By Foster Nicholas | Sports Writer
While the Foster Pavilion has been a necessary and welcoming new fan experience for Baylor’s basketball programs, finding a seat has been a chore for students. From a lack of abundance to a hard-to-navigate process to get in the door, students feel the process is more than they bargained for.
Downsizing from 10,347 seats to just 7,500 midseason, students understood that the inaugural season at the Foster Pavilion would be a tough ticket to land, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to get in the door.
“The problem with getting tickets is that there aren’t enough seats,” Houston freshman Lillian Featherstone said. “Also, the website takes a long time to load, so you can be waiting in line for a while just to see that it’s sold out.”
After the transition from the Ferrell Center to the Foster Pavilion, Baylor Athletics changed its student ticket policy for men’s basketball games to mirror football games; students have to wait in a virtual line and are selected for tickets in a raffle-style system.
Before the change, student tickets would sell out instantly, and the only way in would be with the purchase of a standing-room-only ticket. While Baylor is attempting to incorporate as many students as possible by opening up standing-room-only tickets for them, the effort is falling flat, as there are still not enough to go around.
“I wish we had another way to get the tickets because the [website] basically doesn’t work, and it shuts down every Monday at 4 [p.m.] because of the quantity of people trying to get the tickets,” Tampas, Mexico, freshman Daniella Rivera said.
Rivera’s frustration, as well as that of other on-campus residents, has also stemmed from poor Baylor Wi-Fi that affects their efforts to get tickets, even when hopping on the website more than 10 minutes before the big raffle. In addition, an unfortunately timed academic calendar hasn’t helped students’ attendance.
“I’m really upset about the big games happening in spring break,” Rivera said. “I have to leave home, and as a really huge fan of basketball, I wish the good games would’ve been before or after the break.”
Some students have been unwilling to fork over cash to buy their way into the stadium, especially when regular student tickets are free as part of tuition. But with a good basketball team and a solid market, the first-come, first-served ticket dilemma even created a secondary market for the lucky few who do scoop up a ticket. Some of the raffle winners have had no intention of going to men’s basketball games and instead pawned off their tickets on Snapchat or Instagram.
With all the chaos going on, however, students have their own ideas of how to fix the process.
“I do wish that they would change the time the tickets are released, because 4 p.m. overlaps for a lot of other classes, work schedules and activities,” Featherstone said.
Both teams will be back in action this weekend. No. 15 Baylor men’s basketball will host No. 7 Kansas at noon on Saturday, and No. 21 Baylor women’s basketball will clash with Oklahoma State to close out the regular season at 11 a.m. on Sunday at the Foster Pavilion.
