Basketball ticket pack expands to 12

Students will get to see all 12 men's basketball home games this season after all.\nThe IU Athletic Ticket Office sent out an e-mail Saturday to students who purchased tickets alerting them that their season ticket package for men's basketball has been doubled to 12 games from the initial six. \nThis increase has been met with both delight and concern. \nStudent packages will now cost a total of $140 for the season. \nOriginally, students were paying $11 a game for six games plus an $8 service charge, totaling $74. According to the previous e-mail the IU Ticket Office sent out in late September, each additional game was going to cost $11, bringing students to be charged an additional $66 for the six-game add-on. Another service charge will not be added for the increase.\n"I signed up under the assumption that I was getting six games for $74, and now without a choice I am getting charged $140 that I didn't budget for," senior P.J. Malm said. \nSome students are concerned about the extra money and time they have to spend. Even though the first e-mail said students will be charged for any games added to their packages, they never thought any games would be added because of the way the past couple of season ticket packages have wavered. \nThe ticket office, which is only open Monday through Friday, could not be reached for comment by press time Sunday. \nIU has the most student seats out of any school in the Big Ten with 7,500. Mathematically, in order for all students who purchased tickets to receive a full season, at most, 7,500 had to buy packages -- down from years past.\nIU sold almost 11,500 student tickets last year, according to a Oct. 27, 2003, Indiana Daily Student article.\nMalm said he thinks the reason for the lack of students buying tickets is because of the new TicketMaster system IU used. \n"I think, personally, because the system was difficult to access and use," Malm said. "You needed a password and a pin number to buy tickets. Some of my friends said it's easier to vote than to buy IU basketball tickets."\nMalm has friends who never ordered tickets because they never received a password. And when they contacted the ticket office to receive it, they were never called back or sent an e-mail. \n"It was some sort of failure in the system," Malm said.\nOther students reacted to the announcement with delight. After having their available allotment of games cut in the past two years, some IU students are overjoyed to have tickets to all 12 games.\nSenior Neal Wizig was one of those who was very happy with the announcement. Wizig has gotten basketball tickets for four straight years and has watched his ticket allotment decrease from his freshman year when everybody got every game to his sophomore and junior years when a limited allotment was offered.\n"I was pretty excited because of the last two years we've kind of gotten screwed on tickets," Wizig said. "So I was excited to be able to go to all the games."\nWizig said the announcement benefits die-hard basketball fans who took the time and effort to order the tickets as opposed to those who procrastinated. He also said he thought the electronic system was better because one person could order them instead of having to have everybody together to go to Assembly Hall and fill out paper work.\n"The system was really easy," Wizig said. "All you had to do was put in your credit card and put in everybody's e-mail address. Not everybody had to do it together."\n-- Contact sports editor John Rodgers at jprodger@indiana.edu and senior writer Josh Weinfuss at jweinfus@indiana.edu.