NICE "GOLD OUT"

[FiveStarFan]

I wasnt able to attend the game, but from what it looked like the crowd was about 60% gold and 40% maroon, white, green etc. If we're gonna do these theme games then they obviously need to hand out free gold t-shirts at the door cuz WE Minnesotan's only wear what we want to wear. Just a thought

[Drex96]

I wasnt able to attend the game, but from what it looked like the crowd was about 60% gold and 40% maroon, white, green etc. If we're gonna do these theme games then they obviously need to hand out free gold t-shirts at the door cuz WE Minnesotan's only wear what we want to wear. Just a thought

In all fairness to the Marketing Dept -- each seat had a Gold Pom Pon and if all the Gopher fans not wearing a Gold tee used them, the Gold Out would have been in effect. Again, can't make people do/wear something they don't want.

Gophers players need to work on rebounding and Gopher fans need to work on maintaining a "home court" presence. Will be interesting to see how well this "open air" stadium works for Gopher football--the Dome helped give an artificially loud home field advantage.

[TruthTeller]

"Gopher fans need to work on maintaining a "home court" presence"

Barn fans appear to be getting too old to make it an advantage. Or they are happy sitting in their seats, being very very quiet.....

[Hates Monikers]

If you take out the student section, I would estimate that far fewer than 60 percent were in gold. Nobody around us was wearing gold. And I do blame the marketing department more than the fans. I don't think anybody knew about it. They did a much better job promoting the football gold out. Ads in the Star Tribune promoting the game and not mentioning the gold out; no e-mails about it to season ticket holders (unless I'm forgetting something). As for the pom poms, my row (a bench) didn't have any.

[Drex96]

If you take out the student section, I would estimate that far fewer than 60 percent were in gold. Nobody around us was wearing gold. And I do blame the marketing department more than the fans. I don't think anybody knew about it. They did a much better job promoting the football gold out. Ads in the Star Tribune promoting the game and not mentioning the gold out; no e-mails about it to season ticket holders (unless I'm forgetting something). As for the pom poms, my row (a bench) didn't have any.

Guess they wasted a few in those seats behind the MSU bench -- I take back my earlier statement.

[FiveStarFan]

pon poms?! are you serious?! dumb

[heymyfav]

pon poms?! are you serious?! dumb

Pom poms seem to be an SEC thing. I didn't see anyone waving them anyways.

It seems at many other universities the color the students wear seems to be what everyone else wears, for some reason Minnesota fans just don't follow that.

[anticallihan]

I wasnt able to attend the game, but from what it looked like the crowd was about 60% gold and 40% maroon, white, green etc. If we're gonna do these theme games then they obviously need to hand out free gold t-shirts at the door cuz WE Minnesotan's only wear what we want to wear. Just a thought

Not marketed very well this year. I am usually on top of this stuff too.

[Drex96]

pon poms?! are you serious?! dumb

Yeah, the pom pons were probably a dumb marketing idea. Kinda like the "let's get Dahlmann out of his game" strategy. Neither one of those "home court advantage" ideas seemed to be very effective today.

[cheeseheadgophfan]

but if I didn't read this board, I wouldn't have known about the "gold-out"....

[MNSnowman]

but if I didn't read this board, I wouldn't have known about the "gold-out"....I've seen announcements posted on each of the entry doors (east side by the stadium, north side across from Mariucci and the main entrance on University) for the past month or longer. Plus announcements on the scoreboard and via the PA announcer. Plus several e-mails and on GopherSports.com. I think there was even a stuffer in the season ticket mailing.

Fortunately, though, there were no "robo-calls." ;)

[Mikie S]

I am truly less than enthused with the "Gold Out" campaign. I grew up with Maroon & Gold. All my Gopher stuff is basically Maroon with gold trim. I prefer the old color scheme of Maroon & Gold. And I will continue to wear Maroon & Gold.


And BTW, I also think the 3-point shot is a gimmick and should be done away with.

[Zales04]

And BTW, I also think the 3-point shot is a gimmick and should be done away with.

I suppose that pesky "forward pass" in football should be done away with too, eh? :P

[Mikie S]

I suppose that pesky "forward pass" in football should be done away with too, eh? :P
And in the Good-Old-Days, baseball players didn't wear them wimpy mitts.

[SelectionSunday]

As Snowman said, there were all kinds of reminders about the Gold Out. It was everywhere. You couldn't miss it if you stepped foot in Williams Arena. More than enough time to know about it. Also saw ads in Strib, as well as a couple reminders in the mail. Don't crap on the marketing folks. They can only do so much. Bottom line is people are going to wear whatever they want to a game, whether there's a Gold Out or not. Personal choice. Ms. Hoehn does good work for the U of M marketing. Don't put this on marketing.

[TruthTeller]

Squarely on the fans at the game.

Quiet as mice most of the time. And cant quite seem to coordinate colors well.

[playhosea!]

I know it's impressive to see a game at a school like Florida where the fans wear specific color t-shirts and it creates a cool effect. But we live in Minnesota. People are at the games in long sleaves, coats, hats, etc. You're NEVER going to achieve the kind of color uniformity they're hoping for. Besides which, as mentioned, people own tons of maroon Gopher clothing already.

Rather then declaring "gold outs" and then complaining that they didn't succeed, we should just give it up. The building was packed for MSU and there is a lot to be happy/optimistic about rather than agonizing over the "gold out."

[walleyedude]

My friend and I were wearing gold at Sally's since we couldn't buy tickets (for under $75-100) and the office sold all the singles.

I was very surprised.

