Season guest passes were an option up until this year. This year they decided not to offer that option. I originally assumed it was so they could sell more sports passes, but that was not the case. The have around 37,000 sports passes available and those have sold out the last few years. They also allowed about 2000 season guest passes that could be added to the sports pass. These were the same price as a regular full priced season pass, they just were in the student section and pulled when the sports pass pulled. So, they were not really in the allocation of student tickets as far as discounted tickets go, they were additional. This guaranteed 39,000 tickets, assuming they were all pulled. Because there are so many students that have sports passes and don't go to all the games, they oversell the passes so they don't end up with empty seats for 'lesser' games and they can make more sports passes available. For most games this is fine. For the big games, most of the tickets get pulled so that ends up with some getting pushed to SRO. If for any of the games the full 39,000 aren't pulled, they will sell them as walk-up student tickets and/or guest passes on Friday. Since almost all of the tickets for big games get pulled in the regular pull, this is why there usually weren't any single game guest passes for sale for those games. However, there still were 2000 guest tickets sold, they just were already presold as guest season passes and not as single game guess passes available at pull.
Whether guest tickets are available or not, there are 37,000 student tickets issued. If they didn't sell those 2000 as guest passes, they would just sell them as regular priced single game or season tickets to the general public as tickets in the top of the end zones where students normally get overflowed. So, since they are already counted as full priced tickets in the total stadium allocation, they don't really displace students into SRO or take discounted tickets away from students, although they can and do displace upperclassmen into the 3rd deck instead of the 1st or 2nd deck, especially for big games.
Large group pull is for 11+ and can all be pulled by one person I believe, and classification is not a factor. So, for example, a freshman can bring 40 freshman sports passes and pull 40 tickets (or 400) together on the first day. These groups are not eligible to purchase additional guest passes, although they could convert all 40 regular student tickets to guest passes if they want. But they can't pull any more tickets than they have sports passes. At least that is the published policy. These groups automatically end up in section 341 or whatever section it is in the south end zone 3rd level closest to the student stands. But this is better than SRO. And after getting stuck with SRO a few times where they couldn't find a spot to stand a watch, the fish have gotten smart and figured out if they just pull together as a large group on day one, they don't end up with SRO. So now tons of underclassmen are doing this, so then this results in juniors ending up with SRO while fish get 'seats'. Also, students have created entire businesses where they advertise that if you pay them anywhere from $30 to $200 they will pull your ticket for you or get you a guest pass. So, this results in even more underclassmen tickets being pulled on the first day. This is how you end up with 85% of the tickets being pulled on day one. Through only 12 ticket windows. IMO, this is the biggest policy that has to change. If they are going to have the ability for large groups to pull regardless of classification, it needs to not be on the first day, and maybe not at all for prime games.
For regular pull, groups must be 10 or less and half of the sports passes must be for that day's classification or higher. So, on day one, five seniors can pull for five underclassmen or they can purchase five full priced guest passes, or any combination. Guest passes count as freshmen, so there just needs to be a senior sports pass for every guest pass or underclassman sports pass. So, the maximum number of guest passes a regular group can buy is five, but again, any pulled student ticket can be converted to a guest pass. If a large group pulls in the regular pull, they can only pull ten tickets at a time, HOWEVER, they can all camp out and pull in groups of ten. OR, they can send a few people to sit in line and then before the windows open bring a bunch more to come up and basically cut in line, facilitated by the people they already have in line. Or, they just come in the middle of the night and cut the line or shove their way to the front. There isn't any security there to stop that, so it's basically a free for all. That's basically what's been happening from what I have been hearing. So, 40 people can bring 200 sports passes and pull 200 student tickets and buy 200 guest passes, all in groups of 10. And lots of people saying the frats are coming at the last minute and cutting the line. Don't know if that's true, but it's been a very common complaint.
I don't know their reasoning behind changing season guest passes to single game guest passes, but that has definitely caused some ill will and incentive to cheat, even if it didn't actually result in fewer students getting tickets. They really don't need to be selling guest passes on day one for big games. Those prime seats should go to students. If you want a guest pass it's SRO. Other than that, and unlimited large group pulls on day one, the process isn't really that flawed, it's the actual implementation that's flawed since the students are left to fend for themselves as far as a fair line process.
One negative about an online seniority or points-based system is that it creates the incentive for people to pull tickets they aren't actually going to use, or to possibly go scan into a baseball or basketball game and not stay, which potentially has tickets that are allocated but not used. In a system where there are more students than availability that might not be the best thing. People aren't going to make the effort to go pull a ticket they don't need, but if it's as easy as doing it online that may end up being what happens. The 12th Man and Athletic Dept don't just want to sell all the seats, they want to fill them. They can implement penalties for pulling a ticket and not using it, but there are easy ways to get around that. And an electronic ticket that can be sent through mobile transfer may have an even higher probability of being scalped since there is no in-person meeting required. Make them non-transferable and then someone who has something come up and can't go won't be ablet to just transfer it to another student to use.
One thing they maybe should consider is no longer selling sports passes to students attending Blinn or a system school through the RELLIS campus (not talking about Blinn Team who are A&M students). So only A&M students would be eligible to purchase sports passes, or at least non-A&M students can't purchase until August 1st or something like that. I think we are beyond the point where the sports passes aren't going to sell out anymore.
I don't know, the biggest problem may just be that there are too many Aggies that are thinking more about themselves and not what it means to be an Aggie.
