It’s gameday. You have your outfit planned and scoped out the perfect seats ahead of time to cheer on UM’s football team. You leave your tailgate and walk through security. You’re all pumped up for the game and scan your student ticket.
But you can’t get in because the student who sold you their ticket scammed you.
That was the reality of Ashton Weissman, a current junior at UM, who spent the entire first half of the UF vs. UM game standing outside Hard Rock stadium waiting with his friend. The ticket that was transferred to his friend had already been scanned for entry on another device.
“We had to wait until half, and we woke up super early for GameDay that morning. We were super amped for the game, and it just really blew it for us,” Weissman said.
Weissman’s experience is one that was shared by many students that day and serves as a testament to the ridiculous ticketing policy. Students should be allowed to seamlessly transfer their “free” tickets to friends given how much students spend on their athletic fee.
Student ticket scams have been on the rise and they are not just limited to our football games. These scams are only made worse by the policy that does not allow students to transfer their student tickets.
Of course, buying a ticket off of someone is always a risk because of this non-transferable ticket policy, but things would be made so much easier if students were just allowed to sell and transfer their tickets.
Scams have happened at other UM events as well, notably at the fall and spring commencement ceremonies, which also have limited tickets.
Though I am currently working towards my masters, I graduated from UM with my public health degree this past May. I was so proud and couldn’t wait to see the excitement on my family’s face, until I found out five weeks before graduation that I was at risk of not having my whole family attend the ceremony.
I consistently called the ticket office for advice on how to get more tickets, and they advised me to reach out to students that are not using all of their tickets. Boy, what a frenzy that caused.
My mother and I found ourselves begging for tickets in Facebook groups of parents and other UM students selling their unused graduation tickets. We saw prices as high as $150 per ticket, people auctioning off their tickets on other platforms like Snapchat, all of which were unregulated and, frankly, unfair.
My mother reached back out to the ticket office outraged, asking how they were unable to give us more tickets for family members when students and their parents were blatantly profiting off of this desperate situation.
Their response? You guessed it, crickets. Thankfully, I was able to get a couple of tickets from a friend of mine in the correct manner, but this is not the case for many students who are forced to seek out tickets in other ways.
There need to be better practices in place. A change in how student tickets can be returned or exchanged is necessary.
Students should have the option to transfer tickets securely through an official UM platform to other students, ensuring that both parties are protected and the tickets remain valid. Establishing a regulated system would discourage scams and hold individuals accountable for dishonest reselling.
Most importantly, it would restore fairness and trust in a process that’s meant to bring the UM community together, not divide it.
Attending a UM game or celebrating commencement should be moments of pride and unity, not frustration and distrust.
Currently, the Student Tickets section of the Miami Hurricanes athletics website states, “For all full-time undergraduate students, the athletic fee is mandatory and was automatically paid during the enrollment process.”
The website continued to state that “Graduate students and part-time undergraduate students have the opportunity to opt in and pay the athletic fee in order to claim complimentary tickets to Hurricanes athletic events.”
The irony lies in the word “complimentary.” While the university labels student tickets as free, paying the mandatory athletic fee grants you access to obtain them, so “complimentary” might be a bit of a stretch.
At the bottom of the website, UM prompts students to contact the ticket office or the Dean of Students if they suspect a scam. Students are also advised to only claim students if they plan on attending, and that there is no return option on tickets.
As students, we pay a lot of money in tuition to attend this school, on top of another fee to attend athletic events. If we are going to spend even more money to get to see our team for “free,” then why are we dismissed when we point out these scams? If we are paying for no intervention and no ability to give back unused tickets for fair transfer, then we should be able to opt out of the athletic fee and sell our student tickets as we please.
Of course, selling your student ticket leads down a rabbit hole of issues. It is disadvantageous to students who face financial strain and undermines community spirit.
The athletic fee ensures that students financially contribute to their access to tickets, confirming that these tickets are not truly free. However, not enforcing a system for ticket reselling undermines the fairness of the system and diminishes the value of paying the required fee.
By implementing a secure and transparent ticket exchange system, the university can protect students from being scammed while promoting fairness and integrity. After all, these events are about community and it’s time the ticketing process reflected that same spirit.