Doogie: There are several thousand tickets available for season opener

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Your comment made me wonder the percentage of ST holders that live more than 25 miles from TCF. Or 50 miles? Or more?
 

You couldn't have much worse of an opponent to draw fans, especially for game 1. Hopefully a lot more will sell as we get closer. I like the Thursday night opener though.


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short ornery norwegian said:
No matter how good a coach Fleck is - or becomes.......no matter how charismatic he is.........We are still talking about Gopher Football here.

The hard-core fan base for Gopher Football - at this point in time - cannot fill a 50,000 seat stadium. That is the cold, hard truth.

To get a sellout, the Gophers need one of these other factors: a marquee, big-name opponent........a big rivalry game where opposing fans will buy up any available tickets.......or really cheap ticket prices.

Now - at some point in the future - if Fleck is as successful as some people believe - then maybe the Gophers can sell out TCF on a regular basis. Maybe they can even generate enough ticket demand to think about expanding the stadium. But that is going to be a long process. Years long. Expecting fans to instantly flock to the team just because of the "Fleck Factor" is just expecting too much, too soon.

The Twin Cities sports market has been hearing and reading "The Gophers Suck" for almost 50 years. that is a lot of conditioning to overcome.

If the optics of a less-than-full stadium bother you, then maybe several thousand fans should bring cardboard cutouts with them, and prop them up in the empty seats.
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how do you explain sellouts in 2015 versus Kent State and Ohio?
 

swingman said:
how do you explain sellouts in 2015 versus Kent State and Ohio?
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TCU- 54,147; MI- 50,789; NE - 54,062 and WI - 52,850 were on the schedule and they were all tied into Ticket Packages.

The Illinois game was the only Home game that year that was under 50,000. It was 47,976.
 

Some Day...Maybe said:
You couldn't have much worse of an opponent to draw fans, especially for game 1. Hopefully a lot more will sell as we get closer. I like the Thursday night opener though.
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There is a positive to this; that we will actually draw 45,000 or better for Buffalo. Really, they are terrible and it will be fun to see Leipold get his butt kicked after his former team WI-Whitewater rolled through D3 for several years.
 



We packed the opener against TCU with all the same factors. Seems pretty obvious that new coach interest aside not many want to see a game against Buffalo. If you want to ensure easy wins keep scheduling games against teams like this. If you want new people to watch or come to that game feel free to schedule a legitimate opponent. I'm going because I'm a season ticket holder. I had a half dozen extra friends who weren't regular gopher fans come to the TCU game and tailgate with us. I won't even bring this game up in conversation with any of them. This is gopher football light at best and a terrible way to try to engage a new class of incoming freshman at the U and convince them that football games are the place to be.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
No matter how good a coach Fleck is - or becomes.......no matter how charismatic he is.........We are still talking about Gopher Football here.

The hard-core fan base for Gopher Football - at this point in time - cannot fill a 50,000 seat stadium. That is the cold, hard truth.

To get a sellout, the Gophers need one of these other factors: a marquee, big-name opponent........a big rivalry game where opposing fans will buy up any available tickets.......or really cheap ticket prices.

Now - at some point in the future - if Fleck is as successful as some people believe - then maybe the Gophers can sell out TCF on a regular basis. Maybe they can even generate enough ticket demand to think about expanding the stadium. But that is going to be a long process. Years long. Expecting fans to instantly flock to the team just because of the "Fleck Factor" is just expecting too much, too soon.

The Twin Cities sports market has been hearing and reading "The Gophers Suck" for almost 50 years. that is a lot of conditioning to overcome.

If the optics of a less-than-full stadium bother you, then maybe several thousand fans should bring cardboard cutouts with them, and prop them up in the empty seats.
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If Gophs can consistently win 8+ regular season games, with some 10 win seasons sprinkled in, the stadium will begin to consistently sell-out.
 

Was Doogie more specific as to how many tickets were left? If it is less than 5,000 left, I can see them getting pretty close to a near full house. A lot of tickets are sold the 2 weeks before the game. That is when football is on everyone's mind, they know what their schedule is, and the deals are out there for seats. The state fair booth is always a big selling opportunity for that first game.
 



I just did a very very quick and dirty eyeball count of seats available on mygophersports - for the away side upper level (200s), there are probably somewhere around 3,500 seats available. If we assume similar numbers for the home side plus whatever's in the lower deck, my guess is we're around 8,000-10,000 tickets remaining outside the student section. But that's just quick back-of-the-napkin math.
 


Bayfieldgopher said:
Your comment made me wonder the percentage of ST holders that live more than 25 miles from TCF. Or 50 miles? Or more?
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In our tailgate group, 2 of us are 90 miles away in Rochester, and about 8 are 200 or so miles away in Detroit Lakes. Rest live in the suburbs.
 




