Gopher Season Ticket Costs Going Way UP?

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How much do they have to raise the prices for you to stop posting here? Get over yourself...
 

supadupafly said:
Agree 100% with your analysis and perspective here. Unfortunately, that is the financial mindset of many a stubborn and fickle Minnesotan when it comes to many things, and it is not just sports (pro or college). One is always fighting to change a strangely ingrained mindset of a lot of self-contradiction when it comes the level of financial investment they are willing to put into something and the often over-the-top expected result/return on said investment.

It has often seemed to me that many Minnesotans want to be able to invest the least amount possible on just about everything but then want to have returns/results that far exceed what they should ever expect considering the actual level of investment they are willing to make. And when they don't get that overly optimistic result (considering their relatively low overall investment level) they also strangely feel they have a right to ridicule, mock, complain, and bitch about it working out that way. It is like bizarro world. Have never understood it.
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There’s a good reason why we don’t buy green bananas.
 



I thought brick by brick meant funny brown practice shirts and being on time for meetings...not revenue!
 


JoeDirt said:
Now that my bleacher seats are in a donation section I have a few suggestions: -The U needs to legitimately turn Saturdays into a damn good party. Follow Madisons and Lincolns model. No more police-state on fun. -Some of the cheerleaders, band members, and Goldy need to make an appearance to the St. Paul lot, there are now a hell of a lot of high paying season ticket holders over there and we want to feel included. -The program had better be all in on facilities and other necessary luxuries. A keeping up with the Joneses' attitude, now that the season ticket holders have to keep up with other power schools. -We have to have one helluva great team on the field year in and year out. I could see a fair return on investment if these criteria are met.
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After my initial over reaction right away to the "sticker shock". I agree with this completely.
 

The yearly increase is ridiculous. I could understand making all the chairbacks have a donation of at least $50 dollars, but then why increase it so much per year. Instead why can't they just increase the cost by $10/seat for donations here through eternity. To me that would make more sense and seem like less of a hit. Unless the donation I put towards the facilities last month counts for next years season tickets, I probably won't renew. I know my ticket partner wants out as the extra expenses aren't worth it to him when he drives hours to games each week instead of sitting home and watching on his bag @$$ TV.
 

This is very disappointing. I just got back from the Wisconsin game. I've gone to most games in Wisconsin for the last 50 years. Tickets were on the 50 yd line. Since they have put "premium" costs on tickets, we've seen fewer and fewer Badger fans in our section and more and more corporate fans. This erodes your average Joe from season tickets.
As far as the gophers go, I've had tickets that have been in the family since 1946. I've been going to ALL games since 1962 (I was 7 when I had my own seat). I spent the 80's and 90's paying off U of M school loans and I just got done paying off my two kids loans from the 2000's. Myself and family have been life long gopher supporters and fans.
This will be my last season. I got two emails last night from groups that we cook out with. Both groups said the same thing. It's over for them too. Together we have 28 tickets. There have been some games that someone in our group has had to sell. It was hard enough to get 50% return, now you add in $37 or so per ticket. It's never ending. Sorry to say it's the end of an era for me.
 

My 4 seats in Section 215, Row 15 never looked this good to me before (across the aisle and 5 rows up from "donation ville".
I sympathize with the thousands of long time ticket holders stuck having to consider this "bill".
I bailed on Gopher season hockey tickets back in the 90's the year after they stuck us with Williams Fund donations.
I'd assume many who are on the edge (financially) with the donation fee schedule may want to move into seating similar to what I hold.
The "U" is not being very up front about this either... They indicate that 5000 season ticket seats are not effected (alluding that seating is available there).... truth being, most of these seats are full of existing season ticket holders already.
 



