GopherLady: This soon-to-be 8-0 Gophers team deserves better. (picture)

Donate To GopherHole
We don't recruit fans by saying the atmosphere sucks. We show the fans who had fun and are lighting the place up with their joy.
 

Dean S said:
We don't recruit fans by saying the atmosphere sucks. We show the fans who had fun and are lighting the place up with their joy.
Click to expand...

Exactly. It’s a bad look. I appreciate what Gopher Lady brings to the program and I do not question her motives but this is not the way to promote the program or ticket sales. How many people will buy tickets because they are shamed into it? Plus it provides a juicy pitch down the middle for trolls to rip the program.
 

GopherND725 said:
This might not have been a huge factor in attendance but I think does have some impact this time of year for football fans in the state. Many high schools in the state have section playoff football games this Saturday and I know some people I've visited with said they would have attended the Gophers game if not for the conflict.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
I know other Gopher fans who have sons that are Varsity players that had this issue Saturday with playoffs MSHL should not schedule playoff games on Saturdays, they never did this in past and would never do this to Vikings. I was at game home sideline in shade most expensive seats had really empty seats to start game more embarrassing than Gopherlady's twitter photo. The U and the scholarship seating thing reduced the season ticket holder base a lot. They thought corporations would buy those seats and never did. There were a lot of people in line for beer at halftime and restrooms. The students that stayed were awesome until the end! Yeah the football team deserves better but the U created this problem of expensive tickets and parking passed to start. The U is responsible by pricing tickets too damn high. They reached for the money grab on parking and season tickets, before the team ever won anything.

Sent from my SM-J327P using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:

BleedGopher said:
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...

Nadine- Since you have decided to pull no punches, you can take this one: Be perceived as part of the solution and not a part of the problem. The student section was filled half way up the 2nd deck before the kids decided to leave due to the blowout, as full as it has been since TCU if you ask me. We are seeing a steady increase in student attendance. Be patient, help market to students. Geez, change your best!
 

PMWinSTP said:
C'mon Nadine, you know the section was a LOT fuller earlier.
Click to expand...

You're not wrong ........ and technically she's not wrong either, if her argument/complaint is that fans should stay for the entire game (no matter what).
 


You want to talk embarrassing see Marriucci arena Friday night against UMD Bulldogs, Minnesota is hockey state, playing big Rival and barely 5,000 in the building. The scholarship seating at football and hockey kills attendance. People don't like being held hostage for donations, and no longer tax deductable. I'm convinced college football will never be a big deal in Minnesota again, people for whatever reason don't go to games. I thought in the old days it was the Metrodome. You can give people free tix and they still complain and leave early. The fans that stayed were great and very happy. I can't remember last time we blew out a decent to talented team like yesterday. I left 4th quarter Nebraska game cause I was soaking wet. Yesterday the weather was glorious.

Sent from my SM-J327P using Tapatalk
 

Face The Facts said:
I agree bitching at the fans doesn't work.

If people aren't showing up it's a $$$ issue or an access issue.
Click to expand...
You are 100% correct. I also think PJ has handled things extremely well on this. He has always been very positive about the fans.

Sent from my phone using Tapatalk
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
You want to talk embarrassing see Marriucci arena Friday night against UMD Bulldogs, Minnesota is hockey state, playing big Rival and barely 5,000 in the building. The scholarship seating at football and hockey kills attendance. People don't like being held hostage for donations, and no longer tax deductable. I'm convinced college football will never be a big deal in Minnesota again, people for whatever reason don't go to games. I thought in the old days it was the Metrodome. You can give people free tix and they still complain and leave early. The fans that stayed were great and very happy. I can't remember last time we blew out a decent to talented team like yesterday. I left 4th quarter Nebraska game cause I was soaking wet. Yesterday the weather was glorious.

Sent from my SM-J327P using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Maryland is not even close to be a decent to talented team.
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
You want to talk embarrassing see Marriucci arena Friday night against UMD Bulldogs, Minnesota is hockey state, playing big Rival and barely 5,000 in the building. The scholarship seating at football and hockey kills attendance. People don't like being held hostage for donations, and no longer tax deductable. I'm convinced college football will never be a big deal in Minnesota again, people for whatever reason don't go to games. I thought in the old days it was the Metrodome. You can give people free tix and they still complain and leave early. The fans that stayed were great and very happy. I can't remember last time we blew out a decent to talented team like yesterday. I left 4th quarter Nebraska game cause I was soaking wet. Yesterday the weather was glorious.

Sent from my SM-J327P using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Simple answer: TV

TV (streaming) is cheap, and very easy.

Getting to the U, finding parking, paying for parking, and then all the other costs associated with actually attending the games .... then the weather, which includes sitting outside in the weather for TCF, but also for winter sports, even though you're sitting inside, you have to drive in the weather, and deal with it during the walk to and from the stadium.


It's been discussed on here numerous times. You have to be a really, dedicated fan to actually attend the games in person here at Minnesota. It's much, much easier to just flip on your big, flat screen, with high quality broadcasts, and sit on your own couch.
 



