Still waiting for Gopher Points totals

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SelectionSunday

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Has anyone received their basketball Gopher Points totals yet?

We're supposed to receive at the end of June according to the web site.
 

The paper copy of the renewal form seemed to indicate that we would get our points in "late June." It was ironic that it said that in late June without the point totals. It also listed the process for reviewing, upgrading and settling disputes and timeline for 2012-2013 seat selection.

The upside is that our current 212 seats are not in premium area and are not likely to be grabbed up by displaced season ticket holders. We have a good chance of holding our current seats. Any idea on the sensus fidelium of what season ticket holders who do not want to be extorted for an extra $100-1,000 are going to do? I am hearing that a lot of long time season ticket holders on the "edge" of new premium seats are preparing to bail, refusing to pay the price.
 

With preferred seating on the horizon I'm dropping down (from 2) to 1 seat. Doing this with the idea that I'll be able to pursue (read: afford) preferred seating -- either the $100 or $250 tag -- and that it'll be easier to get a quality seat as a single than as a pair.

If I do that & then when online seat selection comes neither one gets me a decent seat (with chairback), I'd have to think about not renewing. In a perfect world, I'd love to get a Row 1 or even Row 2 chairback seat in the upper deck (preferably from FT-line to FT-line), but I suspect that'll require at least the $250 donation, perhaps even the $400.
 

SelectionSunday said:
With preferred seating on the horizon I'm dropping down (from 2) to 1 seat. Doing this with the idea that I'll be able to pursue (read: afford) preferred seating -- either the $100 or $250 tag -- and that it'll be easier to get a quality seat as a single than as a pair.

If I do that & then when online seat selection comes neither one gets me a decent seat (with chairback), I'd have to think about not renewing. In a perfect world, I'd love to get a Row 1 or even Row 2 chairback seat in the upper deck (preferably from FT-line to FT-line), but I suspect that'll require at least the $250 donation, perhaps even the $400.
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SS- This is where the mystery is for me. Are they going to say - such and such an area costs $250 and so on? If so what happens if they don't fill out the area with as many premium guys as they want to get?
 

Good question BGA, but don't know the answer. It's not official, but basically what I was told by a U representative a few months ago was all chairback seats (I'm sure some others as well) would have a preferred seating tag. He said:

(1) $100 chairbacks would mostly be the sections on the end of the court (excluding the student section);

(2) $250 chairbacks would be on the corners in the lower deck and upper deck; and

(3) $400 chairbacks would be from endline to endline in both the lower and upper decks.

I'm interested to see how accuate that estimation will be.
 





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bga1 said:
OK - I'm dense. So how do the Gopher Points help? Does that determine your position within a premium seating group only. So you compare your points to other $400 premium seat folks and so on?
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Your Gopher Points total will place you in the queue to pick your seats. The first person will get to choose either the best of the most expensive seats or the best of the cheapest seats (or anywhere in between). It's possible if you are near the end of the seat picking line that all the non-donation seats are taken and you will have the choice of picking donation seats or giving up your tickets.
 



TCF Bank Stadium Gifts (5 points per $100 or 1 point per $100)?

One question I have after reading the Gopher Points system for basketball (not football).

Where will the points fall for TCF Bank Stadium Gifts? Will those get lumped with "Giving to Williams Arena Enhancement Fund" (5 points per $100) or "Lifetime Giving to Athletics" (1 point per $100)? I've been under the impression we'd get 5 points per $100 for any TCF Bank Stadium Gifts, but now it appears (for basketball) we'll only get 1 point per $100 instead of 5.

EDITED: For those interested, it appears our Gopher Points totals for basketball are now online.
 

my gopher points 2245

21 year season ticket holder
customer ranking 1828 out of 3201
seat ranking 4961 out of 8476
<TABLE id=basketball-points class=points-info-table><THEAD><TR><TH class=sports-info></TH><TH></TH></TR></THEAD><TBODY></TBODY></TABLE>
 

Any predictions on what they will do if this blows up in their face? (i.e. a lot of the $400 seats go unsold?) Will they be stubborn and leave them empty? Sell them single-game?
 

Nooram, looks like our Gopher Points are pretty similar (I'm at 20 years). You're about 5% ahead of me in the pecking order.

I'm gonna' budget for the $250 seat and hope for the best. Hope those don't get gobbled up first.

Am surprised Section 101 has no donation requirement. A lot of those seats have chairbacks. I'd expect those to be very popular.
 



howeda7 said:
Any predictions on what they will do if this blows up in their face? (i.e. a lot of the $400 seats go unsold?) Will they be stubborn and leave them empty? Sell them single-game?
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The official word for football was that they would leave those seats empty or use them for other purposes rather than reduce prices. Whether they actually did that or not I do not know, but I know that many of the least desirable $500 donation seats rarely had the same people in them week to week.
 

SelectionSunday said:
Am surprised Section 101 has no donation requirement. A lot of those seats have chairbacks. I'd expect those to be very popular.
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My guess is that is their way of assuring that the very longest tenured ticket holders have a way to retain seat backs without a donation requirement, even if they lose court position.
 

howeda7 said:
Any predictions on what they will do if this blows up in their face? (i.e. a lot of the $400 seats go unsold?) Will they be stubborn and leave them empty? Sell them single-game?
Click to expand...

