Student tickets reduced to 8 games

IU has sold its 10th highest annual total of student season tickets for football and basketball with 14,369 purchases as of Thursday morning, according to assistant athletic director for ticket operations Michael Roberts.

As a result, students who have purchased the plan will have access to only eight home men's basketball games this season.

Because IU designates only approximately 8,000 seats in Assembly Hall for students each game — and more than 8,000 individual packages have been sold — the athletic department chose to limit the amount of games students will have tickets to.

Those who bought the package via bursar for $320 will only be charged $200.

“Since the early ’70s, it has been the procedure that all students should have an opportunity to experience and enjoy Indiana basketball,” Roberts said. “And by following this directive, we have tried to distribute the tickets as evenly as possible with the available seats to the students within Assembly Hall.”

IU chose to give students an eight-game package because of Roberts’ idea for even distribution, and he said its current estimate for sales falls short of 15,600.

Should sales top 15,600 — Roberts said IU has no plans to shut down student season ticket sales this year as it did last year when it capped sales at 12,400 so students would get tickets to 10 games — students might have even fewer games in their ticket package.

“Should the sales surpass 15,600, some students by lottery may receive fewer games in order to accommodate the additional sales unless the department should determine at some point to cut off sales once it has surpassed 15,600,” Roberts said.

As of right now, it is unclear how such a lottery would work.

It is also unclear how many premiere games against high-profile opponents students will have access to, given the fact that so many tickets have been sold. Last season, students had access to 10 games and the season before, 16 games.

A source within the IU athletic department said before the season begins, it will rank the home games in order of prominence, and in turn reward students and groups based on Crimson Club points with tickets to the top home games.

It will also institute a lottery so students with fewer points will get to go to important games as well.

Students who purchased the season ticket plan will still be able to attend all eight home IU football games this season.