Filling the Student Section - 'Scholarship Raffle'?

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WhoFellDownTheGopherHole?

WhoFellDownTheGopherHole?

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Have students pick up a raffle ticket as they check into the game, one per ticket used. At halftime, there is a drawing and 5 numbers win a $100 scholarship. Must be present to win, prizes must be claimed within x minutes of halftime ending. At the end of the game, of those (potentially as many as 5) people who won, one of them will be selected to receive an additional $500 'scholarship'. Must be present to win, must be claimed within x amount of minutes of game's end. Get a donor to kick in the couple grand a year (it's actually pretty cheap publicity, you might even be able to up the amounts a little or just spend extra on marketing the hell out of it) and get more kids in the stands.


This is a pretty basic idea; i haven't gone so far as to troubleshoot possible cheats or abuses, but its an idea, anyway, to be thrown out there.
 

I want to be paid to go to the games as well then.
 

Sign up for a class! You might want to be the star QB, too, but that doesn't mean you get to. Luckily, you can still buy a ticket and see the game live. =)
 

Make the section smaller = it will be more full. Simple math.
 

Nothing wrong with thinking outside the box. It seems we give lots of free tickets away just to fill this section up. It just might work. I just renewed my tickets and hope to see many more students in the stands next year. When the students are there the whole atmosphere of the stadium is much more alive. So I for one think any idea that can put more young butts in the seats is a good one.
WhoFellDownTheGopherHole? said:
Have students pick up a raffle ticket as they check into the game, one per ticket used. At halftime, there is a drawing and 5 numbers win a $100 scholarship. Must be present to win, prizes must be claimed within x minutes of halftime ending. At the end of the game, of those (potentially as many as 5) people who won, one of them will be selected to receive an additional $500 'scholarship'. Must be present to win, must be claimed within x amount of minutes of game's end. Get a donor to kick in the couple grand a year (it's actually pretty cheap publicity, you might even be able to up the amounts a little or just spend extra on marketing the hell out of it) and get more kids in the stands.


This is a pretty basic idea; i haven't gone so far as to troubleshoot possible cheats or abuses, but its an idea, anyway, to be thrown out there.
Click to expand...
 


We're too cheap. I get a kick out of some of the prizes that are presented during the game. Nothing beats Old Dutch Ripple Chips, but their spinning of the wheel to determine which lucky fans get a chip clip is lame. How about handing out a bag of chips to that section?
I suppose I'd better be careful or my wish could be granted. Everyone in the stadium could get a free bowl of Wolf Brand Chili. Nasty.
 

We need some buzz heading into the season, and then we need to perform. We can't limp to wins against bad teams.
 

WhoFellDownTheGopherHole? said:
Have students pick up a raffle ticket as they check into the game, one per ticket used. At halftime, there is a drawing and 5 numbers win a $100 scholarship. Must be present to win, prizes must be claimed within x minutes of halftime ending. At the end of the game, of those (potentially as many as 5) people who won, one of them will be selected to receive an additional $500 'scholarship'. Must be present to win, must be claimed within x amount of minutes of game's end. Get a donor to kick in the couple grand a year (it's actually pretty cheap publicity, you might even be able to up the amounts a little or just spend extra on marketing the hell out of it) and get more kids in the stands.


This is a pretty basic idea; i haven't gone so far as to troubleshoot possible cheats or abuses, but its an idea, anyway, to be thrown out there.
Click to expand...

What's the worry: I'm sure that the student section will be filled to overflowing. We have a new norwood ad who will have been here for about a year by this fall. He will have already observed a full season of football just gathering facts and thinking about the situation. He is v-7 connected, he has his ellis assisting him and he fancies himself to be a basketball-guy. I'm sure that the student section in football won't be as problematic and as "non-existent as it was in 2012...

; 0 )
 

CWCWCW said:
We're too cheap. I get a kick out of some of the prizes that are presented during the game. Nothing beats Old Dutch Ripple Chips, but their spinning of the wheel to determine which lucky fans get a chip clip is lame. How about handing out a bag of chips to that section?
I suppose I'd better be careful or my wish could be granted. Everyone in the stadium could get a free bowl of Wolf Brand Chili. Nasty.
Click to expand...

It's am old Dutch ripple chips key chain, not actual chips. :)
 



You hate to have to pay people to attend your events but I think we should do this raffle idea x 10 and make it free for students to go to the games plus a $10 food voucher. We really aren't giving up much revenue and it might get an extra 1,000 kids in the stands.
 


I read this post and then steamed about it...now I am back to respond.

Are you freaking kidding me? We have to pay these kids to come watch the fb team play? No way...if they don't want to support our team then they can go pound sand. Shrink the student section down to 2,000 seats and give the other 8,000 seats away to middle and high schools. Drive the future of Gopher athletics by filling those seats with high school and middle school kids and their families. Give out state schools a few hundred tickets to a game and let them have a day a the Bank. Put it on the big board...give them all a dog and coke for $5 coupon and move forward.