[anticallihan]

As Snowman said, there were all kinds of reminders about the Gold Out. It was everywhere. You couldn't miss it if you stepped foot in Williams Arena. More than enough time to know about it. Also saw ads in Strib, as well as a couple reminders in the mail. Don't crap on the marketing folks. They can only do so much. Bottom line is people are going to wear whatever they want to a game, whether there's a Gold Out or not. Personal choice. Ms. Hoehn does good work for the U of M marketing. Don't put this on marketing.

Season ticket holder.

Had no idea it was a Gold out. I was thinking while I was at the game, that I was surprised so many people were wearing gold.

I personally had no emails, no mailings, guess I missed it online.

But I will agree this has failed more times than I can remember. I think a "whatever" out in smaller college towns might be leading news. Most people in this town could care less, especially when the Vikings may be blacked out. That is our leading news. When I see it on TV, I am almost positive other teams provide shirts. Especially in basketball.

As for the "quiet as mice" comment. To be honest, besides when we came back before the half the game, there was very little to cheer about. When you are out rebounded by 22 and shoot under 40%, you are going to get some quiet fans.

[RodentRampage]

One of the problems with a Gold Out is that while T-shirts are gold, Gopher sweaters and jackets tend to be maroon. People tend to keep their Gopher jacket on during the games. Of course that is better than going to a Gophers game wearing a shirt from the Vikings, Wild, Timberwolves or Twins.

[GortonsFisherman011]

One of the problems with a Gold Out is that while T-shirts are gold, Gopher sweaters and jackets tend to be maroon. People tend to keep their Gopher jacket on during the games. Of course that is better than going to a Gophers game wearing a shirt from the Vikings, Wild, Timberwolves or Twins.

There were plenty of Vikings jerseys/shirts, and Fred Hoiberg's little son was wearing a Miller t-wolves jersey....

[Tubtastic]

Hand out t-shirts or it won't happen - ever. Even then you'll still get the random d-bag that wants to wear whatever he damn well pleases and sits with his arms crossed while grumbling about non-existent fouls committed by the visiting team.

[Gold Vision]

Hand out t-shirts or it won't happen - ever. Even then you'll still get the random d-bag that wants to wear whatever he damn well pleases and sits with his arms crossed while grumbling about non-existent fouls committed by the visiting team.

Wrong, the gold out for the Michigan Football game was a success without a tshirt handout and 3-4 times as many people. I'm not sure what the deal was on Wednesday.

[Tubtastic]

Wrong, the gold out for the Michigan Football game was a success without a tshirt handout and 3-4 times as many people. I'm not sure what the deal was on Wednesday.

Wrong. It was a bust at the football game too. http://www.mndaily.com/blogs/upon-further-review/2008/11/08/minnesota-vs-michigan-blog

As a season ticket holder to both football and b-ball, I think we should keep trying but there are way better ways to market this project and it starts with handing out t-shirts. Also, in order to get a casual/old fan to change his/her ways, they need to smack them in the head a ton of times before this works. I'll go back to my original suggestion of printing up GOLD TICKETS for the GOLD OUT GAME which state very conspiciously "GOLD OUT GAME - EVERYONE WEAR GOLD COLORED GOPHER GEAR!

[Gold Vision]

You posted a pregame blog link. Were you at the game? The stadium was 90% gold, nothing like it was at the barn on Wednesday.

[Omega015]

The list of excuses on this thread are appalling.

Illinois managed to get everyone to wear orange to every game simply by printing "wear orange" on the tickets. There was a time not too long ago when Illinois wore blue and they managed to get that turned around rather easily.

I have a feeling that if we required gold shirts to be worn in Williams in lieu of a ticket, people would just stay home, because "they will wear what they want to wear"

It all comes back to this state having terrible fans.

Can't sell out a playoff game for the Vikings, can't get anyone to go to a Wolves game, can't watch indoor baseball, can't find a gold shirt to wear for two days a year even though the University has been pushing "wearing gold" to just about every sporting event for about 5 years now (and passing gold shirts out to students at football games for 9 years), can't stay at any Gopher game 'til the end because we have to beat traffic, can't go to the game cause it's deer opener, can't go cause it's fishing opener, I have to rake the leaves, I have to put the boat on the lake, it's not a big enough bowl game, the opponents are weak, our team hasn't beat anyone good, the game is too early, the game is too late, it's too hot, it's too cold, blah, blah, blah... the number of excuses people use in this state to avoid supporting "their" teams are pathetic and never-ending.

[Tubtastic]

Gold Vision - I believe you are looking through Rose, er, Gold colored glasses on this one. The football gold out was not that great (minus the student section of course). Although I'm not has self-loathing as Omega015, I agree with him that our fans are not as good as fans at other locations (at this time).

Example #1 would be Michigan. Our fans are not quite Michigan fans (110,000 seat sell outs versus 50,000 fans in a 65,000 fan stadium). Keep up the Gold Outs though and in a few years they may catch on.

[Chadypu]

Gold Vision - I believe you are looking through Rose, er, Gold colored glasses on this one. The football gold out was not that great (minus the student section of course). Although I'm not has self-loathing as Omega015, I agree with him that our fans are not as good as fans at other locations (at this time).

Example #1 would be Michigan. Our fans are not quite Michigan fans (110,000 seat sell outs versus 50,000 fans in a 65,000 fan stadium). Keep up the Gold Outs though and in a few years they may catch on.

I am not so sure if Michigan is a great example. Sure they sell out football, but they have had a winning record for decades (other than this year). Look at their basketball team, no one goes. I have been in Chrisler Arena at a Big 10 game, and it was empty. It is not hard to support a team that is always successful.

I really like the idea of printing gold tickets or putting "wear gold" on tickets.

[GortonsFisherman011]

Agree with Omega, enough excuses! JUST DO IT!!!!