Season Ticket Renewal Blunder (Tailgating)

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gopher ceaser

gopher ceaser

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In years past my family had one person pay for all our “seat donations” (after signing a release form since we all had our own gopher ticket holder account) so that sum of donation dollars could go toward out parking donation of $1,000. This is no longer an option (or loophole as they called it) resulting in much more money being spent to tailgate on campus. We value the tailgate experience just as much or more as the game and it is the key reason why we kept our season tickets in years past.

I know that there are many others in our lot that are very dissatisfied with this decision as you can buy tickets, including parking passes at such a discount over re-newing through your season tickets. Seems very counterproductive to creating the atmosphere they desire inside and outside the stadium on game day.
 

Seems right. That is in line with season tickets. Incentives are offered for single games or bundles. Long term ticket holders need to determine if they are willing to overpay.
I plan on renewing again this year and will evaluate again next year. As the average cost per ticket is about $90, only winning the majority Big 10 football games will justify the cost for me.

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Are you saying that tailgate parking has a minimum donation attached to it? And to get around that one person paid a bunch of seat's donations ... to qualify for a total donation that covered tailgate parking donation?

Like for a special tailgate lot?

I pay for parking, people tailgate all around me, no extra donation there that i've seen.
 

Ski-U-Mah we pay $1000 for one parking spot. We have always had our three individual season ticket donations go to the parking spot donation. If they choose to make it as you describe, that you can no longer pool your donations for the spot, then that will end our tailgating. If that happens, we might as well pick our tickets up off the street as well for $20 or less.

Where there's a will there's a way. The university ticket office continues to find new ways to disenfranchise season ticket holders. With the team on a perceived upswing you would think they would do all they could to incentivize the meager base to return and perhaps try to create something of a game day atmosphere. The loyalty program was a step toward trying to do some of that, although not very impactful IMO. Many of the folks who come to our tailgate pick up tickets off the street for next to nothing. The incredibly bad and tone-deaf decisions made around ticketing continue to reap their rewards with all the empty seats.

We are down to three season tickets from eight in our group due to cost. Unfortunately, I'm now willing to go down to zero season tickets if they follow through with this change.
 

Are you saying that tailgate parking has a minimum donation attached to it? Yes - Each "parking spot" has a minimum donation and the key is "annual donation amount." For example, the min donation for the Ski-U-Ma lot is $1,000 and if you have already donated that via your seats or other means throughout the year, you are not obligated to pay this (or just pay the difference)

And to get around that one person paid a bunch of seat's donations ... to qualify for a total donation that covered tailgate parking donation? Correct, the person who had the "Tailgate Season Pass" on their invoice had to pay it.

Like for a special tailgate lot? Most around the stadium have this.

I pay for parking, people tailgate all around me, no extra donation there that i've seen: If I understand this right, probably one of two things; 1. The donation you paid on your seat(s) or through other donation may have covered the minimum annual donation. 2. Ticket office is doing a bad job following up collecting this min donation.
 


This really just sounds like the way the system was supposed to work, but you managed to work around it... but can't.

Bummer, but this doesn't seem like a blunder as just enforcing the rules. The idea that "hey all these other people I know paid donations so that should qualify me for a spot" is a bit hard to buy.
 

I get what you are saying but the process is so ambiguous. When the licenses came out, they encouraged us to use this process, even the reason why they created the donation transfer form, so I guess I could argue that it was designed. But my main point is about driving engagement and keeping fans at wits end from taking the easy way out and give up their season tickets.
 

The U continues to emphasize the money grab over building a fan base. We'll see you down at East River Flats, where you can park for $10.
 

Hates Monikers said:
The U continues to emphasize the money grab over building a fan base. We'll see you down at East River Flats, where you can park for $10.
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man i really hate our garbage tailgating scene. Except for maybe a few lots around the stadium, i wish the rest was first come first served like almost everywhere else in the BIG. Would go a long way in getting engagement. Its so sad to see the lots behind the frats at 50% capacity when walking up to the stadium.
 



This is where someone usually posts that our tailgate scene is just as good as many other schools. It isn’t, and the U has no clue how to make it that way. Yet another example of this University and AD have no clue. What. So. Ever.


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Best tailgating scene in the Big 10 I've seen is Illinois, of all places. Granted they're a college town in the middle of nowhere, so they have space to spare, but still. Team wasn't doing well and the lots by the stadium were still full.
 

gopher ceaser said:
In years past my family had one person pay for all our “seat donations” (after signing a release form since we all had our own gopher ticket holder account) so that sum of donation dollars could go toward out parking donation of $1,000. This is no longer an option (or loophole as they called it) resulting in much more money being spent to tailgate on campus. We value the tailgate experience just as much or more as the game and it is the key reason why we kept our season tickets in years past.