Gopher07 said:
I just did a very very quick and dirty eyeball count of seats available on mygophersports - for the away side upper level (200s), there are probably somewhere around 3,500 seats available. If we assume similar numbers for the home side plus whatever's in the lower deck, my guess is we're around 8,000-10,000 tickets remaining outside the student section. But that's just quick back-of-the-napkin math.
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The Gopher Athletic Department would like to offer you a job in planning events like movie night and the Gopher Loyalty program. You sound like their kind of guy.... probabbly an upgrade ;)
 

LakerFan said:
We packed the opener against TCU with all the same factors. Seems pretty obvious that new coach interest aside not many want to see a game against Buffalo. If you want to ensure easy wins keep scheduling games against teams like this. If you want new people to watch or come to that game feel free to schedule a legitimate opponent. I'm going because I'm a season ticket holder. I had a half dozen extra friends who weren't regular gopher fans come to the TCU game and tailgate with us. I won't even bring this game up in conversation with any of them. This is gopher football light at best and a terrible way to try to engage a new class of incoming freshman at the U and convince them that football games are the place to be.
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What would you have them do? Literally every Power 5 school in the country schedules against MAC/Sun Belt/Conference USA-type schools. If we can't schedule them, who do we schedule? We have to schedule only Power 5 teams for the non-conference games?
 

There will only be consistent sell-outs if the "donation" levels are lowered; I don't see that happening. Just looking on gophersports, and it's crazy how many great seats in the higher donation levels are unsold. I'm talking 50 yd. line rows 20-30 on both sides. Thanks Norwoody.
 

LesBolstad said:
There will only be consistent sell-outs if the "donation" levels are lowered; I don't see that happening. Just looking on gophersports, and it's crazy how many great seats in the higher donation levels are unsold. I'm talking 50 yd. line rows 20-30 on both sides. Thanks Norwoody.
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At least for butts in seats, it might help if the Gophers had some sort integrated reselling system.

The Wild have a great system where you just put your seats up for sale through the Wild easily if you're not going to use them.
 

Iceland12 said:
Or they're picking another game for their 3-pack. One that isn't on a Thursday night.
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The 3-pack option for Buffalo is Middle Tennessee (a Saturday afternoon game), which also has several thousands of unsold tickets.
 






A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
3 pack ... and 2 are those two together?

Man....
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Being less cynical than my last post, looks, if Votary is right, they probably spilt the two games. Still blows a whole in the "renewed interest" argument though doesn't it?


Group #1

Football vs. Buffalo Thursday, August 31, 2017 - 6:00PM TCF Bank Stadium

Football vs. Middle Tennessee Saturday, September 16, 2017 - 2:30PM TCF Bank Stadium

Group #2

Football vs. Maryland Saturday, September 30, 2017 - 12:00AM TCF Bank Stadium

Football vs. Michigan State Saturday, October 14, 2017 - 12:00AM TCF Bank Stadium

Football vs. Illinois Saturday, October 21, 2017 - 12:00AM TCF Bank Stadium

Group # 3

Football vs. Nebraska Saturday, November 11, 2017 - 12:00AM TCF Bank Stadium

Football vs. Wisconsin Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 12:00AM TCF Bank Stadium
 


I have changed my seats from zone two to zone four over the last three years. This is because of the priority seating costs. I still have four tickets though. I wonder how many people complaining about empty seats even bother To go to the games. I believe there were season tickets available this year in the non donation section, so don't use that as an excuse. I get it that people have many choices on how to spend their entertainment dollars. For me it's a no brainer, as long as I live in Minnesota I will have Gopher Football tickets.
 

KFAN advertising 4 tickets to Buffalo for $60 using the code "Iheart"

I'm sure they are upper level but still a telling of how many tickets remain
 

LakerFan said:
We packed the opener against TCU with all the same factors. Seems pretty obvious that new coach interest aside not many want to see a game against Buffalo. If you want to ensure easy wins keep scheduling games against teams like this. If you want new people to watch or come to that game feel free to schedule a legitimate opponent. I'm going because I'm a season ticket holder. I had a half dozen extra friends who weren't regular gopher fans come to the TCU game and tailgate with us. I won't even bring this game up in conversation with any of them. This is gopher football light at best and a terrible way to try to engage a new class of incoming freshman at the U and convince them that football games are the place to be.
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Scheduling cupcakes like this is a fact of life in college football. One legitimate non-conference opponent is typical. What you need to make the stadium more full for the cupcakes are more season ticket holders. (Or coupling them with three-packs -- essentially partial season tickets.) I think they'll have to cut ticket prices before we see significant uptick in season ticket sales.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
KFAN advertising 4 tickets to Buffalo for $60 using the code "Iheart"

I'm sure they are upper level but still a telling of how many tickets remain
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It's upper on the ends of the stadium.
Those areas didn't have a lot available in the sections I was looking at.
 


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