Sid: Gophers season tickets 20,142 at present, down from 23,431 last year

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The price of each 2016 football season ticket is $288 which is a tremendous savings of $142 compared to the total cost of single game tickets. Single game ticket prices vary by game and are $50 for Akron and Georgia State, $95 for Ohio State, $85 for Nebraska and $75 for Illinois (Homecoming) and Minnesota.

http://www.uwbadgers.com/sports/2015/8/21/GEN_20140101576.aspx

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For comparison, here are the required donations at Camp Randall,
Sections E, T and FF – $400 each
Sections D, F, S, U, EE and GG – $300 each
Sections C, G, R, V, DD and HH – $200 each
Sections B, H, Q, W, CC and II – $100 each
All others $50

For the Gophers,
Zone 1 - $800
Zone 2 - $600
Zone 3 - $300
Zone 4 - $150
Zone 5 - $100
Zone 6 - $0
 

2nd Degree Gopher said:
I am not trying to make the argument that all is well, but there is a lot that’s missing in this discussion. What’s the average renewal rate for season tickets? Right now we are apparently at 86%. Typical is, I believe, 90-95% so the drop off is larger than “normal” but not a catastrophe. At that level, the revenue from the donation increases may well be a wash or even an increase. To me, the more troubling issue is that the market isn’t going to be very good for trying to replace all those who are lost. That’s how the season ticket base will shrink over time.

Sid isn’t clear (imagine that), but is he comparing final student ticket sales from last year to this year’s current numbers? More student sales will occur as kids return to campus and new sales to freshmen will also take place. I suspect that the student non-renewal rate is generally much higher than the general public since many students try season tickets once or twice and find that they aren’t that interested, don’t have time or, you know, graduate.

You either have additional information or you are guessing as to how long the people who haven’t renewed have had their season tickets. The non-renewal rate is generally higher in the first few years because people often find that season tickets don’t fit into their lifestyle or budget as they thought they might. It is a lot harder to let them go when you have many years invested in the program and have built those game days into the culture of your life. I think that’s why we see stories about people feeling betrayed and unappreciated by the institution when these issues come up whether it is donation requirements, ticket cost, re-seating or whatever. It’s harder to let the tickets go when you have a greater emotional investment in the product and for most people it takes time to build that. Those people are also likely almost impossible to get back once they are gone.

I agree that losing any season ticket sales is bad and that the numbers merit thorough analysis, but the administration certainly knew that any increase in cost was going to result in some additional losses in current season ticket holders.
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As I mentioned before, you would have to assume that most non-renewals are in the non-donation seats...highly unlikely and most likely the opposite is happening. They will lose revenue. 86% renewal may not sound like much of a drop off by itself, but run those numbers for say 2-3 years and you will understand it is a big drop...your base number gets smaller each year.
 

PMWinSTP said:
As I mentioned before, you would have to assume that most non-renewals are in the non-donation seats...highly unlikely and most likely the opposite is happening. They will lose revenue. 86% renewal may not sound like much of a drop off by itself, but run those numbers for say 2-3 years and you will understand it is a big drop...your base number gets smaller each year.
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They may or may not lose much in revenue given that the price increase may offset or even surpass the loss of season tickets (don't have access to any of those numbers). The U did what they did in terms of ticket costs knowing they may lose some season ticket holders but would gain more revenue in the process. I just think they were banking on the team continuing on an upward swing instead of falling flat last year. Increasing prices and a average product on the field are a recipe for disaster, the U badly needs the football team to bounce back in a big way this fall and drive some fan interest towards purchasing season tickets next year when they will almost certainly face another reduction in renewals as the price goes up yet again.
 

PMWinSTP said:
As I mentioned before, you would have to assume that most non-renewals are in the non-donation seats...highly unlikely and most likely the opposite is happening. They will lose revenue. 86% renewal may not sound like much of a drop off by itself, but run those numbers for say 2-3 years and you will understand it is a big drop...your base number gets smaller each year.
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You can assert that they will lose revenue, but we don't know whether or not that's true and won't for some time. The non-renewal rate is concerning to me, but I don't know what they projected when they implemented the plan. If someone has those numbers, please share them.

Every year they lose some portion of the season ticket base and have to try to replace that with new sales. This year that task is bigger than most. I am not suggesting that it will be easy or even possible for them to offset the lost season ticket sales with new customers, just pointing out that the results aren't all in yet and that, from purely a revenue standpoint, they may still end up better off.
 

Donation fees go up again next year - if they don't win a lot of games this year it will be a sloppy mess.
 


MNVCGUY said:
the U badly needs the football team to bounce back in a big way this fall and drive some fan interest towards purchasing season tickets next year when they will almost certainly face another reduction in renewals as the price goes up yet again.
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Agreed. It's crucial that they can market next year's more attractive schedule in conjunction with results based optimism about the team's prospects.
 

