Article on LR subregional tickets

Agentdog · Mar 18, 2008

<div class="HTMLRoofTitle"> Not in this article but in another section of the paper today.......Memphis and State sold out yesterday. Texas expects to sell out as they have a number of reguest to fill. Austin Peay has sold 450. Oregon will put tickets on sale to general public if DAF doesn't buy all. The paper didn't give a timeframe. The paper mentions Texas-Arlington has not received their tickets yet. I called UT-Arlington yesterday trying to get tickets and got an elderly lady with no clue. <a href="http://www2.arkansasonline.com/news/2008/mar/18/finding-tickets-weekends-game-will-require-money-m/?sports/arkansas">

article</a>

NCAA TOURNAMENT Alltel Arena subregional </div> <div class="HTMLTitle"> Pricey, dicey pursuit </div> <div class="HTMLSubTitle"> Finding tickets for weekend's games will require money, moxie </div> <div class="HTMLByline"> BY DOUG CRISE AND JACOB QUINN SANDERS ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE </div> <div class="HTMLContent" style="OVERFLOW: auto"> 
 Tickets to this week's NCAA Tournament games at Alltel Arena have been sold out since last May, but there are still ways to get a ticket if you really want to go.
 Going online seems to be the best bet to purchase tickets, which hold a face value of $167 for all three sessions. Brokering Web sites like StubHub acquire tickets and sell them straight up or via auctions.
 Tickets for one or both of the Friday sessions were being offered late Monday for prices ranging from $111 to $550. Prices ranged from $150 to $765 for the Sunday session.
 "What people don't understand is that ticket brokers are just scalpers," said Tim Linville, director of sales and marketing at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City, which has hosted NCAA events. "Buy tickets through a reputable vendor."
 Approximately 6,800 tickets were made available to the public last March, and those tickets were doled out via a lottery process using the 7,000-plus applications received at Alltel Arena.
 Of the 16,008 available seats at Alltel Arena, 3,500 were set aside for UALR season ticket holders, with 5,708 going to the NCAA and 4,400 allocated for the eight competing schools.
 Each school receives 550 tickets, 350 of which the NCAA requires them to sell. That should be a cinch for programs like No. 1-seed Memphis, which has a large fan base and close proximity to North Little Rock working in its favor. The same can be said for secondseeded Texas.
 But the subregional also includes Texas-Arlington, a No. 16 seed, and 15th-seeded Austin Peay, two teams facing a oneand-out scenario, as well Oregon, Saint Mary's of California and Miami, whose fans will have to travel more than 1,000 miles to Little Rock, which could make selling tickets a little more difficult. 
 That means a few unused tickets may trickle back to Alltel Arena. Participating schools have until noon Thursday to get those tickets to the hosting box office, and Alltel Arena plans on keeping its normal box office hours of 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
 If there are unsold tickets waiting at the box office, they'll sell for the face value of $52.67 per ticket.
 But there's a catch, and an awfully large one at that.
 The NCAA doesn't require that schools funnel their unused tickets to the host arena, only that they sell all their allocated tickets. Which means nearby schools looking to feed a large fan base - in this case, Memphis and Texas - may intercept those tickets before they ever land in North Little Rock.
 "With the demand we have for those tickets here, if that can be done, we can do it," Memphis assistant sports information director Lamar Chance said. 
 If Memphis wants to scoop up some unused tickets for its first-round game, it would have to do so through Texas-Arlington, Mississippi State or Oregon - the three other teams playing in that session.
 More buying and selling could take place before the second-round games Sunday.
 "As soon as a team loses, you wait around and see if you can switch out any tickets," Chance said. "For the second day, it opens up a little."
 Taking a proactive approach might be the best bet for tickletless fans. Contact the schools directly, using their athletic department Web sites to locate contact information regarding tickets and do so as soon as possible.
 Beyond that, things get risky.
 Ticket scalpers will surely be well-represented outside Alltel Arena, and while the law affects sellers and not buyers, hazards still exist.
 The Arkansas law designed to curb scalping is simple and clear. Selling tickets above face value for school-related athletic events and music concerts is punishable by a fine between $25 and $500. Each sale or offer of a sale is a separate offense.
 As long as a ticket is offered for its face value, no crime is being committed. That means that single-session tickets must go for $52.67, double-session tickets for $105.34 and the complete package for $167.
 That also goes for online brokers.
 Attorney General Chief Deputy Justin Allen said his office would target online sellers whose inventory was significant, not one person selling a handful of tickets in front of Alltel Arena.
 "If we had the time and the money to go after them, we would, but we don't," he said.
 Which doesn't mean that no one will be watching.
 North Little Rock police said they will have uniformed and plainclothes officers hunting for people scalping tickets and selling bootleg merchandise unlicensed by the NCAA. Department spokesman Sgt. Terry Kuykendall said officers would likely confiscate tickets as evidence. 
 The NCAA would prefer that no tickets be resold, even at a loss.
 "One ticket to an event at Alltel costs $167," said David Worlock, NCAA associate director for the Division I men's basketball championship. "It's our hope that each ticket is bought and sold one time for that amount."
 But Worlock acknowledged that was unrealistic, as teams lose early and fans want to sell out and go home. He said the NCAA works with its ticket vendors to try and identify anyone scalping or counterfeiting tickets - behavior he said the NCAA punishes by denying those people the privilege of buying future tickets.
 But even though the legal risks affect scalpers, there's another threat looming.
 Counterfeit tickets sold both on the street and online are an ever-present threat, and the technology used to produce these fraudulent tickets continues to improve.
 UALR ticket manager J.P. Flynn said the NCAA has taken steps to curb the practice by placing a hologram of the NCAA logo on all of its postseason tickets. 
 "They do a pretty good job with that hologram," Flynn said. "It's kind of tough to duplicate it. It's not something you can do on a scanner."
 Fans will find out quickly if they're holding a fake ticket. Alltel Arena personnel will scan the ticket's bar code in addition to collecting the tear-off stub.
 Alltel Arena assistant general manager Wesley Holmes said a plan is in place for fans with identical tickets laying claim to the same seat.
 "[Box office manager Ellen Yehling] will go to the box office to see if those tickets have already been scanned," Holmes said. "Then we start checking ID's to see who really purchased the tickets."
 If the ticket is bogus, arena personnel will try to find another available seat. But the chances are slim.
 "For this, there won't be many available," Holmes said. </div>

