One full weekend student ticket to the 2010 NCAA Tournament Final Four: $25.
One full weekend student ticket to the 2011 ACC Tournament: $396?
At the beginning of the spring semester, the Cameron Indoor Stadium ticket office invited students to enter into a lottery for an ACC Tournament all-session ticket—access to all 11 games throughout the weekend—for the price of $396. For a student like myself used to not having to pay out of pocket for basketball games, at first glance the cost seemed exorbitant.
And in fact, the lottery is advantageous for neither the students nor the administration. Without it, the athletic department can offer tickets to more of the people who give large sums of money toward the operation of Duke’s teams, and students can already find cheaper tickets online without committing to attend the full tournament weeks in advance.
Cheaper tickets can be found online and, most likely, from scalping, because Duke offers no discount to students for the ACC Tournament. In this way, it appears that the athletic department is only making a token gesture toward encouraging students to make the trip to Greensboro. If Duke really wanted its students’ support during their spring break, it would offer heavily discounted prices in the lottery, just as the NCAA did last spring. Last year, Duke students were offered tickets for the two Blue Devil games in Jacksonville for $72 each, which was comparable to the price given to the general public. However, prices shrunk drastically as the NCAA Tournament continued. Students could go to all three games of the Houston regional for just $190, less than half the cost to everyone else. And despite sitting below the court in Indianapolis, $25 is still hundreds of dollars—if not thousands—cheaper than seats in the very upper deck of Lucas Oil Stadium.
True, the NCAA has an easier time giving student discounts on tickets in the cavernous arenas where the later rounds are played—Houston’s Reliant Stadium holds over 70,000 fans while Greensboro Coliseum seats a comparatively small 23,500. Making matters worse, fans of eight teams compete for tickets to the first weekend, while only four teams make each regional. Dozens of 2011 full-session Final Four tickets on Stubhub.com are already listed cheaper than students would have to pay for the ACC Tournament through Duke.
It would be a shame for Duke to forget the massive historical effect of the student fans—those Cameron Crazies who put Duke basketball on the map hand-in-hand with the teams of the 1980s.
But if the administration insists on continuing to operate this nonsensical lottery, students ought to realize that it is silly to even enter the process at all. By the eve of last season’s ACC Tournament, full-session ticket booklets were selling on Stubhub.com for half of the list price, and the opening round game between N.C. State and North Carolina could be seen for as little as $13. With Duke on pace to finish well into the top quarter of the conference standings, the Blue Devils won’t play on the first day of games, jumping straight into the quarterfinals.
Thus, by the time their first game is played, at least four teams will have been already eliminated from competition, leaving thousands of fans stuck with tickets that they likely no longer want. Attendance at the ACC Tournament in Greensboro has declined 13 percent since 2006, leaving rows of empty seats in the semifinal and championship games. Students could easily take advantage of heavily discounted tickets from those fans fleeing the scene of their schools’ losses.
At the end of the day, encouraging this type of lottery reflects poorly on Duke as a whole. It pushes students away from attending games close to campus while also painting a portrait of the administration as unconcerned about the welfare of the general student body. Eliminate the lottery once and for all.
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