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The Penn State Nittany Lions will soon host a College Football Playoff game in Beaver Stadium against the SMU Mustangs. Students are finding it difficult to secure tickets.
While the school set out an allotment of seats for student attendance, it seems the number shrank in comparison to previous home games. Some have started to call the Nittany Lions out for their supposed untruthfulness in the ticketing process.
One of the perks of the new 12-team College Football Playoff setup is the fact that four campuses will host home games in the opening round of action. By landing the No. 6 seed in the field, Penn State earned one of those opportunities.
Given that it’s the program’s first appearance in the event, anticipation for the matchup is at an all-time high. Students planned to come support their football team in its national title pursuit, hoping to create a hostile environment for the visiting Mustangs. They’ve quickly run into issue!
The school said in a comment to Onward State that student tickets could be requested up through November 29th. It also claimed that everyone who’d requested their seats prior to that cutoff date was successful in securing attendance to the game.
“The ticket inventory and pricing are controlled by the College Football Playoff,” said Penn State spokesperson Kris Petersen. “All students who requested tickets by the Friday, November 29 deadline received tickets, and no student requests were turned away prior to the deadline.”
On Monday, Audrey Snyder of The Athletic wrote that Penn State students failed to request the full allotment. Those unused tickets would now go on sale to the general public.
It’s looking like there will be plenty of tickets available at 2:30 p.m. for a public sale for Penn State, SMU on Ticketmaster.
Penn State students did not request their full allotment of tickets. That frees up about 5k seats that will be sold for much more money for the Playoff pic.twitter.com/tQWyL9DDir
— Audrey Snyder (@audsnyder4) December 9, 2024
The pricing difference for students and general public is significant with costs jumping from $28 to $100. Several Penn State students denied the school’s comment on ticketing. Many say they were rejected by the lottery system despite putting requests in before the deadline.
Dylan Dawson wrote, “PSU students requested their allotment,” in response to Snyder’s post. “I didn’t get my ticket, neither did a lot of my friends. The CFP has their hands in this. Significantly shrinking the student section to make more off of the general seating. And now a ton of PSU seniors will miss out on this opportunity.”
Dawson sent a screenshot of his request to Onward State, which was submitted on November 24th. He wasn’t the only one in the boat. Slews of students replied to Snyder’s message with claims of being denied tickets despite Penn State’s statement of all requests having been honored. She’s since reached out to the CFP, who redirected her back to the university.
CFP says they work closely with Penn State on ticketing and redirected me back to Penn State.
— Audrey Snyder (@audsnyder4) December 10, 2024
Students sections are one of the things that separate college football from the NFL. Unfortunately, their pockets aren’t as deep as the average fan’s. Penn State students believe the Nittany Lions and the College Football Playoff are squeezing the group in hopes of selling more tickets at a higher price. It will be interesting to see if there is any clarification given from the university.