The Georgia-Georgia Tech game became one of the most monumental games in Sanford Stadium history, but only 9,451 students showed up out of the approximately 18,000 who bought tickets to come.
“When students don’t show up, it’s an embarrassment,” Ryan Scates, student representative to the Athletic Board, said. “The SEC prides itself on how many people show up.”
Scates said, on average, more than 6,000 student seats go unused at football games. Out of the 17,910 student tickets available, only 11,802 attended games on average since 2009, according to a previous article by The Red & Black.
“Just about every game, that’s the top of the stadium that’s generally empty,” he said. “It’s mainly the lower level and west end zone where most students sit.”
The Athletic Board isn’t cutting available student tickets, but rather available student seats. Instead of 17,910 seats available for students, only 15,856 seats will be open.
However, because the Athletic Board isn’t cutting tickets, student seats will be oversold by approximately 2,800. In the 2012 season, full-season tickets were awarded to 18,645 students, according to a previous article by The Red & Black.
That means if everyone who had tickets came to the game, about 2,800 wouldn’t have seats and overcrowding would become a serious security issue.
Silly Georgia: If there was a way to only get the best fans into the stadium without having to suffer any consequences or tolerate the busts for all three hours, Nick Saban would have already figured out how to do it. #theprocess