Vandy said:
My 4 seats in Section 215, Row 15 never looked this good to me before (across the aisle and 5 rows up from "donation ville".
I sympathize with the thousands of long time ticket holders stuck having to consider this "bill".
I bailed on Gopher season hockey tickets back in the 90's the year after they stuck us with Williams Fund donations.
I'd assume many who are on the edge (financially) with the donation fee schedule may want to move into seating similar to what I hold.
The "U" is not being very up front about this either... They indicate that 5000 season ticket seats are not effected (alluding that seating is available there).... truth being, most of these seats are full of existing season ticket holders already.
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You may sympathize with those in "donation ville" as you put it, but don't be surprised when they redo seating & priority and you no longer have your seats. I assume that will be coming shortly and cause and even bigger uproar.
 

Gopher024 said:
You may sympathize with those in "donation ville" as you put it, but don't be surprised when they redo seating & priority and you no longer have your seats. I assume that will be coming shortly and cause and even bigger uproar.
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I have been informed that my current seats WILL be made available to me at renewal time in March.
 

Complain to the Regents

Get contact info on all Regents and let them know that Teague has no interest in people, running off those who have been loyal to MN football through decades of poor performance. Now, with an inkling of improvement (8-4 is not exactly Bernie Bierman level), Teague wants massive (in most cases a near tripling in three seasons) ticket hikes. Fire Teague, too.
 

Gopher024 said:
You may sympathize with those in "donation ville" as you put it, but don't be surprised when they redo seating & priority and you no longer have your seats. I assume that will be coming shortly and cause and even bigger uproar.
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.....

Not true...., but I will be keeping their e mail in case things change....

Dave,

Thank you for your email. You will always be able to renew your seats from the previous year. As long as you renew your seats by the renewal deadline you will retain the seats and no one will be able to take them from you. Ski U Mah!



--
If you have any further questions or concerns, please e-mail the Gopher Sales & Service Office directly at [email protected] or call (612) 624-8080 or 1-800-UGOPHER. You may also visit our office, located in the main lobby of Mariucci Arena, during our business hours from Monday-Friday 9:00am - 5:00pm. For more information, visit www.mygophersports.com or follow us on Twitter @MyGopherSports.


Thanks for supporting Golden Gopher Athletics,

Rob
Gopher Ticket Office
 



Vandy said:
.....

Not true...., but I will be keeping their e mail in case things change....

Dave,

Thank you for your email. You will always be able to renew your seats from the previous year. As long as you renew your seats by the renewal deadline you will retain the seats and no one will be able to take them from you. Ski U Mah!



--
If you have any further questions or concerns, please e-mail the Gopher Sales & Service Office directly at [email protected] or call (612) 624-8080 or 1-800-UGOPHER. You may also visit our office, located in the main lobby of Mariucci Arena, during our business hours from Monday-Friday 9:00am - 5:00pm. For more information, visit www.mygophersports.com or follow us on Twitter @MyGopherSports.


Thanks for supporting Golden Gopher Athletics,

Rob
Gopher Ticket Office
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Under current policy. There will be a day when ticket reshuffling comes and those with priority will take seats from folks. Because of the changes to the donation program, it is guaranteed to happen in the future.
 

jll62 said:
Under current policy. There will be a day when ticket reshuffling comes and those with priority will take seats from folks. Because of the changes to the donation program, it is guaranteed to happen in the future.
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I am a "bird in the hand" in the seats I hold.... Highly doubt (even the U of MN) would be so crass as to allow an existing higher end seat holder to "bump" an existing lower end seat holder and charge them the same fee.

Eh, who knows what they are capable of though.
 

It seems inevitable that we're going to lose hundreds, and likely thousands of season tickets with this new policy. I don't see new season ticket sales coming close to covering the losses.

Aside from that, the ONLY way this doesn't completely blow up in Norwood's face is if:

1. most STH's keep their seats for 2015 rationalizing that the increase for next year "isn't too bad" and the team seems to be on the rise. (It appears there are quite a few people on GH who fall in this category).

2. The team continues to improve and plays for/wins the B1G Championship next year.

3. Because of continued improvement/success, STH's want to support a winner and look at 2016 and 2017 as more "incremental" increases since they've already swallowed increases in 2014, 2015.

