To whom it may concern,
Sun Devil spirit is alive and well here at ASU, and this is apparent by how many students gather for each home game outside Wells Fargo Arena (Camp Fargo) anxiously awaiting a ticket for that week’s game. Students stake out a camp site days in advance, choosing to skip class for a ticket. Although I applaud these students' dedication to our school, I cannot help but see the many issues that this process encourages.
The University recently changed from optional students tickets to a mandatory student athletic fee of $150 per year. The reasoning that was told to the student body was that this would allow for us to attend any sanctioned athletic event as well as help pay for some new and improved student services. However since I, like many of the 80,000 students enrolled at ASU have a job, internship, and responsibilities to my education that do not allow for me to camp out, I am paying for services I do not use or need.
In previous years I was able to choose to purchase student tickets and go to games at my leisure. Now ASU offers no ASU student tickets for sale; however Maricopa Community College students are able to purchase at a discounted rate student section tickets to every home game in advance.
Do not think that I am writing this to simply complain about one instance where one student was not able to attend; I assure you I am not alone in feeling jaded about this process.
Here is my solution: if ASU wishes to continue charging each student an athletic fee of $150 then the ticketing process should be online. Simply have students login to their student accounts and make the link to download a ticket active at 9 a.m. game day. I have spoken to members of the Athletic Board who have stated that this solution was proposed spring 2014 and turned down without explaining why. ASU has the servers, the man power and the ability to fix this process, and yet they choose not to. After all, as long as we all paid, who cares about the students that are active in their education or career and cannot camp out for an entire week just to attend a game they paid for?
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Alexander G. Milliken
Nonprofit Leadership & Management undergraduate
School of Public Programs Downtown
