Iowa football ticket shortage reminiscent of basketball's sellouts

University of Iowa ticket operations director Pam Finke said past dealings with heavy ticket demand provided her staff with precedent in handling the university's season-ticket shortage for football this fall. 

"Basketball, back when things were going crazy, this happened all the time," Finke said. "We'd end up telling people, 'Yeah, I know you had full seasons last year; this year you're only getting a split.'" 

It's been a challenging off-season for Finke in deciding who gets which football tickets. Finke said there were about 4,000 tickets available for the upcoming season and she received about 11,000 requests for those tickets. Finke said the easy answer would have been to fill 4,000 requests, put the rest on a waiting list and refund their initial payments. Instead Iowa tried to accommodate all of the fans who wanted tickets by offering them a two-game pack. Those who decline the two-pack are put on a full season-ticket waiting list. 

"For me it's a lot of work," Finke said. "It would be a lot easier to say, 'Hey 6,000 people, you don't get anything.' But my philosophy is to be inclusive. I want them to get a feel for what college football is like." 

The two-game pack includes either Ball State or Eastern Illinois and a Big Ten game, and in most cases, Michigan State. Iowa State was not included in the ticket package because the school fills its contracted 4,000-ticket allotment. Contractual agreements with sponsors (such as Learfield or Hy-Vee) take up the rest of the available tickets for the Iowa-Iowa State game. 

Iowa also has fewer tickets for Penn State and Wisconsin available in its two-game pack because of homecoming and family weekends, respectively. Many campus groups use tickets for those weekends as part of promotions or annual commitments. That leaves Michigan State and Ohio State as the primary weekends for the two-packs. Finke said she declined to fill requests from many current season-ticket holders for more tickets, except those with a high number of priority points. She preferred to make more tickets available to new customers. 

"Why should they get more when a guy who wanted to get in can't get it?" she said. "It's a balancing act, you can only do so much. You can only do your best and hope that you can take care of as many people as you can."