PJ Fleck Interview new - Sunday 2-10-19 + Mark Coyle interview

Donate To GopherHole

MennoSota said:
I accept your correction.
I believe UMN could build the market by concentrating on all the pee wee football squads across the State and encourage these squads to come to games and be recognized at halftime. Make the group rates cheap and do these promotions for the lighter weight pre conference games. Fill up the stands in what otherwise will be an empty house. You bring in some revenue and you get kids hooked to Gopher football.
It ain't rocket science. The St Paul Saints have been doing it for years. Even the Twins have a few nights for the Metro Baseball League to bring teams over and walk the warning track before the game. It promotes good will and community.
Sadly, the marketing staff at UMN seems oblivious to such a promotion and community building.
Click to expand...

Agree. I've been arguing this point for a long time. Even mentioned it to the current AD at a non Gopher event.
 

At a certain level, people choose to spend money on things they care about. If you care about it enough, you don't worry about the cost.

But, I have no idea how you make more people care about Gopher football. If they had a 10-2 season, and went to the Rose Bowl, I have no doubt they would sell more tickets to the casual fans and band-wagon jumpers - but is that enough to make people really CARE about Gopher FB? I don't know.

Barring that, the only other way to get people to games is to make the game, and surrounding activities, an event. to the point where casual fans, girlfriends, etc will say "Hey, my friend said the Gopher Game was really fun. Let's go to the next game." That is going to take a lot more than the U is currently doing. The powers-that-be will have to loosen the reins and pull back some the restrictions to make game day an event. Let the frats hold lawn parties. Business hospitality tents with food and booze. Live music. entertainment. Food and drink options outside the stadium (because some people don't want to haul around all the tailgating equipment and supplies.) Sadly, I think the odds of the U allowing that is about 1 in 1,000. The powers-that-be would rather control the environment, and have smaller crowds, as opposed to losing control over the environment, and having larger crowds.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Let the frats hold lawn parties. Business hospitality tents with food and booze. Live music. entertainment. Food and drink options outside the stadium (because some people don't want to haul around all the tailgating equipment and supplies.) Sadly, I think the odds of the U allowing that is about 1 in 1,000. The powers-that-be would rather control the environment, and have smaller crowds, as opposed to losing control over the environment, and having larger crowds.
Click to expand...

All of these things happen already - except live music, which I assume could happen if somebody asked.
 

dpodoll68 said:
All of these things happen already - except live music, which I assume could happen if somebody asked.
Click to expand...

I agree with all the previous Gopherholers. But the fact remains, if you want to increase the number of fans in the seats, STOP televising thehome games. Especially the non conference games. People will show up for Becky or IA.but SDSU not so much. Will the increase in attendance offset the lost tv revenue, who knows?
 


Pete smith said:
I agree with all the previous Gopherholers. But the fact remains, if you want to increase the number of fans in the seats, STOP televising thehome games. Especially the non conference games. People will show up for Becky or IA.but SDSU not so much. Will the increase in attendance offset the lost tv revenue, who knows?
Click to expand...

Baseball tried this in the early days.... they tried limiting TV broadcasts, it didn't help. Once they started doing more TV, attendance went up, as did revenue....
 

Pete smith said:
Will the increase in attendance offset the lost tv revenue, who knows?
Click to expand...

I know. It absolutely will not - unless you're able to sell each marginal seat increase for every game at an average of around $750/ticket per game.
 

dpodoll68 said:
I know. It absolutely will not - unless you're able to sell each marginal seat increase for every game at an average of around $750/ticket per game.
Click to expand...

Pac 12 is certainly not happy about their lack of TV coverage / revenue ... and they're all packed houses because of it.
 

STPGopher said:
Agree. I've been arguing this point for a long time. Even mentioned it to the current AD at a non Gopher event.
Click to expand...

I was a youth football coach in the Osseo-Maple Grove football program back in 2006-2008 and the U did it then. Not sure if other programs around the metro/state were also part of this as well. Each team was given 100 tickets to sell for $10.00 each. Most if not all of the tickets were bought by families of the team members and money collected and unsold tickets were due in the Monday proceeding the game. I don't recall having many if any tickets to return.

