Season tickets guaranteed now through Mon.

IU Athletics Director Fred Glass learned the strength of IU’s student body during the University’s last home football game, when IU students bought 11,000 student seats – an expansion of more than a third of the normal seating for students.

“The Ohio State experience taught us that we really could, actually could, sell out of student tickets,” Glass said. “We had a lot of disappointed students.”

In a move to prevent students from being left out in the cold again, IU Athletics has announced a promotion involving men’s basketball season tickets for students.

Until 8 p.m. Monday, every student who purchases the $220 ticket package will be guaranteed a ticket for every home game and also given no more balcony seats during those games than they are given main level seats.

“We wanted to create some motivation for people to go and get those tickets,” Glass said. He added that another reason for the promotion was an attempt to set the rotation for games for students between balcony, main-level and floor-level seats early.

Glass said he knows the question of whether the program becomes “too successful” is an issue he might have to address, but there is already a plan in place.

“I would love to have that problem,” he said. “What we would do is have the student section spill over and become larger. I’ve been assured by the ticket office people that they could – even if we blow over the number that we were thinking we would hold back for student tickets – we could still manage this balanced approach.”

Glass said the department is already “way ahead” of last year’s sales, and IU men’s basketball coach Tom Crean tweeted on Oct. 11 that student ticket sales were up 20 percent from last year’s total.

As for future plans for a student section in Assembly Hall, Glass said, for now, the area in the south end of the arena will still remain the home to most IU students.

“My hope is that, over time, we might do some additional things to make it feel more
like a student section – maybe try to bring it more into the action,” Glass said. “Also, we’re toying with the idea of moving – not this year, but maybe in the future – to either a pure first-come-first-serve or a modified first-come-first-serve to build that excitement of people coming early and getting the best seats.”

Tickets can be bought online at IUHoosiers.com, at the IU ticket office in Assembly Hall or by calling 1-866-IUSPORTS. Members of the Student Athletics Board will also be selling tickets during homecoming events and Hoosier Hysteria.

“We’re really making a big push here because once Monday at 8 p.m. rolls around there’s going to be no guarantee that student tickets will be available,” Glass said.
“There’s no guarantee that you’ll get as many main-level seats as the balcony seats.

“We’re really trying to let kids know that this is their shot at it, and, as we demonstrated with Ohio State, we’re not crying wolf. We’re really serious about where we are with the season tickets.”