Athletic Department officials are overhauling the season-ticket policy for the men's basketball program in an effort to transform the student section into a more formidable sixth man.
Starting this year, participants in the annual tradition of The Line - the surprise nighttime announcement and overnight Palestra bash where students trade sleep for tickets - will now get a general-admissions pass to the student section of the Palestra, rather than a reserved seat for every game.
The new student section will consist of the lower level seats behind the west end basket - where Line participants will cheer - and the seats above them, which will be available to all students. The adjacent chairbacks will not be included in the student section.
Moving students out of the south side chairbacks and into the west end seats is a reaction to feedback that the Palestra's student section often appeared too spread out, Athletic Department officials said. Now, they hope the student contingent at games will become more centralized.
At the same time, the more expensive chairback seats had been falling out of favor among students, and the cynic might add that having students and adult season-ticket holders next to each other had been a less than perfect arrangement.
"Over the course of the last two years, students were choosing to sit end-court more so than side-court," associate athletic director Alanna Shanahan said. "Some of our most rabid fans wanted to be front-row behind the basket, and many of the chairbacks were not filled until days into the student sale."
The general admissions policy in both sections aims to reward students who get to the games well before tipoff, a problem with which athletic director Steve Bilsky said many comparable programs are grappling.
"I remember getting dressed and being in the locker room 30, 40 minutes before the game and the building would shake," said Bilsky, the point guard for the 1971 team, considered Penn's best ever.
"Everyone who's ever played in the Palestra believes that our fans make a difference. It's important to have that, especially as the Ivy League gets better at basketball and more competitive."
Bilsky acknowledged that since getting to The Line in a flash will no longer guarantee a choice seat, the importance of the tradition may suffer. But he and other officials said that perks to being a season-ticket holder - concession promotions like Dollar Dog Night or social networking events - will keep The Line relevant.
It is unclear how the Red and Blue Crew's role might change under the new system. Shanahan suggested that because of the new version of The Line and the general admissions policy, Red and Blue Crew leaders likely will not receive the seating privileges they have enjoyed in the past, although she said the Athletic Department would still employ and reward some students.
The initiative is part of a broader plan to cultivate a base of reliable fans. To study what worked, the Athletic Department researched the attendance-boosting tools used by schools such as Temple and Villanova.
"We tend to look at the Big 5 schools when we talk about basketball more so than the Ivy League, because I think we'd like to in many ways consider them our primary peer group," Shanahan said.
Asked what her research had taught her about promoting attendance, she said, "It seems to work."
