Fox 9 Video: P.J. Fleck hopes to make new Gophers fans by getting them to 'RTB'

The point isn't about the Gopher fans who are fans right now.
It's about the 3 million non-fans who need to become fans of our University, then of football.

Right now the sentiment about the U is probably below the levels that it should be.


What does it say when you have Wisconsinites who go to college at the U, but wear Badger apparel.

Why are they more proud of a University they don't go to than one they do go to?

What does that say about a person and what does it say about the school itself?

Kids are kids and the U of M is a big school, don't read much into guys wearing Wisconsin gear on campus other than they are a-holes looking to get a rise out of someone and in a school that size will have some. I work in St. Paul and drive by the Concordia and Hamline campuses every day. I see way more kids wearing Gopher gear on those campuses than I ever saw Wisconsin jerseys roaming the U of M.
 


You can deny it all you want but it's true. The team gave the fans nothing to be excited about. Beating bad teams and losing to good teams wont excite any fanbase. The attendance for the Northwestern game was a clear reflection of that.
 

Don't confuse butts in the seats with the quality of football on the field. There is almost zero correlation.

Disagree completely. I want to see a competent team that looks well prepared, win or lose. What I don't want to see is a team that struggles to beat Illinois St. for whatever the excuse is this time. The quality of the product has a direct correlation on how many games I attend every year. I do, however, go to homecoming every year for being an alumni, regardless of record and play.
 

Disagree completely. I want to see a competent team that looks well prepared, win or lose. What I don't want to see is a team that struggles to beat Illinois St. for whatever the excuse is this time. The quality of the product has a direct correlation on how many games I attend every year. I do, however, go to homecoming every year for being an alumni, regardless of record and play.

Good post. Not sure how he can argue that the performance of a team thru 2 1/2 months of a 3 month season doesn't have an affect on attendance.
 

You can deny it all you want but it's true. The team gave the fans nothing to be excited about. Beating bad teams and losing to good teams wont excite any fanbase. The attendance for the Northwestern game was a clear reflection of that.

I agree, when the program is struggling to get fans excited, it is very important to get off to a good start. That OT loss at Penn State killed any chance the Gophers had to get fans excited for the 2016 season. They followed that loss with a bad loss to Iowa at home. When you start out conference play 0-2, you have a big hill to climb to get fans excited. That means going out and upsetting some ranked teams and winning your remaining rivalry games. The Gophers did not do any of those. When the stadium is half-empty for the homecoming game and 2/3 empty for your final home game, it's pretty clear there was no interest in the football program.

We can talk all we want about coaching changes, culture changes, injuries and so on but until you can start beating some ranked teams and winning your rivalry games more frequently, it will be very tough to get fans in the stands. Let's start out by beating Michigan State, Nebraska and Wisconsin at TCF Bank Stadium this year.
 


BS. The attendance for the Northwestern game was embarrassing and it wasn't only because of the ticket price increase or the weather. <b>It was directly related to the team's on field performance up to that point. </b>You want butts in the seats? Then beat someone who matters.

Great Post. Well, other then the fact it is inaccurate.


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Fans here complain that PJ is a "salesman". Let's examine that. A salesperson's job is to try to figure out the needs of the potential buyer and then find a way to fulfill those needs. It is not a dirty word and does not mean that the person selling is a liar or of low moral character. I want my coach to be a top seller, someone who can get recruits and their parents to buy in to what he is selling. Someone who can sell alumni on supporting their football team. Someone who can convince corporate sponsors to realize the value of spending dollars on ads, gifts, buildings and other needs. Someone who can move the focus off of the players and their egos and onto thinking about other people. It's called empathy and those players involved in the scandal last fall did not demonstrate empathy. Perhaps with a different focus, things will change in the football culture. Coach Claeys was not going to take this program to the top. I believe PJ will. I remember attending a game in Madison back in the early 70's and they were hyping a player named Gregory "Grape Juice" Johnson (playing off the OJ nickname). That stadium was as dead as ours has been recently. But one man came in and changed everything. PJ will do the same for our university.
 

Great Post. Well, other then the fact it is inaccurate.


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Yeah fans watching the team struggle to beat winless Rutgers and blow a lead against Nebraska the previous week definitely had no affect on attendance.
 

Yeah ans watching the team struggle to beat winless Rutgers and blow a lead against Nebraska the previous week definitely had no affect on attendance.

