A Huge Thank You For Helping Keep The Students On The Sideline
by Ryan Rosenblatt on May 6, 2011 2:21 AM PDT
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PrintThe votes are in and the students have said very loudly and very clearly that they want to keep their seats along the sideline. Now, assuming that Dan Guerrero and the Morgan Center are going to hold up their end of the bargain by "restoring the previously established student section," we will see the Den right up along the sideline when Pauley Pavilion reopens in the fall of 2012.
It's been a long 37 days since the Morgan Center announced on March 30 that the students would lose their sideline seats and a lot of people have done a lot of work that have helped the Den get their rightful spot back. The first of these people is MexiBruin, whose petition resulted in 1,133 signatures, including former letterwinners and basketball national champions. Mexi stood out at the football spring game and did the leg work. He had a member of the Morgan Center tell him he was wasting his time and still, he did not stop. Mexi took initiative and put the work in, something we are all thankful for.
Of course, as Mexi continues to point out, students approached him about the idea of putting together a petition and were involved every step of the way. We don't know exactly who those students are so while we cannot recognize them by name, we can give a huge thank you to them. Their initiative and work with Mexi did a lot of good that not only helps the current students, but whose work will be a major part of the student experience at UCLA for thousands of future students.
One person who has been working with BN every step of the way is Sean Wang. A graduate student, Wang helped bring attention to the issues students had with being moved and helped push for the advisory vote to be put on the ballot. Instead of just shrugging his shoulders and saying "this sucks," Wang went to work.
Additionally, all of the alums and fans who have supported the students this entire time deserve a ton of credit. This vote didn't come about because four people wanted it. It came about because Bruins recognized how important this was and applied pressure. This is the recent alums, the self-labled "geezers," those from north campus, those from south campus, those who won national championships, those who never made it out of the stands and all of the fans who may not be alums, but are true blue Bruins. Individually, the pressure may have been small and insignificant, but as a whole it was fantastic and played a part in all of this.
Most of all, a big thank you to the students who voted. You went out and voted not just for yourselves, but for all the future students. You voted for the history of the students at Pauley Pavilion and for the betterment of future Bruin teams that will be able to benefit from a true home-court advantage created by a raucous Den along the sidelines.
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.
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This is just the beginning
Now we need to get a bigger, more unified student section on the sidelines. Morgan Center needs to go back to Square 1. Too many sideline seats are being sold to donors in the first place. That’s what triggered this whole thing.
Morgan Center’s original plan called for a student section divided into three parts: One part on the sideline, one on the baseline at floor level and one part on the baseline in the nosebleed seats. That is not at all good for maximizing the impact of the students. But Morgan Center want to do that because it is trying to increase ticket revenue.
There is another way to increase ticket revenue, though: By making a UCLA home game THE place to be. The way to do that is to make the atmosphere less like a mausoleum and more like Mac Court. Or like Cameron. Or Dean Smith Center. And the way to do THAT is to claw back some of the seats that students had back in the John Wooden era.
Making it easier to go to the games would also help. For example, why even have season tickets for students? Why not make it first come, first served? Why not let students into any unoccupied nosebleed seats 15 minutes before tipoff? Ticket holders should be told that if they don’t show up, their seats will be given away. And so on. It’s time to take a creative look at game attendance.
A louder, more rocking Pauley will also increase the homecourt advantage, leading to a better record, leading to higher demand for tickets, leading to higher revenues. Time for Dan Guerrero to get out of bean-counter mode and think big!
by Seth Chandler on May 6, 2011 2:51 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs
+1
"Every day was a good day at UCLA." -Coach John Wooden
by OswegoBruin on May 6, 2011 9:31 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
A huge victory for all Bruins: past, present, and future!
Communities like BruinsNation make it so much easier to mobilize for a cause, but online engagement cannot completely replace the work done on the ground by people like Mexi and Sean. Congratulations to the community as a whole for learning on the fly and successfully leading two separate campaigns (Seto and Seat-o) that perfectly merged the two. BruinsNation has emerged as a leader in the field of social action using social media, and that should make each and every member of this community proud.
We're havin' too much fun today. We ain't thinkin' 'bout tomorrow.
by Steve Bruin on May 6, 2011 7:28 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs
It needs to be stressed in every post about this from now on:
PLEASE remember that we don’t want the original student section, we want the enlarged, “L” shaped student section proposed in the beginning of the Pauley renovation. THAT is our goal. L student section FTW!
"Every day was a good day at UCLA." -Coach John Wooden
by OswegoBruin on May 6, 2011 9:32 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs
So is this community...
behind the “L” shaped student section from the original plan? Is that the one we should now be advocating for?
I'm not sure. I don't think so.
If I recall correctly, the plan that most people refer to has the students divided into three sections: a sideline section, a floor level baseline section and a nosebleed baseline section. Faculty and staff occupy the corner section between the sideline section and the two separate baseline sections.
by Seth Chandler on May 6, 2011 1:05 PM PDT up reply actions
It's the "L" shape (as promised in original COC seating guide) for me.
I’m not sure of this nosebleed section you are talking about, but the rest of your description sounds like the “L” shape plan to me.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
The original plan had seats up in the top level behind the baskets, corner
in addition to the L shape.
Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I tweeted my followers to ask which I should take
by Ryan Rosenblatt on May 6, 2011 3:03 PM PDT up reply actions
There's a nosebleed section behind the basket.
The nosebleed seats on the sideline are no longer part of the student section. I think students deserve better.
by Seth Chandler on May 6, 2011 7:25 PM PDT up reply actions
We've won nothing yet.
I won’t celebrate until DG/Morgan Center actually announce they are restoring the “L” shaped seating plan for students. I still expect them to screw the students over somehow.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
Fight isn't over yet
Let’s see the response from the Morgan Center. I guess we’ll hear from them in about… oh, I’d say the start of Fall quarter.
With the new TV deal, I hope they can get the camera guys to finally have the student section sideline be shown on TV instead of the listless alum. It’d be nice to have the viewers know that there are passionate fans of UCLA teams.
It seems like everyone has begun holding their collective breath.
The onus is on the Morgan Center now to do the right thing.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
Let's not kid ourselves - the vote means nothing.
We had a student vote, and the student preference was indicated. The notion that the leadership of Morgan Center will make its decisions about ticketing and pricing based on student preference seems unrealistic. In my opinion, Morgan Center cannot change any of its policies, because that would be a sign that something needed to be changed. Given that any policy established by Morgan is an enlightened, double-plus good policy, it need not be and will not be changed.
Morgan Center is a dictatorship, not a democracy. The only change that I see coming is the total prohibition of any similar matters on any campus-wide ballot.
Nothing will change until Morgan Center is forced to change, and that will only happen by a total boycott of anything that will put a penny in the school’s coffers. That means, Ryan, you can report on baseball games, but you can’t buy a ticket to get in. No more purchases of any licensed products. No season ticket buying. No donations. Nothing. No going to games even if you get in free. Let Elan go be a one-man Den. (And no buying of any products of any company who sponsors UCLA sports.) I believe in a total boycott, with a press conference in front of Morgan Center. Get John and Ken to come down with their bullhorns and have them demand that Guerrero come out and explain himself.
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