4. The team continues to win/compete in perpetuity. As we know, this is being done to make way for corporate big wigs who have no issues with the higher fees. They'll happily support the Gophers now since they're winning and the "hot" ticket in town. However, we all know that only the die hard fans have been around through thick and thin...and those are the fans the U is elbowing out in this process.
 

Norwood Teague the bald guy has bit off more than he can chew by over-reaching and overestimating the loyalty and good will of the Gopher football program. For every one person that say's they will pay the increased cost there will be 3 that drop season tickets. There isn't much value paying $125 a game to see Middle Tennessee State, Buffalo, Ohio and Purdue, Illinois or Northwestern, every season just to get the chance to see Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin every other year especially if a season ticket holder has kids between 7 and 15 years old.
Even if the Minnesota program becomes more competitive they are not likely to go to repeated Rose bowls, national title games or conference championship games year after year, we have neither the recruiting base talent wise or already built in pipeline like Wisconsin to do so. Can they step up and get in that upper echelon once every five years yeah but not year over year.
They plucked out the existing 28,000 season ticket holders and said well these guys are all cheapskates, 18,000, I can even see Norwood flicking his arrogant and aritocratic noise at all of us, that are paying zero donations will go and move to the areas that we do not fill in the corners and we will fill in there old seats with new corporate buyers when all of those are competing with four potentially five professional sports teams. What he fails to realize is that many of the existing donation seats are owned by scalpers and ticket brokers that sell weekly in hopes of recovering some of there lost donation costs. Zone 3 and 4 ticket holders are getting really stuck with a gun to their heads sorry but no matterhow you draw up the map bench seats and near end zone seats are not worth a $500 scholarship donation and even fewer people that cannot afford $500 will pay the $1000 seats. Add in the donations for tailgate parking and Gopher football just vaulted to the top levels of the conference in overall cost per ticket per game.
Buying seats in zone three and four at $500 per donation is not nearly comparable to those that are paying only $1000 per seat to sit between the 35 and 50 yard line. End zone seats, near end zone seats, and sitting between the five to 20 yards line are not worth only paying $500 less per seat for per season and those locations are going to be very empty come 2017. In the arrangement they have currently constructed they have way undervalued seats between the 35 to 50 yards line and they have way overvalued the cost of tickets between 25 to end zone just because they have a chairback. Newsflash I can skip the crappy games every year and still buy good seats that will go unsold because of lack of willingness to pay the higher donations. This isn't going to fund or work out like they hoped, contrary to what others have said the Minnesota market is not wealthy like the East or West costs with many lower middle class folks in comparison living paycheck to paycheck or have less discretionary dollars than a place like Maryland, New York/New Jersey, or Pennsylvania for that matter. Our median income in this market is not the $70,000 a year it is in places like that.

They will not feel the effects in 2015 much but boy will they feel them in 2016 and 2017. He, Teague want's football to pay for all 750 scholarships in the program not realizing no conference championships and zero Rose bowls in 47 years means a lot to a lot of people especially when you already pay a tax of sitting through three lousy non-conference games, have sat through 20 years of horrendous football, with other teams fans filling your stadium year after year, and just about every year that we already pay for preaseason like football and only get four good games a year at most. They say they want a world class or top level program but they have not delivered conference championships like several similar programs in Mens Basketball, football and the sports people care about.
Move to the non donation seats some will do that but most will drop season tickets and just buy the single game tickets that is the chance they are taking here. Demand for Gopher football just isn't great enough to have lousy seats and pay $125 a game for them when you get maybe three good games all year to watch. They did the same thing with Womens basketball jerked prices up from 7 to 10 and raised up to 28 to 35 dollars and completely killed all good will and attendance they had built up in a short period of time. If anything history tells this type of price increases is not going to bode well for increased Gopher football attendance something we had all hoped for. This is going to put a real damper on bowl game attendance too, there timing on this thing could not have been poorer.
 

