The Wisconsin student section needs changes

It’s nearly kickoff time in Madison. Wisconsin’s marching band has just finished their pregame show and are lining up to welcome the Badgers onto the field. U2’s ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ begins to play along with a video highlighting all of the Badgers greatest moments. The crowd is fired up and the team runs out of the tunnel to a full house at Camp Randall – or so I wish.

Way too often I find myself looking at the Wisconsin student section at kickoff and wondering why it’s only half-full. It looks bad to opposing fans, potential recruits, TV viewers across the country, and it brings the overall atmosphere in the stadium down. This is not a new occurrence, either. It’s been happening for years and will continue to happen unless the athletic department decides to do something about it.

The student section as the team runs onto the field to face MSU in October

I’m fully aware of the party culture in Madison and how it almost surely has a lot to do with this problem, but is it really that difficult to be in the stadium for kickoff? Unfortunately, that answer for most is “yes” so it’s time for some changes. The Athletic Department’s laissez-faire approach to this problem isn’t working so here are a few suggestions for next year.

Oversell the student section. The student section consists of approximately 15,000 seats, so sell 16,000 seats. The first 15,000 get into the game, and the rest get turned away. It creates a need to get to the game on time before the seats run out and could potentially be a solution. Some might ask; “But what about the 1,000 students that don’t get in?” Just bring the unused voucher to the athletic department a few days later and receive a full refund – no harm done.

Other solutions include selling the tickets on game day instead of before the season. A separate UW Athletics account could be added to student IDs. Show up at the gate, get your ID scanned like a debit transaction, and you’re good to go. If enough workers are scanning IDs it wouldn’t take very long at all to get into the stadium.  It gives incentives for students to show up before the tickets are sold out, but the athletic department might have issues with not being able to sell the tickets prior to gameday.

At the very least, offering incentives like better chances at future tickets or reduced prices on tickets to students who show up prior to kickoff is another possible alternative. I just hope the athletic department does something, anything, to fix this problem; but if their efforts to fix the eat s***, f*** you chants are any indication, don’t expect a resolution to this problem.

While I’m on the subject of that chant, can we all agree how idiotic it is? There’s a time a place for vulgarity, but it’s not in a stadium filled with 80,000 people, some of them children. Opposing fans have even criticized our fan base for chants like that and it’s got to stop. It even broke out, very loudly I might add, during a key 3^rd down play last week when the Badgers were on offense. I really hope this chant dies down, and soon.

The Badgers welcome 6^th ranked and undefeated Ohio State to town at 2:30 on Saturday for the last home game of the season. Many highly regarded recruits will be in attendance for the game and the senior day presentations take place before kickoff. I’m sure those seniors would love to see a full student section as they run onto the field for the last time. It’s time we start changing the culture at football games; be loud every play (not just 3^rd downs) when OSU has the ball and be on time. After all, you wouldn’t want to miss Montee Ball tie the NCAA’s all-time touchdown record on the first play from scrimmage, would you?