Editorial: Football ticket prices assault the student-fans

After four seasons of mediocrity, UCLA football fans can now
proudly boast about a lot of rising numbers when they discuss this
year’s team: Drew Olson’s passing efficiency, rushing
yards gained, points scored per game and … student ticket
prices.

For UCLA’s game against Oklahoma on Sept. 17 ““ a
41-24 drubbing that vaulted UCLA into a top-25 spot in The
Associated Press’ ranking ““ student ticket prices were
increased to over three times their normal amount, from $8 to $25,
and the price of guest tickets increased from $32 to $50.

The UCLA community is very proud of its traditions, and its
sports teams are a vital part of that. After all, UCLA holds 97
NCAA titles, more than any other university in the country. But the
athletic department is doing its best to bury a winning practice
with a new one. And it’s called
“price-gouging.”

It’s not that increasing ticket prices for big games is
unheard of. UCLA-USC tickets have long been pricey, and in previous
years, tickets for football games deemed “premium” have
cost more.

But for those premium games, student tickets only cost $10, not
even close to the price of a UCLA-Oklahoma ticket.

Athletic department officials say they raised prices to push
more students to buy season ticket packages. That’s
ridiculous. Most students don’t have the money to spend on
packages, and they don’t always have the time to go to every
game.

Of course, the more pressing reason is that the department finds
itself in a budgetary hole this year. That’s unfortunate. But
it’s hardly fair to punish students for it.

Keeping student tickets for individual games cheap makes it
easier for the casual fan who can hop in the car and drive to the
Rose Bowl on a whim. (On the other hand, students might be less
inclined to hop on one of the Rose Bowl-bound buses provided by the
university, which now cost $2 and have to be signed up for in
advance.)

And the Central Ticket Office’s new practice of
electronically tagging the Bruin Card of those who buy a football
ticket package makes it impossible for several friends to split the
price of one among them ““ a popular and now sadly defunct
option that let students who couldn’t go to all the games in
a package still get their money’s worth.

It’s unclear whether ticket prices will climb to
unnaturally high levels again. Ironically, as the football and
basketball teams improve, so too does the likelihood that tickets
will get more costly.

Athletic department officials know students’ wallets have
already been ransacked by rising fees, the increasing cost of
living in Westwood and the price of gasoline. It would have been a
nice, conciliatory gesture if they had kept the price of tickets
for the UCLA-Oklahoma game low. After all, don’t we watch
sports for relief and catharsis, to take our minds off more
pressing ““ and expensive ““ problems?

Instead, they opted to send a different message to students: We
don’t respect your loyalty, and we’re going to take you
for what you’ve got.

If they truly wanted to help this institution, they would make
sports more accessible to the student body ““ not fleece
it.