Spring Break
Basketball Ticket Lottery Fails Students
Pratistha Koirala
Issue date: 10/12/07 Section: Commentary
BB Tix sux: that was a message sent to the InstantDaily shortly after the 'winners' of the ticket lottery were announced. I am in a general consensus with the many students who sent in similar messages. BB Tix reminds me of other technical systems at UConn, such as ResLife, Peoplesoft, and most notoriously - Huskymail. What do these three things and BB Tix have in common - they are all awful. Not only is the system itself full of technical flaws, it does nothing short of kill tradition while keeping some of the most dedicated fans from the games.
The first issue with "BB Tix" is the method by which it was implemented. A Huskymail message was sent to all UConn addresses via the username "BB Tix". I received the email a week after the lottery winners were announced. Luckily, I knew about the lottery though a friend who had actually received the e-mail. Despite not getting an e-mail I tried very hard to register for tickets anyway. Unfortunately I could not find a way to do so - if there was a clear link on either students.uconn.edu or uconnhuskies.com, I missed it.
Finally, a week after the lottery was announced, I got an email in my inbox from BB Tix. I was very worried about opening it because Huskymail had tagged it as "high spam." If the e-mail had come from an official UConn e-mail address I probably would not have worried too much about opening it. Unfortunately "BB Tix" does not sound official. I decided to open the e-mail solely because I had heard so many people complaining about it and therefore had a general idea of what it was. I clicked the link and found that I couldn't read the message because the image had been removed for "security reasons." I finally just gave up and resigned to my fate of watching the games on TV and not in person.
For me, not getting tickets is disappointing, but at the same time it is not too much of a big deal. I truly feel bad for the students who bleed blue and white, who are willing to camp out for days for their tickets. They will endure the elements just to get front row seats, this time, they didn't get tickets. These students deserve tickets to all the games. The students who won tickets but can't even name a single basketball player don't deserve tickets. The students who entered the lottery just so they could get tickets to sell at in inflated price should be ashamed of themselves. Getting tickets for the sole reason of selling them for five times what you paid kills school spirit - you might as well put a muzzle on Jonathan the Husky.
The first issue with "BB Tix" is the method by which it was implemented. A Huskymail message was sent to all UConn addresses via the username "BB Tix". I received the email a week after the lottery winners were announced. Luckily, I knew about the lottery though a friend who had actually received the e-mail. Despite not getting an e-mail I tried very hard to register for tickets anyway. Unfortunately I could not find a way to do so - if there was a clear link on either students.uconn.edu or uconnhuskies.com, I missed it.
Finally, a week after the lottery was announced, I got an email in my inbox from BB Tix. I was very worried about opening it because Huskymail had tagged it as "high spam." If the e-mail had come from an official UConn e-mail address I probably would not have worried too much about opening it. Unfortunately "BB Tix" does not sound official. I decided to open the e-mail solely because I had heard so many people complaining about it and therefore had a general idea of what it was. I clicked the link and found that I couldn't read the message because the image had been removed for "security reasons." I finally just gave up and resigned to my fate of watching the games on TV and not in person.
For me, not getting tickets is disappointing, but at the same time it is not too much of a big deal. I truly feel bad for the students who bleed blue and white, who are willing to camp out for days for their tickets. They will endure the elements just to get front row seats, this time, they didn't get tickets. These students deserve tickets to all the games. The students who won tickets but can't even name a single basketball player don't deserve tickets. The students who entered the lottery just so they could get tickets to sell at in inflated price should be ashamed of themselves. Getting tickets for the sole reason of selling them for five times what you paid kills school spirit - you might as well put a muzzle on Jonathan the Husky.
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 4
uconn
posted 10/12/07 @ 11:53 AM EST
Am I the only one to find this ironic--the author is in her 3rd semester, meaning at most she is a sophomore. The camping out scenario was stopped while she was in high school, so I am not sure how she can talk about camping out like she was there. (Continued…)
Bill Reardon
posted 10/13/07 @ 5:16 AM EST
A fundamental problem @ UCONN Gampel as well as at the Civic Center is the proportianally small number of tickets available for students, versus the number of tickets available for the "Dork" crowd (read as corporate, alums, little children, etc. (Continued…)
Karen Grudzinski
posted 10/13/07 @ 3:47 PM EST
I am in my 9th (!!!) semester at UConn and have NEVER been to a basketball game. Granted that does not make me as dedicated a fan as some of the devoted fans who go out of their way for UConn basketball. (Continued…)
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