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"Students need to be at those games. This is their time. It's unfortunate that some alumni were unable to attend the games. Students have a place in Ohio Stadium and they need to be there," says Jay Hansen with the OSU Alumni Office.

As much as this may rub some people the wrong way, he certainly has a good point.
 
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[FONT=Verdana,Times New Roman,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Scouts are out at OSU due to ticket demand[/FONT]
Monday, September 4, 2006 [FONT=Verdana,Times New Roman,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]THE ASSOCIATED PRESS[/FONT]

COLUMBUS - The Boy Scouts have fallen victim to Ohio State’s football ticket crunch.
Scouts who worked as ushers for free tickets to games won’t get them this year because students want tickets, the university said.
“Our students are our first priority. This year we had an increase in applications; about 30,000 wanted tickets. Usually we have 22,000 to 25,000 apply,” said Associate Athletics Director Steve Snapp said.
Scouts have worked as volunteer ushers at Buckeyes games for decades and last year began working throughout the game rather than taking seats after kickoff.
About 20 boys had signed up to work during Saturday’s season opener and were still given tickets for that game. But the university said it has more than enough paid ushers to assist spectators to their seats.
The team’s No. 1 ranking has fueled an increase in demand and a rise in ticket prices.
 
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Canton Rep

[FONT=Verdana,Times New Roman,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Ohio State to allow Boy Scouts back into football games[/FONT]
Wednesday, September 6, 2006 COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Boy Scouts will be reunited with the top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes.
The university had decided last month that the scouts were no longer needed as volunteer ushers, meaning they wouldn’t be able to attend games.
But the school announced Tuesday that the scouts would be allowed back into Ohio Stadium.
“We’re going to let them back in,” athletic department spokesman Steve Snapp said. “We’re not sure what their functioning is going to be. ... They are certainly back in for this next game and I think for the foreseeable future.”
The university will work with Scout leaders to determine appropriate jobs for the boys before the team’s next home game Sept. 16. The boys will not serve as ushers, Snapp said.
Scouts had worked as volunteer ushers at Buckeyes games for decades in exchange for free tickets. Last year, they worked throughout the game rather than taking seats after kickoff.
In announcing its initial decision to stop using Boy Scouts as ushers, the university said it had more than enough paid ushers to assist spectators to their seats. In addition, the Buckeyes’ No. 1 ranking has fueled an increase in demand for tickets.
About 20 boys who had signed up to work last Saturday’s season opener were allowed to attend the game.
 
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I think this was a smart move. It just didn't look good to 'kick' out the Boy Scouts after something like 84 years. I agree there are plenty of Ushers (95% are unpaid volunteers contrary to the article) and even putting an extra boy or two in an aisle way can unnecessarily clog already packed areas. But definitely give them some token job if nothing else just to keep a good will tradition such as this in place.
 
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I think this was a smart move. It just didn't look good to 'kick' out the Boy Scouts after something like 84 years. I agree there are plenty of Ushers (95% are unpaid volunteers contrary to the article) and even putting an extra boy or two in an aisle way can unnecessarily clog already packed areas. But definitely give them some token job if nothing else just to keep a good will tradition such as this in place.
Ushers are on the payroll.
 
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Ushers are on the payroll.

Nope, some are (Portal Chiefs, Deck Managers & Assistants, etc.), but the vast majority are unpaid volunteers...unless me and my friends have been getting seriously screwed the last several years. :wink2:

Edit:

And maybe Red Coats / Ticket takers are...not really sure about them.
 
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Dispatch

Ticket policy to remain the same
Fans won?t pay more for marquee games, Smith says

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Tim May
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

