Some Wichita State dancers will be located in the stands for the 2024-2025 basketball season to make room for two new premium seating areas for games. 

The premium seats were created to provide more revenue to support the athletic department, associate athletic director Tami Cutler said in an email to The Sunflower. She said athletics is looking for middle-ground, moderate solutions to the issue of revenue. Premium seating is one they came up with. 

“It kind of just hurts and shoots you in the heart,” Audrey Menzies, a dancer for the Shockers, said. “When you’re standing there in the stands dancing and then you see empty seats, and only like four people bought them.”

Cutler said that in July 2022 the dance team communicated their displeasure with the team’s lack of funding. She also said that athletics currently was and is the only on-campus entity to support the cheer and dance teams with scholarships, uniforms, equipment and travel. 

Over the past two fiscal years, the support for both dance and cheer was $200,000, according to expenditure documents. 

“It’s not about the money; I’d rather our locker room be taken away over the sideline,” Abby Allen, a dancer for the Shockers said. “Take away anything else, I just want to dance.” 

In April and May of 2024, the athletics department met with dance and cheer coaches to discuss the relocation and premium seating.  

“Initially, my coach had a meeting with the athletic department, and they told her that it was something that could happen, a possibility,” Menzies said. “Then, about two weeks after (the meeting) she saw on goshockers.com that the tickets were for sale and there was no follow-up meeting.” 

Menzies said the dance team originally stood behind the athletic department in the decision.  

“Ultimately when it got put into action, we realized how horrible it was to come to fruition,” she said. “It just sucked being in the stands because I’m two feet away from a student and my poms are in the air, then I’m blocking their view, and I’m in their way.”  

People outside the dance team have expressed their own concerns and issues with the new placement. 

“Why are you trying to get more money with premium seating and not increasing marketing to fill the already vacant seats,” said Josh Mallard, LAS senator for Student Government Association. “We have not had a full house for a while within the athletic department at basketball games. They (the athletic department) should be working towards filling seats and then enticing them with premium options.” 

Menzies said the new placement doesn’t just impact the dance team. It could be potentially dangerous for the players and fans on the sidelines. 

“It’s also a safety concern for the basketball players now as well,” Menzies said. “If they (the players) slide into that sideline, instead of them sliding into dancers who can move, they slide into chairs or fans.”

Dancers also fear the impact the decision will have on recruitment and growth. 

“If I was a freshman, I would absolutely consider going to another university, because being in the stands isn’t dancing,” Allen said. “In the last couple years we’ve grown so much; it’s really a setback.”