Go4 said:
this is hilarious! so in other words, you don't support the football program financially, yet you wrote a letter to the strib saying that the fan base doesn't know how to support the program financially, and yet you now think this needed to be done, as there is no free lunch.

so to boil this down further, you want people to stop complaining, support the program financially so you can have a free lunch?
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I disclosed my lack of season tickets fully expecting to be slammed, and rightfully so. I've never claimed any moral high ground on my fan-hood. My letter at the time was mainly centered around attendance, as this was before any seat licensing.

The football team, like any business, is results oriented. The costs associated with the athletic program are going up, and they need to come up with extra money. Like every business, they pass the cost onto their customers, which is unfortunately you. Where else can they go for added revenue?

I fully agree the manner in which this was conducted was poor. I also question if this much of an increase is necessary.

What, if anything would/could smooth over the tension with season ticket holders? What if there was a moratorium on future price hikes? If so, how long, 5, 10 years? Unfortunately, I don't see the U reversing course on this.
 

I have an appointment to speak with a manager tomorrow @ 10:30. At least they are answering e-mails and calling back. That's a plus.
 

g1976b said:
It seems inevitable that we're going to lose hundreds, and likely thousands of season tickets with this new policy. I don't see new season ticket sales coming close to covering the losses.

Aside from that, the ONLY way this doesn't completely blow up in Norwood's face is if:

1. most STH's keep their seats for 2015 rationalizing that the increase for next year "isn't too bad" and the team seems to be on the rise. (It appears there are quite a few people on GH who fall in this category).

2. The team continues to improve and plays for/wins the B1G Championship next year.

3. Because of continued improvement/success, STH's want to support a winner and look at 2016 and 2017 as more "incremental" increases since they've already swallowed increases in 2014, 2015.

4. The team continues to win/compete in perpetuity. As we know, this is being done to make way for corporate big wigs who have no issues with the higher fees. They'll happily support the Gophers now since they're winning and the "hot" ticket in town. However, we all know that only the die hard fans have been around through thick and thin...and those are the fans the U is elbowing out in this process.
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Essentially.
2015 very well may be a make or break season for fans.
I bet most will ditch in 2016 barring the things you've laid out.

The thing is, that's a helluva bet to make on this team right now.
Add in the fact that we'll be playing likely 2 top 1-10 teams next season and I just don't see how they can expect this to play out well.
Make the Rose Bowl in 2015 and this all works, another season even at 8-10 wins and lots of people will drop in 2016.
 

MNGoldenGophers1 said:
After sleeping on this matter of new ticket prices, I have had some time to let this sink in and after some self-reflection now realize I completely overreacted. I now see that Norwood was trying to do me and all Gopher fans a great service by implementing these modest price increases. I’m using this thread to extol all the good things that will result from these new prices. But before I get us started, I want to offer a sincere apology to fellow Gopher fans and in particular Norwood for my melodramatic and juvenile behavior. With that behind me and a fresh opportunity to be a “glass is half-full” kinda guy, here are some positives I think we can all look forward to:

We’ll all get to park and tailgate in Maroon and Gold lots, with a good chance of being next to your entrance gate.

Everyone gets to be on the tunnel team, even opposing fans.

At least once a season, all season ticket holders get to retrieve the tee after kickoffs. If you’re lucky, you might get to do it twice.

If you listen closely during the game, you might hear what plays they’re calling. You’ll definitely get firsthand accounts of Jerry’s conversations with the referees.

If you bring your kid to the game, they’ll get all 5-minutes of the Lion King jumbo-tron thing assuming you have herculean strength.

Whenever MN gains 10 or more yards, MN fans will get to follow the PA announcer’s “That’s another MN” queue with “it’s costing me about $75 for every first down.”

This will end the what is better, the sunny or shady side debate.

You’ll get your own concession stand and beer vendor to follow you around as you decide on the sunny or shady side.

Getting to/from the restroom during halftime will result in missing no more than a minute or two of the halftime performance.