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Ohio State?s Gene Smith and Texas? DeLoss Dodds, heads of the top revenue-producing university athletic departments in the country, stood together at one of the biggest events in regular-season college football history the other night.
Though each said his focus was on the No. 2 Longhorns? showdown with the top-ranked Buckeyes, neither could have been faulted for wondering how much more money could have been made.
The retail price for a single-game ticket was $85. Prices online ranged from $400 to more than $1,000.
A Texas-record crowd of 89,422 ponied up.
Clearly, UT could have charged three times its retail rate. Talk about a financial bonanza ?
"Oh, yes, and I think our Oklahoma game could be, too," Dodds said, referring to the annual Red River Shootout played in Dallas. The price on that ticket also is $85, Dodds said.
Many schools, Texas included, price tickets based on expected demand, so the Longhorns charged more for the OSU game than for their opener against North Texas ($50 tickets).
In the Big Ten Conference, only Ohio State ($59) and Penn State ($55) charge a flat rate throughout the season.
Why don?t the Buckeyes follow suit, increasing prices for premium home games such as this year against Penn State and Michigan?
"We don?t need to. We don?t have to," Smith said. "I guess I should never say never ... but right now we are financially healthy because of everything else."
Smith oversaw prorated ticket prices in his previous athletic director stops, at Eastern Michigan, Iowa State and Arizona State.
"That?s because of the markets I was in, and obviously we didn?t have the supply-anddemand issue like we have here with the Buckeyes," Smith said. "It?s a whole different ballgame."
The Buckeyes sell out every game, and the waiting list for season tickets this year was about 20,000, Smith estimated.
Smith?s real challenge is in explaining why the price for a ticket to, say, Saturday?s game against Cincinnati is the same as for Michigan. Or why the price for next year?s opener with Youngstown State, the Buckeyes? first NCAA Division I-AA opponent, is the same as for the later game with Wisconsin.
Unless he points out the price for the Michigan game is a distinct bargain. This year, for example, the Buckeyes have seven games at $59 each, or $413 for a full complement.
Texas has home tickets ranging from $45 for its game against I-AA Sam Houston State to $85 for OSU and archrival Texas A&M. It adds up to $430 for seven games, an average of approximately $61.
Though OSU?s official Web site reported no tickets are available for the rest of the year, they are plentiful on ticket-broker sites for a premium. OSU has no affiliation with those sites.
Wisconsin started a service for its Badger Fund members this season by which they can post game tickets to be resold to other Badger Fund members at face value. Penn State has a similar service.
Wisconsin associate ticket director Brian Moore said Wisconsin toyed with the idea of letting the ticket posters set their own price.
"That?s sort of moving into that gray area of scalping, and we decided we didn?t want to get into that," Moore said.
He said Virginia and Brigham Young have allowed their season ticket-holders to set a price based on the market.
Dodds said he has heard of such setups.
"We need to see what that is and see how it works, see if it is an honorable thing, whether it is something the university should get interested in," Dodds said. "But I have no clue at the moment whether we?ll do it."
Smith isn?t interested, at least for now.
"I shouldn?t say never, because five to 10 years from now, who knows what (the market) will look like ? but we?re fortunate to have the new ABC-ESPN-Big Ten Channel money coming to us," he said.
He is talking about the networks? new contracts with the Big Ten that are expected to net each of the 11 member schools $7.5 millon next year.
"So I should be able to keep our ticket prices where they are," Smith said. "That is my goal."
[email protected]
 
