when it turned out that the policy had been suddenly discontinued by the ASUO Senate.
At the beginning of the school year, it was announced that students who attended every home football game would have priority when it came to claiming Civil War tickets. The policy, included at the bottom of ticket confirmation e-mails, read:
“Students present at 100 percent of home football games prior to the Civil War (Oregon vs. Oregon State) game will have first priority to request Civil War tickets in advance of the normal student ticketing distribution.”
However, because of an apparent miscommunication issue between the ASUO and University athletic department, members of the ASUO were either not aware of the policy or didn’t think it was active.
“It was perceived by some in the ASUO that the benefit system was not going to be included,” said Ben Eckstein, a member of the Athletics Contracts and Finance Committee, which negotiates student tickets with the athletic department.
In the meantime, 281 students managed to obtain tickets to every home football game.
Exact numbers aren’t known, but it’s apparent that many of those 281 students did not
receive Civil War tickets.
Eckstein said he, ACFC member Alex McCafferty and ASUO President Emma Kallaway met with the athletic department last Tuesday to make the decision. He said it was based on “fairness and equity of access.”
He also said the benefit system wasn’t fair “because all students share in the cost of student tickets.”
Athletic department spokesperson Greg Walker said the decision was made entirely by the ASUO.
“You could question the fairness of the decision, but it’s a decision the athletic department will and needs to respect,” Walker said.
In an e-mail, University student Ryan Olmstead called the change in policy “punishment to the few students that took the time out of their lives to support the success of the Ducks
football team.”
Other students echoed Olmstead’s sentiments.
“How does this make sense?” University student Alexandria Warnke-Crary wrote in an
e-mail. “These are the students who devoted their Saturdays to each game, who drove up before school even started and who were at every home game supporting their team.”
Eckstein maintained that the decision was about fairness.
“I understand their frustration and the sacrifices they made, and I applaud their school spirit,” Eckstein said. “We considered their interests carefully, but we also had to consider the interests of all students.”
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