BY BRIAN NUEVO
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Though the regularly sparsely populated student section seen at Roseville High School’s basketball games can be attributed to a variety of other reasons, the high ticket and snack bar prices have done it no favors.
A regular ticket for students with an ID is $5, and without this, the price goes up to $7. Now multiply this number with the twenty-seven regular season games and I think the problem becomes clear. Though students will not go to each game, just probably making it out to the big home games in league would cost students more than most are willing to part with.
The turnout to games has been on a steady decline since the first league game – when the school offered a special that allowed students admission for just $1. Even students who would prefer to make it out to a majority of home games, seem unwilling to part with the consistently high cost of admission.
A solution that was promoted at the beginning of the school year was an ASB card, which gets you into any home game “for free” with an upfront cost of $60.
This solution for the entry cost recognizes there is an issue, but will never be popular enough with students to make a sizable difference in attendance.
Only the most dedicated fans will feel justified in spending the upfront cost and plan on attending enough games to purchase a card. Attendance at basketball games in the SFL was always predominantly made of students going on a spur of the moment decision when they had the time on any given night.
The $5 entry fee has just given students another reason to not attend.
Even for parents of players who make it out to most games there is an increased ticket cost that, if those students’ parents both come and attend all 14 home games it adds up to $196. This isn’t even including food or the possibility of siblings admission and more than just home games.
In addition to the ticket costs, prices at the snack bar have gone up for several items from $.50-$1. These prices honestly, suck. It’s three bucks for a gatorade, and that’s a 100 percent rip off.
Paying for food is becoming similar to prices you would see at movies, and as a JV player who consistently buys the chicken strips and fries for six bucks – it adds up. Whenever I go after a JV game I spend close to $10 just to get a quick snack from a snack bar that doesn’t really satisfy me or anyone else.
I could theoretically drive to a gas station buy a hot dog, gatorade and ticket back into the game for under what I’m spending now.
The high costs for attending basketball games are only hammering down the nail on regularly low turnouts. Rather than increase costs to account for a lack of attendance, find other avenues to draw students back out to games.
