way the wait list works is that if there are season tickets available at the published face value (including the yearly Crimson Club donation tied to those seats, if applicable) then the person at the top of the list gets the opportunity to buy those tickets. However, there are very few, if any, such tickets that become available every year because there is like a 98-99% renewal rate every year, and then the handful of tickets that aren't renewed go to people who are willing to pay an additional donation to jump to the front of the wait list. So if you mean the people on the wait list aren't willing to pay that additional up-front buy-in then yes, you are correct.

The comment about there being empty seats at every game is meaningless; of course there will always be some people who don't use their tickets to a given game for some reason, but that is wholly irrelevant to the current discussion. It's not like the people on the wait list somehow have automatic access to those tickets.