Shama: 5,503 public season tickets have been sold, a 20% drop from 2019-2020 last time fans could attend

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BleedGopher

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Per Shama:

Interest in University of Minnesota men’s basketball has been trending down for years as fans watched a parade of coaches fail to develop winning Big Ten teams. Ticket sales generally have been declining for decades as the U falters in duplicating the success of its national power teams of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

Following coach Richard Pitino’s dismissal in March, passionate and knowledgeable patrons salivated over thoughts of a blue ribbon hire like Brian Dutcher (couldn’t have been more transparent in his strong interest) and Eric Musselman, also a prominent college coach and native of Minnesota who knows the past glory of the program. Instead U president Joan Gabel made the abrupt and controversial hire of Ben Johnson, a Minneapolis native and longtime college assistant coach with no head coaching experience.

A lot of Gophers basketball fans feel anger and disappointment with Gabel’s decision. Adding to the gloom is the 2021-2022 team is predicted to be the worst in the Big Ten.

Ticket sales totals obtained from the U by Sports Headliners show a continuation of the long decline in interest. The U said 5,503 public season tickets have been sold, with the first official home game coming up November 9 against Kansas City. For the 2019-2020 season 6,805 tickets were sold for games at Williams Arena (capacity 14,625).

That’s about a 20 percent decline from 2019-2020. No figures for 2020-2021 are reported because the pandemic prevented fans from attending games.

The number of accounts holding season tickets is down from 2,396 to 1,949. A minimal number of new season ticket sales are expected to occur in the coming weeks and month.

Ticket totals through the decades were requested by Sports Headliners but information provided goes back only to the 2009-2010 season (the beginning of digital records). For that season 9,946 public season tickets were sold, the most on digital record in one year. Eleven years ago, for the 2010-2011 schedule, season tickets totaled 8,931.


Go Gophers!!
 

That is probably the most accurate article Shama has written. Gabel hired Ben Johnson.

I think Ben is a great guy and perhaps has a great future, but he has been put in a really tough spot considering his lack of experience.

The fans are not coming back until the wins come. Revenue from basketball is going to be way down for the next 3 years minimum.
 


bga1 said:
That is probably the most accurate article Shama has written. Gabel hired Ben Johnson.

I think Ben is a great guy and perhaps has a great future, but he has been put in a really tough spot considering his lack of experience.

The fans are not coming back until the wins come. Revenue from basketball is going to be way down for the next 3 years minimum.
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And even then, they'll have to win big or bring in a monster recruiting class (re: Top 10 nationally) to get fans to make a change in behavior from curious to season ticket commitment. It's very hard to get a non-season ticket holder to become a season ticket holder for any sport. Whether its been poor play, amazing TVs at home, recruiting misses, bad coaching hires, etc., we have seen a consistent and dramatic decline of season ticket holders. A 5,500 season ticket holder base is just awful for a Big Ten program in a major market like ours.

The good news is, basketball is the easiest sport to turn it around. All it takes is 1-2 studs.

It's time.

Go Gophers!!
 



This is grim. The way we have been treated in the past, it would not surprise me to see them bump the "donation" for premium seats to make up for lost revenue from a decline in season ticket sales.

I'm not holding my breath waiting for a nice letter from the department thanking me for loyally hanging in with a program that has been largely awful and overpriced for at least fifteen years, if not twenty. But it would be an honest acknowledgement of what we have endured.

This is not surprising, and was on the way to being confirmed when I saw my Gopher Score ranking jump measurably with no material change in previous year's activities. I only renewed my tickets. That means a lot of people dropped off the roles.

It would be nice to get some hopeful news as the season gets nearer.
 


howeda7 said:
What would the season ticket base be if they'd ponied up for Muss? 8K?
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Very good question. Uncharted territory we are in with coming out of pandemic, general decline in attendance at live sporting events, and possible structural changes in gathering behavior post pandemic. I'm not sure a big name hire would have moved the needle up much, but it would have at least kept it stable. As a more than 30 year season ticket holder, I felt like the hire was a poke in the eye.

Some posters early on suggested this was great timing for a hire like Ben considering all of the unknowns. I didn't agree with them, but they might be right.
 

howeda7 said:
What would the season ticket base be if they'd ponied up for Muss? 8K?
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Muss is a constant energy ball, same mode as Fleck. I think this fan base would have loved him, his wife, his style. He and Fleck would be such great in tandem.

