I have spent five years at Virginia Tech and have seen many complaints about how the lottery system is operated. I decided that I would take a crack at a redesign that could increase the morale of the lottery participants while also taking class into the decision.
Instead of the same lottery, why not create a lottery system that allots a percentage to each class? For example: 40 percent seniors, 30 percent juniors, 20 percent sophomores and 10 percent freshmen. This gives every class a chance to participate while making the assumption that senior and junior class enthusiasm for Hokie basketball is higher. For each class, a threshold number of participants would have to be reached, such that the percentages would take into effect; if the threshold number is not reached, a percentage of tickets will be redistributed among the lower classes.
Additionally, every time a student enters the lottery they are awarded one point, which in the following year will move them out of the freshman percentage area to the sophomore percentage area (zero for freshmen, one for sophomores, two for juniors and three for seniors). This rewards those who want to get season tickets and takes into account those who really wanted them since they were freshmen.
For implementation purposes, current class would automatically be advanced to next year's class. After this initial start, the students would then have to actually apply for season tickets to move into the next percentage area.
After a student graduates, she is removed from the list by a simple search algorithm. To restate, this system is designed to reward students who keep attempting to win season tickets. It is not meant to exclude any member of the community and is fair considering how freshmen don't have a chance to purchase season tickets for football.
This is just something that I have created while reading yesterday's CT and hope this doesn't offend any student or ticket service member.
Richard Rivera
Senior, industrial and systems engineering
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This is fairly cogent. . . except for the fact that college isn't high school, and people don't just move from one 'grade' to the next. I entered school as a second semester sophomore by AP credits, and had senior standing by the end of my second year. To make matters more interesting, I know many people who stayed in school for extra years as undergrads, or moved up into the graduate program. The fact of the matter is, there really isn't an equitable way to do things other than to have a blind lottery like they do. We're faced with a situation in which there are more students desiring tickets than tickets to be sold - perhaps a more viable option would be to triple the price of tickets. It would reduce the competition. . . .
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What a great problem to have! Not too many years ago I could walk right up to the box office at game time and get a student ticket. Another consideration here is the fact that everyone pays the same athletic fee, so why shouldn't everyone have the same opportunity to get tickets? Loyalty-based programs essentially ensure that students who don't attend every game are throwing away their athletic fee, and essentially involuntarily subsidizing the tickets of those who get the tickets.
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why don't they just make season tickets applied to the hokie passport? that way people couldn't easily scalp them because of their picture and would be less inclined to buy them if they didn't plan on attending every game. wake forest has a great ticket system that relies on fans attendance and is widely accepted there...is that too hard to replicate?
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Anonymous, it's only $72. Even if you don't make all the games, that's not a huge price to pay. Also, as I said earlier, the loyalty policy basically just redistributes the athletic fee from those who haven't attended as many games, since they will essentially have no chance at ever getting tickets. Clearly there are more people wanting tickets than there are tickets, so why should some who pay the same athletic fee as others be put at a disadvantage?
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jason, the athletic fee covers much more than just football.
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Anonymous, the point remains: why should some students be given prioritized access to a commodity that is supposed to be open to all?
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