Any good will that would have built up in 2009 from the new Stadium opening was kind of pooped away with Brewsters coaching debacle, Rose Bowl grass, and the poorly handled opportunity from the beginning to win over new fans.
Stadium logistics from the opening were handled poorly. Concession lines and lack of cash registers and St Paul shuttle lines in 2009 turned off a lot of casual fans and gave off a bad impression that the U didn't know what it was doing. The U has fixed a lot of those issues, game day is concsistently better every year.
Combine that with Brewster getting hired by Maturi,(hard to repair this image) and losing to teams like South Dakota and North Dakota State, and the drubbings by conference rivals Wisconsin and Iowa. 2008 ended on a really sour note.
and the poor treatment of the student section when Joel decided it was important to search everyone as a student in case they might be underage and have booze and there you go.
It isn't just the football, the U has never done a real good job selling college football and game day as a gathering place for community and they started that when Mckay and some of the Boosters sold the idea of moving to the Metrodome downtown would improve recruiting for the program. They should have recent Alumni sections near the student section that maybe have a slightly discounted pricing until those people are more established in there careers, as maybe a thank you for having graduated.
Instead of developing a tailgating scene at TCF that would develop organically and get people used to it over time they decided to hammer people with large donation requests from the get go. Again there should have been tiered pricing based on locations, or even a payment plan for the passes and a ramp up in pricing over time. The U doesn't value any loyalty for season ticket holders that have purchased football tickets for 15 , 20 30 years, there really are not a lot of perks for staying with the program. Most of us diehards don't care about that but it would be nice if the U would actually acknowledge season ticket holders are valued.
I realize the U needs to make money hence all of the advertising during games, and donation stuff,
but they really should have done graduated or demand based donation requests in the initial years of the stadium. Once you hook them for tailgating, it is easier to sell the donation requests for tailgating spots, even , more desirable stadium seating,
then to just go right for the gusto of a large donation request and leave a lot of tailgating spots that surround the stadium empty. They could use demand based pricing to sell there less desirable seats, eventually they would get full price for more seats with more success, they just need to get people to give Gopher football a chance by getting them in the door. They need these donations to fund scholarships, they need to come up with a better sales plan, and more compelling reasons to get people to part with there money when contributing to the Williams fund. The University does a lot of we want your money, with out creating a good impression that the person is receiving good value in doing that paying more, or a tangible idea of what this stuff funds.