Cell phone service and texting with others at the stadium won’t be an issue anymore since you’ll be able to talk to anyone no matter where you or they’re sitting.

If you bring a date, you will most likely get on Kiss Cam at least two or three times during the game. (If you do bring a date, I’d suggest you go Dutch, just say’in)

When fans rush the field after big wins, it will only take a few minutes to clear the field after the raucous celebration.

If we win a B1G championship, security should be able to handle the rioter.

Going to bowl games in the kreative khaters Cessna will be a lot of fun or for those of you trying to save a few bucks, their smart car.

No one is likely to notice Lois’ indiscretions or the other Iowa fans walking away with our goalpost(s) anymore. (Speaking of Iowa, I guess Norwood was serious about ending the Who Hates Iowa chant!)

If I missed anything, please feel free to add to this list.

On behalf of all loyal Gopher fans, thank you Norwood!

On Minnesota!
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I enjoyed reading this
 

Vandy said:
I am a "bird in the hand" in the seats I hold.... Highly doubt (even the U of MN) would be so crass as to allow an existing higher end seat holder to "bump" an existing lower end seat holder and charge them the same fee.

Eh, who knows what they are capable of though.
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I would be surprised if there were not a reshuffling of seats in the future. I can't imagine the STH's with highest priority would be forced to keep their seats in the higher donation areas if they wanted to go to a less expensive option.

I could easily be wrong however.
 

zman said:
I would be surprised if there were not a reshuffling of seats in the future. I can't imagine the STH's with highest priority would be forced to keep their seats in the higher donation areas if they wanted to go to a less expensive option.

I could easily be wrong however.
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At first thought, I would agree with you. But now that I think again, I think that's precisely what they will do (force STH to keep higher priced seats or essentially be told to walk). As misguided as it may seem, the U apparently thinks there is demand for those seats. As such, they basically feel the current zone 3 and 4 STH's are effectively free-loading cheapskates (as someone else pointed out). Net-net they gain nothing but goodwill (actually, just less BADwill) by letting them downgrade and boot others out. Better PR to let the folks in the corners stay and then simply sell to these mysterious big spenders who are going to suddenly decide to buy tickets AFTER they've gone up.

On a side note, I think folks are right that the U is expecting corporate buyers. I wonder, though, if this phenomena might be nearing it's end. It basically started up full force in the 90's, but I can tell you as a guy in the corporate world, going to a bunch of pseudo-work sporting events with people who aren't my 'real' friends (co-workers) and skipping a night of my actual hobbies/family/friends etc. has lost a lot of it's allure (it was fun the first 50 times, then? Not so much.). I basically go out of my way to avoid these events now, even though the seats are usually good. That's just my anecdote. Any others feel that way?
 

And to further comment to the public relations failure of the U on this one.....
The email they claimed went out to all season ticket holders before the announcement was made just NOW arrived in my mail box.
 

I agree 100% with tato2001's post above.
 

Section209 said:
And to further comment to the public relations failure of the U on this one.....
The email they claimed went out to all season ticket holders before the announcement was made just NOW arrived in my mail box.
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They sent a mailing?
 

Im dropping my 2 tickets and my friend next to us is dropping his as well. The secondary market is the way to go now. I watched ticket prices this year closely and this move now makes it a no-brainier move. My wife would kill me if she knew we would save thousands. I can't make it to all of the games anyways and I can't tell you the last time I got face value when I sold my tickets.

How much was the UNC buyout again?
 



Pewterschmidt said:
Im dropping my 2 tickets and my friend next to us is dropping his as well. The secondary market is the way to go now. I watched ticket prices this year closely and this move now makes it a no-brainier move. My wife would kill me if she knew we would save thousands. I can't make it to all of the games anyways and I can't tell you the last time I got face value when I sold my tickets.
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Dangerously close to this as well for all the reasons you listed. Our group hasn't always been able to GIVE a 40yd line ticket away if someone can't make it.
 

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