LSU students have to pay to enter regular season games for only one sport: football.
However, full-time University students who have at least a 2.0 GPA have two options for purchasing football season tickets. For 2019 general admission season tickets are $84, excluding the processing fee, while reserved tickets are $126.
Reserved tickets, or student organization tickets, are available for students attending a game as part of Greek life or other student organizations. LSU Athletics sold about 3,000 student organization tickets this year, according to LSU Athletics Assistant Manager Garrett Thibodeaux.
Students with student organization tickets may have noticed the $42 price difference between their tickets and general admission tickets. According to Thibodeaux, the price difference accounts for student organization tickets having reserved seats in Sections 105 and 221-224 of Tiger Stadium.
Thibodeaux said reserved seating allows students attending a game with an organization to have seats assigned to them within their organization’s block. These seats are available for them no matter what time they arrive, according to LSU Ticket Operations. General admission seats are available on a first come, first serve basis.
Thibodeaux said the price difference is also due to the seating areas’ quality.
“The reserved seats are in better seating areas than the general admission seating,” Thibodeaux said.
Biochemistry freshman Margaret Thomas pledged Phi Mu this year, but was unable to purchase Greek tickets because she had not been initiated into the sorority. Despite the price difference, Thomas plans to buy student organization tickets next year to sit with her sorority sisters.
“I’m sad we don’t get to do it this year,” Thomas said. “It’ll be nice to have better seats and be with all my friends next year.”
Greek life isn’t the only organization that has access to reserved seats; any registered student organization at the University is eligible for group seating. Other student organizations that typically buy group tickets include Christ the King Catholic Church and the Student Veterans of LSU.
Student Veterans of LSU President James Graham has a seat within the B-seat Student Veterans Section.
“I love it,” Graham said. “I definitely enjoy being able to sit there, so close to the action, while still having that friend gathering feeling around too.”
Graham has no problem with paying the extra $42 for the reserved tickets because he feels the seats are “some of the best you can get as a student.”
In previous years, students with reserved seats needed a seat locator card to enter the reserved section. The locations of students’ seats were printed on the back of the tickets. Because students’ football tickets are now accessed through their mobile devices, students only have to show their downloaded ticket instead of a seat locator. General admission tickets are purple when accessed through students’ phone, while reserved tickets are gold.