Blackballed

The 2003-04 season was to be a rebuilding year for the IU athletics box office. Few who ordered ticket packages last year will ever forget having their 12-game packages cut in half due to a gross miscalculation. Yet instead of taking care of weaknesses in the off-season as a good program should, the IU athletics department came back in poor form, showing the same flaws from the previous year. This year students only get eight games out of 10 advertised. \n On the bright side, the two-game retraction represents a 30 percent decrease in "advertised ticket package/actual ticket package" differential from the 2002-03 season. \nOn the other hand, it kind of -- just a little -- felt like we were being lied to.\nAs unsatisfying as last year's ticket packages became, the "fluke" was almost understandable. The basketball program was coming off its most successful season in recent history. Who could have known that 4,400 more students than expected would order tickets?\nThis year's defeat was even worse. We all assumed that the IU athletic department had made the necessary off-season changes to accommodate everyone who applied, so when they advertised 10-game packages we were sure the boast was genuine. It was as if the athletic department had put up a last-second, game-winning shot just for the students, and then ... \nAir-ball.\nStill, it was typical of athletic ticketing at IU. Students have always gotten the shaft in favor of alumni, who get the best seats. Of course, everyone understands that basketball tickets are a good way of enticing generosity from former graduates, yet student seating has become so marginalized that, despite being allotted 7,800 seats per basketball game, students have not yet been given real section -- an "Izzone" or "Zona Zoo" -- to call their own. Does the athletic department think a group of rowdy coeds sitting close to the floor will ruin the game for everyone?\nInstead students are split up, spread out and whisked around Assembly Hall so much that most are on Dramamine by the end of the season. \nThat's no way for a university to treat its biggest contributors. Anyone shelling out $10,000 to $25,000 per year to attend this University is at least entitled to the opportunity to get a decent and truthful ticket package.\nMore to the point, the true Hoosier fans should be given a few more of Assembly Hall's 17,257 seats. So who are they?\nWho will come to every home game and never leave an empty space? For who are seats irrelevant because they will stand and cheer for 48 minutes? And for the past two years whose love of IU basketball has shattered box office expectations by breaking everyone's estimations?\nThe students. The students. The students.