BleedGopher
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per Sid:
There are a lot of questions about how sports will look in the next few months when play eventually resumes, but teams around the Twin Cities already had been trying all kinds of different sales and promotions to try to get fans into the stands before the sports world shut down last month.
The Gophers used different promotions with Cub Foods that were really popular last year when they were trying to build attendance for football, men’s hockey and men’s basketball.
Athletic director Mark Coyle said that the university simply had to do everything it could to drive up attendance.
“If you look at attendance across the country, programs all over the country are trying to get creative in terms of how to maintain and enhance their attendance for their games. We are no different,” he said. “We have been working incredibly hard. If you recall with men’s hockey, we reduced season-ticket prices; I think they’re the lowest they have been since the early ’90s when we moved into 3M Arena in Mariucci.
“Basketball prices, we looked at our basketball prices and made some adjustments there. We also looked at our scholarship seating prices and made some adjustments there. We are trying to be very creative and working very hard to get more people to come to our games.”
It worked in football. The Gophers had the third-largest increase in attendance in the nation from 2018 to 2019, going from an average of 37,915 fans per game to 46,190.
But in other revenue sports, there was mostly bad news when it came to attendance.
Gophers men’s basketball averaged 10,675 fans per game, down from 11,850 in 2018. And that number has been falling since a recent high of 13,453 fans per game in 2010.
www.startribune.com
Go Gophers!!
There are a lot of questions about how sports will look in the next few months when play eventually resumes, but teams around the Twin Cities already had been trying all kinds of different sales and promotions to try to get fans into the stands before the sports world shut down last month.
The Gophers used different promotions with Cub Foods that were really popular last year when they were trying to build attendance for football, men’s hockey and men’s basketball.
Athletic director Mark Coyle said that the university simply had to do everything it could to drive up attendance.
“If you look at attendance across the country, programs all over the country are trying to get creative in terms of how to maintain and enhance their attendance for their games. We are no different,” he said. “We have been working incredibly hard. If you recall with men’s hockey, we reduced season-ticket prices; I think they’re the lowest they have been since the early ’90s when we moved into 3M Arena in Mariucci.
“Basketball prices, we looked at our basketball prices and made some adjustments there. We also looked at our scholarship seating prices and made some adjustments there. We are trying to be very creative and working very hard to get more people to come to our games.”
It worked in football. The Gophers had the third-largest increase in attendance in the nation from 2018 to 2019, going from an average of 37,915 fans per game to 46,190.
But in other revenue sports, there was mostly bad news when it came to attendance.
Gophers men’s basketball averaged 10,675 fans per game, down from 11,850 in 2018. And that number has been falling since a recent high of 13,453 fans per game in 2010.
Minnesota sports teams were in tough spot even before health crisis hit
Pro and college teams have lost even more traction because of the sports shutdown.
www.startribune.com
Go Gophers!!