Students who want to attend the ASU men's basketball game against UA on Jan. 3 will have a to jump through a few more hoops than normal.
Because the game is being held during winter break, all students who have basketball season tickets will have to pick up a voucher sometime between now and Nov. 21 to reserve a seat for the game.
"It's a way of telling us that they're going to attend the game," said Jason Butikofer, ticket office manager for the department of intercollegiate athletics.
"Being that the game is over break, we realize that a lot of students go home or are going to be unable to attend the game. Based on the fact that the UA game was a sellout last year, we anticipate that it will be again this year."
Students who do not have vouchers will not be admitted to the game. Vouchers are available at the Sun Devil Ticket Office, located at the south end of Sun Devil Stadium, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
If there were a demand for tickets for the general public, the ticket office would sell student section seats where vouchers are not claimed.
Both the Stanford (Jan. 8) and California (Jan. 10) basketball games that follow the Wildcats on Jan. 3 are also before classes resume, but because of previous sales, vouchers would not be needed.
Butikofer also added that the student section would be expanded "pretty significantly" this year from 1,865 seats to a little more than 3,500. The change was needed because of the dramatic increase in student season ticket sales from 2,100 last season to almost 4,000 this year.
The popularity of the combo pack that lets students buy both basketball and football season tickets together, as well as ASU's visit to the NCAA tournament last year for the first time since the 1994-95 season, has helped ticket sales.
"People are knowledgeable of the fact that we have a chance to be a pretty successful this year, and sales trends told us that we need to expand our student section in order to take care of our students," Butikofer said.
"If our team gets on a roll this year, we can accommodate as much of the student population as possible," he added.
All of sections M1, N1 and N2, located in the upper levels of the east side of Wells Fargo Arena, will be allotted to the students, and the top portions of P1 and Q1 above row 33 will be used as overflow seating. If needed, all of section Z1, located behind the west basket in the upper section of the arena, will be used as an overflow section.
Reach the reporter at jeffrey.hoodzow@asu.edu.