I've been very surprised at how dull Johnson is and unengaging he is in interviews and on video. At end of the day that doesn't matter if he wins, just ask Spurs and Patriots fans. Dull wins titles is much better than energy that doesn't.
 



Holy Man said:
Very good question. Uncharted territory we are in with coming out of pandemic, general decline in attendance at live sporting events, and possible structural changes in gathering behavior post pandemic. I'm not sure a big name hire would have moved the needle up much, but it would have at least kept it stable. As a more than 30 year season ticket holder, I felt like the hire was a poke in the eye.

Some posters early on suggested this was great timing for a hire like Ben considering all of the unknowns. I didn't agree with them, but they might be right.
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At $1,600 per season ticket, getting 8,000 vs 5,500 would bring in an additional $4 million in ticket revenue. More than enough to cover the difference in salaries. It was likely a bad financial decision, at least in the short-term. Even Craig Smith I think would have kept the # close to even with 19-20.
 

Holy Man said:
Very good question. Uncharted territory we are in with coming out of pandemic, general decline in attendance at live sporting events, and possible structural changes in gathering behavior post pandemic. I'm not sure a big name hire would have moved the needle up much, but it would have at least kept it stable. As a more than 30 year season ticket holder, I felt like the hire was a poke in the eye.

Some posters early on suggested this was great timing for a hire like Ben considering all of the unknowns. I didn't agree with them, but they might be right.
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Gopher football sold more season tickets for this year than they had sold in 2019…just as a point of reference. Same school, same market, same Covid.
 

Im not surprises at this, i do wonder how this compares to other B1G programs but also to other P5 programs with new coaches (excluding blue bloods)

and finally the truth comes out. I remember when there was so much division between the Coyles hands were tied camp (me) and the Coyle saw something he really liked in Ben camp.

it was optics considering the minority coach stats in the B1G at the time and what was happening in MPLS.

All we can do is hope for the best now and wait it out
 

howeda7 said:
What would the season ticket base be if they'd ponied up for Muss? 8K?
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Good question. More than 8k.... Muss was interested. No way to know if he would have taken it, but he was interested. Ben is a great guy and he might just be the long term solid decision. I hope so. But this was a politically correct hire, we have to be honest about that. It wasn't a hire where they said- who is the guy who will win big.
 



bga1 said:
That is probably the most accurate article Shama has written. Gabel hired Ben Johnson.

I think Ben is a great guy and perhaps has a great future, but he has been put in a really tough spot considering his lack of experience.

The fans are not coming back until the wins come. Revenue from basketball is going to be way down for the next 3 years minimum.
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I think this is really it. It felt like the U was forced to hire to pacify people who would never go to games and the fan base reacted. It's also going to be a bad team, but that coupled with the perception that this hiring had nothing to do with basketball drove some basketball fans away.
 

There’s a drop in ticket sales across all sports right now. You’ll see empty seats at Vikings and Wild games and those are typically two of the hotter tickets in the cities. Certainly a combination of lack of enthusiasm for the program and hire but also still some lingering COVID concerns that everyone’s feeling
 

Makes no sense, just a complete failure. There is zero excuse for football to be more successful than basketball at the U.
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I've never heard of a president going over the head of an AD to hire a basketball coach. The hire seemed so contradictory to everything Coyle had ever said and done in relationship to hiring coaches at the U. For what its worth, the coach that beat out Ben Johnson for the Northern Illinois job a week or two before Ben got the Minnesota job signed a 5 year deal for $350 K a year. Imagine interviewing for a job and not getting it and then getting hired for the exact same job at a much more prestigious company (school) for 6 times the salary you would have made just two weeks later. We now have Shama joining Reusse is saying Coyle didn't make this hire. Every other hire Coyle has made in a major sport has energized the fanbase of that sport and each hire felt like he (Coyle) got either his top choice or someone very close to it.

