The following is an opinion article and opinion articles do not reflect the views of The Tulane Hullabaloo.

The process of securing student tickets was fraught with outrageous competition, long lines and logistical issues, causing students to forego both sleep and class, an annoyance that could have been avoided by better planning on the part of the university. Ticket sales started at 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 25. The Tulane Athletics Ticket Center later released an additional 500 tickets after the original student allotment sold out in less than two days. On Aug. 28, students lined up as early as 4 a.m. at the Wilson Athletics Center to claim the remaining 500 seats. 

Students shouldn’t have been forced to line up so early for tickets to the opening game. Rows of seats were left unfilled, even though the student section was reportedly sold out. 

Yulman’s student section consists of 4,354 of the stadium’s 30,000 seats. Tulane has a student population of almost 13,500 students, including both graduate and undergraduate students. It would be ridiculous to expect every student to attend the game, but building a stadium where only a third of students are accommodated is not acceptable.

There were major issues with getting into the stadium on gameday for students with tickets, let alone those without. The publicized rule that all student tickets would be invalid 15 minutes before kickoff, thus allowing students who had not secured tickets to enter was disregarded. Students lined up 15 minutes before kickoff and were turned away, even though this rule had been heavily advertised by Tulane Athletics, the Undergraduate Student Government and in a campus-wide email from the administration. 

Security turned students away from the entrance gate toward other gates while people at other gates told students to return to the student entrance. Hundreds of students were left outside the stadium when there were plenty of seats available. Even more upsetting, section 131 of the student section remained completely empty during kickoff. Proper communication between event coordinators would have solved most of these issues, and more students could have been accommodated at the game.  

The size of the current student section will most likely be sufficient for later games, but it is indisputable that communication between students and the athletics department must be improved. Once every student is accommodated Tulane can truly say this $73 million stadium was worth every penny. 

Rachel Schor is a freshman in the Newcomb-Tulane College. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].