Ohio State basketball tickets sell out quickly, students angered

Student tickets for the 2011-12 Ohio State basketball season sold out in just 45 minutes Saturday leaving many students who didn't beat the rush upset and disappointed.

According to a press release from OSU's assistant athletics director for communications, Dan Wallenberg, the allotment of approximately 1,400 student ticket packages went on sale at 10 a.m. and were gone within the hour.

With OSU's recent success on the hardwood, the demand for the student tickets, which included tickets for games against No. 6 Duke and No. 10 Florida, was higher than in recent years and many students who missed out on tickets were upset.

"I was just really disappointed because I'm a huge college basketball fan," said Nick Larbes, a fourth-year in psychology. "Basketball tickets were definitely the one thing I was looking forward to this year."

For Kaleigh Patrick, a fifth-year in financial planning, not getting basketball tickets brought tears to her eyes.

"I had my mom and like ten other friends on trying to get me tickets and by the time all of them were logged on, the tickets were already sold out," Patrick said. "I actually cried."

After the tickets sold out Saturday, a small group of students gathered outside the Schottenstein Center with signs protesting the lack of tickets available to the student body.

An online petition addressed to the athletic department entitled "The Ohio State University Athletic Department: Increase the number of men's basketball season tickets for students," was created on the site www.change.org. By Sunday evening, the petition had more than 1,100 signatures.

In response to the demand, the OSU Athletic Department said more tickets will be made available for students in the Terrace Level.

"Based on demand, additional seats in the Terrace Level of the arena will be made available for student season tickets," the press release said. "Students on the waiting list will be contacted by the Ohio State Athletics Ticket Office next week and offered these reserved Terrace Level seats."

In an email to The Lantern on Sunday, Wallenberg declined to comment further on the details of the expanded ticket packages and any other future plans regarding student basketball tickets.

Tim Collins, president of Block "O," said he thinks the athletic department has done all they can.

"We're pretty happy with the result of the situation," Collins said. "I think that the students' voices were heard by athletics. What (the athletic department) did is they opened up the Terrace Level student ticket package.

"They just can't magically open up more seats and things like that, but what they can do is what they did do and they were pretty swift about doing that."

Collins said he expects the athletic department to look at expanding the number of student ticket packages in the future, but in order for that to happen, the level of interest in OSU basketball would have to remain high.

"What we have to make sure we're considering is that this isn't just a trend," Collins said. "And that it's actually something that students consistently want more tickets and will buy the tickets and will therefore attend the game."

OSU begins the regular season Nov. 11 against Wright State at the Schottenstein Center.