Ragin’ Cajuns Athletic Foundation: RCAF priority point system ready after delays

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, Sept. 20, 2016

The RCAF’s much-awaited Priority Points System finally is ready for rollout.

The system ranks UL program supporters and ticket-holders for the Ragin’ Cajun Athletic Foundation, UL’s athletic fundraising arm, based on current levels and past history of giving to the program and season ticket purchases.

The rankings are being used to determine priority for matters including re-seating at two renovated venues for UL sports, the Cajundome for basketball and M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field for baseball, starting in the current 2016-17 school year.

After a couple delays, RCAF executive director Jim Harris said Monday, the system is ready to be implemented.

“Originally our deadline with Ticketmaster to have Priority Points up and running was Aug. 1,” Harris said. “That’s the date we’d been shooting for since (last) December.

“That has been delayed on two occasions now, and really it comes down to data conversion issues we’ve had moving from our university data base … to our athletic department data base.

“What we’ve been working on,” Harris added, “is on data all the way back the early (1960s) from our university system and converting over several hundreds of thousands of records.”

But that’s all been converted now, and Harris said Monday afternoon that after a couple of tests the “first accurate run of the system” was scheduled for Monday night.

With rankings and other information loaded in UL’s “My Account Manager” system on its athletics website, ticketholders and supporters can expect to be told they can see their point totals online some time Wednesday.

Reseating of the Cajundome begins next week, Harris said. The arena is scheduled to reopen Dec. 1, with UL games before then being played at the Cajuns’ former home, Blackham Coliseum.

UL basketball season-ticket holders already have been given the option of either keeping their newly assigned seats, or pursuing seating elsewhere with options based on the priority system.

Both the Cajundome and The Tigue are in the midst of major renovation projects, and planned future major renovation for UL’s Cajun Field football stadium is part the school’s athletic facilities master plan.