For those interested in information regarding the re-seating at Mackey for this fall, check out this story and the accompanying PDF that goes into detail about how awesome the renovation is...for the softball team, among others. Huh?
Anyway, with the seating capacity decreasing a bit, there will be a shuffling of where people sit. Ideally, we'd like to see them take the people who don't cheer and relocate their seats to University Drive. Absent that, though, we'd like to see the students have a more prominent and effective position within the seating structure. Reader Alan tweeted that the students are indeed expected to have more of a lower-bowl presence, expanded to both ends, which is a step in the right direction. Here is a seating chart that shows where the students will have seating:
The darkest color represents student seats, which you can see include wedges at both ends of the court. Not the best in the Big Ten -- by far -- but not awful.
Less pleasing is the heavy reliance on John Purdue Club membership in order to gain any level of priority for your new seats. In fact, you're more or less forced to join JPC if you want to be sure you have your tickets back, though it doesn't explicitly say that. The brochure does acknowledge, though, that even if you've had season tickets for years, you don't get any priority points for that unless you join the JPC. And, good news! You can join by March 31 and get credit for all those years of loyalty! Never mind the money you've spent... you gotta join up and spend more! Whee! Way to thank loyal ticketholders!
Also interesting is the pricing for the new club seating and courtside seating. At first, I couldn't figure out if the prices posted are for a season ticket or if it's just for the license for the seats. As in, PSLs, the thing many NFL teams do to screw their fans over and conduct a blatant cash grab. Regardless, what is being published as the "price" for a courtside seat is -- ready for this, midwest? -- $8500. Then I read more carefully and learned that the $8500 is, in fact, just a seat license, and your actual ticket prices will be tacked on as the season approaches.
Go ahead and swallow now.
Oh, but hey, the good thing is that you also get a women's season ticket! Everybody loves the fundamentals of the game and being able to watch young women work on those fundamentals is worth $8500 by itself.
Another tidbit I found interesting is that there will be club areas where alcohol will be available. I always thought you couldn't have alcohol on state property in Indiana and since Purdue was a state school, there wasn't a loophole. I guess I was wrong. Time to booze it up and then sit courtside and yell at 19 year old boys!
There's no doubt the new Mackey will be lovely, but the ramming of the JPC down people's throats is kind of annoying, and we continue to wish the students had a more prominent and impactful location. But all in all, this is about what you'd expect from Purdue University. That's not a good or a bad thing... it's just how it is.