Students did not have to scramble to purchase their tickets to the Florida-Georgia football game this year.
According to ticket sales officials, tickets to the game usually sell out within minutes of going on sale. This year, however, tickets were still for sale hours after they became available.
Mark Gajda, the assistant athletics director for ticket operations, said tickets for the Florida-Georgia game sold much slower this year than in previous years.
“For 2008 and 2009 ticket sales went very quick, it was probably 10 minutes for the completion of the sale,” he said Tuesday. “This year it went to midnight and didn’t even sell out until this morning.”
Senior John Tracy said he didn’t want to spend the money on a ticket and go all the way to Jacksonville to watch the Gators lose another game.
But buying a ticket to the game was nearly impossible last year, Tracy said.
He said he got home from work last year at exactly 6:09 p.m. and logged online to purchase his Georgia tickets at 6:12 p.m. Ticket sales were open at 6 p.m., but the tickets were already sold out by the time he logged into the student lottery system.
“I was running a little late, but never thought I wouldn’t be able to get a ticket,” said Tracy. “In my mind there was no way that everyone was waiting at their computer for 6 p.m. to come.”
Tracy said that even though he didn’t get a ticket online, he still went to the game. All of his friends were going and he knew it was a big game for UF.
Ted Spiker, professor of the Sports and Media Society class at UF, said there are other reasons besides the three losses for why ticket sales have been down this year.
“This program has extremely high expectations, so when you don’t meet these expectations, then you’re going to see some sales suffer,” Spiker said. “You’re not winning. You’re not getting as much attention. You’re not getting as much interest.”
