NEXT TO NOTHING can overcome the sheer beauty and elegance of the market system. Student Council, unfortunately, would strip the market of its fancy clothes, leaving it naked, exposed and undignified. That is what will happen at the least if Council manages to get the Athletic Department to grant more student seating in the planned basketball arena, and on top of that, to make the student sections priority sections. In other words, Council wants students to have more seats and better seats.
Council's argument goes something like this. Student morale boosts team morale. It also demoralizes the opposing team because students can intimidate the opposition, giving a home court advantage, which results in more wins, and thus more ticket demand, thus more revenue.
But this is still a silly and circular point. Why should we sell fewer seats and give them freely to students? In the end, so we can sell more seats, says Council. This type of logic holds that you end war by starting war; that you love more by hating more; that you learn more by learning less information. The point is that it is silly to pick a goal and target its achievement by rejecting the very goal you are pursuing.
It's even more ridiculous that the seats Council would make avaliable to students are those for which people, such as alumni, generous donors to the University and rich basketball fans, are willing to pay the most. Earth to Council: There is no free lunch. Sorry. Student morale, no matter how enthusiastic and encouraging, will not sell seats, especially when you make unavailable seats that generate greater revenue streams. So, if you must add to the number of student seats, at a minimum do not do so in the priority seating sections.
Still, it remains unclear that students really do contribute to wins. This may be just a hunch, but basketball probably has a lot to do with skill. You know - how tall you are, how well you can dribble, how far and how accurately you can shoot. This may also be just a hunch, but when our team wins or loses, I dare say it is not the result of the pep bands' presence or absence. If support is so instrumental to success, expand the cheerleading squad, make students pass pep tests to get admission into the arena, but don't hinder the Athletic Department's pursuit of profit-maximization, which, if sustained in the long run, could make us all better off.
Students simply aren't that peppy. They won't make a difference. If we were all so gung-ho about basketball and our winning, head coach Pete Gillen would not need to send us all a desperate e-mail plea to come out to the games, with a schedule included. If we really cared that much, we'd obtain the schedule on our own, plan to make it to the games, and we wouldn't need to be prodded by the coach to boot. Coach Gillen's e-mail is testimony to our apathy. Our apathy is inconsistent with our being instrumental in intimidating the opposing team through our enthusiasm.
Don't get me wrong; I'm sure that student involvement makes the game more special. But it does not, by any stretch, make it so special that it would be undesirable for students to sit high up and away from center court.
Council, as with most legislatures that see stipulation as the solution instead of the market, would impose upon the University community a non-market allocation of seats. People willing and able to pay for quality seats will find that they can't get them. Students, who get them for free, probably will demand as many seats as are available. This is inefficient. There are people who want the seats more and are able to pay for them.
Instead of giving away priority seats, we should hold auctions to grant priority seats to the highest bidders. If you want to make students better off, forget about giving them nice seats, share with them some of the rents - profits - from this auction. Such a cash grant assuredly would make the average student better off, since not every student likes to watch basketball, yet every student probably likes cash.
We don't actually have to share some of the profits with the students because it is unreasonable. But, the fact that we could share it with the students, making them better off, at the same time that more people who value the seats more are getting them, proves that Council's non-market outcome is inefficient.
Council's job is, after all, to act on behalf of the students. Still, Council does not recommend that the University supply students with kegs of alcohol even though many students would like that. Council doesn't do so because, even in its capacity as representatives of students, Council cannot lose sight of responsibility.
Council's move to give students priority seating is irresponsible. The irresponsibility is the result of Council's ignorance. It is, in any case, not excusable.
(Jeffrey Eisenberg's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily.)
Read More
PARTING SHOT: Sometimes it’s okay to fake a smile
By Alexandra Holmes | 12 hours agoI surrounded myself with people who were so enthusiastic about the University and its potential, that after a while, it was impossible not to feel their passion and their convictions rub off on me.
PARTING SHOT: Girl, what did you expect?
By Cecy Juárez | YesterdayAdvocate for yourself unabashedly, even and especially when you feel like you don’t belong.
PARTING SHOT: Revisiting old comments
By Claire DiLorenzo | YesterdayIn retirement, I am also trying not to be hard on myself — I don’t have to hold onto all the mistakes that I made as an editor.
