Game Day Revenue

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As many pointed out, this is a bad comparison due to different schools having different sources of income either count toward the AD or some other part of the university.

However this does bring up the attendance and ticket price debate yet again. I personally think we could lower ticket prices and get more attendance, but the question is does the math work out in our favor?

There is a sweet spot of ticket price where going lower means you make less (i.e. decrease the ticket price by 1%, but only see an attendance increase of 0.5%, or maybe games are selling out and the attendance can't grow), but also increasing the price makes you less (i.e. a 1% increase in ticket price, but a 2% drop in attendance). Obviously my examples are over simplifications, and the fact that we have different seating zones with all different prices and maybe some zones (like on the 50 yard line) can handle more of an increase or decrease than others makes this a very tough thing to determine. But, given the average attendance of the lower interest games I think we haven't hit the mark yet.

The season ticket donations are another thing. That system is not great and really led to a decrease in season tickets we haven't ever recovered from. Maybe the math works out that the decrease in season tickets purchased was more than made up for in the increase in season ticket revenue, but my gut says no and that the only reason it's still around is not wanting to admit it was a bad idea. Do any other B1G schools have a similar system in place?

I also think we can do more to fill the empty single game seats. Obviously you can only do so much to fill the stadium when the opponent isn't interesting, but I think more could be done. More deals, lower day of prices, or something else. Obviously you don't want to go too far with things like day of discounts, so you don't have everyone just waiting until the day of the game to purchase tickets, but I think we could stand to make it more enticing.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
the point is that it's not an even playing field. some schools recover a larger share of revenue from game-day operations and auxiliary activity, while other schools like MN recover a smaller share of revenue. If Neb gets a cut of parking, that gives them more resources than MN.

Football fans use the parking lot on game days. football fans purchase concessions on game days. football fans purchase merchandise on game days. that revenue would not exist if no game was being played. so I think it's fair that at least some of that revenue should go to the athletic department. Or - how about this - a share of those revenue sources go to the NIL collective?

the light rail is not running only for the football game. non football fans use the light rail on game days. so it is not specific to the game.
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Do you think maybe the difference in game day revenue is largely due to Michigan selling 110, 000 tickets and Minnesota less tgan 50,000?

BTW, the Gophers do get revenue from concessions and merchandise.
 

I think it is hilarious that so many Ohio State and Michigan fans are huge Lions, Browns, and Bengals fans on Sunday.

Some very recent success aside, that’s one hell of a change in football expectations
 

Taji34 said:
The season ticket donations are another thing. That system is not great and really led to a decrease in season tickets we haven't ever recovered from. Maybe the math works out that the decrease in season tickets purchased was more than made up for in the increase in season ticket revenue, but my gut says no and that the only reason it's still around is not wanting to admit it was a bad idea. Do any other B1G schools have a similar system in place?
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A very quick search on the google machine tells me, yes, our two biggest rivals are doing the exact same thing (I'd be pretty surprised if almost all B1G teams weren't doing this). Prices below are donations on top of actual ticket price, and note, they do not include premium seats.

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BigTenGuy said:
Does anyone have recent data, 2022 or 2023, for actual attendance at Gopher football games? Hard for all the no-shows counted in the announced attendance to contribute to non-ticket game-day revenue.
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Wikipedia’s 2022 attendance averaging 45,019 per game. If our revenue was $1.8 million per game, then that is only $39.98 per person. That seems very low for tickets and concessions.
 


WAGopher said:
Wikipedia’s 2022 attendance averaging 45,019 per game. If our revenue was $1.8 million per game, then that is only $39.98 per person. That seems very low for tickets and concessions.
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45,019 was highly likely the sold number, not scanned tickets that were actually used. Even in the great 2019 season, scanned tickets were only 81.6% of the tickets the Gophers sold. In recent years, that percentage is likely materially lower, but haven’t seen the Strib or others report the recent actual figures.

m.startribune.com

Theater and Art Reviews: Minnesota Star Tribune

The latest theater and art reviews from the Minnesota Star Tribune. Coverage of theater reviews and arts performances in the Twin Cities.
m.startribune.com m.startribune.com
 

Taji34 said:
However this does bring up the attendance and ticket price debate yet again. I personally think we could lower ticket prices and get more attendance, but the question is does the math work out in our favor?
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Sadly it does not, to the bean counters.

They would rather have 35k tickets sold at a higher price than 50k tickets sold at a lower price.
 



WAGopher said:
Wikipedia’s 2022 attendance averaging 45,019 per game. If our revenue was $1.8 million per game, then that is only $39.98 per person. That seems very low for tickets and concessions.
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Some number of thousands are student season tickets which are like $100 for the season? 5k?
 

WAGopher said:
Wikipedia’s 2022 attendance averaging 45,019 per game. If our revenue was $1.8 million per game, then that is only $39.98 per person. That seems very low for tickets and concessions.
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Yeah that alone .... nothing about that guy's post sense ... or at least the way it is presented / not how you would address any of it.
 

BigTenGuy said:
45,019 was highly likely the sold number, not scanned tickets that were actually used. Even in the great 2019 season, scanned tickets were only 81.6% of the tickets the Gophers sold. In recent years, that percentage is likely materially lower, but haven’t seen the Strib or others report the recent actual figures.

m.startribune.com

Theater and Art Reviews: Minnesota Star Tribune

The latest theater and art reviews from the Minnesota Star Tribune. Coverage of theater reviews and arts performances in the Twin Cities.
m.startribune.com m.startribune.com
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They of course have the data for number of tickets scanned for each game. They'll never release that. It doesn't look nearly as good.
 

USAF said:
Do you think maybe the difference in game day revenue is largely due to Michigan selling 110, 000 tickets and Minnesota less tgan 50,000?

BTW, the Gophers do get revenue from concessions and merchandise.
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While the Gophers do get revenue from concessions, I would be surprised if it was more than 10-15% of the gross sales. So many others get a cut, plus there are lots of expenses.

For a football game, I would think it would be in the tens of thousands per afternoon, maybe over a $100k per game, but I would be surprised if it was more than $200k.
 



MplsGopher said:
They of course have the data for number of tickets scanned for each game. They'll never release that. It doesn't look nearly as good.
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Wouldn't all it take is the Strib or some other media outlet to do another story and request the information? I presume that's the only reason why the data was released in the article tagged in Post 38.
 




Ope3 said:
Wouldn't all it take is the Strib or some other media outlet to do another story and request the information? I presume that's the only reason why the data was released in the article tagged in Post 38.
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It would be interesting to see a stadium revenue breakdown by ticket type, location, concessions, and scholarship donation. Like what do the suites and loge boxes bring in compared to other seating?
 

Ope3 said:
Wouldn't all it take is the Strib or some other media outlet to do another story and request the information? I presume that's the only reason why the data was released in the article tagged in Post 38.
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I’m sure they would give it to genuine media if asked (not some internet blog), or by FOIA request.

They’re not going to publish that data to the public. They put the tickets sold as the attendance on box scores, like everyone does.
 

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