The Saban's will thread got me thinking and I may have came up with the best point system solution to date (based on a great idea from a previous thread). In August, Skipper suggested that we develop a point system for those that stay the whole game, by scanning tickets on the way out. He also discussed incorporating the non-revenue sports. They were really good ideas all around, but my initial thought was "waiting in line to leave football and basketball games would suck." Well how about this: Instead of scanning for those that stay the whole game, scan for those that leave early. Take all of the ideas from that thread and tweak 'em a bit.
#1- Let's say up to midway through the 4th quarter, there's scanners at every exit of LANE scanning the tickets of those that leave early. If you leave early, your ticket has to get scanned. You would end up with two scans (entrance/exit) on your ticket and be fined one point. Once it passes that midway 4th quarter point, the ticket scanners stand down and you exit in peace. Zero points levied if your ticket only has one scan (entrance). The more points you have, the more undeserving you are of the tickets.
#2- For the non-revenue sports, they could do like VTae13 suggested in that same thread and assign the points through hokie passports. If you go to a non-revenue game, you would scan your passport on the way in and get -1 point. Similar to football and basketball games, there would be scanners at each exit until a specified point in the game (probably not as deep into the game as the cutoff point for football/basketball games). If you leave too early, you get a scan on the way out and offset the -1 you gained when entering. Essentially, if you leave a non-revenue game early, it doesn't hurt you. If you stay long enough, it helps you.
#3- The less points you have, the better seats you get for football and basketball season tickets through the years. We could go one step deeper to reward true fans by giving -3 points to student season ticket holders per year that they purchase season tickets. Every student at Virginia Tech, sports fan or not, should be able to graduate with at most 0 points, with the passionate fans likely graduating with many negative points to their name.
I really think this is a feasible way of enforcing a point system that rewards loyal fans without inconveniencing their gameday experience, fines the early exiters, and rewards the students that support the non revenue teams. Thoughts?
Comments
"Wait wait wait! How am I supposed to leave every game at halftime if I always make my football ticket into a paper airplane?" - Scumbag Fan
I think you could just develop a smart phone app that is linked to a student account, where you could check in via GPS at the stadium in a window from like 2:00 left in the game up to 30 mins after the game. For people without smart phones, just get your ticket scanned on the way out.
@weavez22 that could work
thanks for mentioning my ideas here :) The issue as 804VTHokie points out is at football games, you can just leave your ticket behind. I think the key to making the point system fair would be making your hokie passport your literal passport to everything. Or else create a card that is a sports passport...(which now that I saw that, I really like this idea)
Students can buy basic, premium, or elite passes. (basic would be for any student to have and the others would be monetary upgrades). With each upgrade the student could purchase certain food and beverage items at a discounted cost. In addition, if a student wants to transfer their ticket to a friend, they can do so electronically and it will be reflected at the gates of Lane. By doing this electronically, a standby line can be formed at lane for those who do not have student season tickets and, in real time, can be notified if there are empty seats to be filled (obviously I wouldn't recommend opening standby until somewhere in the end of the 1st or beginning of the 2nd quarter.
Heck...you could even put sports-dining-dollars on these passports for exclusive use at sporting events.
A flex plan for turkey legs? I think you just solved world hunger.
Can I buy them in bulk at the end of the semester when I have too much $ left over?
I'd be all for a points system... Except I was in the MVs just so I could go to all the games
EDIT: wrong thread. Oops.