That's going to be the interesting side story to this deal. The problem they have with basketball is half of the games on the schedule are not a good value. This is compared to football which has mostly Big Ten games. You start looking at just the "value" games that most people attend and you are looking perhaps 10 games a year. Now your $1000 ticket cost feels like $100 a game.

In answer to your question a friend and I were just discussing the unused premium seats and he guesses that the unused ones in the $400 section would then get remarketed to corporations after the seat auction ends. He's probably right. Gopher points won't mean scratch at that point.
 

SelectionSunday said:
Nooram, looks like our Gopher Points are pretty similar (I'm at 20 years). You're about 5% ahead of me in the pecking order.

I'm gonna' budget for the $250 seat and hope for the best. Hope those don't get gobbled up first.

Am surprised Section 101 has no donation requirement. A lot of those seats have chairbacks. I'd expect those to be very popular.
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My guess is Section 101 is going to be comp tickets. It seems a lot of family members sit there. Also, often times "special guests" are placed on non-chairbacks next to the student section. I surmise they will move those guests to 101. Remember, this is all baseless speculation!
 

bga1 said:
That's going to be the interesting side story to this deal. The problem they have with basketball is half of the games on the schedule are not a good value. This is compared to football which has mostly Big Ten games. You start looking at just the "value" games that most people attend and you are looking perhaps 10 games a year. Now your $1000 ticket cost feels like $100 a game.

In answer to your question a friend and I were just discussing the unused premium seats and he guesses that the unused ones in the $400 section would then get remarketed to corporations after the seat auction ends. He's probably right. Gopher points won't mean scratch at that point.
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So the lower level will become almost completely corporate seats. That won't suck the remaining atmosphere out of the building. Sad. I wish the football team was able to print money the way it does at most other schools. Maybe they wouldn't have to squeeze every penny out of the Barn like this.
 

I've been in 101 for about the last 7-8 years, and I'm fairly certain it's not a family-and-friends-of-players section. I think 102 and 112 are the primary sections (lower rows) designated for family members, girlfriends/mothers of players' children, etc.
 

Every seat marked with a donation now, basically already requires a donation to the Williams fund. None will go empty.
 

anticallihan said:
Every seat marked with a donation now, basically already requires a donation to the Williams fund. None will go empty.
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I don't have the facts on this anticallihan but I doubt this to be true. Aren't a lot of the older folks that are sitting down low there strictly because of seniority? I think newer ones (not based on seniority) have bought their way there. Otherwise I fail to see the income stream from this new program.
 

The seats I currently have require no donation but will require one come 2012-2013 (chairbacks in 210)
 

bga1 said:
I don't have the facts on this anticallihan but I doubt this to be true. Aren't a lot of the older folks that are sitting down low there strictly because of seniority? I think newer ones (not based on seniority) have bought their way there. Otherwise I fail to see the income stream from this new program.
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I think what you say is partially true, but more perception than reality.

Between Dunkers, and I think there is another seating chart similar to the one bleed has but older, and just straight alumni donors, there are more people paying for their seats than people just having them for a long time. Especially court side and the corners in the lower section.
 

I received my Gopher Points total in the mail, and what they mailed me was nowhere close to my actual total. ... the total they have online. Not sure what the deal is. The points I received in the mail had me at just over 100 points, with no credit for my 20 years.
 

On-line points are more complete

My points were wrong in the mail too but when I checked the account on-line, the total was correct. My bet is that there was an early deadline for sending data to the mailing vendor and the Ticket Office was not done entering the data. Ticket office may be done by now. Everyone should check carefully on-line.
 

anticallihan said:
Every seat marked with a donation now, basically already requires a donation to the Williams fund. None will go empty.
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I think you are correct that the seats requiring a donation in the future also require one now (and I hope you are right they never sit unsold and empty), but I think you are missing the crucial point of this whole system. Those seats only require a donation for people who move to them or buy them as new tickets. The vast majority of those tickets are held by long time accounts that have been grand fathered into the location and don’t pay the donation. Aren’t the donation levels now something like $700 to $1,200 per seat? If most people were already paying that for chair back seats, the U would be reducing revenue significantly by lowering the donation requirements to $100, $250 or $400. I think the reality is that most people are not making any donations tied to their seats. The University hopes that they will be able to sell enough additional seats with a donation requirement to offset the loss of revenue from the seats where the donation requirement is being cut substantially. Actually, they hope that there will be a significant revenue increase from the plan.
 

Point totals arrived by mail today. Mine look correct, and are more than I would have thought. Season ticket tenure was highly valued. My time, 22 years and limited donations have me at about the 50th percentile, much better than I thought. We'll see what happens with others improving. I do not expect to adjust my point totals in any material way before September.
 

donations

Season ticket tenure definitely trumps everything. To move the dial with a donation, you need to be giving tens of thousands, not hundreds.... I'm surprised they didn't weight giving more, but oh well. If you want to move the dial at this point, get ready to write a big check.
 

Glad to hear you're pleased, Holy Man. I'm in the 37th percentile, and I'm confident there will be plenty of good seats available when it's my turn to select. I'm actually looking forward to see how this whole thing works out next spring.

My assumption is they'll reseat the arena about every 4-5 years. That's what MSU does, and I know Minnesota has sort of modeled their reseating process after Sparty.
 

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