I forgot to purchase season tickets for hockey over the two-day period in which a student was allowed to sign up for the "lottery" online. Still wanting to attend the banner raising and the ranked match-up between Boston College and Wisconsin, and not finding anyone who was giving up their ticket for the evening, I figured it would be no problem to buy a non-student ticket online - especially because there were posters across campus proclaiming that tickets were still available. I logged on and was willing to pay the $25 it took to get an adult seat. Although $15 more than the student ticket for that game, I figured it was reasonable, and the difference would be the hit my wallet would have to take for my failure to stay on top of my generic athletics e-mails.
Upon checkout, and much to my dismay, it seemed that BC Athletics now had employed the business plan of American Airlines - extra fees for something that should be already accounted for in the ticket price. My $25 ticket had $11 in fees (a $1 generic fee and a $10 order charge) attached to its online purchase. For a total of $36, what I thought would cost a quarter of a Benjamin suddenly jumped 36 percent just by clicking "continue" on my Web browser.
I abhor hidden fees or additions that must be accounted for so that the supplier can claim an illusory low price. If you've ever hopped around the continent of Europe, you may be familiar with the ultimate culprit of such tactics: Ryan Air. Though you may have paid 0.01 Euro for your ticket, after you have been slapped around by 50 Euros in fees, you realize you might have been better off taking a legitimate airline like British Airways or Lufthansa.
Seemingly, the hope is that one either doesn't notice how much one is actually paying or, in the instance of the online transaction, that after advancing through a few screens, one will just pony up the extra cash, lest it keep the transaction from happening.
So why complain about a relative pittance in comparison to the overall costs of living on the Heights or in comparison to trying to see at game at Fenway? It could easily be argued that I'm the idiot who didn't sign up for the student package or that a program as strong as hockey can charge what it wants, especially since it brought home the national title. If I don't want to spend what it takes to get in, then I have the freedom not to buy it.
These are all valid arguments but what I want to know is exactly what a service charge actually means. Because I would be getting the ticket in an e-mail to print out, it's not as if the box office were burdened with much labor. I'm pretty sure that when there was a search for the best available seats, it was a computer doing the work, not some guy at the other end frantically finding a space for me. On its face, there seems to be little justification for the fees associated with my securing a ticket, as the workload of that task is given to a computer program and not hourly labor.
If one goes to a concert, the price of the ticket covers the overhead and sunk costs of putting on such a performance. Many times a service fee is added, but this is almost exclusively by a ticket agency that, as a third party, uses the fee to cover its own operating expenses. BC Athletics does not seem to employ a third party, so where is the extra $11 going? Is it being used for infrastructure, further development of athletic programs, furnishing the Flynn Fund, or simply going into a big-time sport-squandering fund?
Make it known to consumers what those funds are for; otherwise people will feel scammed and just assume it's another tactic for the University to grab more money and seem less and less like a nonprofit institution. The goal of any athletic program is to excel and to have a strong supporting fan base. BC hockey has definitely secured the former, but the latter is at risk when actions such as excessive fees will make those supporters feel alienated.
Adam Feeney is a Heights
staff columnist. He welcomes comments at feeneya@bcheights.com.
Spring Break