The # of student tickets is just embarrassing. Is it that hard to get 10% of the student body to football games? Make the tickets free and at least get it to 5,000 or so. It's not worth the paltry sum you're getting out of the 1,600.
 

howeda7 said:
The # of student tickets is just embarrassing. Is it that hard to get 10% of the student body to football games? Make the tickets free and at least get it to 5,000 or so. It's not worth the paltry sum you're getting out of the 1,600.
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I'm not sure making it free would change much. If anything it might hurt if you set the perceived value of a student football ticket at 0.
 

2nd Degree Gopher said:
You can assert that they will lose revenue, but we don't know whether or not that's true and won't for some time. The non-renewal rate is concerning to me, but I don't know what they projected when they implemented the plan. If someone has those numbers, please share them.

Every year they lose some portion of the season ticket base and have to try to replace that with new sales. This year that task is bigger than most. I am not suggesting that it will be easy or even possible for them to offset the lost season ticket sales with new customers, just pointing out that the results aren't all in yet and that, from purely a revenue standpoint, they may still end up better off.
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I think it is pretty apparent economics they will lose money because I don't think many current season ticket holders upgraded seats to ones with a higher donation rate...most likely that they moved laterally or did the opposite and moved to lower donation seating, that means more of the donation seats are open at the higher donation rate. They will end up trying to sell those as singles without the donation $$ and take an additional monetary hit.

Year over year this will compound quickly if they are not winning.
 



I disagree that all that dropped were newish season ticket holders

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I suspect a lot of the lost ticket holders where the newish folks.
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My group had seats since 1996. People get married, have kids, priorities change. Like one of my buddies said before the donation requirement, we sat through a lot of crappy to horrible football to get whacked over the head like this. There were many years the program did not come close to resembling a Big 10 conference team let alone play Big 10 level football. That is a lot of taxes paid when you paid full cost of the ticket and did not get good entertainment value comes to mind. Iowa rolling over Brewster in 2008 comes readily to mind.
The tiering level of donations was all wrong and the increases (IF they wanted donations from most sections they should have been up front about it and started from year 1). A seat near the 10 yard line or end zone with a chair back is not luxury but the donation requirement isn't that much lower than with people who have much better seats. In my opinion the donation tiers are not equitable in distribution, the best seats and club areas are in bad parts of the stadium but the seats between the 50 yard line and 30 to 40 yard line are premium and should have the highest donation levels.
Combine that with the lousy tailgating scene and costs for that and you can see people get tired of the customer service at the University. With all of the two packs and livingsocial and 5 and 10 dollar deals and the availability of tickets in the secondary tier market you can see how even long time season ticket holders got a little tired of the U taking season ticket holders for granted. Some people it just came down to cost and not being able to afford the increase any more. I liked going to games but couldn't afford to Swing four tickets myself and then begging people to go to the games got really old.
 

PMWinSTP said:
I think it is pretty apparent economics they will lose money because I don't think many current season ticket holders upgraded seats to ones with a higher donation rate...most likely that they moved laterally or did the opposite and moved to lower donation seating, that means more of the donation seats are open at the higher donation rate. They will end up trying to sell those as singles without the donation $$ and take an additional monetary hit.

Year over year this will compound quickly if they are not winning.
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I'm a current season ticket holder and my donation increased without me moving at all.

They knew they would lose season ticket holders, and they hoped the increase in donations from those who stayed would outpace the losses. They're smarter than I am; I'm not sure they're too worried right now. I just wish they would have a plan to build revenues over the next 10-15 years rater than looking at the next 1-3 years. They might have come up with a different strategy that focused on building a larger fan base.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I'm not sure making it free would change much. If anything it might hurt if you set the perceived value of a student football ticket at 0.
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We have ~2,000 students out of 50,000 bothering now. So if 96% already perceive it as having little/no value, I don't see how it could hurt. Make them free. If you don't show up to 2 games, you lose your ticket and it's given to the next on the list.

If you can't sell out with free season tickets, maybe it can at least be full for B1G games. I think some who would at least come to 'big' games don't bother to get season tickets because they don't want to pay for 3-4 games they know they won't show up for.
 

howeda7 said:
We have ~2,000 students out of 50,000 bothering now. So if 96% already perceive it as having little/no value, I don't see how it could hurt. Make them free. If you don't show up to 2 games, you lose your ticket and it's given to the next on the list.

If you can't sell out with free season tickets, maybe it can at least be full for B1G games. I think some who would at least come to 'big' games don't bother to get season tickets because they don't want to pay for 3-4 games they know they won't show up for.
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Are there really 50,000 students? I thought the number of under graduates was around 20k.
 




howeda7 said:
We have ~2,000 students out of 50,000 bothering now. So if 96% already perceive it as having little/no value, I don't see how it could hurt. Make them free. If you don't show up to 2 games, you lose your ticket and it's given to the next on the list.

