Purple Haize wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 11:16 am
Regardless. Bad idea and for the same reasons (free student tickets).
This, in spades. A lot of schools offer free* student tickets, hoping to increase attendance, and it has the opposite effect. My son considered North Texas (scholarship offer didn't quite cover all expenses), and they tout their free student tickets. Their attendance is abysmal, and it's embarrassing to die-hard fans. He ended up going to Northern Arizona his freshman year before his mission (full-ride, but FCS), and students get in free to all sports. They also have horrible student attendance.
This is not just a couple of anomalies; there is an inversely-proportionate relationship between "free" tickets and attendance. As has been pointed out in this thread, anything given for "free" isn't valued. It reminds me of a class I took at ASU (post-baccalaureate, seminar). It fit the time slot I needed, but it was one of those classes where you don't know the topic beforehand. It turned out to be a semester of women's suffrage. Along with the "usual and customary" liberal clap-trap, I once mused that it would be interesting to see research on voter participation compared to enfranchisement. My liberal professor surprised me when she said that research had already been done, and that I was exactly right. Voter participation was never higher than when only white, land-owning males could vote. Contrary to conventional wisdom, each successive wave of widening the franchise led to
less proportionate voter participation, not more (black males, women, anyone over 18, etc.). While nobody (including myself) was arguing that these groups** should not have been given the vote, it was interesting to me that the intensity of value placed in voting depends on how "precious" or "special" it is. I think measures over the last 20 years have only borne this out more: the easier you make it to vote (automatic registration with vehicle registration, mail-in ballots, etc.), the lower out proportionate voter participation is. This seems completely counter-intuitive to progressives, but I think the principles of investment and value apply.***
*"Free" student tickets actually aren't free. They are paid for in the omnibus list of student "fees" ($250 "athletic fee," or its equivalent). I think even a Pac12 school like ASU now does "free" student tickets, too, but I guarantee they're billed for them in their fees. We'll see how the student section appears at the BYU game this year . . .
All students are charged this fee, but of course, most don't go to the games.
**Well, other than 18 year-olds. I still think that the voting age should be 21. It was a political ploy during the Vietnam War. Yes, "if they're old enough to die, they're old enough to vote," but it was a cynical move that favors the Democratic Party. Probably more so in 2020, with 18-25 year-olds and their voting and political ideas.
***I think the same absolutely applies to tickets. Tickets given away like nothing aren't valued, and it communicates subtly that they aren't of worth or valuable. The trick is to create a product that is truly valued, so that students want to buy tickets, go to games, and be part of it. I remember the excitement of buying my season football and basketball tickets, and seeing what the lottery assigned you for what game (my Notre Dame tickets were on the 50 yard line! Others were randomly in the end zone, on the 20-30, etc.). I bought two basketball season tickets for dates, and then two football as well when I got married.
I also can't reconcile high percentages of voter participation in Europe compared to the US's anemic voter turnout. I'm not sure why Europe has such high percentages. I'm glad that only those motivated to vote do, but it's interesting to compare other countries to the US. I do think our attempts to make it more and more easy to vote depress overall participation.