To the editor:
I would like to express my frustration after reading James McCloskey’s column “Free tickets will hurt men’s basketball.” I understand this is an opinion piece, but this article is full of logical fallacies. Even the title of the article includes the hasty generalization fallacy. Most significantly however, this article uses irresponsible comparisons used to justify faulty claims.
McCloskey’s claim is that because SJU Athletics have made student tickets free, that is “[the] department’s way of saying this team is not worth paying to watch.” This claim is fallacious. McCloskey opens his article with the irresponsible and oversimplified assertion that SJU Athletics does not believe the men’s basketball team is worth paying for, solely basing this accusation on the fact that student tickets are now free. Nowhere in his article does he consider any reasoning behind the department’s decision or that free student admission could mean anything else.
I would urge McCloskey to look beyond the men’s basketball team to the other prominent parts of the game day experience. Free admission benefits the hardworking members of the cheerleading team, the dance team and pep band who practice far too hard only to have their peers not show up to games because it is too expensive. I would suggest that McCloskey talk to students who regularly attend games—it is not just about going to watch basketball. It’s about the whole game day experience, not motivated by the basketball team’s conference standing.
To add to his ludicrous claim, he justifies his statement by comparing it to the fact that the women’s team has had free student admission for years and no one shows up. This is an absurd, negligent and extremely disrespectful comparison given that free tickets have nothing to do with the low attendance at women’s basketball games and everything to do with the fact that women’s sports are historically and continuously undervalued in American society. Using the women’s basketball team’s low attendance to back his already fallacious argument is unfair and unprofessional. I would ask that McCloskey be more mindful of making these inconsiderate comparisons in the future.
-Karleigh Lopez ’20
