Question for the readers: are any of you season ticket holders for Pitt basketball? Not the student section. I’m talking about the mandatory donation for the right to buy season tickets group. I’m wondering whether season ticket-holders have to sign anything else or get further documentation from Pitt, to the effect that the “university reserves the right to change the terms, yada, yada, yada.” Send me an e-mail if you are.

I’ve been looking over the complaint for the class action. It makes the basic claims, but there is not much there. The causes of action are: Breach of Contract; Promissory Estoppel; and Violation of the PA Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law (73 PS Sec. 201-2(xiv)). The last is essentially a codified contract claim (“Failing to comply with the terms of any written guarantee or warranty given to the buyer at, prior to or after a contract for the purchase of goods or services is made”).

All of the claims are essentially based on the brochure sent out in 2000 that stated they would be guaranteeing the right to their seat.

They don’t cite to any precedents in the initial complaint. I live and practiced law in Ohio, so I don’t know how Pennsylvania would treat this sort of fact pattern. It doesn’t really pass my “sniff test,” but you never know if the case ends up before a grandstanding judge in the Allegheny Common Pleas Court.

I don’t think much of the ticket policy, as I keep repeating, and I think Pitt is badly overestimating the demand for season tickets. Rex, in the comments, probably summed this up best.

leave it to Pitt to ruin a good thing. The Pete was always filled, fans and alumni were happy, the team was winning, now they are gouging the fans and expect them to have no opinion. Another stupid mistake.

A particularly ham-handed approach.

H.B. Blades was one of 54 players named to the Lombardi Award Watch list. The Lombardi Award is eligible to “down linemen and defensive players who line up within five yards of the football.”

According to the press release on the watch list, this is the preliminary list assembled based on those who received accolades in the post 2004 season. In Blades’ case, being named to the 1st team All-Big East. Additional names will be added to the watch list in August.

The first, last and only Pitt player to win this award was, of course, Hugh Green in 1980.

Well, the threatened lawsuit against Pitt for its new donation/seating policy at the Pete is happening.

Prior to the opening of the Petersen Events Center in 2002, Pitt created and promoted a season ticket plan that promised in writing that season ticket holders would be able to keep their same seats every year if they maintained or increased their contributions to the Athletic Department’s fundraising program “Team Pittsburgh,” which is now called “The Panther Club.” Last month, Pitt announced a new plan that reassigns non-Club season ticket seats every year based on a number of factors, including the size of contributions to the Athletic Department’s new fundraising drive.

They have a website for this. You can download a copy of the complaint and exhibits (PDF).

I haven’t had time to read the just filed lawsuit, so I don’t yet have an opinion of the merits. From the press release and the previous story on this, I am suspicious. There is an awful lot of reliance on a brochure encouraging people to get season tickets to form the contract claim.

I’m not a big fan of the approach Pitt has taken in this scheme for increasing “donations,” and I think they overestimate the actual level of interest in acquiring season tickets. So, what may be the result is that Pitt drops the reseating strategy. We’ll see.