Yea I usually attend 3 games a year but I didn't even go to one last year. Just wasn't excited about the program. Last game I attended was the Michigan game on halloween.
 



Great Post. Well, other then the fact it is inaccurate.


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The pathetic attendance for the last home game of the season had nothing to do with the performance of the team up to that point?? I'm sorry but that makes no sense at all.
 

The pathetic attendance for the last home game of the season had nothing to do with the performance of the team up to that point?? I'm sorry but that makes no sense at all.

The attendance was directly related to the weather and who we were playing. That was the #1 and #2 factor. Always are here in MN. Nice weather or vs Wiscy and attendance would have been waaay higher - regardless of how we had played to that point (which was 7-wins, right?).


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There are a lot of factors involved in attendance. Like it or not, MN fans are fair-weather fans and front-runners. (I've been following Gopher FB and attending games since the late 60's, so I do have some experience with this.....)

I would estimate the hard-core, die-hard Gopher FB base to be around 25,000 to 30,000 fans. They show up for every game no matter what. Any attendance beyond that is determined by fans of the opponent (higher for IA, WI - lower for other schools), casual fans, and the general level of "buzz" around the program. AND - ticket price is a big part of the equation. MN fans are cheap - no two ways about it. Raise ticket prices - attendance goes down. simple as that.

I would say that last year's attendance was due mainly to the increase in seat donations driving down the season-ticket fan base. Lack of buzz and poor play played a role but were not major factors. But don't kid yourself - for most people, if you say "wanna go to the Gopher FB game?" - their first response will be "how much are the tickets?" and "who are they playing?" If the ticket price is reasonable, and the Gophers are playing a name oppenent (IA, WI), people will go. But, if they think the tickets are too expensive, or if it's not a team they're familiar with, they'll pass.
 

The attendance was directly related to the weather and who we were playing. That was the #1 and #2 factor. Always are here in MN. Nice weather or vs Wiscy and attendance would have been waaay higher - regardless of how we had played to that point (which was 7-wins, right?).

Yet that was the Gophers best regular season win of the year
 



Yeah definitely not the product on the field but it's definitely Kaler and Coyle.


Yeh. So non-football fans didn't become fans of the program because of Kaler and Coyle, who now brought in Fleck who wants to bring in non-football fans into the program.

If I tried to do this equation in an excel spreadsheet I'd get a circular reference warning.
 

There are 3 million people who don't care a bit about the University or the football team.

I would guess if you polled them whether they had a positive reflection on the U or a negative, the majority would probably say negative. (Because we like to hate things and because people think it's expensive and cost us tax payer dollars).

We're kind of a messed up state that way where we don't become too proud of anything and easily embarrassed and offended by it's misfortunes.
 

There are 3 million people who don't care a bit about the University or the football team.

There are many more than that. There are billions of people on the planet.

I would guess if you polled them whether they had a positive reflection on the U or a negative, the majority would probably say negative. (Because we like to hate things and because people think it's expensive and cost us tax payer dollars).

Why would anyone who matters care?
 

The attendance was directly related to the weather and who we were playing. That was the #1 and #2 factor. Always are here in MN. Nice weather or vs Wiscy and attendance would have been waaay higher - regardless of how we had played to that point (which was 7-wins, right?).


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There was no buzz surrounding the program leading up to that game despite a 7-3 record and that's because the team didn't have the type of win that forces the casual fan to take notice. There's not enough die hard fans like us to fill the place, we need the casual fan. Sure weather was a factor but the main factor was that there was zero reason to be excited or proud of the season up to that point.
 

Considering the weather and game I thought it was fairly well attended... at the start at least.

It got nasty cold after a while.
 

Spoofin is the flat out dumbest poster on GH. He'll argue anything just to argue. No reasoning at all. The idea that the early season PSU and Iowa losses didn't affect attendance the rest of the season is absurd.
 

Great post 100% agree. You have to be a salesperson in today's world of college athletics and entitled young adults.
 

Spoofin is the flat out dumbest poster on GH. He'll argue anything just to argue. No reasoning at all. The idea that the early season PSU and Iowa losses didn't affect attendance the rest of the season is absurd.

No I'm not. No I won't. :)

Plus, I just said it wasn't a "direct effect" as in prices, weather, and opponent all had bigger factors than early season losses to PSU and Iowa. Pretty dumb reasoning, huh?


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