I know that there are many others in our lot that are very dissatisfied with this decision as you can buy tickets, including parking passes at such a discount over re-newing through your season tickets. Seems very counterproductive to creating the atmosphere they desire inside and outside the stadium on game day.
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It appears it was a loophole and they closed it. Not entirely sure why they cared since it seems like the revenue would be equivalent. Perhaps other season ticket/parking pass holders felt it was unfair that some folks pooled their donation to get a parking pass instead of paying the full individual freight as a season ticket holder. I think most season ticket holders/donators could care less.

Could you consolidate into one account? If you want your tickets together, I don't see what the harm would be. Just pick the youngest person, and hope he or she outlives the rest. On the other hand, if your tickets were not together, and you consolidated donations exclusively to get the parking pass while seated in different parts of the stadium, then the U has a good point and closing the loophole seem reasonable. If I misunderstand, please correct me.

I know that the donation/ticket price/parking pass prices I pay now are considerably above market value (i.e stubhub). I hope to live long enough for that no longer be true, at which point, no doubt, the required donation will increase...
 

MrC said:
It appears it was a loophole and they closed it. Nope. They changed a practice promoted and ongoing since the stadium opened and did not communicate it.

Perhaps other season ticket/parking pass holders felt it was unfair that some folks pooled their donation to get a parking pass instead of paying the full individual freight as a season ticket holder. This has been available to all season ticket holders since day one. It was actually a meaningful perk.

I think most season ticket holders/donators could care less. Better known as the disease called Apathy. Please see the shedding of attendance and actual season ticket holders.

Could you consolidate into one account? Yes, and goodbye to your Gopher season ticket score.

I'm really not trying to be too critical of your post. As a fan it is just very frustrating to potentially have the best coach and program in decades working in conjunction with an administration that seems intent on systematically eliminating reasons to attend.

Second steepest drop in attendance last year of all Power Five schools...Alfred2.jpg
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Taji34 said:
Best tailgating scene in the Big 10 I've seen is Illinois, of all places. Granted they're a college town in the middle of nowhere, so they have space to spare, but still. Team wasn't doing well and the lots by the stadium were still full.
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I have been to a 8 B1G stadiums and have to agree that IL, of all places, has one of the best tailgating scenes. They even have an area that families and students can use for tailgating (carry in only) for free - right at the steps of the stadium (Grange Grove). When I was there the students were using that area in full force and, as you said, the team sucked. Yet, it was still the place to be that day in Champaign.

Seems to me this policy will make a poor tailgating scene worse, alienate some of the most loyal STHers, and most likely reduce revenue. Brilliant idea.


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Not ideal, but you can make up the difference in your seat donation by making another donation to get to a total of $1000 and split that among your tailgating crew. I think I came up $100 short of the required $1000 to get my pass in Lot 37 and had to make the extra donation.

This was before they started doing the rewards for season ticket holders. I asked my ticket rep if I could get a couple on field passes for a game that year and I was accommodated which I thought was pretty great customer service.
 

In virtually any business that caters to the public, the first question you should ask is "what do our customers want?" do a good job of providing what your customers want,and you get repeat business or increased business. Do a poor job of providing what your customers want, and you lose business.

With Gopher sports - and it seems football in particular, the U of MN seems to do everything backwards. Instead of asking what their customers want, the U just sets a policy, and tells the customers "take it or leave it," because the U seems to think there is some mythical supply of new customers just waiting out there somewhere.

The U of MN has alienated a significant % of the fan base, and new fans are not picking up the slack. Couch + TV + your own food + no lines for the bathroom = fans staying home. This is not a difficult equation to grasp, but for the U of MN, it might as well be a problem in celestial mechanics. And Klaatu is not going to come in and solve it for them.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
In virtually any business that caters to the public, the first question you should ask is "what do our customers want?" do a good job of providing what your customers want,and you get repeat business or increased business. Do a poor job of providing what your customers want, and you lose business.

With Gopher sports - and it seems football in particular, the U of MN seems to do everything backwards. Instead of asking what their customers want, the U just sets a policy, and tells the customers "take it or leave it," because the U seems to think there is some mythical supply of new customers just waiting out there somewhere.

The U of MN has alienated a significant % of the fan base, and new fans are not picking up the slack. Couch + TV + your own food + no lines for the bathroom = fans staying home. This is not a difficult equation to grasp, but for the U of MN, it might as well be a problem in celestial mechanics. And Klaatu is not going to come in and solve it for them.
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+1000
 

short ornery norwegian said:
In virtually any business that caters to the public, the first question you should ask is "what do our customers want?" do a good job of providing what your customers want,and you get repeat business or increased business. Do a poor job of providing what your customers want, and you lose business.

