Other Gopher teams riding football's coattails?

[RodentRampage]

If I were doing scheduling for Volleyball, or exhibition women's basketball games, I would try to schedule the games either before or after Gopher football games. That way, you would have 50,000 people who were going to be right next door anyway. Give discounted admission with a football ticket, and these games could be pretty packed.

Obviously, not all 50,000 would be interested in going. But even if a small percentage were, that could be a lot.

 

[2nd Degree Gopher]

Unfortunately, the U has decided there will be no other events on campus on the same day as a home football game because of traffic concerns.

 

[MrGopher]

On the flip side of that coin is the Hockey team who is going to have a few Friday/Sunday series early in their season because saturdays would be too crazy if there was both on the same day.

 

[RodentRampage]

It seems like a wasted opportunity. Would the crowd for a volleyball game or an exhibition women's game really add all that much to the traffic and parking?

 

[gopher7]

It seems like a wasted opportunity. Would the crowd for a volleyball game or an exhibition women's game really add all that much to the traffic and parking?

Crowd-wise there is not much of a difference between the 50,000 people that are at a football game, vs the 52,000 that might be there for football and volleyball. The problem has to be parking. Football has parking spots reserved for people paying $1000 for those spots. The terms state they get those spots for several hours before and after the games for tailgating, so potentially they could be taking up the spots for most of the day. I highly doubt the U left "other sports" parking areas close to the stadium/Williams. They money to be made is just too great to do that.

From a volleyball perspective, with no parking spaces available near the court there is no way they would want their fans to have to walk a mile, or pay $20 at some other lot for their matches. I'm sure they're fine with avoiding football game days.

 

[RodentRampage]

If we can't handle parking for 52,000, we would sure have a problem expanding to 60,000. And of course some of those 2,000 people who would go to the volleyball game might very well be at the football game anyway, so that would cancel out some of the parking problems. I have at times had to walk a ways to get from my car to the dome.

If a couple thousand people decide to take in a volleyball game after the football game, that would reduce some of the traffic after the football game.

 

[Bronko Nagurski Gopher]

If we can't handle parking for 52,000, we would sure have a problem expanding to 60,000. And of course some of those 2,000 people who would go to the volleyball game might very well be at the football game anyway, so that would cancel out some of the parking problems. I have at times had to walk a ways to get from my car to the dome.

If a couple thousand people decide to take in a volleyball game after the football game, that would reduce some of the traffic after the football game.

personally, i feel the parking/traffic concerns that keep getting thrown out there are not going to be as bad as some think. besides it is not like the U of M and city of minneapolis can't figure out a way to build or expand into bigger parking ramps and/or buy some underutilized land near williams, mariucci, memorial stadium II and turn it into a large year round paid parking lot.

 

[GoAUpher]

If we can't handle parking for 52,000, we would sure have a problem expanding to 60,000. And of course some of those 2,000 people who would go to the volleyball game might very well be at the football game anyway, so that would cancel out some of the parking problems. I have at times had to walk a ways to get from my car to the dome.

If a couple thousand people decide to take in a volleyball game after the football game, that would reduce some of the traffic after the football game.

What he's saying is that no one who is there to see only the volleyball match (as an example) would have anywhere to park and therefore would be discouraged from coming. Since those folks prob make up the core group of fans that's a big deal. When you look at expanding the stadium you have to consider that all the fans are going to the same event and can then use the modes of transport designed for that event (shuttles from Rosedale, park at STP and shuttle to TCF). There is plenty of STP parking left to be used. That is where the bulk of U sold parking for the expanded seating customers will go. If not, they will choose a different mode of transport.

Is this something that other B10 schools even do?

 

[Goldmember]

It was a good idea to not allow any other events on football Staurdays in 2009. Get the problems worked out. Then see what else you can do.

There seems to be a debate among people at the U how big parking problems will be. Some think it is not going to be an issue. Other people say there is going to be people who show up hours early and still miss the first quarter ... then cant get out of ramps for several hours after the games.

But the fact is nobody has any idea what the atmosphere is going to be like until a few games happen.

 

[DarrenTheGreek]

A couple years ago while tailgating in Madison a Badger fan I was with said that there are some instances where Wisconsin will have a day football game and a hockey game at night. In those instances the parking lots would shoo football traffic out of the lot within 1-2 hours after the football game has ended.