By Catherine Laroche

Around this time every year, hundreds of eager University of Louisville students participate in the student ticket lottery process in hopes of getting tickets and the best seats possible to watch the Cardinal home football and men’s basketball games.
Last year, students were required to meet up with their friends at a Cardinal baseball game at Jim Patterson Stadium to sign up with one of the groups of 25. Some students stayed around until the end to hear their number called and where they would be sitting, while others left. Students were then required to attend the football spring game to check-in and pay for their tickets.
“Last year, the lottery made for a long day,” Alex Frommeyer, junior civil engineering student and three-year season ticket lottery participant, said. “It’s inconvenient, but worth it in my opinion.”
Every so often, the process that students go through to get student season tickets changes. This year is no exception, as a few major changes have been implemented after a taskforce of 15 students were put together to find out what students want when it comes to student ticket distribution.
“We saw an opportunity more than anything,” Trevor Joelson, SGA Athletic Director, said of why SGA decided to change the process. “There are about 1800 students that get tickets [during the lottery] and show their passion. We want to make this a way that their passion can be displayed. We also wanted to make it as easy as possible for the students who wanted it to be easy.”
Students will have the choice of submitting their name, e-mail address and student I.D. numbers in groups of up to 25 either to [email protected] or at the Student Government Association office in the SAC. All submitted student groups will then be broken up into teams of 25 by SGA with the best effort to keep students in the same academic class together. A Facebook group will then be developed for each team and teammate contact information will be provided to all team members.
Each team will be given one poker chip to be thrown into “The Cardinal’s Nest,” a trashcan used to hold all of the chips and to be kept in the athletic offices. If students have 90 or more credit hours, attend the lacrosse game on April 5, attend the softball game on April 7 and attend the baseball game they can earn one chip for each fulfillment. Attendance at either of the sporting events is optional. Teams can earn up to a maximum of 101 poker chips.
Poker chips will then be drawn publicly following the April 14 baseball game against the University of Kentucky. Representatives from SGA, athletics and student affairs will draw chips.
Just like last year, students will be obligated to attend the spring football game on April 17 in order to purchase their tickets.  Voucher pick-up will happen at half-time and ticket purchase will happen following the game.
“Overall I think the change is good,” Rudy Spencer, senior SGA President, said. “It is a good combination of events and structure that meets everyone’s needs.”
Newly elected SGA Executive Vice President Stephanie Bonenberger agreed with Spencer, but made one suggestion at a recent senate meeting about the new changes.
“My only suggestion is to look at allowing current juniors to be allowed to get the ‘senior chip’ if they will have senior status next semester,” she said. “I figure if they keep it at 90 hours currently they are rewarding students that are going for a fifth year and punishing those of us who will graduate in four years.”
Many see students at other universities camping out for tickets to big games and often wonder why U of L doesn’t do a camp out process for season tickets; which is something that actually was done about five years ago at U of L.  Joelson doesn’t see that happening anytime soon.
“Students want a camp out for the same reason that we don’t want a camp out,” he said. “They think of camp out as a giant tailgate and they want alcohol involved . We don’t want alcohol involved, so that’s an issue.”
Despite all the changes in the lottery system, students still plan on participating in the lottery process. Freshman business management student Remi Thompson plans on getting season tickets through the lottery process for the first time.
“It sounds like a lot of work when you first hear all of the rules, but I guess if you just want tickets and don’t care about where or who you sit by it’s not really,” Thompson said. “It’s probably a good thing because it gets people out to the less popular spring sports and helps generate a crowd and interest by making people go to these other sport games.”
Joelson hopes that the changes will be an improvement from last year’s lottery.
“We want the process to become as consistent as possible and we feel this is consistent to what’s been successful in the past,” Joelson said. “And that’s something we’re committed to.”