With Gopher sports - and it seems football in particular, the U of MN seems to do everything backwards. Instead of asking what their customers want, the U just sets a policy, and tells the customers "take it or leave it," because the U seems to think there is some mythical supply of new customers just waiting out there somewhere.

The U of MN has alienated a significant % of the fan base, and new fans are not picking up the slack. Couch + TV + your own food + no lines for the bathroom = fans staying home. This is not a difficult equation to grasp, but for the U of MN, it might as well be a problem in celestial mechanics. And Klaatu is not going to come in and solve it for them.
Click to expand...

As someone in my 30's, I have seen most of my Gopher friends my age drop their season tickets and subsequently drift away from the program. They all say the same thing. Never in their consumer lives had they dealt with a company or organization that seems to care so little about whether they have their business.

It makes you wonder why they bother to spend so much on facilities and coaches and then completely blow the customer service aspects? It's like developing a beautiful perfectly engineered car, but when you go in for a test drive, they can't find the keys at the dealership and tell you come back another day.
 

t-docious said:
man i really hate our garbage tailgating scene. Except for maybe a few lots around the stadium, i wish the rest was first come first served like almost everywhere else in the BIG. Would go a long way in getting engagement. Its so sad to see the lots behind the frats at 50% capacity when walking up to the stadium.
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I'm impressed with how much regular tailgating I see.

Lot 37 is pretty busy most games.
 


Nebraska tailgate is massive. Oregon was insane (not in the conference but was insane)

I’ve only tailgated a few times. Would love to find a steady group for it but haven’t. Too much energy and money for just the wife and I
 

1967 2.0 said:
MrC said:
Could you consolidate into one account? Yes, and goodbye to your Gopher season ticket score.
View attachment 6088
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I'm with you on tone deaf marketing in general but the Gopher season ticket score is pretty meaningless, IF seats were in such high demand that you could not upgrade to wherever you want by paying more, I would understand your reluctance to give up your score. Also if you have a relationship with whomever is buying for the group their score would get really high and I am assuming you could have them purchase whatever you think a high Gopher score gets you and just reimburse them. I'm in a group of 3 couples and one single and when we buy away game seats or whatever we typically have the highest score grab tickets for all of us.
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LakerFan said:
1967 2.0 said:
I'm with you on tone deaf marketing in general but the Gopher season ticket score is pretty meaningless, IF seats were in such high demand that you could not upgrade to wherever you want by paying more, I would understand your reluctance to give up your score. Also if you have a relationship with whomever is buying for the group their score would get really high and I am assuming you could have them purchase whatever you think a high Gopher score gets you and just reimburse them. I'm in a group of 3 couples and one single and when we buy away game seats or whatever we typically have the highest score grab tickets for all of us.
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Tone deaf is accurate! What I am seeing a lot of in this thread is to "consolidate your tickets" into one person. This is the new "loop hole" in the process which I believe would be counter productive to what they are trying to do. The result I see happening is a much smaller base of season ticket holders and no increase in donations due to people going this route. I would also believe the U would value having more accounts for marketing/campaign purposes vs have few accounts with massive amount of points.
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I tailgate every game now and I love it. One thing that I noticed during the years that I would go on craigslist to buy tailgate lot passes for a game or two per year, is the number of people that park in those lots (especially the maroon and gold lots) that arrive 10 minutes before kickoff and simply go into the stadium without tailgating. There are so many roadblocks to tailgating organically around the stadium. Way too much emphasis has to be placed on the U lots surrounding the stadium that require the big donations to get into. Then, to make matters worse, we've got too many people willing to pay those big bucks to get the good tailgate spots while skipping the tailgating. Perhaps lingering habits from the Metrodome (which I saw as a place where most people for all events would arrive late and leave early). Gotta beat that traffic. Perhaps the tailgate demand and resulting pressure on the U and Mpls would happen if people actually realized it could be a big part of the fun. Chicken or the egg?

I agree with all the points I have read here about the U continually seemingly working to discourage fun and attendance.
 

I'm confused by the OP. If you have a group of 5 in your season ticket group and 1 parking spot, isn't there just 1 parking spot donation required? Couldn't the person who pays the parking donation just collect from the other 4 people in order to split up the donation cost?
Or is the parking donation a new thing this year?

As my questions portray and as I stated earlier: I'm confused.
 

