Sell out Assembly Hall

The athletics department has finally found a way to get out of debt that won't cost alumni, tax payers or students anything. It's a solution some have been screaming from the rooftops since we first learned of our crimson budget numbers.\nWe're selling out Assembly Hall.\nA new scoreboard, purchased by a "business partner" of the IU athletics department, features a state-of-the-art replay screen, a lot of extra tonnage and -- most importantly -- advertisements.\nDespite the age-old credo of preserving the Hall's "history and tradition," AD Rick Greenspan is endorsing the plan, which will bring in an estimated $250,000 per year to counter the department's multi-million-dollar debt.\nBut what took so long?\nIf scoreboard ads will bring in a quarter of a million dollars in just one year, imagine what other strategically placed commercial endorsements in Assembly Hall could do. A few scrolling billboards at the feet of the scorer's table, some adhesive floor stickers on the ascending cement steps, larger posts lining Assembly's now barren walls -- the entire department could be out of debt in 12 months.\nHindering such a plan are those claiming ads would smudge the pristine tradition of IU's gym. Our reaction is to remind those naysayers that our hallowed halls are only 35 years old.\nInstead of such a benign ad-selling campaign, our trustees have voted to raise student fees to pay for the athletics department's budgetary woes. They made students the department's whipping boys.\nBut if we were in charge, we would sell out our stadium long before we sold out our students.