Give it some time. As the Gophers start winning more home games, it will attract more crowds. Some people move around late third quarter and fourth quarter to find friends or for other reasons. Some do leave. Ulitmately, what we want are the boots going thru the turnstiles. This impacts revenue.

Woody Teague's legacy - the scholarship seating. IMHO, they arbitrarily introduce it without thinking it thoroughly. That probably works in the SEC to have a substantial increase in fees, but not up here.

The mandatory large scholarship seating fees and no longer being able to claim it as a tax deduction is a double whammy that tipped the scale for some long time season ticket holders. It is like they are targeted and penalized for their loyalty.

A better way IMHO, is to apply those fees to all tickets purchased. Not to the point where it becomes unaffordable. They have to find other ways to make up for those scholarship fees.Why are the reserved corporate seats empty? If they aren't buying, free some of them up to the general public.

Somebody within the U has to figure all this out for the benefit of the university and the fans. This goes hand in hand with paying attention to improving fan experience.

The U should find out how other schools are dealing with all these issues.
 
Last edited:

gopherdudepart2 said:
I know other Gopher fans who have sons that are Varsity players that had this issue Saturday with playoffs MSHL should not schedule playoff games on Saturdays, they never did this in past and would never do this to Vikings.

Sent from my SM-J327P using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

There have been high school football playoff games on Saturdays since the '70s, if not earlier.

But I agree wholeheartedly that the U went for the "money grab" and ended up shooting itself in the ass.

JTG
 

I mentioned this in another thread. I've asked 3 friends to go to the Penn State game. They all make plenty of money. They all said the $70 ticket price (lowest priced ticket if you include fees) was too much. One even said "too much for a college game". If we want to start selling out on a regular basis we need to entice some of the more fringe fans to buy tickets to the game by making the price correlate more to the perceived value to the customer. I think it's pretty well established that we have about 40,000 hard core fans that will come no matter what the price is. It's that last 10,000 of more casual fans that we need to get back. I used to have season tickets in section 208. Those tickets are $120 for the PSU game. If you have a family of 4 by the time you factor in fees, parking, and concessions, you are getting close to the $600 mark. That's a pretty big investment.
 

Word said:
I mentioned this in another thread. I've asked 3 friends to go to the Penn State game. They all make plenty of money. They all said the $70 ticket price (lowest priced ticket if you include fees) was too much. One even said "too much for a college game". If we want to start selling out on a regular basis we need to entice some of the more fringe fans to buy tickets to the game by making the price correlate more to the perceived value to the customer. I think it's pretty well established that we have about 40,000 hard core fans that will come no matter what the price is. It's that last 10,000 of more casual fans that we need to get back. I used to have season tickets in section 208. Those tickets are $120 for the PSU game. If you have a family of 4 by the time you factor in fees, parking, and concessions, you are getting close to the $600 mark. That's a pretty big investment.
Click to expand...

Anybody who thinks $70 is too much for a November Top 15 matchup of undefeated teams is clearly not any kind of college football fan. Plain and simple.
 



WriterGoph said:
Anybody who thinks $70 is too much for a November Top 15 matchup of undefeated teams is clearly not any kind of college football fan. Plain and simple.
Click to expand...

This^^^


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Word said:
I mentioned this in another thread. I've asked 3 friends to go to the Penn State game. They all make plenty of money. They all said the $70 ticket price (lowest priced ticket if you include fees) was too much. One even said "too much for a college game". If we want to start selling out on a regular basis we need to entice some of the more fringe fans to buy tickets to the game by making the price correlate more to the perceived value to the customer. I think it's pretty well established that we have about 40,000 hard core fans that will come no matter what the price is. It's that last 10,000 of more casual fans that we need to get back. I used to have season tickets in section 208. Those tickets are $120 for the PSU game. If you have a family of 4 by the time you factor in fees, parking, and concessions, you are getting close to the $600 mark. That's a pretty big investment.
Click to expand...

That is about how much I spent - $650. It is not just the ticket prices. It is also the total cost of parking, food, and drinks. I bet there is a correlation between the Metro Area income distribution and affordability of going to the game. There is a lot of competition for the entertainment dollars in this town. The Gophers need to do their homework and hire the right people to help solve this riddle.
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
You want to talk embarrassing see Marriucci arena Friday night against UMD Bulldogs, Minnesota is hockey state, playing big Rival and barely 5,000 in the building. The scholarship seating at football and hockey kills attendance. People don't like being held hostage for donations, and no longer tax deductable. I'm convinced college football will never be a big deal in Minnesota again, people for whatever reason don't go to games. I thought in the old days it was the Metrodome. You can give people free tix and they still complain and leave early. The fans that stayed were great and very happy. I can't remember last time we blew out a decent to talented team like yesterday. I left 4th quarter Nebraska game cause I was soaking wet. Yesterday the weather was glorious.

Sent from my SM-J327P using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Nah. College football can be robust here. If D3 football can get tens of thousands of fans in this state, then a Power 5 team can fill a 50,000 seat stadium. It's all about Product, Pricing and Place.

