631 students receive tickets

Approximately 12,240 students applied for SEC Championship tickets over the course of two days at Coleman Coliseum, said Doug Walker, director of media relations for UA athletics. Of those students, only 631 were qualified to buy tickets.

Walker said the 12 percent of 15,900 tickets given by the SEC will still round out to the student allocation of 1,908 tickets because students have the opportunity to buy two tickets for the game. If each student that qualified reserves two tickets, 1,262 seats will be occupied.

Members of the Million Dollar Band are also included in the allocation, Walker said. Band members will receive 550 tickets, which include space for sound equipment and large instruments.

The tickets allocated for students added to the Million Dollar Band seats add up to 1,812 tickets.

Walker said the SEC championship was no light matter and the University took into account many possible ways of distribution, in addition to collaborating with various groups into the planning process, such as the SGA and the Intercollegiate Athletic Committee.
“A lot of groups had to be served in the process,” Walker said.

Walker maintained that the University was able to acquire the highest ticket allocation for students in the SEC. Other schools, such as the University of Georgia, University of Florida, University of Tennessee and LSU, have allocated only 10 percent of their tickets to students in the past, Walker said.

Seventy-three percent of the allocated tickets will go to TIDE PRIDE members, Walker said, and 2,600 tickets will go towards internal use, which includes the UA Board of Trustees, UA staff and faculty members and family members of athletes. Faculty members received five percent of the tickets, rounding out to 795.

SGA President Cason Kirby said the SGA began discussing the system with the UA Athletic Department last week and felt that the current system was the best way to distribute tickets. Kirby praised the University for being able to allocate 12 percent of the tickets solely to the students, as opposed to other schools who allocated only 10 percent, saying the students were the main people considered for these tickets.

“I know that if fans had the opportunity, we could fill up all the seats [in the Georgia Dome],” Kirby said. There are 71,250 seats in the Georgia Dome.

Kirby said no one in the executive branch of the SGA received tickets, though everyone in the branch had applied for tickets.

Kirby said in the past, tickets for special athletic events were distributed on a first come, first served basis, which proved to be chaotic and unsafe. With the credit hour system, Kirby said, the ticket process can run more smoothly.

“This was done in a fair way, but we can learn some lessons for how to go about this in the future,” Kirby said.

Tickets will be $35 each for those who are qualified to buy them.