Carrots and sticks for tix: It’s hard to admit, but NC State might have the answer to the Dean Dome’s attendance woes

If you’ve tried to register for student tickets this year, you’ve probably had some frustration with the current lottery system. If so, you can thank the athletic department and the Carolina Athletic Association.

These two entities took the wrong approach to solving last year’s low attendance by decreasing student seating in the Smith Center for this season. Better incentives, not fewer seats, would provide a solution.

Officials jumped the gun by cutting 34 percent of student seating. Last season’s poor attendance mainly resulted from the men’s basketball team’s lackluster season. It’s been upsetting for students who already get some of the worst seats and who pay athletics fees.

N.C. State may not get some things right, but its “gratis points” system might be the solution to the attendance problem.

Students there are awarded points for attending games and docked points for tickets they receive but don’t return or use.

After the second offense, they are barred from receiving more tickets the rest of the season in that sport.

Tickets carry more weight with this system, and students think twice before completely disregarding a ticket they’ve been awarded
The current online ticket lottery is both a blessing and a curse.

The convenience of signing up for tickets is an obvious benefit, but it does not take students’ record of redeeming these tickets into account.

The major drawback of the current policy is that students are neither rewarded for attending games nor penalized for not using their tickets.

We still think that the ticket lottery’s system of distributing two tickets per person with general admission is CAA’s best choice.

But for the policy to be more effective in increasing attendance, there should be some incentive for students who actually attend games.

CAA president Brandon Finch says students should blame themselves for the decreased seating, and this is understandable. Students who don’t return tickets are partially to blame.

But instead of decreasing student seating and punishing everyone, CAA and the athletic department should have taken a more constructive approach to encouraging student attendance at basketball games.

Decreasing student seating hurts every student. Don’t punish students who faithfully attend basketball games — punish those who don’t.