Please define "Free"

Oct 10, 2017, 1:10 PM

While I am not an accountant, I have been in business long enough to understand that there is no such thing as free in business. Every asset is accounted for somewhere. I also have seen balance sheets for Clemson University as well as the Clemson Athletic department and given that this is a public university, this info should be publicly available.

If Clemson Athletics is giving these tickets to the students for free the value of them will be listed as a loss or negative on the athletic department's balance sheet. If the tickets are being sold to the university to be distributed to students, they will show on the athletic balance sheet as income and on the university balance sheet as an expense. If the latter is true, there should be a portion of tuition and fees collected from students transferred to the athletic department to cover this cost.

Bottom line (pardon the pun), is that these tickets are a sellable asset that have a value and must be accounted for somewhere. Once again, in business, nothing is free. If monies are collected from students and then the tickets are given out in a lottery format, then CU is involved in gambling at some level and worse than that, all students are being forced to gamble without being given a choice to opt out. If the students are not charged for a chance at tickets as part of tuition and fees and they truly are given to the students by the athletic department then they may be free to students, but ultimately a loss to the athletic department and therefore the university.

Either way, these tickets were sold to (through tuition and fees) or given to the students. As the rightful owner of the tickets, they deserve to do what they please with these tickets. If anyone has a problem with the process, it should be with the school, not the students.

Maybe the students should all kneel at the next game and then we would really have something to talk about. This poster does not support kneeling at any public event outside of church.

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The "lottery" is in no way a form of gambling as there is no money involved on the student side that they are wagering to win, it would essentially be like you filling out a card at the mall for a free drawing for a lawn mower, where you have a chance to win an item of value for free.

Also, with regards to the tickets, they are potential revenue, however, as there is a student allotment this reduces the amount of "sell-able" tickets that are open to the general public and therefore (Total Seats - Student Allotment) x Face value of the tickets = Potential Revenue. If they are accounting for them as lost revenue I'm sure they wouldn't have a line item on the balance sheet that says "Student Tickets Lost Revenue Expense," and instead it would be on the Balance Sheet under a larger expense ledger. Otherwise a companies/universities balance sheet would be 100s of pages long.

Please define "Free"

Re: Please define "Free"

You are right, you are not an accountant

So steer me in the right direction

A sale that doesn't occur is NOT a loss

Re: A sale that doesn't occur is NOT a loss

You might use this as a learning experience

Re: So steer me in the right direction

Your Tigernet access....

Hits nail on head!!!***

Your business skills are amazing

They don't teach that at Greenville Tech***

No kneeling at a public event outside of church? Obviously

Re: Please define "Free"

Re: Please define "Free"

Re: Please define "Free"

So much for being One Clemson family...

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