Context

Being an enrolled student at The University of Texas at Austin should guarantee access to Longhorn game days. Instead, Texas Athletics treats its own student body as a secondary revenue stream.

By selling roughly 23,000 Big Tickets for a student section at Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium capped at only ~11,300 seats, UT Athletics intentionally oversells pass access by double. To bypass a randomized, crashing claim queue each week, students are pressured to pay an additional $140 for a Longhorn Foundation (LHF) student membership. When LHF memberships sold out in minutes at a strict 6,000-student cap, thousands of students were left paying $270 out-of-pocket for a sports pass with zero guarantee of ever stepping inside DKR for major home games.  

We call on Texas Athletics to stop prioritizing donor profit margins over the student body that defines Texas Longhorn tradition.

 

The Problem: Profit Over Students

 Calculated Overselling Under the Guise of "Subsidization": While Texas Athletics defends the $270 price as a "subsidized deal," collecting full-price pass fees from over 23,000 students while capping student seating at 11,300 is bad-faith overselling. Charging students for an "opportunity" that is statistically denied to nearly half the pass holders is unacceptable.

 Paywalled Priority & the LHF Cap: Creating a $140 "pay-to-win" tier (LHF) forces students to pay over $410 total just to secure basic game access—monetizing a seating shortage created by the athletic department's own allocation choices. Furthermore, capping LHF at 6,000 leaves over 17,000 Big Ticket holders forced into an unreliable weekly lottery queue.  

 Mismanaged Attendance & No-Show Excuses: Administration justifies overselling by citing student no-show rates. However, relying on overselling rather than improving the ticket return/recycle system penalizes responsible students who show up while artificial caps lock them out.

 Outpaced by SEC Peers: Compared to other major SEC programs that allocate significant stadium proportions to their student section (such as Texas A&M's ~36,000 student allotment), Texas Athletics continues to restrict student capacity to preserve high-margin commercial and donor seating.

 

Our Demands

1. Expand DKR Student Capacity: Permanently increase the physical student section allotment in DKR to match true student demand and align with SEC peer standards.
2. Cap Big Ticket Sales or Implement Weighted Rotations: Stop overselling passes beyond reasonable fill-rates. If capacity remains capped, transition to a fair, non-paywalled rotation system so every Big Ticket holder receives guaranteed entry to a set number of marquee games.
3. Abolish the Paid Priority Tier: Eliminate the $140 LHF early-access fee structure for student ticket claims. Every student pass holder should have equal, un-monetized access to claim tickets.
4. Fix the Attendance Recycling System: Instead of overbooking the stadium, modernize the ticket return portal and improve standby queues so returned student tickets instantly reach students who want to attend.
5. Transparent Allocation & Technical Infrastructure: Upgrade server infrastructure to eliminate queue crashes and publicly disclose exact weekly student ticket numbers and claim statistics.

 

Sign the Petition

If you are tired of Texas Athletics taking student money without guaranteeing student seats, sign and share this petition to demand fair, equal, and guaranteed student seating at UT Austin!