© Maria Lysaker/Imagn
While the LSU Tigers women’s basketball program is one of the best in the nation, the men’s team is so bad it has resorted to drastic measures in order to keep students from leaving games early.
The Tigers are 13-8 in their fourth season under head coach Matt McMahon, which doesn’t seem too bad until you notice that they are just 1-7 in SEC play.
In fact, the Tigers are just 58-61 in McMahon’s 3.5 seasons in Baton Rouge, and 15-47 in conference play.
Students, however, are no dummies. They know the team is bad. But they also know that attending athletics events often involves some sort of perk, such as free food or deals on future tickets to games. So many of them are scanning into men’s basketball games with their student ID cards in order to receive whatever the promotional perk is, then immediately leaving.
Now, the Tigers are putting an end to that.
LSU Threatens To Revoke Season Tickets If Fan’s Leave Men’s Basketball Games Early
In a newly implemented policy, LSU announced that students must remain at the games at least until tip-off in order to receive any promotional items.
Additionally, if students are found to have repeatedly left early, they could risk losing their season tickets entirely.
“Any student that leaves the PMAC prior to tip-off will be exit scanned, and will lose the privileges to their LSU Basketball student tickets for the remainder of the season,” an email from LSU Athletics to students read prior to a game against Kentucky, where the first 500 students received a free t-shirt.
LSU director of fan experience Kelsey Dulinski said the new policy is a matter of fairness.
“This policy is intended to ensure giveaways are rewarded to students and fans who are genuinely there to support the team. The goal is to prevent individuals from collecting giveaway items and leaving before the game begins, and instead reward fans who arrive early, stay and actively cheer on the Tigers.”
Dulinski said that the school has seen a rising trend of students scanning in just for giveaway items only to turn around and leave immediately.
“The increased popularity and improved design of recent giveaways have led to a noticeable rise in students leaving immediately after receiving items,” Dulinski said. “This policy helps ensure giveaways reach fans who are staying to support the team.”
On one hand, it’s easy to see why the policy was introduced. Giveaways and promotions are meant to influence students to support the team. However, the easiest way to fix this issue is for the men’s basketball program to simply play better.