The tickets link on the Rice Owls web site will now let you purchase individual game tickets for the CUSA Tournament. Prices are $10 to $14 for each round robin game, $15 for the championship game. I did not look closely enough to figure out how much (if anything) will be added in Ticketmaster fees, but I assume that we can avoid those by purchasing the tickets at the park.

I'm happy that we can buy individual game tickets, however, the University should be embarrassed by the lack of transparency regarding tournament tickets. I'm guessing that some of the folks who purchased the full tournament passes ($120; $95 for season ticket holders) knowing they would only go to the Rice games might be a little bit frustrated. For less than $60, you can see all of the Rice games.

True, but we would have had to give up our usual seats.

In one thread we're trying to make up a $5 million dollar annual deficit. In the next thread we complain because of a perceived $30.00 overcharge to maintain premium tickets. Really?

Does any of this money go to Rice or does CUSA get the gate?

My understanding, and I may be incorrect, is that we made a bid with a guarantee to C-USA. To the extent we have revenue in excess of the guaranteed payment amount, the excess goes to Rice. If we have no excess, we make no income. (I'm not sure if we plan to make any income...If we break even and use the home field advantage to win the tournament, I think we have accomplished our purpose). The alternative to the guaranty is that we would have the expense of travel to Hattiesburg, etc.

I was assuming (without any actual knowledge) that the conference keeps most or all of the money. Either way, the lack of transparency was not a good thing. I don't have any problems with requiring purchase of all session passes to keep your regular seats. But why not go ahead and tell folks early on that individual game tickets would be sold later?

The rumors I heard from other season ticket holders was that no individual game tickets would be sold. Providing an early option to buy either all session passes or day passes but not individual game tickets was misleading. I realize that we did not know what individual game tickets we would want until this week. But the same is true for day passes; we did not know which day Rice would not play, but you have been able to buy day passes for several weeks.

I know folks who were not planning to come to any games because they thought that $30 for one game was too much and they were under the impression that individual game tickets would not be sold. I hope they check back.

Overall, not a big deal, but cheesy.

Houston Owl,

You're correct. Our bid guaranteed a certain amount - everything over the department keeps. As I understand it, our bid was equivalent to well under 100% participation by our season ticketholders. So the expectation is that department will make a reasonable amount of money as host.

Well, glad to do my part by buying the package.

I've tried to give away some of the other tickets to alumni of conference mates without success.

Does anyone know if Rice has a process by which we can donate unused tickets back re-sale or for charitable purposes?