We ran into this issue this year as well. We have had a group of 7-9 seats together since before the stadium opened with each of 3-4 people having 2-3 seats in their name. Every year since the stadium opened, we have followed an official process Gopher Sports offered called the Associate Donor form. This was not a "loophole" as some have called it. It involved filling out an official U of M athletics form and having one ticket holder pay everyone's donations. This allowed that ticket holder to qualify for a tailgate spot based on the total donation amount paid. It worked really well for us and allowed each ticket holder to accumulate his/her own Gopher score. This year they took the option away. We had to consolidate all the tickets onto my account in order to get the donation total to pay for parking (this involved having everyone fill out another form to initiate those transfers). It is absolutely ridiculous that Gopher sports thinks it's in a position to remove perks to the customer experience. This was in addition to a couple other hurdles this year with renewing. I repeatedly asked my ticket rep if, in fact, they were actually trying to sell more season tickets or make the stadium more empty.
 

jonnyganas said:
I'm confused by the OP. If you have a group of 5 in your season ticket group and 1 parking spot, isn't there just 1 parking spot donation required? Couldn't the person who pays the parking donation just collect from the other 4 people in order to split up the donation cost?
Or is the parking donation a new thing this year?

As my questions portray and as I stated earlier: I'm confused.
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I think the situation is that to get a parking spot you need to have X amount of donation associated with an account, or pay some extra donation so that your total donation is X.

The OP's required tickets donation amount is less than X. So what they used to do was one person paid everyone else's donation so that their total donation = X.

Now they're not letting them consolidate donations under one person like that.

I didn't even know this was a thing, but my donation I guess meets the minimum requirement. -fondles monocle-


Yup, I just checked here is what my parking pass says, it's $140.00, plus a minimum total donation of a grand (my tickets already cover that).

UDh7UrX.png
 
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short ornery norwegian said:
In virtually any business that caters to the public, the first question you should ask is "what do our customers want?" do a good job of providing what your customers want,and you get repeat business or increased business. Do a poor job of providing what your customers want, and you lose business.

With Gopher sports - and it seems football in particular, the U of MN seems to do everything backwards. Instead of asking what their customers want, the U just sets a policy, and tells the customers "take it or leave it," because the U seems to think there is some mythical supply of new customers just waiting out there somewhere.

The U of MN has alienated a significant % of the fan base, and new fans are not picking up the slack. Couch + TV + your own food + no lines for the bathroom = fans staying home. This is not a difficult equation to grasp, but for the U of MN, it might as well be a problem in celestial mechanics. And Klaatu is not going to come in and solve it for them.
Click to expand...

WoodburyTim said:
As someone in my 30's, I have seen most of my Gopher friends my age drop their season tickets and subsequently drift away from the program. They all say the same thing. Never in their consumer lives had they dealt with a company or organization that seems to care so little about whether they have their business.

It makes you wonder why they bother to spend so much on facilities and coaches and then completely blow the customer service aspects? It's like developing a beautiful perfectly engineered car, but when you go in for a test drive, they can't find the keys at the dealership and tell you come back another day.
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These two posts are excellent and spot-on. I had to drop my tickets last year (parenting priority and 3+ hour drives one-way to games make it difficult with 2-3 year old boy). The ticket office has made a couple, and I am being nice here, very half-assed attempts to call and get me back. They really have no idea how to successfully sell their product. If I had the time to make the games, I'd renew regardless of their awful renewal attempts because, as an alum, I love Gopher Football. But it was quite disappointing to hear the effort behind renewal calls.
 
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With the business school we have at the U, it always surprises me how mediocre the athletics department's marketing and handling of these situations is...
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I think the situation is that to get a parking spot you need to have X amount of donation associated with an account, or pay some extra donation so that your total donation is X.

The OP's required tickets donation amount is less than X. So what they used to do was one person paid everyone else's donation so that their total donation = X.

Now they're not letting them consolidate donations under one person like that.

I didn't even know this was a thing, but my donation I guess meets the minimum requirement. -fondles monocle-


Yup, I just checked here is what my parking pass says, it's $140.00, plus a minimum total donation of a grand (my tickets already cover that).

UDh7UrX.png
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Gotcha, thanks for clearing that up.

The U needs to realize that SO many people are deterred when donation levels are required. It is literally a barrier to entry for most Gopher fans. If they turned the model on its head and leaned hard into a top priority of filling the stadium for all the home games (lowering ticket prices, donation requirements, etc.) they would likely earn more in the long run. Building lifelong relationships with fans and alumni likely would lead to donations in the future. Instead, you now have generations of fans that are left cold by attempts to get more money out of the people who have been the most loyal.

They should just charge event parking ($20? $25?) first-come/first-serve and allow tailgating. People who actually tailgate will show up early on gamedays to help create a festive atmosphere on gameday (an earlier post mentioned folks who merely park minutes before kickoff and walk in).
 

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