The move came after students struggled to deal with heat and humidity while waiting outside the stadiumGETTY IMAGES
UCF is "revising its student entry procedure" for football games at Spectrum Stadium with the "goal of having a new system set up" for the UConn game on Sept. 28, according to Romero & Murschel of the ORLANDO SENTINEL. The move comes after demand for tickets "prompted students to sign up to attend the Knights' big home game against Stanford this past Saturday in record numbers and then head to Spectrum Stadium hours before kickoff to wait in line for a chance to fill the student section." Students reported that they "struggled to deal with heat and humidity while waiting for at least two hours in the sun outside the stadium." The hours of waiting outside the stadium "took its toll and the stands emptied at halftime." While some colleges "struggle to fill student sections and Alabama is tracking the movements of its students to reward those who stay to until the end of the game with priority seating, UCF officials say they are grateful to have loyal student support and will keep them in mind as they consider expanding the stadium" (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 9/20).
NEXT GEN ANALYTICS: Alabama is tracking how long fans to stay at football games via its Tide Loyalty Points app, and FanMaker CEO & co-Founder Jason Cole, whose company created the app, said FanMaker does not "share any data" it gets from the app. Cole said, "We don't resell any data, everything is encrypted and stored, everything's owned by the university." He said Alabama has "gone to the extra level of not utilizing any GPS data" from fans' phones because the "only place the app is ever doing any tracking is inside of the student section" at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Cole noted clients decide "how they're going to utilize" the software, but FanMaker makes sure its clients are "clearly articulating what the app is being utilized for to anyone participating" ("OTL," ESPN, 9/19).
