Coyle says U has to get very creative & innovative to get season ticket sales up

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per Sid:

Attendance remains elusive

Maybe the biggest question for Coyle and the athletic department revolves around getting fans back into the stadiums and arenas. Announced football attendance for the 2018 season was 265,407 over seven home games, an average of 37,915 per game. Those numbers were down from 310,506 in 2017, when the average was 44,358.

Coyle said the questions around attendance are not simply a University of Minnesota problem.

“We have lots of conversations about increasing the football attendance,” Coyle said. “Obviously you’re at our games and you saw where we have some open seats. We have taken a hard look at how we price our tickets, our scholarship seating, and those are things we’ll continue to evaluate.

“This is a problem across the country in college football, where attendance is dropping and we have to get creative with how we can get more people to come to our games.”

Coyle said that a big focus will be on increasing the season ticket base.

“The season ticket holders are the backbone of your program, and we have to get very creative and innovative in how we can get those people back on to support our student athletes,” he said. “Season ticket renewal orders have already gone out for our season ticket holders and this past year we did reduce seating in certain sections of the stadium and we have those plans in place and we’ll always look at group sales and other opportunities, as well.”

Has he had similar thoughts about the seemingly low hockey attendance?

“We always focus on attendance, whether it be hockey, basketball, baseball, we worry about attendance,” he said. “Our goal is to earn people back.”

http://www.startribune.com/sid-hart...hallenge-on-budget-game-attendance/504271672/

Go Gophers!!
 

Coyle giving his normal “Coyle Response”


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Figure out how to at least get the $$$ back to where they can be deducted.
 


BleedGopher said:
“We always focus on attendance, whether it be hockey, basketball, baseball, we worry about attendance,” he said. “Our goal is to earn people back.”
Click to expand...

Clearly.
 


I like how he points to the national trend, but ignores the fact that we have seen a bigger proportional decrease than most of our big ten peers.

Until I see him actually achieve results, I'll assume that by "be creative" he means another coffee with the AD for ticket holders with sufficient points.
 



AD Coyle is overthinking things. Things are looking up in the football program. If tickets weren't so darned expensive, more people would opt for the live experience instead of the TV experience.
 



Spoofin said:
Coyle giving his normal “Coyle Response”
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The truth wouldn't play very well.

It would be something like "Financially, it doesn't make sense to lower ticket prices. Even if attendance did go up, we'd lose revenue, and revenue is what I am actually paid to care about, not fans."

Don't think people would be happy reading that ...
 

I happen to like Coyle, but regarding this attendance issue, he needs to walk the walk. Talk is cheap. I haven't seen one innovative program, price-wise or advertising-wise to get more people in the seats next year. Just the emails about renewing my season tickets at the same price as last year. Basically nothing has changed and nothing is going to change. Northwestern was offering seats below $30 for their final home game against Illinois this year. Nothing like that is coming from the U. Why not sell general admission tickets in the upper deck end zone for $15 for non-conf. games and $20 for conf. games. Those seats up high (upper deck) in the student section are generally empty.
 

go4rob said:
I happen to like Coyle, but regarding this attendance issue, he needs to walk the walk. Talk is cheap. I haven't seen one innovative program, price-wise or advertising-wise to get more people in the seats next year. Just the emails about renewing my season tickets at the same price as last year. Basically nothing has changed and nothing is going to change. Northwestern was offering seats below $30 for their final home game against Illinois this year. Nothing like that is coming from the U. Why not sell general admission tickets in the upper deck end zone for $15 for non-conf. games and $20 for conf. games. Those seats up high (upper deck) in the student section are generally empty.
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Totally agree
 

Gophers_4life said:
The truth wouldn't play very well.

It would be something like "Financially, it doesn't make sense to lower ticket prices. Even if attendance did go up, we'd lose revenue, and revenue is what I am actually paid to care about, not fans."

Don't think people would be happy reading that ...
Click to expand...

Coyle is the exact kind of person I dislike the most. He thinks he is so much smarter than everyone else. He rarely tells the truth or full story and instead preys on ignorance and focuses on saying what he thinks people want to hear assuming they are all too dumb to see through it. Very very very little of what comes out of his mouth is honest or sincere. Most is BS, nonsense, irrelevant, etc. to side step rather than address. He might be good at hiring FB coaches, but is a terrible leader and an absolute snake.


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Spoofin said:
Coyle is the exact kind of person I dislike the most. He thinks he is so much smarter than everyone else. He rarely tells the truth or full story and instead preys on ignorance and focuses on saying what he thinks people want to hear assuming they are all too dumb to see through it. Very very very little of what comes out of his mouth is honest or sincere. Most is BS, nonsense, irrelevant, etc. to side step rather than address. He might be good at hiring FB coaches, but is a terrible leader and an absolute snake.
Click to expand...

