While I’m not a big college football fan, the one non-UVA game I will watch every year is Alabama-Georgia. I have no connection to either team, nor to those schools, though I think what forces me to tune in each season is the spectacle surrounding the game. This past weekend was no different. TV coverage showed hordes of fans outside the stadium hours before kickoff, and the 100k seats in Bryant-Denny were all sold out. Watching those scenes reminded me of our very own Scott Stadium, and the beloved student hill.
For most of UVA’s student population, it used to be a prime example of a true ‘public good’. Non-excludable (for students) and non-rival (if anything, it gets better with more people there). This season, however, that is no longer true. Staff at Scott Stadium have placed a cap on the number of Students allowed on the hill. Additionally, the only time students can access the hill is at the very start of the game- barring latecomers from accessing it, and preventing students from going freely in-and-out of the hill. As a result, it has ceased to be a public good for university students, but has become something of a club good, with access determined by how early one gets there. Ever since this change, hill attendance has plummeted- especially in the latter quarters, and the energy in Scott Stadium has suffered as a result, prompting widespread backlash from the student body.
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