Donate your football ticket, and you could receive a signed Mark Richt football.

Going back to the first home game, the Athletic Association will draw a name from each pool of students who donated a ticket and give a signed ball to someone from each game. At the end of the season, all the pools will be combined, and one donator will receive two sideline passes to the G-Day game in the spring.

“The goal is for as many students as possible who want tickets to get them,” said Katie Barlow, Student Government Association president. “That was the reason for reorganization [of the ticketing system] in the first place.”

Barlow approached John Bateman, sports information specialist, and Athletic Director Damon Evans a month ago about creating an incentive system for donating tickets.

“There was no incentive to donate other than someone being nice, and that’s not a good motivator,” she said. “They said a buyback system would be too expensive, and there’s an opportunity now through the incentive.”

Barlow and Bateman discussed incentives such as pizza or small prizes, but Barlow’s biggest push was for the sideline passes.

“It was really nice for them to give us those … and the signed balls – Bateman just offered those up,” she said.

In the lottery for sideline passes, students who donated more than one ticket back have an increased chance to win the prize.

“The more times you donate, the more chances you have,” Bateman said. “So someone could be in the hat a maximum of six times.”

Bateman and Evans decided to try the incentive this fall as a test for future seasons.

“We’re open for anything, to see if it does have an impact,” he said. “This was an easy thing to implement, and we wanted to move on forward and try it.”

Richt will sign the footballs soon, and Bateman hopes to start giving them out in a few weeks.

“I want to try to get as close to the game as possible,” he said. “Maybe by the Auburn game we can have them ready within the week of the game.”