Definitely has a lot of "politician" to him, without the charisma.
 

dlw4gophers said:
. Or just win games. There are plenty of unsold tickets with no priority seating charges. $375 for 7 games is not that high.
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Apparently it is too high or the tickets would have been sold. Maybe if they win a bunch of games people will decide $375 is worth it, but right now it's not, as is evidenced by the huge drop in season tickets.
 


BleedGopher said:
per Sid:


“We have lots of conversations about increasing the football attendance,” Coyle said. “Obviously you’re at our games and you saw where we have some open seats. We have taken a hard look at how we price our tickets, our scholarship seating, and those are things we’ll continue to evaluate.

“This is a problem across the country in college football, where attendance is dropping and we have to get creative with how we can get more people to come to our games.”

Coyle said that a big focus will be on increasing the season ticket base.

“The season ticket holders are the backbone of your program, and we have to get very creative and innovative in how we can get those people back on to support our student athletes,” he said.
Click to expand...

In other words:
1) We're aware of this "problem" of which you speak
2) ?
3) Problem solved!

JTG
 

Coyle has proven he can't manage a crisis, so where is his strength as an AD? Anyone have faith that he can execute a "creative" plan that engages current and potential fans?

When does Coyle become part of the problem that needs to be rectified? Terrible communicator with the public, unable to articulate and implement solutions that build confidence from an administrative standpoint. As a stubborn season ticket holder who has not bailed on gopher athletics, Coyle's act is increasingly hard to understand and support.
 

1967 2.0 said:
Coyle has proven he can't manage a crisis, so where is his strength as an AD? Anyone have faith that he can execute a "creative" plan that engages current and potential fans?

When does Coyle become part of the problem that needs to be rectified? Terrible communicator with the public, unable to articulate and implement solutions that build confidence from an administrative standpoint. As a stubborn season ticket holder who has not bailed on gopher athletics, Coyle's act is increasingly hard to understand and support.
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He has finished raising all the money for the village, right? /S

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.
 

"Some" open seats? I'm a die-hard who has not missed a home game in at least a dozen years. Huge open sections of seats this season. Worst I've seen at TCF. Announced vs actual attendance difference in 2018 was by far the largest I've seen as far back as I can remember.
 


dlw4gophers said:
. Or just win games. There are plenty of unsold tickets with no priority seating charges. $375 for 7 games is not that high.
Click to expand...

If you look around at sports in general, and college football in particular, attendance is down whether you are winning or losing.

Nobody loves a winner like a Minnesotan, but the games start too early, the parking is hard, the side of the stadium with tickets is too hot/cold, those damn kids won’t sit down, nobody stands up to support the team.....

The list goes on and on. And when they do come? Leave with 8 minutes to go in the 4th quarter to “beat the traffic regardless of the score or situation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Common sense would solve this problem immediately. Look at when attendance started to decline and factor in what changes took place before that.
 


caliGopher said:
If you look around at sports in general, and college football in particular, attendance is down whether you are winning or losing.

Nobody loves a winner like a Minnesotan, but the games start too early, the parking is hard, the side of the stadium with tickets is too hot/cold, those damn kids won’t sit down, nobody stands up to support the team.....

The list goes on and on. And when they do come? Leave with 8 minutes to go in the 4th quarter to “beat the traffic regardless of the score or situation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
I agree with you that attendance is down nation wide. Why wouldn't it be with the quality of the TV broadcasts and TVs in general? The U has to be smart enough to understand this and if attendance is important to them they need to work on that. It very well just not be very important to them.

I've been to a majority of the games at TCF and honestly the most miserable game I have ever been to was the Miami game this year. The heat made the game almost unbearable! I left early simply because I could no longer tolerate it.

Here are the times of the home games in 2018:
6:00, 6:30, 2:30, 2:30, 2:30, 11:00
 

TheFleckEffect said:
GET. IN-STADIUM. WI-FI.
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I won’t say how it happened but I’m connected to the Williams arena and TCF Bank stadium press wi-fi and it has greatly enhanced my experience. Nice to be able to check a box score, google a restaurant or send an image during timeouts/halftime.
 


1967 2.0 said:
Coyle has proven he can't manage a crisis, so where is his strength as an AD? Anyone have faith that he can execute a "creative" plan that engages current and potential fans?

When does Coyle become part of the problem that needs to be rectified? Terrible communicator with the public, unable to articulate and implement solutions that build confidence from an administrative standpoint. As a stubborn season ticket holder who has not bailed on gopher athletics, Coyle's act is increasingly hard to understand and support.
Click to expand...

Coyle's sole redeeming quality seems to be not engaging in the kind of inappropriate behavior that his predecessor did. Eventually his combination of incompetence and dishonesty will catch up with him.
 


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