The pre-registration process for Penn State football student season tickets ended Sunday with a slight decrease from last year's number of registered students, Penn State Associate Athletic Director Greg Myford said.
Myford could not provide exact numbers but said "just under 40,000" students registered this year, while "more than 40,000" students registered last year. There are only 22,000 tickets available for students every year.
He believes the change this year from paper tickets to storing tickets on student ID cards is responsible for the decrease in pre-registration. It eliminated students who were purchasing tickets only to resell them for profit, he said.
Another change was the elimination of e-mails reminding students of the date and direct instructions for pre-registration and purchasing tickets. The university replaced the e-mails with a "Student Central" section on gopsusports.com.
Though students were notified of the change via e-mail in April, some were left unregistered and still scratching their heads.
Karen Piwinski (senior-animal sciences) said she heard about the registration process through conversations with friends but assumed an email would still be distributed as a reminder.
"Since the athletic department eliminated the emailing process, I forgot when I had to pre-register for the tickets and didn't have a chance to do so. They need to send out the email because I depended on it to tell me when I had to pre-register," Piwinski said.
However, Myford said students had more than enough reminders about the change and plenty of time to prepare, including 24/7 access to ticket information.
"The pre-registration this year was the same as last year in both process and timing. All Penn State students were sent the same e-mail notification at the same time before the conclusion of spring semester," Myford said. "Student tickets extended well beyond e-mail correspondence, including The Daily Collegian, Facebook, Twitter, psu.edu, eLion, newswires, numerous blogs, etc. Not sure where else we needed to be."
Josh Keffer (sophomore-business) was able to pre-register for his student tickets without a problem but still feels the change only hurt students who were looking to register.
"I think it's less personal and less effective. We have enough websites we already have to check on our own on a fairly regular basis. We really don't need another one just because we want to get tickets," Keffer said.
Myford said the athletic department plans to continue the new process in the future and recognizes the importance of the student section.
"Our student body, no 'ifs', 'ands' or 'buts' is a home field advantage for us," he said. "We know that they help make Beaver stadium a very difficult place for opponents to play."
Student tickets go on sale by class starting June 22.
