In a few short days, the long-anticipated men’s basketball season will tip off at the Verizon Center when the Hoyas face off against Jacksonville. Thousands of students will be pouring out of Georgetown and into the streets of D.C. But this year’s trek to Verizon Center will be more expensive because Metro tickets are no longer a part of the season ticket package.
Despite imposing a significant fee-hike on season tickets this year, the athletic department decided not to give students Metro passes as they have for the last two years (previously they gave students Metro passes, they offered free shuttle busses directly from campus to the Verizon Center).
According to Mex Carey, director of Sports Information, Metro passes were included with the season ticket package in the past in order to boost attendance.
This is an admirable goal, especially because, as JT III pointed out during Midnight Madness, our strong attendance of games helped our men’s team to stay undefeated at home last year. And clearly, the plan worked.
This year, about 3,500 student season tickets have been sold, compared with about 2,000 sold during the 2006-2007 season. Carey explained that figuring out how to get 3,500 students to the Verizon center is “a good problem to have, but with that good problem comes other financial decisions that have to be made and in the world we live in, sometimes there are difficult financial decisions to be made.”
It seems strange however, to implement a program to increase participation at the men’s basketball games and then shut it back down right when the program starts to work. That the athletic department gave out the Metro cards in the past shows that they think it’s important that students be able to go to the games, and that they want as many students as possible to attend. But then, when more students are attending, due in part to the ease of transportation, to stop facilitating their transport seems illogical.
If the need to cut costs was so great, we can’t help but wonder why the athletic department didn’t inform the students in an e-mail or through some other means.
Waiting until students pick up their tickets to have them find out that there won’t be metro tickets included – as students would probably assume there would be this year – is a policy that seems misleading.
We think this change is unfair to students. Given the current economic situation, it’s likely that every department on campus will look to cut costs this year. But increasing the price of season tickets and decreasing their value by not including Metro passes is an unfair way to go about it.
Georgetown is the fourth most expensive school in the country, and we are not all trust fund heirs. Some of us count our pennies. We were surprised to see such a significant price hike on our season tickets this year, and we are frustrated to find out that we are getting less for our money.
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