The University of Maryland has one of the most popular Basketball programs in the region. About 35,000 students seek 4,000 free student tickets allocated for every home game. An auction-based system provides a procedure to achieve and equitable and fair distribution of a high-demand resource. In an auction-based system, goods being sold end up with the person who values them the most. This is a very desirable scenario for a ticket distribution system that aims at maximizing attendance for home games. People who bid high have high values for the tickets and are more likely to attend a game than someone who receives a ticket through a random draw.

The thesis lays out the framework for an auction based system to distribute home game tickets.