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CPD

Invest in a shot at the big game

Sports tickets, Buy, sell, hold: sports tickets
Wednesday, September 27, 2006John Horton
Plain Dealer Reporter
Some people invest in stocks and bonds. Some sink their savings into gold and other precious metals. But Jonathan Lim chose something different: He put his cash into Buckeyes.
Sound crazy? Welcome to sports ticket speculation.
An online brokerage called TicketRe serve allows fans to buy and sell the rights to hard-to-get tickets for events such as the Super Bowl or the NCAA Fi nal Four. It acts as a futures market, with people betting on a team's success.
It works like this: Months before the championship game, buyers can go to TicketReserve.com and purchase up to four "FanForwards" for their team. Then, if the team advances, each FanForward can be used to buy a ticket to the event at face value.
If the team loses? Well, then you're out a few bucks.
For people like Lim, 21, it becomes something of a faith-based venture. The fourth-year Ohio State student, who grew up in Stow, spent $156 placing dibs on a ticket to this season's college football national championship in Arizona. Whether the gamble pays off depends on his beloved Buckeyes. If the team gets into the big game, so does he.
At its core, that's really what TicketReserve is all about.
The goal is to allow Joe Fan better access to prominent sporting events, said Andy Leach.
Leach is the company's executive vice president. The process can be significantly cheaper than acquiring seats through scalpers, eBay or ticket brokers such as RazorGator.
"The average person's getting locked out of these games," Leach said. "Ticket prices just keep escalating."
Consider the upcoming Super Bowl XLI. At RazorGator, the cost of a single upper-deck ticket ranged Tuesday from $2,178 to $2,501, depending on location. Cutting a check like that just isn't easy for most people.
TicketReserve ratchets the cost down, though not without a bit of risk.
Say you're a die-hard fan of the undefeated Cincinnati Bengals, who carry Super Bowl aspirations this season. The last Bengals FanForward sale at TicketReserve went for $250. Factor in the actual ticket price, and it would cost about $850 to attend the game if the team makes it.
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That's a little easier to swallow, even if there are no guarantees the team will come through and make the initial outlay pay off.
As with any investment, it's often best to get in early. That same Bengals FanForward started at $32. TicketReserve allows investors to buy and sell on its Web page during the season.
The volatile marketplace - and a team's success - drives price fluctuations and sales. The Pittsburgh Steelers, for instance, opened at $50 to return to the Super Bowl and then surged over $350. The price tumbled into the low $200s when quarterback Ben Roethlisberger kissed a car windshield after a motorcycle accident in June, then the price rebounded with his health.
Losses the past two weeks, however, sent the Steelers' value tumbling again to $251.
(The winless Browns, by the way, represent a relative steal at this point for serious gamblers/die-hard believers. On Tuesday, there was an offer to sell a Browns FastForward for $5, down from the opening $16 cost.)
Leach calls the process a form of insurance: "If your team makes the big game," he said, "we insure you'll be there."
The ticket rights bazaar is modeled after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where commodities such as pork bellies and cattle are traded. The company, based in a Chicago suburb, launched in 2001 and opened for trading two years later, Leach said.
TicketReserve secures the sought-after ducats through leagues, teams, venues and sponsors. It then oversees the sales and transfers, earning a commission on each transaction.
Leach said the company operates within legal bounds. The federal Securities and Exchange Commission found no fault with the company's business operation, according to the agency. A spokeswoman for the Ohio attorney general's office said the state has had no issues with TicketReserve.
Most of the online market's users qualify as your typical fan itching for a seat at the big game, Leach said. A small portion - estimated at between 10 and 15 percent - seem to participate more for investment purposes, he said.
Played right, the returns can be big. Lim, for instance, bought his Ohio State FanForward at the opening price of $156. The value quickly soared to $420. The team's big win against Texas a few weeks back pushed prices over $600; the most recent sale went for $595.
By selling now, Lim could realize more than $400 in profit. Of course, that also would leave him home Jan. 8 if the Buckeyes play in the national championship.
That's a deal breaker.
"If they play for the national championship, I'm going to be there," said Lim. "I don't care what the price goes to. Some things mean more than money."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
 
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Link

Experts Warn Consumers In Search Of Ohio State Tickets

Consumers Urged To Check Seller's Background

POSTED: 4:19 pm EDT October 3, 2006
UPDATED: 8:10 pm EDT October 3, 2006
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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Even if you're a casual Buckeye fan, you already know that Ohio State football tickets are hot commodities.As the No. 1 team continues to win, the value of those precious tickets continues to increase, but con artists are looking to score from unsuspecting customers, NBC 4's Mike Jackson reported.College football pundits are pointing to Nov. 18. An equally successful season for Michigan will have The Horseshoe packed for the ultimate showdown.

Fans have been ripped off in the past by ticket scams at big games. The attorney general's office went after Mark West, who allegedly bilked fans out of money last year, offering tickets to the Michigan game, collecting the money, but never delivering the tickets.The matchup with Michigan is more than a month away, but some fans have already been ripped off, Jackson reportedA con artist used the legitimate eBay Web site to steal from a Central Ohio veteran who paid more than $600 for tickets so that he and his father could see the game, officials said.Experts said consumers who are taking a chance by using a ticket resale auction Web site should check the seller's ratings and feedback from other buyers.Consumers are also encouraged to use a credit card so that they can dispute the charge if the tickets are not delivered.Experts also warn consumers to be wary of cheap tickets for sale. Currently, good seats for the game are an average of $1,000 per ticket.
 
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