Petco Park severely understaffs basketball game

The first basketball game played at Petco Park already ran into a snag when the game was postponed a day to avoid a conflict with the Aztecs football Mountain West Conference championship game (which SDSU won 27-24). That should have been a great lead-in for today's match-up between SDSU and USD, the finale of the week-long Bill Walton Basketball Festival. Instead, fans reported extremely long lines at the gates, which were followed up by more waits at concession stands.

Watching the USD SDSU game on my phone outside since we've been in line for 25 min & we're still here pic.twitter.com/7ias8mM9j1

— Cesar Torres (@WordOfTorres) December 6, 2015

Apparently all fans had to enter at Home Plate, with very limited gates open.

Standing still. No organization. @padres @PetcoPark terrible! pic.twitter.com/DjA71fxTKT

— AztecProud (@AztecProud) December 6, 2015

And to top it all off, there was nobody around to keep fans informed.

Awesome the line we were in was for the VIP entrance and not one employee walked the line and communicated it. This is embarrassing

— Chris Garcia (@sportsbrain) December 6, 2015

Many ticket holders weren't seated until nearly halftime (where they didn't buy any food or drink, because the concessions lines were long, too). Petco Park issued an apology via Twitter... 41 minutes after the game was scheduled to start.

We apologize for the lines getting into the #BWBF and at concession stands. We have added resources to expedite the experience.

— Petco Park (@PetcoPark) December 6, 2015

The Padres have been making an effort to use Petco for more events in the offseason, but if they keep handling them like they did today, return customers will be rare.