Student seating @UT game…

I know that is what it used to be. When I was there 25 years ago it was first come, first served in the RR section. Free admission which came with pizza in the line for big games. Selling the student section is a crap maneuver by the ticket office. There was zero chance students weren’t going to come back early for a game this big.

 

That is the least apologetic apology I ever seen

 

So they sold student seats because students were off on break but they won’t do it again (because students won’t be on break for the remaining schedule)?

 

"Rah! Rah! Rah!

You students are so unpredictable. We had no way of anticipating this . . . so it wasn't our fault at all.

P.S. Don't mistake this for an apology."

What happened to people just owning their screw-ups and actually apologizing?!

 

Funny no one has mentioned that there was never a concern for tv optics before they flipped the tv camera views. We went decades with pitiful shots of fan attendance and engagement in the tv broadcast.

It is sad the organizational competence above the individual sports isnt at the level of the programs they strive to help.

 

Student attendance and involvement is vital. Their presence is a lot more impactful on what happens on the floor than a bunch of geezers sitting on their hands.
I say this a seasoned geezer.

 

Bad look for UF & SS. The guy just can't help but shoot himself in the foot. He should provide pizza for the Rowdies in line before the next big game.

 

I guess I'm in the minority but I give Stricklin credit for explaining the situation and saying he will learn from it going forward.
It's funny- I've also seen a Gator fanpage on Facebook calling for SS to be fired over this.

Perhaps its my age/experience but I see an AD who found a pretty amazing coach who has brought us really far in men's hoops.
And someone wants to fire him because of a ticket situation??
It's amazing how stupid people are.

 

Gets even better with ESPN.com adding the part about the angry students being escorted from their regular seats at the end of the article about Floridas win over #1 UT.

No. 1 Tennessee trounced by Florida in first loss

 

It is?

 

Just using Stricklin's name is click-bait around here. Some of y'all irrational, reflexively, "dude can't do anything right why try" types.

 

My take as well.

I mean - if I were the student that drove 6 hours back to school a week early for this game and the school shafted me, I'd be justifiably pissed off.

This was a mistake and one that seems like it could have easily been avoided. An apology of some sort would have been nice for the 500 inconveinienced students, but let's keep some perspective here.

 

I agree and like your post, but as far as the above highlighted- could it be both?
They wanted the O' Dome filled and worried how an half-empty O' Dome would look on TV with the students being out.
Especially with the hated Vols coming to town.

WITH an added convenience of making more $.

Let's also remember that the decision to sell these seats probably came 2+ months ago, if not more.
NO one knew we would be undefeated and top 10 in the nation and the Vols #1 in the nation.

PErhaps they looked at the calendar, saw an SEC home game, saw that classes would not start for a full week, and said- hey let's fill those seats and make a few bucks at the same time??

I'm more forgiving about it- BUT I should add its clear that UFAA didn't think through the strong possibility of students coming back early for the #1 Vols. UFAA perhaps was too bureaucratic and slow-moving- which I will not defend.

 

I mostly agree with your take. I do think the students would usually come back a few days early for the first conference home game. The students, at least the last few years, have left a lot of empty seats during the break for non-con games. I understand wanting to fill those seats if they're not going to be filled. The problem is you don't really know one way or another. Don't do anything, possibly have open seats, people bitch about marketing. Do something to create some extra revenue and fill the seats, students show up wanting their seats, you're still the bad guy. The fact that this wasn't an issue for the first two games that were part of this package implies SS's head was in the right place. The students did not show up en masse for those games and this wasn't an issue. Likely didn't know the team would be doing this great and we'd be hosting the number one team in the country when these tickets were released to the general public. I think it was reasonable to assume the students would come back a few days early for the first conference game against a hated rival, but you just don't really know. That's why you need to communicate. Probably be best to gauge interest somehow before releasing the tickets, but if you're not going to do that, you HAVE to let the students know what you've done in a way that gets the message across clearly BEFORE you open the gates.

The biggest problem with the whole things seems to be communication. I don't know exactly how the student ticket process works, but it appears they can't get their tickets until the day of. Were they all sent emails about their tickets being sold early? The boosters/ticket holders got emails about it, I did. Did the students who've been attending all these games get the same email? If so, they had opportunity to get their seats and didn't seize the opportunity. That would also mean they knew the tickets were sold before they showed up to the game. If they were not told that the tickets were being released and sold to the general public, that's a huge blunder. If they weren't told again when they were picking up their tickets before the game, that's another huge blunder.

My pops works in the entertainment industry. His take was similar to mine, this is a communication issue. If you do something to alter the status quo, you need to make lots of announcements, signage, emails, texts, any means at your disposal. The changes need to be IN YOUR FACE so they aren't ignored or missed. He deals with stuff like this all the time. It is extremely hard to deal with stuff like this while it's happening after a mob of people have already showed up to do what they are used to doing. They should have been well aware, well before the game that there was a change.

 

I've read it a few times, I'm not sure what was acknowledged as the mistake. Is the message here that the problem was only in not notifying the students that they were losing lower-level seats for a conference game against a highly ranked Tennessee team? Or is the message here that they should not have given the lower-level seats away for a conference game? What is a reasonable expectation going forward? "Hey students, just want to give you plenty of notice, you won't have as many lower-level seats for the (insert SEC opener) game to start the new year!"

Now, all that said. I find it extremely interesting that he didn't make any references to "Exactech Arena" - can we be officially done with that nonsense now?

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Tennessee is arguably our 2nd biggest rival in hoops and were ranked #12 in the preseason; they were easily projected to be our biggest home game of the season.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS