Other than the game...

vapspwi said:
Having opposing fans in the stadium is always an unavoidable annoyance, especially for a team like us that struggles to fill the stadium. (Hell, up until this year, I've traveled to all but a small handful of our road games for the last 20+ years. I'm a visiting fan for half the season.)

That's not the situation this year, and it's not the situation I'm complaining about. Our capacity is reduced to 11K, and we sold nearly all of those tickets (minus some in the far corners and upper north) to people with AT priority - donors and long-time season ticket holders. The thing that's pissing me off is seeing dozens of UCF fans in my immediate vicinity sitting in better seats than I was able to get after 20+ years of season tickets and donations.

The majority of these UCF fans had to have bought their tickets on the secondary market from season ticket holders, and that's the behavior that I wish we could change (by carrot or by stick).

This isn't an issue of "we can't sell out our stadium" or "we need to court sidewalk fans" this year, and I'm frankly surprised that some folks here can't see the difference.

JRjr
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Fair enough. Yes, I hate it that so many Tech fans (I assume; I can't see a broker trying to make money off Tech tickets) sell their tickets to non-Tech fans and really good seats at that.
 
Walton said:
Fair enough. Yes, I hate it that so many Tech fans (I assume; I can't see a broker trying to make money off Tech tickets) sell their tickets to non-Tech fans and really good seats at that.
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Exactly. I'm sure there are some corporate seats (presumably in the Club area and similarly "preferable" areas) bought by companies that go to customers or employees. (My GF's company used to have Braves' season tickets for that purpose.)

A broker willing to play the long game (do those exist?) could presumably build up some priority and get some good seats and maybe turn a profit, but I'd bet that it's way more common for regular season ticket holders to flip tickets to whoever is willing to pay.

At some point, it starts to negatively impact the experience for the "good" fans. When I first started sitting in 127/128, it was a pretty solid Tech season ticket holder section. It's good to be among your own fans at home. But over time (from season ticket holders selling to visitors, and from some season ticket holders dropping out entirely), we're now close to 50/50 for games like U[sic]GA, and that's really ööööing frustrating. Hopefully this is something that winning (or winning with the right offense to satisfy some people) will fix. I want to get back to the days where the only U[sic]GA fans I had to see were in the corners and in the upper north.

JRjr
 
BigDanT said:
Why should they quit worrying? Maybe we are tired of the stadium looking great in a white our and ööööty when uga comes to town
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Because we can’t even sell out our own stadium; we aren’t in a position to be restrictive in who is coming in the gates
 
aeromech said:
We are "ATL" now, we should expect a more diverse crowd than just 'GT' fans. I don't know if it is bad thing or the way of the future; but Georgia Tech doesn't cater as hard to alumni as some other schools. It is not just football, you see it distinctly in admissions where being a legacy applicant doesn't buy you much. It may be a better model for GTAA to cater to corporate sponsors rather than alumni like it is for admissions to cater to the 'holistic approach' rather than alumni applicants.
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How can you expect support from the alumni base if you do not reward legacy applicants?
 
Sure I wish our own fanbase was stronger in the Atlanta area and attended more games, but that's also a double edged sword. I do get pissed seeing numerous opposing fans in our stadium, but that's another product of being in a large metropolitan area. You have graduates/fans from schools all over living in the melting pot of Atlanta. Many of whom probably don't get the chance to see their favorite team often, and will always jump on the opportunity when it's right here in town. You don't see opposing fans in other stadiums as much because for instance I don't think there are very many UCF or ND grads living it up in places like Athens.

Hell I saw a group of about 6 ND fans at the game Saturday. I would bet they are all local and bought GT season tickets just to be able to see ND play in Atlanta.
 
We’re located in a city that’s basically the hub of the SE. It’s one of the easiest and most attractive road trips for the majority of teams we play against - not to mention a lot of them don’t even have to travel as they already live in atl. We’re always going to have more problems with opposing fans in the stands than our peers.
 
I was able to attend the game with a friend's season tickets he wasn't using. They were in Section 131 (section above where the visiting band normally sits) on the top row.

Other than the game take-aways:
- I thought the new stadium paint job looked good. Everything seemed cleaner and more up to date as a result.
- New stadium lights have promise; will be cool to see them in full effect in a couple weeks
- Smoke/Fire entrance....I wonder if it's here to stay? I had a Miami fan inform me that GT copied that from them; I was surprised to find out they claim to have invented it...Fire will look cooler at night I think.
- Music seems to have turned techno heavy
- Commercial Redshirt Ref guy that comes out on the field has a digital clock that was at least new to me
- Liked the digital ticketing; worked great
- Liked not having to take anything out of my pockets or get patted down/wanded
- Hot mic issue was hilarious; clear as day you could hear Collins say the defense was jumping the snap cadence...
- Reffing overall seemed very slow to announce calls and ran the game slow
- Seemingly high number of official timeouts for injured players....tempo induced?
- Band could barely be heard at all and was frequently drowned out by music
- TD celebrations just don't seem the same without the onfield flags running around
- There must be hardly any students on campus; even with the band and cheerleaders taking up tons of room, lots of empty room in student sections
- I was asked by multiple UCF fans what Money Down is......they all looked at me like that was the dumbest thing they'd ever heard...lol
- First time seeing all the campus construction around the student center; didn't realized they had demolished lots of the student center
- Awesome weather that at times felt almost cold in shorts and t-shirt
 
Minor point on Alum admissions: the vast majority of schools give little weight to legacies anymore. I know plenty of UGA Alums that have switched allegiance because their son or daughter couldn't get into UGA. Tech gives no weight from everything I've heard. Legacies do get automatically accepted on transfer if they go to another school and do well for a year.

Now, large donor legacies are different. Seems this is a huge issue in the Ivy's because there are so many that it is crowding out most normal admissions.
 
Walton said:
Minor point on Alum admissions: the vast majority of schools give little weight to legacies anymore. I know plenty of UGA Alums that have switched allegiance because their son or daughter couldn't get into UGA. Tech gives no weight from everything I've heard. Legacies do get automatically accepted on transfer if they go to another school and do well for a year.

Now, large donor legacies are different. Seems this is a huge issue in the Ivy's because there are so many that it is crowding out most normal admissions.
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UGA did still have a legacy type program that made it easier from rural kids from around the state to get in. Like a quota from towns/counties. That was about 10 years ago. Otherwise their only instate students would be metro Atlanta.
 
savbandjacket said:
How do you reward legacy applicants without becoming involved in an Aunt Becky mess?
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It is pretty easy. The kid has to have the grades and test scores first. I am not talking about admitting a kid with an 24 ACT because a parent went to the school. I am talking about not admitting a kid with a 32+ ACT who's parent went to the school.
 
Walton said:
Minor point on Alum admissions: the vast majority of schools give little weight to legacies anymore. I know plenty of UGA Alums that have switched allegiance because their son or daughter couldn't get into UGA. Tech gives no weight from everything I've heard. Legacies do get automatically accepted on transfer if they go to another school and do well for a year.

Now, large donor legacies are different. Seems this is a huge issue in the Ivy's because there are so many that it is crowding out most normal admissions.
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I think they have to have the test scores first to get into that program. It puts kids in a position where they have to forfeit the academic scholarship they have at their school to transfer to GT as a sophomore. It is better than nothing I suppose; but it is a sucky program.
 
vapspwi said:
We’re now one of those teams that plays music so loud before the game that you can’t talk to the person next to you.
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It was like this throughout the game. I'm there to watch the game, but my wife and family and the people we bring want to talk. Need to take it down a notch occasionally so people can have a conversation now and then.
Band sounded quieter than usual. Dunno if they’re smaller or if it’s the way they’re spread out. Stadium PA played music or announcements over the band every time we scored.
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The disconnect between PA and band has been a problem for years. For the life of me I can't fathom the medical reason for keeping the band off the field at halftime. Care to offer an explanation, from one who seems generally more receptive to current public health policies to someone who is generally less receptive?
And I’ll say it again - too many UCF fans in the stands. Inexcusable. Something has got to be done, even if it does piss off some people. The AA needs to balance the feelings of the people left out of the stadium and the people sitting in the middle of opposing fans with the feelings of people who don’t care enough about the team to come to the game or not sell their tickets to the enemy.
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Obviously restricting re-sales to Tech fans would have a seriously negative effect on the value of re-sales. But more to the point, how is a ticket holder supposed to know if someone buying his tickets is a Tech fan or not? I mean, this site asks for the score of the Cumberland game. How do you propose to make such a restriction work?
 
18in32 said:
The disconnect between PA and band has been a problem for years. For the life of me I can't fathom the medical reason for keeping the band off the field at halftime. Care to offer an explanation, from one who seems generally more receptive to current public health policies to someone who is generally less receptive?

Obviously restricting re-sales to Tech fans would have a seriously negative effect on the value of re-sales. But more to the point, how is a ticket holder supposed to know if someone buying his tickets is a Tech fan or not? I mean, this site asks for the score of the Cumberland game. How do you propose to make such a restriction work?
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I wouldn't say that I'm "more receptive to current public health policies" so much as I'm just willing to go along with stuff because it's not worth fighting about. My best guess (having spent 0 time thinking about it) is that the field is covered in sweat, spit, blood, and who knows what else from the football players, and they want to avoid having people that don't HAVE to be in contact with that stuff going out and walking around in it. There doesn't seem to be any more risk from the band playing in the stands versus playing on the field otherwise, so that's my best guess.

I don't know how you restrict resales without invading privacy, making legit transactions more difficult, or butthurting fans that want to scalp their tickets. Here are some infeasible options:
  • Really encourage people to not sell their tickets to the enemy. Use positive reinforcement (somehow get credit for coming to games) or negative reinforcement (stigmatize selling to the enemy and encourage public shaming).
  • Offer AT credit for trade-ins (as we apparently used to do) so the GTAA can try to resell the tix to Tech fans.
  • Require the person who bought the tickets to use the tickets (I've been to concerts where I had to swipe the credit card I used to buy the tickets to enter as a scalper-defeating measure).
  • Use some image processing/machine learning surveillance techniques to see who's sitting in season ticket holder seats. (Easier this year with the distanced seating than in a normal year.) Maybe leverage the kind of verbiage I used to see on a lot of tickets that say that basically this ticket is a license that can be revoked - you don't own the ticket, we're just letting you use it, that sort of thing. If you find repeat offenders, revoke their tickets.
Like I said, this is all terribly infeasible and not fan-friendly (other than maybe some of the social engineering stuff), so I know that nothing will realistically be done about it.

JRjr
 
vapspwi said:
I wouldn't say that I'm "more receptive to current public health policies" so much as I'm just willing to go along with stuff because it's not worth fighting about.
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You said you were willing to wear a mask forever, which I am not, which is what prompted my comment. But thanks for your response and thoughts.
 
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