Originally Posted by
scottdude8
My thoughts exactly. There's a great argument to be made for some sort of hybrid system: i.e. you can only blue tent if your tent attends a certain number of games, etc. I believe ideas of this form have been floated in some form or another for years now, although nothing concrete has come to fruition.
There's also a legitimate question of cause and effect in these discussions. When I was a student, there were times where there was an important game but I also had tons of work coming up, so I knew I wanted to walk up near tip-off, get bad seats, enjoy the game and cheer my butt off, but then go home and study (i.e. I needed a game-day experience on the order of two hours, not twelve). But the students who want to do that (and I think have every right to and should be encouraged!) are hard to account for when the athletic department estimates how many students are going to attend a game and how many general admission tickets to sell. So, are the sides of the student section being filled by GA tickets because there isn't enough student interest? Or, is it possible that the AD is underestimating student interest based solely off of the walk-up line, and students who might have come to Cameron a half-hour before game time are now discouraged from doing so?
To be clear, I have no knowledge of which situation we find ourselves in. But it is one of the drawbacks of the Duke system, where students don't buy tickets but have the right to go to any athletic competition as part of their tuition, that it's an open question.
Now, I'm not sure what the solution is, especially given the uniqueness of the small student section and small enrollment at Duke. But as an example, when Michigan basketball started picking up steam, the athletic department instituted an interesting strategy: while when you bought your season ticket you technically had the right to go to every game, they also asked students to "claim" a ticket for each game they actually intended on attending. This allowed the athletic department to know how many tickets in the student section would be available for sale. Student attendance was also encouraged in this fashion, because students who attended every game they "claimed" got priority for big time games at the end of the year and tournament tickets, while students who "missed" a certain number of games they claimed (they kept track by scanning student ID cards) might not be allowed to claim tickets to big games later in the year.
In no way am I saying this type of system should be implemented at Duke. I highlight it only to mention that this challenge isn't one that only Duke faces, and there are creative solutions out there if the problem is becoming that big of a strain on the relationship between the Crazies and the athletic department. Typically the Crazies have responded when K has called them out in the past, so I think the turnout for the Notre Dame game will be a good indicator of what's to come on this front.