I just got back from the Gopher Points meeting, here are the my very unedited notes that I took. Feel free to ask any questions, if I don't know the answers, I can find them for you:
• Ticket holders should be receiving the information next week
• Have come down on some pricing that they initially had
• Think they're really competitive between other B10 schools
• Priority is to constantly communicate
• Looking for additional revenue streams, and looked to other institutions to see that
• We're the last school in the Big 10 to do this - most use a priority points system
• They waited an extra year to do it right, even though that meant losing $, to get this all squared away
• At 1st they were going to do it just like football. When they started doing the math, they moved the pricing down so it's not as much as football.
• Wanted to keep the price per seat in hockey below $50/game
• It should drive about $1.5 revenue - $1 mil from bball, 500K from hockey to do this. That's at 95% capacity.
• A good majority of the money will go to scholarships 1st, (9 million scholarship bill, and tuition is increasing, 6% increase this year). $500,000 increase over last year
• Both facilities will receive enhancement - video, concourses, scoreboard, etc. so both programs will see added benefits
• Timeline - gave about a year and a half notice
• Had Gopher Points team on the concourses to answer questions at both hockey and bball games last year.
• Had designated staff of 2 people, and 5 interns during football process, and are doing that for here
• They are doing a lot on the web, can look at your seats at the end of July and see what they will be like. It will be the virtual look and view that you will have, like football had.
• It's about $, but it's about being fair and equitable
• 1000 for bball and 850 in hockey that will pay a preferred. 1800 in hockey, and 41% will be non donation. Under 6000 seats will not be donation, 8000 will have preferred costs
• The costs right now are a lot higher right now.
• 16% will not be donation in hockey, 6500 seats will require a donation
• Most schools don’t give you as many points as MN does for loyalty. Rewarding long time season ticket holders
• Point total determines when you will pick your seat
• Selection will be just like football - select when the queue hits, can do it online, can call in, can come in and do it in person.
• Encourage people to come by and stake out a bunch of seats that they want to have. Will have certain times when they'll have the venues open.
• Obstructed view seats - will not be able to be selected online, they'll sell them to you in person. Depends on the nature of the view.
• How do you select seats with groups - forms you fill out and put your information there, a lot of the groups came in, if you want to sit in a group. Encourage people to fill out the form in advance who want to sit together. They will be ready for you as you call in that day.
• Ticket prices won't drop, they'll stay the same.
• If you're in the preferred seating program right now, your costs will go down. Now under 1 million going to 3.1 million for this program.
• 10 million to 1.7 million - amount U gives to athletics, 3% of overall budget
• Really wanted to protect the long term season ticket holder
• Penn State did the same thing - what did they do for football? When they couldn't afford it, they didn't renew if they couldn't do it.
Questions:
- Points for hockey or football?
○ Points are sport specific only. In football they didn't want the 5 year ticket holder to not get as good of seats that only bought once. When they're done reseeding, they will go to a one unified point system. Will re index and look at weighting. When you do upgrades, that's when it would come into play.
- Can donate to Bball?
○ Yes and no. If you're making your gift for the seat, it will go directly to the seats. A general gift can be specified. Preferred seating gift, only goes to that sport.
- Grad school points?
○ Just one degree.
- Club seats?
○ Lofts are separate
- What about if all the non-donation seats fill up?
○ That happened in football. In the end, the non-donation 1st. If there are those seats left, you have to choose whatever is left
- Points for student tickets?
○ They are not rewarded for that, there wasn’t a good tracking in place. They are going to try to track that later on.
- Have you thought about changing the ticket prices per game for different sections?
○ It's being looked into, see where that bell curve lands
- How many season ticket holders are there right now for bball and hockey?
○ Men's Basketball
Total Season Ticket Accounts- 3,268
Total Season Tickets - 8,895
Men's Hockey
Total Season Ticket Accounts - 2,821
Total Season Tickets - 7,765
- Portion in 112 will still be recruit tickets
