LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Many season ticket holders at the University of Nebraska softball games will not sit in their regular seats for this weekend’s regional tournament.
For the past three years, Tamera, Larry and hundreds of other season ticket holders have attended nearly every Husker softball home game at Bowlin Stadium.
“We come to our little number 11, of course I have to watch the number its 7 and 8. We love our seats,” Tamera said.
The fans have attended games in rain, snow and bitter cold.
“You come with your blankets, multiple blankets, anything to stay warm. But we were here, it doesn’t matter we are still going to support them,” Tamera said.
Donor status determines seating
For this weekend’s regional, the university allocated seats based on donor status. The more money given to Husker Athletics, the better priority for buying tickets. This process left dozens of season ticket holders in a lower tier, losing their reserved seats and getting pushed to general admission, if they were able to get seats at all.
“It feels like (expletive), are you kidding me? It’s horrible,” Tamera said.
Tyler Kai, head of revenue generation for the athletic department, said the system provides equal opportunity.
“This tiered on sale is the most equitable way we can think of allowing every fan an equal opportunity to be able to get into the venue,” Kai said.
“Every season ticket holder had the opportunity to purchase tickets, we had about a thousand tickets left that we were able to offer to the public,” he said.
Kai said the NCAA requires 350 tickets be set aside for road teams traveling to Lincoln this weekend.
Season ticket holders said that is not the main issue.
“I don’t feel like any of us feel like people listen, no loyalty whatsoever to the ticket holders,” Tamera said. “That’s where season ticket holders loyalty gets you. Yeah, hope for a bleacher.”
Tamera said taking advantage of her loyalty is a slap in the face. She questions whether or not to continue showing loyalty if the athletic department won’t do the same.
“We’re here. And they don’t care, good luck getting a seat in the bleachers,” she said.
Tamera and Larry will move to general admission for the regional.
“It would be tough for us to sit in that grass for so long. Pull up a blade of grass, let’s enjoy that for four hours,” Tamera said.
Tamera and Larry both said they are looking forward to the Huskers hosting a regional at Bowlin Stadium and will continue to support if there is a Super Regional. Ultimately, the pair said they just want to be treated with respect.
Kai said he will continue looking at other possible solutions moving forward but plans on keeping the same process if the Huskers host a super regional.
Many season ticket holders reached out to 10/11 expressing their frustration and demanding answers. 10/11 evening anchor Nathan Brennan asked those questions to Tyler Kai during a one-on-one interview. You can see those full questions and answers below:
I’ve heard from a few fans that have said specifically that they’ve had season tickets for maybe a decade, they’ve been to games in snow, they’ve been to games in freezing weather, and then they’ve been told that they aren’t in the top tier, so they weren’t able to get maybe reserved seating, possibly older adults running into this situation. What would be your message to those season ticket holders?
Yeah, I certainly feel for you. I do. I feel for you. And I think that’s where we’re trying to find some creative solutions in the future to add more of those reserved seats. We certainly don’t want people to feel as if they can’t come to the venue because they’re not able to come to the venue. And when we added that capacity, I think that the biggest opportunity for an enhancement to that capacity is trying to find more ways to get reserved seats into the building. But I certainly empathize. I do. I wish that we had more reserved seats we could offer everybody because that is obviously the most comfortable seating solution we can provide. Chair backs, cup holders. I mean, we hear it all the time in Memorial Stadium too, right? Sitting on a bleacher seat is not very comfortable. People want a chair back, cup holder to be able to set their drink down or some of their food down. So those are hopefully enhancements will come. But yeah, understand the frustration because of that inventory being so limited in reserved seating.
Also something that’s been told to me is that the athletic department might be prioritizing money over loyalty. What is your message to someone who feels that way?
I think that our opinion is we have very generous donors to the athletics department. We think it is our ability and right to make sure that we reciprocate that generosity to them and grant access to people that are really highly invested in us. Because we have over 17,000 Huskers Athletic Fund members that give. And several of those people do give to the softball and baseball excellence funds and are really passionate about that. I’m sure people have seen the news. We’re trying to make an enhancement to both of those clubhouses, right? That comes from donor support. We have a lot of donors that want to help with that project. And so we do certainly pay attention to the needs of our donors and the interests of our donors. So it is again, trying to find this delicate balance. I certainly don’t want anyone to think that just because you’re not a donor, you don’t have loyalty. But I also at the same time, I don’t want us to pit donors and people that are not donors against each other. That’s not the point of this as well, which is again, why we try to find a way to put those folks that are not donating, but are giving their hard earned money as a season ticket holder to get access prior to those. But the vast majority of people that got tickets in this process were season ticket holders and donors, right? So I think that we still believe that the process in which we went through this allowed for both groups to be accommodated as best as we possibly can. And so it’s critically important that we do pay attention to the needs of those donors.
I think maybe the dark side that we’ve seen in this too, right when those tickets came on sale to maybe that top tier or that second tier donor, they immediately show up on secondary marketplace. That’d be SeatGeek, StubHub, something like that. Is there a way to prevent this or is this just kind of the reality of how tickets are sold these days?
Yeah, it’s a great question. And truthfully, we enacted a ticket broker policy a little over a year ago. Secondary ticket activity is increasing not only at Nebraska, everywhere, right? I think it’s a very comfortable way for people to be able to purchase tickets if they don’t want to buy directly from us. So we enacted this ticket broker policy and basically what this is able to do is identify bad actors. I don’t think it’s right. Troy Dannen doesn’t think it’s right. None of us think it’s right that somebody would purchase regional tickets with the sole purpose of reselling those tickets. That is not the intent of us doing this tiered on sale. And in fact, that’s not even the intent of a season ticket holder. If somebody is going to buy tickets as a season ticket holder, but they know they can’t make it to the regional, I also don’t want them to buy tickets, right? So we monitor that activity. We came out with obviously a pretty harsh penalty here, right? If you’re deemed as a ticket broker in this postseason process, should we advance to the super regional, which we plan on doing, you will not have the opportunity to purchase tickets there. We’ve identified a handful of people already. We’re working through the communication plan to let those folks know that they will not be eligible to request tickets for the super regionals. We’ll continue to monitor that activity through the entire weekend to make sure.
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