A couple of weeks ago, I posted here about the new price for a single game football ticket. Because it sparked a conversation on BN and between me and some friends, I decided to dig further and turn this into a column for the Daily Bruin. The reason the new price is $36 is that Athletics wants more people to buy the pass so they can fill more seats. In my column in today's Daily Bruin, I argue that the lack of schools spirit won't be solved by the sale of a few more season passes:

UCLA Athletics increased the price to encourage students to purchase the improved and now cheaper Den season pass at $99, instead of single-game tickets. Essentially, they want more students to buy the pass so they can attend more games and there are more people in the student section.

But selling single-game tickets for $36 is not the right solution to the problem of a lack of students in the student section. It is merely treating the symptoms of a larger student-body issue: a lack of school spirit among UCLA students. Curing that issue will require much more than just a pricing change. It has to be a cultural shift on campus.

Read rest of it here. Thanks again for everyone's feedback and thought son BN. Enjoy!

Not sure if anyone noticed this but the single game student ticket price is $36 per game. I know the new package is $99 and I'm a HUGE fan of it (thus far), but $36 discourages students who want to attend 1-3 games a year. I don't think we should craft our pricing strategy around semi-fans, but these are the only people purchasing these tickets.

I don't think it's good policy to have such a high single ticket price (also the student-guest price) as we (sadly) can use more people in the Den during home games. Athletics seems to be trying to recoup money they may lose with the new Den package pricing. If this is the case, they need to reevaluate what they're doing as getting as many students as possible there should be a huge priority when we have a stadium that doesn't fill up.

Although I understand that the Wooden family asked for donations for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in lieu of flowers, many felt it necessary to pay their respects the traditional way on campus. This picture was taken from my phone when my roommates and I were on campus putting some flowers near the Bruin Bear for remembering Coach Wooden. It's unclear who brought all of these flowers or if the university was involved, but the gesture serves to show what Coach Wooden meant to this campus. My apologizes the photo quality is poor. It was taken from my phone.

via sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

If you're not all caught up on the new student season pass system for basketball tickets, here are some links to help catch you up: drebruin's post linking to the new CTO season pass, my earlier post linking to my Daily Bruin column about the new pass.

In summary: this new student season pass, as opposed to the current student season ticket, will not guarantee anyone admission to any game, but will act as a first-come-first-serve system for each game. This is, as has been noted in previous comments, great for fans willing to show up early or campout for big games. But it will hurt the casual fan who's father bought the pass in hope's that his daughter would go to a game or two.

Overall, it is a great thing. The removal of the current lottery system that makes it so that many real fans don't get all of the games, will allow ANYONE who wants to, to go to games. Freshman generally didn't get tickets in the old system, or at least this was my impression as I didn't get tickets my freshman year (KLove year) and had to pay very high prices to get section 307 tickets to a couple of big games. But this new pass will give fresh spirited freshmen get to games. I got both packages last year and went to almost all home games (and camped out for many). This year I only have half the season--making it so that I couldn't go to the u$c* game.

A previous poster commented that it was not CTO, but rather Athletics that has been holding this change back and was the one to allow it. This is true. It's a late reaction and a shame. While the Den flourished in the days when CBH was a hero (three Final Fours), it would have been even more awesome to see students on the sideline AND behind the basket. But I guess recent low attendance helped force the hand of Athletics.

I don't think this new pass will solve the issue of the upper Den's lack of presence for most games--we're going to have to deal with that for just one more year as seating in the new Pauley will move the upper Den to behind the basket seats. That'll be awesome.

Continue reading this post »

Bumped. Important discussion that everyone should read through and offer feedback. Also, on a side (but another significant) note the Den was rocking last night. GO BRUINS. - N

Signing day was a huge win for UCLA and everyone's got to be stoked about the direction CRN is taking the program.

But there was an issue not too long ago that sparked some debate and hating of the UCLA Athletics Marketing Department about a possible student ticket transfer. 

Now I know there's some anti-Daily Bruin bias here sometimes, but I do write for the DB and used my skills as a "journalist" (huge air-quotes here) to find out what's happening. My findings are published in today's paper. (continue reading this post after reading the column online). For those picking up the physical paper, it's in the Viewpoint section (Opinion section in the middle of the paper).

It describes a new ticketing system Athletics is rolling out next year--which I'm thrilled about as a student. I only wish they would have done it years ago. When I asked Mr. Mitchell why this was being done now (not too long after CBH and students marched into Marketing being discussed), I was only told it was something that was discussed for a while and the lack of attendance was bothering them--I didn't ask further because I was to get numbers from him later in the day.

The details of the plan have not been finalized (like pricing, who's going to hand out tickets, etc) but this is happening for sure, according to Mr. Mitchell.

Discuss.

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

While there have been reports of Tennessee fans rioting after hearing of his divorce with the school, the Vols took it to the next level and renamed Lame Kiffin's Wikipedia page. I'm not linking it because Wikipedia's staff has corrected the page in the it took me to get to FanPosts on BN. But I knew this would happen so I took a screen shot of it. I couldn't get it to upload in FanShots, so here it is.

