By Maggie Cassidy

In an attempt to lure students to sparsely attended sporting events, the Student Government Association (SGA) and the Athletics Department are implementing a new incentive program that enters students into a raffle for prizes every time they attend a Northeastern home game.

Beginning Oct. 13 at the men’s hockey home opener at Matthews Arena, when students swipe their Husky cards to attend games, they will be automatically entered into a mass raffle.

Although Marines Piney, Student Government Association (SGA) vice president for student affairs, said prizes are still in the works, she said it will include electronics like flat-screen televisions, cameras and cell phones, as well as tickets to professional sporting events, like Celtics and Bruins games. She said she is considering iPhones to try to make the prizes as big a deal as possible.

Piney said, swipes are calculated on a point basis. Men’s events count for one point while women’s events count for two. Piney said the imbalance is designed to account for “a lack of support for all our female athletes and teams, so it’s just an extra incentive to go and support the girls when they play.”

Points are recorded by SGA and the Athletics Department leading up to a raffle drawn once a month at a game. Students will be able to log on to GoNU.com to track points and must be present on raffle night to redeem a prize, Piney said.

“Our No. 1 push for this was to bring new students to games,” she said. “I think it’s definitely a great start to have more student involvement in our program, and at the same time reward players who are already going.”

Piney said the prizes are partially provided by funding from the Student Affairs office, with the remainder coming from corporate sponsorships. She estimated that money from Student Affairs will pay for less than 35 to 40 percent of the prize list.

Piney said money for the prizes will not come from the Student Activities Fee, but a separate budget that Ed Klotzbier, vice president for student affairs, can distribute at his discretion.

Piney said SGA and the Athletics Department hope to extend the program to cover all Northeastern sporting events, but to start it will only affect events held at Parsons Field and Matthews Arena.

Piney said the program will not cover Cabot and other Northeastern venues until swiping machines are available there.

Ed Matz, head coach for the women’s soccer team, which plays its home games at Parsons Field, said he was excited about the plan. He said student attendance affects team performance.

“It’s good to play in front of your own crowd,” he said. “It’s good to have support of the student body, so I think this is a great idea.”

Matz said many of the Colonial Athletic Association teams the Huskies play already have similar incentive plans.

“We play in front of some very large and passionate crowds, so hopefully this will get us up to par with some of our competitors,” he said.

Matt Janning, sophomore guard and forward for the men’s basketball team, which plays its home games at Matthews Arena, said the program is a good idea. Like Matz, he emphasized the importance of fan support.

“It’s huge,” he said. “When we have home games and there’s nobody there, it’s just like we’re out there practicing. But when there are people there and going crazy and stuff it’s [better].”

He said that if effective, it’s a good way to spend Student Affairs money, but he added, “if it ends up not working then it’ll be a waste.”

Last year, Piney and other SGA members found research showing that similar programs at other universities were successful at increasing student attendance at sporting events. At that time, SGA began discussing ways to institute the incentives program at Northeastern with the Athletics Department.

However, the idea stalled because at the time there was no way of registering when and where cards are swiped. This year, Northeastern has increased its access so it can track such data, thus allowing the implementation of the incentives plan.

“This year we decided to go ahead and fully promote it,” Piney said. “I’m extremely excited about this.”