Shama: If there was a negative about U's win over Fresno State, it was the attendance

BleedGopher

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per Shama:

If there was a negative about the Gophers’ quality win against Fresno State last Saturday night, it was the home attendance at TCF Bank Stadium. The announced attendance of 38,280 was the lowest for a nonconference game in stadium history. It was also the second smallest crowd since the stadium opened in 2009.

Minnesota had an announced crowd of 41,291 for its first game of the season. That was on a Thursday night instead of a Saturday evening like the Fresno State game. The weekend night figured to pull more customers and so, too, did the opponent because Fresno is much better than New Mexico State who the Gophers opened against on August 30.

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Go Gophers!!
 

the assumption has been that, if the team wins, the fans will show up.

Now - if they keep winning, and the fans still don't show up, that might suggest that the cost of tickets and/or "donations" is the main factor in keeping attendance down. That, and cheap big-screen TV's at big-box stores. For the cost of 2 tickets plus seat donations, you can buy a nice 4K set these days.
 

Too many quality things to do here. Wins may help but It will take many wins before things change significantly. I think the U has to lower the price point as well.
 

I would be willing to buy 21 pizzas for season tickets. Just throwing that idea out there.
 

Price and product. Product seems to be improving, but it's got a long way to go to catch up to price.

JTG
 


I'll say this though, there seemed to be more actual fans at the game Saturday than the previous Thursday. I know that doesn't equal ticket sales, but I felt like the attendance was better.
 

I'll say this though, there seemed to be more actual fans at the game Saturday than the previous Thursday. I know that doesn't equal ticket sales, but I felt like the attendance was better.

Agree! It was a great atmosphere. I was shocked when I saw attendance number. Seemed like more there.
 

Every year there is one thing that makes me pause before renewing my tickets. It is not the donation. It is the length of the game, especially the commercial breaks.

At home you can get up, read something, do something during the breaks. In person, you just sit there and wait for the damned commercial break to end. And watch people on "Kiss Cam," I guess.

It is ironic that the thing that makes watching the game at home possible makes watching it in person frustrating. And 3.5 hours plus is just too long.

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I would be there every weekend if I still lived in Minneapolis. Love watching them live. One thing that would help is more highlights or updates during the commercial breaks. You would think the B1G could have a studio team constantly putting together 3 minute updates of all the games going on that day. Or do a better job of highlights from earlier in the Gopher game along with some interesting stats or of other Gopher teams playing that week/weekend.

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the assumption has been that, if the team wins, the fans will show up.

Now - if they keep winning, and the fans still don't show up, that might suggest that the cost of tickets and/or "donations" is the main factor in keeping attendance down. That, and cheap big-screen TV's at big-box stores. For the cost of 2 tickets plus seat donations, you can buy a nice 4K set these days.

It was already proven from 14 to 15.

Sadly 15 was a terrible year.
 

I would be there every weekend if I still lived in Minneapolis. Love watching them live. One thing that would help is more highlights or updates during the commercial breaks. You would think the B1G could have a studio team constantly putting together 3 minute updates of all the games going on that day. Or do a better job of highlights from earlier in the Gopher game along with some interesting stats or of other Gopher teams playing that week/weekend.

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During Saturday's game, they primed the crowd for a "live" look-in from the Big10 Network. We waited, then fade to black.
I find myself looking for the guy in the red hat to see when the break is over.
Maybe I need the Cenex man to get me energized after all the Ag family introductions.

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Would UMN leadership rather have a full stadium at the cost of lower revenue? Or vice-versa? That’s what it comes down to.

Pretty obvious which choice they made.
 

Would UMN leadership rather have a full stadium at the cost of lower revenue? Or vice-versa? That’s what it comes down to.

Pretty obvious which choice they made.

Correct. I don't know how many times we have to beat this dead horse. Let's say that the average attendance is 80% of capacity (it's higher, but just for the sake of demonstration). If you cut ticket prices 20% across the board, is your attendance going to go up 20% and have full capacity (at least in sales) for every game? I very much doubt it. The U would be stupid to cut prices because they're virtually guaranteed to lose revenue if they do so.

And as Iceland has acutely stated - how many of you pissing and moaning about this in thread after thread are actually going to any games, let alone season ticket holders? It's often trite to say, but this is an actual case where you can easily do something to help fix a "problem".
 



The Annexstad scramble/Johnson catch play and the Winfield pick and the ensuing atmosphere, group euphoria, loud as hell Rouser were great live, I was there moments that keep you coming back.

Tailgating was great, visited with a bunch of my favorite people I haven't seen since last season.

It's kind of like golf or baseball...you hit that one shot or connect squarely on that one line drive or make that great play and it keeps you coming back.
 

I don't think the current cost has much to do with it. There are more than enough people in Minnesota that are willing to pay $70-$80 for entertainment, so its the product. If the product stinks the seat isn't cheap enough unless you start talking about a $10-$15 ticket at the gate during game day in which case the University budget would implode. Win games and you get a full stadium.
 

Agree! It was a great atmosphere. I was shocked when I saw attendance number. Seemed like more there.

I thought the same thing...definitely felt like more butts in the seats...even without the entire Freshmen class being held hostage by the U.

Unfortunately, I think we have been here before and no one is impressed with a good start in a soft non-conference schedule, just to be held scoreless the last few games of real competition. Start winning games that really matter to people (Hogeyes and Wisky) and they will start to show up!
 