DawgTeacher · Mar 18, 2008

They really think TX and Memphrica are going to get additional tickets from us??? Hell, we'll out-sell them!

Agentdog · Mar 18, 2008

They are so freaking ignorant in Arkansas when it comes to the SEC. I wish they would leave the conference. They have been talking all morning on sports radio about how many fans Texas will bring. They have given passing mention to Memphis. However, no mention of State in the conversation.

The way it is looking now. Session 1 tickets will be easy to come by. Session 2 will be very difficult. Session 3 will depend on if Memphis is still around. Which everyone seems to think they will be.

Eureka Dog · Mar 19, 2008

season-ticket holders ? That's stupid, as in "NCAA Stupid". 3500 folks who don't care who wins. That's one part of March Madness I hate...

Hey someone help me out on the math for ticket distribution:

There are 16,008 available seats in Alltel Arena.

5,708 go to the NCAA
3,500 go to the UALR season ticket holders
4,400 go to the teams
6,800 (approx.) already sold to the general public
------------------------------------------------
20,408 Total

Are the tickets sold to the UALR folks included in the 6,800 sold to the public? If so, that reduces the total to 16,908.

What gives? Where's the overlap?

Are the tickets reserved for the teams included in the NCAA allotment ?

Why don't newspaper proof-readers catch this sort of thing ?

bulldogs726 · Mar 19, 2008

Eureka Dog said:
season-ticket holders ? That's stupid, as in "NCAA Stupid". 3500 folks who don't care who wins. That's one part of March Madness I hate...

Hey someone help me out on the math for ticket distribution:

There are 16,008 available seats in Alltel Arena.

5,708 go to the NCAA
3,500 go to the UALR season ticket holders
4,400 go to the teams
6,800 (approx.) already sold to the general public
------------------------------------------------
20,408 Total

Are the tickets sold to the UALR folks included in the 6,800 sold to the public? If so, that reduces the total to 16,908.

What gives? Where's the overlap?

Are the tickets reserved for the teams included in the NCAA allotment ?

Why don't newspaper proof-readers catch this sort of thing ?

The ticket allotment is only for the teams involved in each session

Article on LR subregional tickets

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