Despite continuing pleas from students and advice from Austin Public Health about restricting attendance at football games this semester, Texas Athletics has continued to allow the public into football games. This may seem like a minor issue that has been needlessly analyzed, especially since Texas Athletics has mandated that all students with the Big Ticket get tested for COVID-19 before being allowed into the stadium. 

However, not all students who enter Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium with the Big Ticket have tested negative for COVID-19.

It has recently come to light that Big Ticket holders are getting tested for COVID-19 to get their ticket cleared before selling it to another student for a particular game. 

This means students who receive transferred tickets are potentially going into the game without getting tested for COVID-19. 

In order to prevent the potential spread of COVID-19 among people both within and outside the football games, Texas Athletics must establish stricter regulations that ensure students cannot get into a football game using a transferred Big Ticket. 

Transferring tickets between students is not allowed for the Big Ticket, said Drew Martin, the executive senior associate athletics director for external affairs, who oversees Texas Athletics’ ticket operation group. 

“The ticket transfer ability in the student ticketing system is turned off,” Martin said. “There should not be a way for students to transfer tickets within the ticketing system for the Big Ticket.” 

UT and Texas Athletics cannot simply say that this is not occurring because it is not allowed. They cannot deny this issue, as there is evidence of students actively trading tickets to attend games without getting tested for COVID-19. 

“There are specific group messages where people buy and sell tickets,” an economics junior who wished to remain anonymous said. “I have seen multiple occasions where people successfully transfer tickets. There are about 1,500 people in the group message I’m in, so I'm sure a lot of tickets get traded.” 

Clearly, students are finding ways outside of the system to transfer tickets and enter football games.

The Big Ticket website does not provide any concrete information as to how students are being allowed into games, but it does not seem like there is any large-scale attempt to make sure that all Big Tickets being used match their Big Ticket holder. 

Not only does this practice endanger everybody at the games, it also leads to inaccurate estimates of the number of people being tested before the game. Regardless of how widespread this practice is, the chances of spreading and contracting COVID-19 at a football game are likely much higher than what was initially calculated.

By failing to prevent students from getting into a game using another student’s Big Ticket, Texas Athletics is not honoring its most basic claim of making sure all Big Ticket holders allowed into the game are free of COVID-19. 

At future football games and other sporting events, Texas Athletics must make sure that their staff thoroughly validates the identity of all students who enter with the Big Ticket. 

This could be accomplished by asking students to stagger their arrival to the gates so that staff has enough time to examine each ticket thoroughly and turn away anyone who tries to bypass the system and use someone else’s ticket. 

If Texas Athletics is going to continue hosting football games, then they should at least make sure the students coming into the stadium have proper verification that they have tested negative for COVID-19. Failure to do so means failure to protect the whole UT community from the pandemic. 

York is a rhetoric and writing junior from Laredo, Texas.