The product has been mediocre to sucky for decades so it might take a little while. The current product is very very promising and fun so far, but the "legitimate" teams on the schedule, other than overrated Nebraska, are on the back end of the schedule. In the Mason years when the team was similarly promising, these big games were the litmus test and the team came up short in spectacular fashion at times. Potential fans are saying "show me" after getting burned over and over in the past. If the Gophs win some of these late rivalry games and the winning continues to next year, TCF will fill.

Pricing. Yeah, we know the issues here. The good seats are way overpriced for the historical product but hopefully the Fleck era teams change that.

Place. Great college stadium. One of the best. Robust tailgating taking hold, albeit pricey around the stadium.
 

I thought outside of the Air-Force and TCU games, this game's attendance was about as good as any we've had at TCF, about on par for what we've had for Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, MSU, USC etc.
 

GopherTrev said:
Like Chip Scoggins wrote tonight, referring to the Penn State game “There shouldn’t be an empty seat inside TCF Bank Stadium for this one. If a game of this magnitude doesn’t generate a sellout, there is no hope for college football in this market.”

He absolutely nailed it! 8-0 and two weeks to sell tickets.
Click to expand...

If we dont sellout, that's a bigger indictment of the marketing team than the market.
 

WriterGoph said:
Anybody who thinks $70 is too much for a November Top 15 matchup of undefeated teams is clearly not any kind of college football fan. Plain and simple.
Click to expand...

Yeah, my friends are the worst.
 

At least for parking, important to pitch the Fairgrounds at $10 and the train for $6. Both are easy to manage.
 

WriterGoph said:
Anybody who thinks $70 is too much for a November Top 15 matchup of undefeated teams is clearly not any kind of college football fan. Plain and simple.[/QUOTE

I am glad you are making big league money. Then invite some friends and pay their way.
Click to expand...
 

BilldGopher said:
At least for parking, important to pitch the Fairgrounds at $10 and the train for $6. Both are easy to manage.
Click to expand...

In the $600 equation, parking is a small part of that. I was figuring about $20 or $30 for parking on campus. I also live more on the west side of town so driving to the Fairgrounds is actually more out of the way. Kind of nice to zip right in and out of campus off 94 and Huron.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
If we dont sellout, that's a bigger indictment of the marketing team than the market.
Click to expand...

Minnesotans are notoriously cheap-ass and have become weather-phobic after 30 years in the dome. If the Vikes played outside I doubt you would see sellouts in November and December.
 

BilldGopher said:
At least for parking, important to pitch the Fairgrounds at $10 and the train for $6. Both are easy to manage.
Click to expand...

How full is the Fairgrounds lot for tailgaiting now? Haven't been there since the early TCF years.
 

People leave early during blowouts all the time. And a former player criticizing the entire fan base wasn't a good look either. There's a great core group of fans that have supported the program through really bad times. That core just needs to grow.
 

Just a horrible take from Nadine. But I'll give her a pass as she's the biggest Gopher fan I know.

Let's celebrate a huge game against Penn St, and not shame the fans.
 


highwayman said:
Minnesotans are notoriously cheap-ass and have become weather-phobic after 30 years in the dome. If the Vikes played outside I doubt you would see sellouts in November and December.
Click to expand...

The Vikings sold out all their November and December games at TCF Bank Stadium.
 

Dean S said:
WriterGoph said:
Anybody who thinks $70 is too much for a November Top 15 matchup of undefeated teams is clearly not any kind of college football fan. Plain and simple.[/QUOTE

I am glad you are making big league money. Then invite some friends and pay their way.
Click to expand...

I live out of state and will attend 3 games in person this season - including buying 5 for the Wisconsin game. I do alright, but wouldn't say I'm making "big league money". Yes, I choose to spend a good chunk of my entertainment dollars on college football. And yes, what I said still stands. If you live in the market and your hometown team has an undefeated matchup against a Top 5 team and you feel $70 is too rich, you're very likely not a college football fan.

I think my point is further proven by the fact that the OP stated his friends said $70 "is too much for a college game". So, you see, it's not about not having $70 to spend. It's the fact they aren't actual college football fans.
Click to expand...
 

WriterGoph said:
I live out of state and will attend 3 games in person this season - including buying 5 for the Wisconsin game. I do alright, but wouldn't say I'm making "big league money". Yes, I choose to spend a good chunk of my entertainment dollars on college football. And yes, what I said still stands. If you live in the market and your hometown team has an undefeated matchup against a Top 5 team and you feel $70 is too rich, you're very likely not a college football fan.

I think my point is further proven by the fact that the OP stated his friends said $70 "is too much for a college game". So, you see, it's not about not having $70 to spend. It's the fact they aren't actual college football fans.
Click to expand...

I think it boils down to the difference between being a casual fan and a hard core fan. My friends all attend various games of all the Minnesota sports teams so they pick and choose where they spend their money.

Personally I'd love to go to more Wild games but I think those tickets are way overpriced so I only go to one game a year. So does that not make me an NHL fan?
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom