'Game' Tickets Are Free At Last

For the first time in 119 playings of The Game, Harvard students will receive free tickets to see the Crimson battle Yale this November.

This move brings Harvard fully in line with the other seven Ivy League schools, all of which allows their students to attend home football games free of charge. Until now, the annual game against Yale was the only football game Harvard students had to pay for.

Assistant Director of Athletics for Marketing Stephen Staples said the biggest factor in the department’s decision, announced Tuesday, to make The Game free was that Yale does not charge its students to attend The Game when it is played in New Haven.

In addition, Staples said he hopes the free admission policy, which he had considered adopting for several years, will encourage students to come out to more football games.

“If having to pay for the Harvard-Yale game was a barrier for people to come out and see Harvard football, then we want to eliminate that barrier,” Staples said.

Staples said students were charged for Game tickets in the past so the athletics department could reserve enough seating for students in Harvard Stadium, which seats only 31,000—far less than Yale Bowl’s 70,000 capacity.

The department is still figuring out how to distribute the tickets, said ticket manager Michael Correa.

The change comes two years after the Undergraduate Council called for free access to the biggest game of the year. The Game, to be held Nov. 23 at Harvard this year, sells out regularly.

Rohit Chopra ’04, the council’s Student Affairs Committee chair, called the move by Staples a “nice policy change.”

“It always seemed strange that the athletics office was trying to encourage school spirit only to have us pay for the one game of the year that everyone attends,” Chopra said.

He said he anticipates this year’s Game to be better than ever because of the change.

“I just pity Yale’s football team,” Chopra said. “Now there will be even more of us to charge the field when they lose again.”

Star quarterback Neil T. Rose ’02-’03 also applauded the change.

“I think its a great idea,” Rose wrote in an e-mail. “I was shocked at the size and emotion of the student section at last year’s Penn game. I hope this new policy creates an even larger, louder student section that will give us a great advantage.”

Several other students said they were happy to enjoy a perk that Yale students have long had.

Alexandra N. Yurkovic ’04 said she plans to spend the $12 admission fee on supplies for a post-Game party.

“Last year was pretty expensive between the shuttle and the ticket, but this is a nice change,” Yurkovic said.

Jacob S. Gordon ’05 said he plans to spend his ticket money on food—perhaps a tasty tailgate treat.

“I’ll absolutely go to the game this year,” Gordon said.

—Staff writer Maria S. Pedroza can be reached at mpedroza@fas.harvard.edu.