If you can't sell out with free season tickets, maybe it can at least be full for B1G games. I think some who would at least come to 'big' games don't bother to get season tickets because they don't want to pay for 3-4 games they know they won't show up for.
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Free student tickets doesn't really seem to help Women's hockey get many students. I don't think it would help much.
 

howeda7 said:
We have ~2,000 students out of 50,000 bothering now. So if 96% already perceive it as having little/no value, I don't see how it could hurt. Make them free. If you don't show up to 2 games, you lose your ticket and it's given to the next on the list.

If you can't sell out with free season tickets, maybe it can at least be full for B1G games. I think some who would at least come to 'big' games don't bother to get season tickets because they don't want to pay for 3-4 games they know they won't show up for.
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It really doesn't cost much now, anyone who wants to go can pay. It's not the $, it is students just not be interested in going...
 

Hates Monikers said:
I'm a current season ticket holder and my donation increased without me moving at all.

They knew they would lose season ticket holders, and they hoped the increase in donations from those who stayed would outpace the losses. They're smarter than I am; I'm not sure they're too worried right now. I just wish they would have a plan to build revenues over the next 10-15 years rater than looking at the next 1-3 years. They might have come up with a different strategy that focused on building a larger fan base.
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Yep, and will increase next year as well. You just stated the obvious and what we've been talking about here. Pretty sure you don't build a plan like this one with the thought that you are going to lose 15% year over year and still end up in the black. The donations only equal the cost of maybe 2/3 single game tickets. I went from 4 to 2 tickets this year for that very reason...my donation per seat doubled this year. I'm pretty sure those two I dropped will be singles and I'll be able to pick them back up in the future. I had the same problem many others did...they were extra tickets and I would scramble to find someone to go for free and then sell to scalpers for next to nothing when I couldn't give them away.
 

Three straight years of steep hikes was too much - that's a 13% drop. Next year could be the back-breaker - another 13% drop would mean a 26% drop in two years. Unsustainable.
 

It would be interesting to hear to what extent non renewals were offset by new seasons tickets sold and in that math how they counted people moving down a donation level.
 

LakerFan said:
It would be interesting to hear to what extent non renewals were offset by new seasons tickets sold and in that math how they counted people moving down a donation level.
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Also how long the non renewals held tickets, etc.

More data might tell us a lot more.


Also would be good to know what other schools with similar levels of success, historical attendance, demographics, etc have for ticket holders, turnover rate, etc...
 

Taji34 said:
Free student tickets doesn't really seem to help Women's hockey get many students. I don't think it would help much.
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I have said it a thousand times, if the women's hockey team wants to draw more fans, they have to win more.
 


2nd Degree Gopher said:
I have said it a thousand times, if the women's hockey team wants to draw more fans, they have to win more.
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Straw Man. Gopher Women's Hockey leads the nation in attendance. Why? Because they win. If the football team could have a fraction of the success Women's hockey has, folks would show up in big numbers (proportionally) there too.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
Three straight years of steep hikes was too much - that's a 13% drop. Next year could be the back-breaker - another 13% drop would mean a 26% drop in two years. Unsustainable.
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Two years of 13% decreases would only amount to a total 2 year decrease of 24.31% :p

I imagine the revenue is there from the increased prices to cover a gap somewhat (financially), but I agree with you it would be bad news if the trend continued. If they have a 8-9 wins season this year and get a nice rivalry win to boost interest it will be interesting to see if the renewals still drop with the next increase.
 

Sparlimb said:
Straw Man. Gopher Women's Hockey leads the nation in attendance. Why? Because they win. If the football team could have a fraction of the success Women's hockey has, folks would show up in big numbers (proportionally) there too.
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It's not a "Straw Man," it's a joke. You are suggesting that if the football team had won a national title or two in the last four years that attendance wouldn't be a problem? Brilliant!!
 


Ultimately, the U has to find a way to expand the fan base if it wants to consistently sell out TCF and maximize its revenue streams.

based on attendance at the dome and the early years of TCF, once could argue that the "hard-core" fan base for Gopher FB is in the range of 30-to-40,000. No matter who they're playing, they draw that many fans. After the hard-core group, then you have a second level of occasional fans and visiting-team fans. When the Gophers host IA, WI, Neb, etc, the occasional fans and visiting fans can purchase enough tickets for a sellout. But, if they're not facing a marquee opponent, those fans tend to stay away.

long-term, the Gophers need to find a way to convert more of those occasional fans to hard-core fans. If they can't find a way to make that happen, you can expect to see a few sellouts, with smaller crowds for non-conf games.
 

Was I blind last year? Saw pretty much a sold out stadium and excellent student numbers except for the Illinois game. Thought I saw the best attendance since 1987 published. Why all the negativity?
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
It really doesn't cost much now, anyone who wants to go can pay. It's not the $, it is students just not be interested in going...
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I understand that. It might not help. It hardly seems like it could hurt. And it would make it easier to get those who have tickets to actually show up if they have to use the tickets to keep them.
 

howeda7 said:
I understand that. It might not help. It hardly seems like it could hurt. And it would make it easier to get those who have tickets to actually show up if they have to use the tickets to keep them.
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It could hurt if you ever want to ask folks to pay for the free thing they got for free just last year....
 

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