There is a new system in place for the thousands of ACU students, faculty and guests who will attend home football games this year. The purpose of this change: keep a record of game attendance and have a list of fans who get in free on Saturdays at Shotwell Stadium.
Effective tomorrow at the Wildcats’ first home football game against East Central University, anyone with a campus or family ID card will be required to swipe his or her card upon entering to limit the number of fans admitted into the stadium for free.
Shotwell Stadium staff employees will be posted at the main entrance gate on the home side of the stadium carrying portable card readers. ACU fans and anyone who has previously attended a game for free will be required to swipe an ACU ID card when entering the stadium.
John Houser, assistant director of athletics and in charge of marketing, ticketing and advertising for all ACU athletics, said those who faithfully attend home games should not expect much of a change from years past.
“I wouldn’t even call the new system we have set up a change, but more of just a minor revision. If you think about it, students in previous years still had to show their ID cards to the gatekeepers, and now all they’re doing is sliding their cards into portable card readers instead of flashing them to the ticket staff, ” Houser said.
Brad Schultz, a junior political science major from Franklin, Tenn., agreed that the new system is not a major change and will not affect his attendance at football games.
“Whenever I go to football games, I’ve always had to show my ID to whoever was manning the front gate anyways, and this is no different than that,” Schultz said. “People are still going to come to the games no matter how you check in.”
Houser also mentioned that this new system is aimed to retract a flaw in previous systems. Normally, anyone who graduated from ACU and still had an ID card could simply show it upon entrance and get in for free. In reality, free admission only applies to current students and those with university affiliations.
“We didn’t want to have a person who graduated in 2000 and has had their student ID for the last ten years to get into the games for free anymore,” Houser said. “This new ticketing system is a way to regulate that.”
Shotwell employees will be stationed at the middle entrance gate with card scanners. As they would in Chapel, students will need to find an employee and slide their cards through the scanners.
