Ticket Vouchers?

The lines were long but that wasn’t stopping thousands of Razorback students from flocking to Sept. 19’s Fayetteville home opener against Georgia.

Even though Arkansas was coming off a dismal 5-7 season in the second year of head coach Bobby Petrino’s reign, the anticipation and excitement for Razorback football still remained.

One thing that differed this season, however, was the way in which UA students received their tickets.

Instead of just purchasing a ticket that would be taken to the game along with scanning their ID card, students were required to buy vouchers that would be redeemed the week heading up to the game.

University officials said that the reasoning behind the change in administering the tickets was a trend that had developed in the previous couple of seasons.

Arkansas won a SEC Western Division title in 2006 and had Heisman Trophy hopeful Darren McFadden return in 2007, but students weren’t filling up the section they are given despite the team’s success.

With a change in both the head football coach and director of athletics, a serious look was taken on how to increase the efficiency of ticket sales and get students in the seats.

The athletic department figured that if the students weren’t going to fill up the section, that they could sell the unused tickets just like a ticket in a different section of the stadium and make more money.

It seems like a viable solution to pouring money into athletics and getting the stadium to capacity on game days, but it’s not necessarily popular with all students.

“It’s dumb,” said UA sophomore Chelsey Humble. “It’s just a hassle.”

Other UA students have not liked the fact that they have to go down to the ticket office or other locations on campus to redeem their vouchers.

They’ve cited long lines and only having Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to complete the objective as major drawbacks to having the voucher system.

“It’s a bit of a hassle, but if they fill up [the stadium], then I guess it’s alright,” UA sophomore Collin Sanders said.

Sanders is a former walk-on football player for Arkansas who now watches from the student section. He said he noticed a definite increase in the quality of the section and the passion of the students who came out in droves to the Georgia game.

Some students, though, feel that the change is doing a lot of good for not just the students, but rather the entire fan base of 74,000 that attend Arkansas home games.

“I think it’s a good idea,” UA junior Drew Marshall said. “It allows people who actually want to go to the game to go, and helps us fill up the student section which we never could before.”

Fortunately for Arkansas students, the ticket price remained the same.

The economy may be in a recession, but it still only costs $1 to get into the games.

Whereas at other Southeastern Conference schools, it costs the same, if not more, as normal game tickets for students to watch their fellow student-athletes perform.