UCLA creates point system for renovated Pauley

[Bay99]

Seating at the renovated Pauley Pavilion (2012-13) tied to current and future donations:

"The university unveiled a plan Tuesday that ranks ticket holders, giving credit to alumni, loyal season-ticket holders and, most of all, donors who help pay for the $185-million renovation."

www.latimes.com/sports/college/basketball/la-sp-ucla-pauley-pavilion1-2009jul01,0,7096357.story

(Bold font mine. Something the HHC should consider if/when on-campus plans ever shape up, especially as a way to court members/prospective members who live outside the DC area.)

[jerseyhoya34]

Great find, Bay.

I think such an effort would provide great benefit to the entire Georgetown community. The fact that many colleges/universities, including many in major cities, have successfully undertaken renovations of basketball facilities shows that it can be done and might not be hard to do at Georgetown if we get past the premature "it is too difficult" excuses.

The issue of effort comes up in the context of GU's approach to athletics facilities. A quick search of the GUHoyas.com home page shows that you cannot find a single ad regarding hot button projects. If you want information about projects, you have to select the "Facilities" option under the Facilities menu - hardly an obvious selection for a casual reader of the page.

You can also find the MSFacility if you scroll under the coaches' bios on the Football page (and lacrosse) and happen to know intuitively that you would find information about donating under the "Multi Sport Facility" page rather than the "Multi Sport Field" page. This weird distinction raises the question of how the two are different right now since a good part of the current MSF is intended to be replaced according to the MSF design. Perhaps this is why the MSField page only includes 3 sentences of description.

In the case of the Boathouse, the initial rollout/petition efforts represented the best of what Georgetown can do with a project of its size. The Boathouse project website does not appear to have been updated recently, leaving me to question its status. Is it a hold-up with the Feds or a GU effort problem?

One other bone to pick - In all events, there is simply no option to donate online to facilities development.

[hifigator]

You can take it from me on this field. Florida has very recently "improved" their system which functions very similarly. In the past several years, there has been a lot of talk of a new multi-purpose venue. The O'Dome was really nice when it first opened -- 1979 -- but by today's standards isn't even "average." As far as the venue itself, the acoustics have always been terrible. It has been difficult to draw big name concerts because the sound is so sub-standard. Additionally, because the sound is below par, I think ticket sales fall short of expectations. It only holds about 12,250 for basketball, and even less for concerts. The point is simply that after we won back to back titles, there was a lot of interest in a newer and larger arena. And for the first time, because requests for season tickets exceeded supply, they employed a similar hierarchy, using how long someone has been a season ticket holder as well as their level of "commitment." We have had a similar formula for football for a long time, but 90,000 is a far cry from 12,000. They raised single game ticket prices to $20 for basketball. It wasn't that long ago that they were $8. It went to $10, then $12 and now all the way to $20. Additionally, there were required booster commitments to even qualify for tickets. Now I have nothing against the free market, but the bottom line is that a lot of normal people got priced out of anything but the early season scrub games. There weren't any single game tickets available for conference games or for marquee games like Ohio St. or FSU. I guess my point is simply to be carefule what you wish for. If you can get tickets to the MCI if you want to go, without paying through the nose, then I would count my blessings.

Now that we have fallen on harder times the past two seasons, combined with the weaker economy, all talk of a new arena has been put on the back burner for a while. Additionally, the renewal for ticket sales has been slow to come. I'm sure there are some "fair weather" fans, who simply lose interest a bit when the team isn't doing as well, but a lot of the apathy came about from their implementation of that booster points system which really turned a lot of people off.

I kid you not: there is a professor in Accounting called Chuck McDonald and he has been with the University for some 20 plus years and is highly thought of in his field. The students think he's a d!ck, but that's a different story. He's a tough teacher. In any case, he didn't qualify for season tickets for basketball 2 years ago, when they first implemented the system. He also didn't qualify for SEC title tickets for Football, but that is largely due to the increased demand. Still, the point is he has quite a resume' to not qualify. He's been a season ticket holder, I think since he got here. This UCLA system sounds like more of the same, but in advance. Like I said, be careful what you wish for.

Incidentally, the UAA in response to complaints adjusted their point allotment last season which rewarded seniority a lot more and the complaints seem to have lessened a lot. Basically what happened was that too much weight was placed on new money. You could essentially "BUY" someone else's tickets and they get screwed. Like I said, I understand the need for money and I understand the free market, but sometimes anything can get taken too far. Can't it?