UCLA goes against trend, granting premium seating to students

per CBS:

UCLA's Pauley Pavilion -- which, in case you forgot, was temporarily drenched after a water line busted and soaked the lower level of the building in late July -- is looking to increase its home-court intimidation factor.

The school has announced that a new plan is in place for its student seating. The change of arrangement for ticketed undergrads means one entire side of the court will be bordered by college kids...and that's not all.

"Under the plan, student seating on the south sideline will run the entire length of the floor from section 113-117 while on the west baseline, student seating will now encompass sections 120-123 in their entirety," according to UCLA's press release.

And there will still be another spot, Section 222, that will be entirely claimed by Bruins students.

"With a premium being placed on lower level seating around the country due to rising costs across college athletics, it's easy to forget about what makes our game-day experience so unique -- the students,” Bruins athletic director Dan Guerrero saids. "Given that we have a tremendous student body, loyal alumni and faithful fans, we are excited to go against the grain and carve out this additional premium seating for our students. You never know if your classmate is going to be the next Kevin Love or Russell Westbrook here at UCLA, so we want our students to have the opportunity to see the next great Bruin-turned-NBA star up close and personal at Pauley Pavilion."

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebas...ucla-makes-big-changes-to-its-student-section

Go Gophers!!

I have no idea what gameday experience is for students at Pauly, but overall it is one of the more fickle fan bases in college sports. Students surrounding the court is great, but they actually need to be there to make it intimidating. I don't think it is a guarantee for most games and especially when the Bruins are in a down year.

Pauley

Holy Man said:

I have no idea what gameday experience is for students at Pauly, but overall it is one of the more fickle fan bases in college sports. Students surrounding the court is great, but they actually need to be there to make it intimidating. I don't think it is a guarantee for most games and especially when the Bruins are in a down year.

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I went to a game at Pauley 2 yrs ago. Future Timberwolf Shabazz Muhammad pouted after teamate Larry Drew hit a buzzer beater to beat Washington.

It was a 6pm start for ESPN which makes it quite a logistical challenge to get to Westwood from petty much anywhere in SoCal. Pauley was little more than half full.

The student section though I'd say in size was bigger than the Barnyard, but at that time was split. Upper classes got a few sections courtside while the others were behind the basket. They were quite vocal and the "yell leaders" come up with some pretty cool chants. I'm guessing the UCLA student body will represent quite well with this change.

Love to see schools do things like this. Student sports teams should be first and foremost about and for students.

BleedGopher said:

"With a premium being placed on lower level seating around the country due to rising costs across college athletics, it's easy to forget about what makes our game-day experience so unique -- the students,” Bruins athletic director Dan Guerrero said.

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Bingo. This is exactly what I had hoped students here would demand a few years back, when re-seating was coming, but not decided. Alas, the opportunity was missed. If UCLA can do it, why can't we?

Pauley Pavilion has a special place in the hearts of many in college basketball due to John Wooden and UCLA's ten titles in twelve seasons from 1963-64 to 1974-75. However, due to the desire of John Wooden to have multiple regulation sized floors beneath retractable seating and to actually keep the students and fans in general further back from the floor to give the team's some space, UCLA wound up with a building with lots of problems that a $135,000,000 renovation a couple of years ago hasn't completely fixed such as gaps in the corners near courtside and some sideline seats past the basket that don't face the court directly as well as too many end seats by modern standards. The seats in the ends used to be comically far from the baseline. After slightly lowering the floor, those seats are now closer, but are still too far away in comparison to those found in most arenas. With UCLA facing student attendance trouble and long standing complaints about the atmosphere, they took the plunge to get students on the sidelines. What UCLA ought to have done was either level Pauley Pavilion and start over or gut the inside significantly to address this issue and others that go beyond student seating.

As for Williams Arena, our students are unlikely to get to the sidelines for a few significant reasons. The U of M needs the big buck donations that those sideline seats generate and can't at this point afford to leave that money on the table. Meanwhile, the seating deck on the lower tier sidelines is, relatively speaking, rather shallow. If you put students in say the first eight rows and we accept that they're going to stand all game, then you not only lose those eight donation revenue producing rows, you're going to lose rows of seats behind the students due to the necessity of withdrawing those seats from sale. If you don't, the folks in those rows behind the students wouldn't be able to see while sitting and would therefore stand, causing a chain reaction of standing up to the top of the section. I accept that many would view this as desirable, but realistically you'll end up with a lot angry season ticket holders who will stand for big moments and rallies, but don't want to all game. So you've lost big revenue producing seats to the students and seat kills while also devaluing the seats behind them. Can the U of M afford to do that, especially if the west end is still reserved for students? The only way to address this issue is by either shutting down Williams Arena for at least a season to engage in a renovation that will make the 1993 makeover look mild in order to get a seating deck steep enough to make relocating the students at least in part to the sidelines possible or you knock it down, play at Target Center for at least a season, and come back to the site with a new arena that has steeper seating. I don't see another possible answer.