Stop wasting time with people who have clearly made up their minds...focus on the future. As we win more and hopefully get the campus/city to relax the on pregame ghestappo activity...we can build from year to year. Hopefully in 4 years, those kids that came when in high school will keep coming once in college.
 

I would like to see the U try a variation on "rush seating." Starting an hour before each home game, make any unsold seats, in any section of the stadium, available to the general public at a discounted rate.

If you sell an additional 1,000 tickets at $10 each, that's $10,000 you wouldn't have had otherwise. And the U needs all the revenue it can get.
 



GopherinPhilly said:
I read this post and then steamed about it...now I am back to respond.

Are you freaking kidding me? *We have to pay these kids to come watch the fb team play? No way...if they don't want to support our team then they can go pound sand. Shrink the student section down to 2,000 seats and give the other 8,000 seats away to middle and high schools. Drive the future of Gopher athletics by filling those seats with high school and middle school kids and their families. **Give out state schools a few hundred tickets to a game and let them have a day a the Bank. Put it on the big board...give them all a dog and coke for $5 coupon and move forward.

Stop wasting time with people who have clearly made up their minds...focus on the future. As we win more and hopefully get the campus/city to relax the on pregame ghestappo activity...we can build from year to year. Hopefully in 4 years, those kids that came when in high school will keep coming once in college.
Click to expand...

* I understand how that could be portrayed in a negative light, except the thing here is, it's a fun marketing gimmick more than it is an actual payout. If you established the awarded 'scholarships' correctly, it would just be money that's poured directly back into the school. A relatively cheap expenditure towards the bottom line when you crunch the final numbers.

** I really like this idea.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I would like to see the U try a variation on "rush seating." Starting an hour before each home game, make any unsold seats, in any section of the stadium, available to the general public at a discounted rate.
Click to expand...

Not opposed to the idea as long as there were accurate devices implemented to ensure that people didn't all forgo getting advance tickets to make a chaotic swell of a rush every game.
 

CWCWCW said:
How about handing out a bag of chips to that section?
Click to expand...

I'll tell the director of marketing for Old Dutch. I haven't given him much crap about the bags of air that I keep buying. I need a new schtick to get under his skin.
 

WhoFellDownTheGopherHole? said:
Not opposed to the idea as long as there were accurate devices implemented to ensure that people didn't all forgo getting advance tickets to make a chaotic swell of a rush every game.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't want to insult all the season ticket holder that paid full price like last year :pig:
 

What about having 4-5 high school teams be "teams of the week". He'll have 10. It's better than a whole bunch of empty seats Could probably get family members of kids as well. Would also be good will for high school. Heck how many of these kids have ever even been to a gopher game? Just a thought
 

CWCWCW said:
We're too cheap. I get a kick out of some of the prizes that are presented during the game. Nothing beats Old Dutch Ripple Chips, but their spinning of the wheel to determine which lucky fans get a chip clip is lame. How about handing out a bag of chips to that section?
I suppose I'd better be careful or my wish could be granted. Everyone in the stadium could get a free bowl of Wolf Brand Chili. Nasty.
Click to expand...

I could be wrong, but they might not be able to hand out any food because of the contract with the concession company.

How about a raffle to see who gets to go to a make out party with one of the cheerleaders?
 

How about we win those first 4 non-conference games....then that student section should be full to help take back the Pig.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I would like to see the U try a variation on "rush seating." Starting an hour before each home game, make any unsold seats, in any section of the stadium, available to the general public at a discounted rate.

If you sell an additional 1,000 tickets at $10 each, that's $10,000 you wouldn't have had otherwise. And the U needs all the revenue it can get.
Click to expand...

It's called StubHub.
 

GophersInIowa said:
I could be wrong, but they might not be able to hand out any food because of the contract with the concession company.

How about a raffle to see who gets to go to a make out party with all of the cheerleaders?
Click to expand...

Fixed.
 

A raffle wasn't needed to sell out the student section for the game against Syracuse last year, or fill the section in TCF's first year. This is a cultural problem from the student perspective. If Kill can turn the ship around, students will want to be part of it. They go to hockey games when the team competes for national championships, they went to bball games when the team was ranked in the top 10 or when they were playing No. 1 IU.

An effective social media marketing blitz from the AD wouldn't hurt though, since establishing a sustainable amount of success will take a few seasons.
 

I was under the impression there might have been a thread last year that revolved around coming up with ideas about filling the stadium and student section, but i didn't find one in my few quick search attempts. I'm really curious to see what (besides the facility) Teague will focus in on now that he's finished his first season with the two big money sports. Perhaps i'm naively hopeful, but i have to think that Teague is much more capable (than Maturi) of helping Gopher athletics evolve along with modern culture. That seemed to have been an issue under Badger Joel and resonant with the Tubby Smith era in the basketball department. I think it won't be until the 2014 season, when Jerry and the Gophers start to flex during a little climb within the conference; until those wins come, some gimmicks might still be in order.
 


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