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

The UCLA Universe traveling coach's series was in New York City Thursday night and I was one of three current students that was part of the audience. There was an open bar, great food and Bruins all over the place. The event was hosted by the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan (on 42nd and Park).

The night started with Coach Rick Neuheisel talking to all of the Bruins and fans in small groups. Soon after, everyone was ushered into the adjacent room where the Pauley Pavilion renovation video was played. The head of the NYCBruins Alumni club introduced CRN, highlighting his career as a player and coach.

Next, CRN spoke for a while about how UCLA needs all the help it can get for the Pauley Pavilion renovation and that it's important for the entire athletic family. Although I can't say any of the following are direct quotes, they get the ideas of his speech across. He talked briefly about the tradition UCLA has, and told of how when he became a head coach, he could not wait to meet Coach John Wooden. He told of how after a big game he remembers everyone storming Gayley and the street was pretty much shut down up to Wilshire.

CRN then switched topics to UCLA football. He started by talking about how he has been at UCLA for the good times and bad, and understands that this place (UCLA) deserves a good football team, but that it will take time. He said that when he got the coaching job, he new where he wanted to go, but now he understands how to get there and that he was working on getting the pieces we need to get there.

CRN talked about how he was making sure the coaching staff was working hard and that everyone was on the same page. He said the main things we have been missing in the past years are size and speed. He estimated that any of our major opponents probably outweighed our O-line by 25-30 pounds position for position, besides Brian Price. For that he did a quick rundown of all of the O-line recruits and how he thinks they'll be ready to contribute soon. In terms of size, he said we made sure to get a couple of the fastest kids in the nation--both of whom would also be able to contribute as soon as they get to UCLA.

Another thing CRN discussed was the issue of taking a handful of recruits from SC and the fact that in past year we recruited 0 athletes that $C offered a scholarship to. This year we had at least 6 kids that had offers from $C but chose Westwood (he said that we would have 4-5 more if they knew how to read or write).

CRN then went on to discuss how we have the need in Los Angeles for UCLA to make a run. He talks about how he was driving up to Santa Barbara for an alumni event and a car a little in front of him had a terrible accident, flipping multiple times. CRN pulled over to call 911 and see if the guy was okay. The car was on its side, and the guy popped right out of the passenger seat and looked at CRN and said "your Coach Neuheisel!" and CRN responded "yes I am but are you okay!?". The story was to say that while that guy's life was flashing before his eyes, he found UCLA football more important to talk about, which is awesome.

Next, CRN took a few questions, I'll highlight the ones that stuck out to me:

(again, these are paraphrased)

Q: As a Bruin that graduated in 2005, we heard the coaching staff say the "everything will change" line every year. What makes this time around different?

A: Although I don't have much to differentiate at this point, one thing I can talk about is how we stole recruits from $C, which has didn't happen in years past.

Q: Would you ever consider throwback jerseys?

A: We actually have throwbacks planned for the homecoming game against Cal. They're the 1954 66, Beban era jerseys:

1966 Rose Bowl Victory Celebration. Photo Source: www.mmbolding.com

A: I can see you've been reading the internet. Well here is what's going on: We had a lot of kids that were interested in us that I had to be honest with in saying that they may not get the most playing time immediately, especially at the tailback position where we would have had up to 6 players. So I'm honest with the kid that's looking like he'll be number 5-6 that he's welcome to be part of the team, but he has to realize I'll give him his four years to get his degree (the reason he should be coming here) but I won't give him a fifth--that's not fair.

Q: Compared to Washington and Colorado, how do UCLA's recruiting resources compare?

A: They definitely compare. But it's different because in the state of Colorado there are 4-5 really good recruits a year. Washington has a few more, but there are millions of people withing driving distance of Westwood. But there is something of a resistance because we can't get the recruits who may not be the best academics. Some argue that it's a good thing, but to be honest with you, if you look at the academic rankings, we're only a few spots ahead of $C. We're 20 something and they're ranked 20 something. The recruiting difference is that they have five people on their staff that are there just to make sure athletes that may not be the best learners or may have learning disabilities get the attention they need. We have one. We'd like to get that number up to three or four in a couple of years.

At this point CRN went on a tangent to mention that while we have good strength and condition regiments in place now, the nutrition is lacking. As an athletics department, they have to work through ASUCLA when they feed athletes. ASUCLA doesn't necessarily have the stuff they want, and so the athletes are left eating dorm food only. The only land the athletics department owns is Acosta and Spaulding. He would like to have a training tables area for feeding athletes.

Q: Are we thinking about any east-coast game soon?

A: I just talked to the Rutgers AD and he said he'd be very interested in a home-and-home with us. So fans on both coasts can support us!

Those were the major things I can remember from the evening. Overall it was a lot of fun to see the New York Bruins and it definitely got me more excited about UCLA football in the fall.

Go Bruins!