I have thought about how much this hire potentially could cost the U by going this direction as discussed by some other posters. You have the raw season ticket revenue just for this season which could be $4 million plus with a more exciting hire as calculated by howeda. If it was hypothetically Muss, I am extremely confident he would have brought in more talent both for '21 and already for '22 than we have on the roster. How much is a better season in '21 worth to the U as a brand? How many more tickets are sold for '22 if the U is a tournament team in '21 versus a botttom 3 or 4 team in the conference? What's it worth to the University to have (potentially) positive National media attention on the turnaround at Minnesota as opposed to a season that seems dead on arrival? How much will it cost to try to bring back disaffected season ticket buyers (or just frequent ticket buyers) in the future instead of retaining them now? From a purely financial perspective, I'd feel a lot more confident in paying $5.5 million for a big name coach than paying $2 million for a coach that certainly didn't energize the fan base and may have (through no fault of his own) helped to depress it simply by his lack of resume and (what he could control to a degree) his initial roster/product.

Ben could work out and the big name coach could fail. Jim Harbaugh seemed like the best fit between school and coach that there's been in college athletics in a long time and he hasn't come close to reaching expectations at Michigan. A similar situation is playing out in Nebraska with Scott Frost. We have to hope the opposite is true with Ben where the results are much, much better than the resume suggests they will be.
 


Less than a year ago, Coyle was babbling about competing for championships in men's hoops. Now we have a coach with no experience, a seriously deficient roster and a fan base close to jumping ship. Great job Gabel, Coyle and co.!!
 



EG#9 said:
I've never heard of a president going over the head of an AD to hire a basketball coach. The hire seemed so contradictory to everything Coyle had ever said and done in relationship to hiring coaches at the U. For what its worth, the coach that beat out Ben Johnson for the Northern Illinois job a week or two before Ben got the Minnesota job signed a 5 year deal for $350 K a year. Imagine interviewing for a job and not getting it and then getting hired for the exact same job at a much more prestigious company (school) for 6 times the salary you would have made just two weeks later. We now have Shama joining Reusse is saying Coyle didn't make this hire. Every other hire Coyle has made in a major sport has energized the fanbase of that sport and each hire felt like he (Coyle) got either his top choice or someone very close to it.

I have thought about how much this hire potentially could cost the U by going this direction as discussed by some other posters. You have the raw season ticket revenue just for this season which could be $4 million plus with a more exciting hire as calculated by howeda. If it was hypothetically Muss, I am extremely confident he would have brought in more talent both for '21 and already for '22 than we have on the roster. How much is a better season in '21 worth to the U as a brand? How many more tickets are sold for '22 if the U is a tournament team in '21 versus a botttom 3 or 4 team in the conference? What's it worth to the University to have (potentially) positive National media attention on the turnaround at Minnesota as opposed to a season that seems dead on arrival? How much will it cost to try to bring back disaffected season ticket buyers (or just frequent ticket buyers) in the future instead of retaining them now? From a purely financial perspective, I'd feel a lot more confident in paying $5.5 million for a big name coach than paying $2 million for a coach that certainly didn't energize the fan base and may have (through no fault of his own) helped to depress it simply by his lack of resume and (what he could control to a degree) his initial roster/product.

Ben could work out and the big name coach could fail. Jim Harbaugh seemed like the best fit between school and coach that there's been in college athletics in a long time and he hasn't come close to reaching expectations at Michigan. A similar situation is playing out in Nebraska with Scott Frost. We have to hope the opposite is true with Ben where the results are much, much better than the resume suggests they will be.
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I think a poster mentioned in the football forums that there was noise coming from the U that both Coyle and Fleck were not very happy, this was during the time Coyle was being considered for another AD job “supposedly”

If Gable forcing Coyles hand is true, then the rumblings would make sense.
I really really hope Gable doesnt make the U major sports programs regress.
 

GopherNuts said:
There’s a drop in ticket sales across all sports right now. You’ll see empty seats at Vikings and Wild games and those are typically two of the hotter tickets in the cities. Certainly a combination of lack of enthusiasm for the program and hire but also still some lingering COVID concerns that everyone’s feeling
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Gopher football season ticket sales are up over 2019. Almost like the right person can change trends…clearly the Johnson hire didn’t resonate with many. Full disclosure: I dropped my tickets, in part due to the lackluster team but there were other non-Covid factors.
 

Seriously - do people buy season tickets based on the head coach?

Maybe - I say maybe - hiring Dutcher or Musselman might have prompted a few more fans to buy tickets based on goodwill generated by positive memories of their fathers.

hey, Dutcher and Muss are good coaches. hard-core hoops fans know who they are. But for the average fan, it's all about media buzz and whether the team is winning.