Correct. I don't know how many times we have to beat this dead horse. Let's say that the average attendance is 80% of capacity (it's higher, but just for the sake of demonstration). If you cut ticket prices 20% across the board, is your attendance going to go up 20% and have full capacity (at least in sales) for every game? I very much doubt it. The U would be stupid to cut prices because they're virtually guaranteed to lose revenue if they do so.

And as Iceland has acutely stated - how many of you pissing and moaning about this in thread after thread are actually going to any games, let alone season ticket holders? It's often trite to say, but this is an actual case where you can easily do something to help fix a "problem".

Another issue is the perception of the value of a ticket.

Baseball teams have had this issue. Some teams have tried having super low ticket price just to get warm bodies in seats:

1. It doesn't work very well. They don't see a big jump in attendance.

2. When they raise prices after doing well suddenly the tickets are 3x or more what they used to be, people look at that negatively even if the tickets were heavily discounted earlier.

The customer's perception of the value of a seat dropped with the prices, so when they raised the price later... not gud things.

We complain about the price hike, but for some reason we ask them to drop the price and don't expect the same problem later....

As it is you can buy a couple pizzas and go to the game...
 

They dont even show replays at the game for bad calls because they dont want the crowd to boo the refs

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What I wish they could do, is somehow take just those last 10k that haven’t sold and have a flash sale on Friday afternoon or something. But only in an additive sense — that’s the kicker.

It wouldn’t work, you’d just get the cheapest 10k current ticket buyers wouldn’t buy their current full price tickets, they’d just wait around for the cheap tix. So it wouldnt be additive, it’s be subtractive.

But if there was a way to rig it up so that it was just additive??? Maybe restrict those tickets to be just the very worse seats in the stadium? And enforce it? I don’t know, probably just wishful thinking
 

They dont even show replays at the game for bad calls because they dont want the crowd to boo the refs

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That is kinda disappointing this year. They were showing MANY of them in the past....
 

What I wish they could do, is somehow take just those last 10k that haven’t sold and have a flash sale on Friday afternoon or something. But only in an additive sense — that’s the kicker.

It wouldn’t work, you’d just get the cheapest 10k current ticket buyers wouldn’t buy their current full price tickets, they’d just wait around for the cheap tix. So it wouldnt be additive, it’s be subtractive.

But if there was a way to rig it up so that it was just additive??? Maybe restrict those tickets to be just the very worse seats in the stadium? And enforce it? I don’t know, probably just wishful thinking

they had the high school bands in a lot of those seats
 

I don't think the current cost has much to do with it. There are more than enough people in Minnesota that are willing to pay $70-$80 for entertainment, so its the product. If the product stinks the seat isn't cheap enough unless you start talking about a $10-$15 ticket at the gate during game day in which case the University budget would implode. Win games and you get a full stadium.

Many younger people with families are absolutely price sensitive due to multiple ticket requirements. This applies to plane rides, ski trips, etc, etc. What are the trends in crowd demographics since the price changes hit?
 

I thought the same thing...definitely felt like more butts in the seats...even without the entire Freshmen class being held hostage by the U.

Unfortunately, I think we have been here before and no one is impressed with a good start in a soft non-conference schedule, just to be held scoreless the last few games of real competition. Start winning games that really matter to people (Hogeyes and Wisky) and they will start to show up!

The crowd was great. Those 38k fans put out a lot of noise. Was on the Tunnel Team. Got this Pic:

Gophers pic.jpg
 

Agree! It was a great atmosphere. I was shocked when I saw attendance number. Seemed like more there.

Had the same feeling. We talked about how there had to be more people Saturday then at the opener during the game.

Only thing that I could think of was that in the article on "turnstile count vs.tickets" it stated that the average turnstile count was 71% of announced attendance. The article also stated that the Gophers don't include all the employees, volunteers, concession workers, security people etc. that are at the game in that number the way many schools do.

Maybe those H.S. band members weren't included in that 38,000+ number either?
 

I don't like to see the empty seats filled by Iowa. Wisky, and Nebraska fans. Nebraska fans are cool but they wear Wisky colors. :(
 

Lots of empty seats at Stanford-USC last weekend.

You can bet that the bank will be full if two top-25 teams are playing, that's about all you can ask for in a big metro area.

Rattle off some B1G titles, then we can start talking about expecting the stadium to be full for non-conference games against lesser teams.
 

Lots of empty seats at Stanford-USC last weekend.

You can bet that the bank will be full if two top-25 teams are playing, that's about all you can ask for in a big metro area.

Rattle off some B1G titles, then we can start talking about expecting the stadium to be full for non-conference games against lesser teams.

You can ask for more...it was just three seasons ago TCF had 52,823 and 53,917 for Kent State and Ohio.
 

Every year there is one thing that makes me pause before renewing my tickets. It is not the donation. It is the length of the game, especially the commercial breaks.

At home you can get up, read something, do something during the breaks. In person, you just sit there and wait for the damned commercial break to end. And watch people on "Kiss Cam," I guess.

It is ironic that the thing that makes watching the game at home possible makes watching it in person frustrating. And 3.5 hours plus is just too long.

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The Fresno game was brutal. They had like 164 reviews in a row in the 2nd quarter. That quarter alone took about 4 1/2 years off my life.
 

I certainly think winning should help quite a bit. But even then, it seems like consistent high attendance at college football games is difficult for schools across the country. I follow this Twitter account: https://twitter.com/EmptySeatsPics, and it really shows the issue. Even teams that are having success have quite a few empty seats.
 

There was real momentum from the Killer/TC era following the Brewster debacle. It will take a few games to recover from last years let down. It should not take much longer. Starts with bringing Floyd home.
 




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