Chaotic ticket distribution for MU game infuriates Kansas students

LAWRENCE, Kan. -- High demand for prime tickets to the Kansas-Missouri football game and the absence of a policy limiting how many tickets a student can pick up at one time have some Jayhawks fans fuming over their school's distribution system.

Student tickets for the Nov. 24 game at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., between the 10-0 Jayhawks and 9-1 Tigers were made available Monday to Kansas students. An hour before the Kansas ticket office opened at 9 a.m., the line wrapped around Allen Fieldhouse and out to the street.

Some people camped out all night to get to the front of the line -- many of them holding dozens of identification cards from fellow students to pick up their tickets for them. Those in the front were able to gobble up all of the available lower-deck seats, which angered students who had waited several hours to pick up their tickets.

"People in the back of the line were calling friends that were up near the front and just walking up to the front of the line and giving them their IDs," said junior Zach Getz. "I waited three and a half hours, and I am in row 37 of the upper deck. I've never sat more than 15 rows from the field for a KU home game."

The winner likely will be the Big 12 North champion and play Oklahoma on Dec. 1 in the Big 12 title game, where a possible trip to the national championship game could be on the line.

Because there's so much at stake, some students criticized the university for not limiting the number of tickets one person could pick up so that everyone had a fair chance at getting a prime seat if they were willing to stand in line.

"I just found it interesting that when no rules were set up by the students, instead of setting some up and enforcing them, they basically resorted to chaos," said Matt Willems, a senior who waited more than six hours for tickets before leaving for work and having a friend get his ticket -- for a seat in the upper deck. "There were a lot of opportunities for athletics to step in and make a system work, and they chose not to."

The Kansas athletics department said it lets students regulate how football and basketball tickets are distributed. There's never been a limit on the number of tickets a student can pick up with the proper ID.

"That's not for us to decide," associate athletic director Jim Marchiony said. "It's up for the students to decide whether that's good or bad, not the administration."

He said all students who bought season tickets received a ticket to the Missouri game.

, though he acknowledged that most of those weren't in the lower deck.

Kansas was allotted 13,000 tickets for the game, with about 8,000 of those set aside for students who were season-ticket holders. Marchiony said only 1,000 of the student tickets were in the lower bowl.

Missouri set aside 3,500 tickets for students, who received them last summer.

Willems said he was so frustrated that he considered just watching the game on TV.

"I hate the idea of not supporting the team, and I don't want to punish the team for the ticket office's poor decisions, but that being said, it's definitely crossed my mind," Willems said. "This whole hassle has put such a negative light on this game for me that I've certainly thought about just selling my ticket and watching it at home or at a sports bar in Lawrence."