There is no way that several thousand more people were going to buy season tickets based strictly on the name of the head coach.

we're talking about MN fans here. bandwagon jumping, cheap MN fans.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
Gopher football season ticket sales are up over 2019. Almost like the right person can change trends…clearly the Johnson hire didn’t resonate with many. Full disclosure: I dropped my tickets, in part due to the lackluster team but there were other non-Covid factors.
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Did the football team finish in 13th place in 2020?
 

bga1 said:
....at the U of M.
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One was the wife not wanting to come here, two was a huge annuity by a certain Arkansas booster. The time to try for Muss was pre Arkansas and at that time some here still thought Pitino was great.Then there was the politics piece at the U as well as Muss detractors for his dad cheating here. That last part bugs me because Eric had nothing to do with it. None of it matters now.
 
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Johnnyboy18 said:
Did the football team finish in 13th place in 2020?
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So is the ticket drop performance based or Covid based? After other bad years it didnt go down 20%. Football played fewer games than many big ten teams so standings are tough but fair point.
Football had a lower winning % than basketball did.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
So is the ticket drop performance based or Covid based? After other bad years it didnt go down 20%. Football played fewer games than many big ten teams so standings are tough but fair point.
Football had a lower winning % than basketball did.
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It's both. I have little doubt if Craig Smith was hired ticket numbers would be similar.

The football team won the outback bowl the last full season with fans and had 0 fans at any games last year. The last full season with fans for basketball the teams coach would've been fired if the COVID pandemic didn't happen. Not even close to comparable.
 

EG#9 said:
I've never heard of a president going over the head of an AD to hire a basketball coach. The hire seemed so contradictory to everything Coyle had ever said and done in relationship to hiring coaches at the U. For what its worth, the coach that beat out Ben Johnson for the Northern Illinois job a week or two before Ben got the Minnesota job signed a 5 year deal for $350 K a year. Imagine interviewing for a job and not getting it and then getting hired for the exact same job at a much more prestigious company (school) for 6 times the salary you would have made just two weeks later. We now have Shama joining Reusse is saying Coyle didn't make this hire. Every other hire Coyle has made in a major sport has energized the fanbase of that sport and each hire felt like he (Coyle) got either his top choice or someone very close to it.

I have thought about how much this hire potentially could cost the U by going this direction as discussed by some other posters. You have the raw season ticket revenue just for this season which could be $4 million plus with a more exciting hire as calculated by howeda. If it was hypothetically Muss, I am extremely confident he would have brought in more talent both for '21 and already for '22 than we have on the roster. How much is a better season in '21 worth to the U as a brand? How many more tickets are sold for '22 if the U is a tournament team in '21 versus a botttom 3 or 4 team in the conference? What's it worth to the University to have (potentially) positive National media attention on the turnaround at Minnesota as opposed to a season that seems dead on arrival? How much will it cost to try to bring back disaffected season ticket buyers (or just frequent ticket buyers) in the future instead of retaining them now? From a purely financial perspective, I'd feel a lot more confident in paying $5.5 million for a big name coach than paying $2 million for a coach that certainly didn't energize the fan base and may have (through no fault of his own) helped to depress it simply by his lack of resume and (what he could control to a degree) his initial roster/product.

Ben could work out and the big name coach could fail. Jim Harbaugh seemed like the best fit between school and coach that there's been in college athletics in a long time and he hasn't come close to reaching expectations at Michigan. A similar situation is playing out in Nebraska with Scott Frost. We have to hope the opposite is true with Ben where the results are much, much better than the resume suggests they will be.
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Good post.

This is definitely true. Sometimes the clear "great" hires sputter and sometimes the underwhelming hires take off. I'm a Gopher fan and I hope that the memory of how Ben was hired is a distant memory to an improved program.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
It's both. I have little doubt if Craig Smith was hired ticket numbers would be similar.

The football team won the outback bowl the last full season with fans and had 0 fans at any games last year. The last full season with fans for basketball the teams coach would've been fired if the COVID pandemic didn't happen. Not even close to comparable.
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Yeah, I can't figure out how I feel about that question.

I know several Gopher fans who had the wind knocked out of them with the hire of Ben Johnson and some of them did not renew. It wasn't about Ben, it was about the idea that the hiring wasn't about improving the basketball program. So why should they pay for basketball. Now, it's certainly possible that those folks would have chosen to re-up with Smith. A lot of fans have unrealistic goals when hiring a head coach.
 

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