BY JOSIE DECARO (’19)
Each game a high school student attends is four dollars. There is high attendance of students for football games although for other sports the number of students present is rather limited.

Vast amount of change with the outcome of students present at sporting events if admissions were free.
For example, there are ten games in a regular football season. If a student attends every game in the regular season at four dollars per entry, that is forty dollars per season. This isn’t even including JV games.

On top of that, students mostly attend volleyball and soccer games, another four dollars per entry.
Let’s say that the average student attends three games per week, football, volleyball and soccer (either boys or girls). That’s twelve dollars per week.

I don’t know about other students, but being in high school while working part-time job and having to pay for gas and other needs, the twelve dollars per week adds up pretty fast and could be put towards other future necessities.

Ya know, like college.

Granted families can purchase a season pass at the beginning of the year that is $100 for access to all games, but even then are students getting their money’s worth? I mean do parents really go to all sporting events? So are they paying extra just for their child to attend?

Not all parents and family members have the ability to make it to all of the sporting events, except maybe one or two members of the family who actually attend as many games as they can. Therefore would still be spending more money than needed.

Alexa Hess, who is a senior at Newark Catholic, does not have to pay for games. “Newark Catholic lets all its students attend sporting events for free,” she told me. “This is very important to the amount of people attending the games. High school students don’t have money to spend at three games a week.”

Hess said that it is important to have full participation at all games, and it simply takes the flash of their student ID to have immediate access to the game.

Obviously, now is not the best time for a cut like this, considering the levy failure and the budget cuts that have taken place throughout the district. Even if we could not cut the cost completely for high school students, a $20 or less sticker placed on our student IDs as an entry fee to any game for the whole year, would be a much greater help.

If the ID charge was put into consideration, the benefits of the students money could be evenly dispersed throughout ALL sports even the ones who do not charge to get in. Hopefully, then the money can be used resourcefully and wisely.

This may be seen as students not supporting the program enough because we are not paying to get in to the games, but there are other people who continue to add to the revenue besides just high schoolers.

You have to figure that the football student section fits 20 students per row and there are about 15 rows in the student section, so roughly 300 students fill up the student section for a good game. For the student section alone that is roughly $1,200 revenue brought in by students.

Sometimes there are not even that many students present at the games to even generate such that amount.
That is a considerable amount of money and does greatly benefit the athletic program, but is there really that many people attending that event as their could be due to financial sustainability?

Not including students, other attendance of elementary to intermediate, seniors and adults, also not to mention the opposing side that’s a lot of other people bringing in a whole lot of other revenue. Not to mention concessions, where prices could be raised even as little as ten cents for the coverage of students.

This makes me question our spending decisions in the years past such as the $5,000 spent of configuring a new ace and logo for the school. I’m sorry, but c’mon. Also, what about the Friday Night Lights events that are held and the free food being provided that comes from our parking pass money.

This is the type of spending that needs critical thought and attention. Attention to something that is actually important to the students and the programs supporters.

“Students spend so much money on events that it all adds up,” senior student section director Ben Blanchard said. “I think students should be able to get into games for free or at least seniors.”

Blanchard is in charge of themes and outcomes for the student section. Blanchard tweets and spreads the word about attending all sporting events and he realizes that there would be more attendance if the students did not have to pay.

If more students had the option of going to the game it is an opportunity of growing stronger friendships with other students, providing a student with a smarter mentality of decisions that they will be making that night and not to mention the pride the students take in representing their own school.

In years to come, after the levy has passed,, recognition of the spending of high school students and parents should be accommodated and a compromise should be reached.