Many good suggestions on this board but my feeling the key word to all of this is BUZZ. I'm talking media buzz leading up to the season and specific games. People want to be a part of something that is trendy, regardless of ticket prices and game day atmosphere. These are important too as you want people to return, but creating and maintaining a BUZZ will help to fill seats. Ending the season like the Gophers did last year with higher expectations for this year will help. But they need to build on their most recent successes by winning consistently and impressively.
 



Gophers_4life said:
Even if I'm dead wrong .... fine .... but why not give it a try???

Bob's defeatist sentiment is already exactly what we have now! "Well we just can't sell tickets until they win, aw shucks"

Why not try something? Give it a shot?
Click to expand...

How is it defeatist? I think PJ can win here and if/when he does, I think it'll be a hot ticket.
 

GOFUR said:
I was a youth football coach in the Osseo-Maple Grove football program back in 2006-2008 and the U did it then. Not sure if other programs around the metro/state were also part of this as well. Each team was given 100 tickets to sell for $10.00 each. Most if not all of the tickets were bought by families of the team members and money collected and unsold tickets were due in the Monday proceeding the game. I don't recall having many if any tickets to return.

Many good suggestions on this board but my feeling the key word to all of this is BUZZ. I'm talking media buzz leading up to the season and specific games. People want to be a part of something that is trendy, regardless of ticket prices and game day atmosphere. These are important too as you want people to return, but creating and maintaining a BUZZ will help to fill seats. Ending the season like the Gophers did last year with higher expectations for this year will help. But they need to build on their most recent successes by winning consistently and impressively.
Click to expand...


Yup, gotta get wins and excitement and the rest will fall into line.
 

GOFUR said:
I was a youth football coach in the Osseo-Maple Grove football program back in 2006-2008 and the U did it then. Not sure if other programs around the metro/state were also part of this as well. Each team was given 100 tickets to sell for $10.00 each. Most if not all of the tickets were bought by families of the team members and money collected and unsold tickets were due in the Monday proceeding the game. I don't recall having many if any tickets to return.

Many good suggestions on this board but my feeling the key word to all of this is BUZZ. I'm talking media buzz leading up to the season and specific games. People want to be a part of something that is trendy, regardless of ticket prices and game day atmosphere. These are important too as you want people to return, but creating and maintaining a BUZZ will help to fill seats. Ending the season like the Gophers did last year with higher expectations for this year will help. But they need to build on their most recent successes by winning consistently and impressively.
Click to expand...

I think the WI win helped a lot. We need big wins and we need them consistently. We need to be playing in big games with a legitimate (to the occasional fan) chance of winning the game.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I think the WI win helped a lot. We need big wins and we need them consistently. We need to be playing in big games with a legitimate (to the occasional fan) chance of winning the game.
Click to expand...

This. We need to start beating good teams and get meaningful wins.

The WI win was just one of very few meaningful wins in the last few years. String some together and people will come.

Remember the TCU game? Hype was huge. We beat iowa and nebby rhe year before. We played in the citrus bowl. Then we botched all the big games in 2015, kill retired, and the hype left.
 



Thomasthetank said:
This. We need to start beating good teams and get meaningful wins.

The WI win was just one of very few meaningful wins in the last few years. String some together and people will come.

Remember the TCU game? Hype was huge. We beat iowa and nebby rhe year before. We played in the citrus bowl. Then we botched all the big games in 2015, kill retired, and the hype left.
Click to expand...

Yeah 14 I think showed fans will follow after some good wins.... they came for a great 15 schedule.

Then 15 was just the worst, and worst time to have it :(
 

Pete smith said:
I agree with all the previous Gopherholers. But the fact remains, if you want to increase the number of fans in the seats, STOP televising thehome games. Especially the non conference games. People will show up for Becky or IA.but SDSU not so much. Will the increase in attendance offset the lost tv revenue, who knows?
Click to expand...

This has been brought up several times in this thread, but I could not disagree with this more. Televising the games is a 3.5 hour commercial for your product -- AND the U is getting paid for it.

It's up to the U to make the fan at home see a big crowd having fun to make them think it's better to be there.
 


Hates Monikers said:
This has been brought up several times in this thread, but I could not disagree with this more. Televising the games is a 3.5 hour commercial for your product -- AND the U is getting paid for it.
It's up to the U to make the fan at home see a big crowd having fun to make them think it's better to be there.
Click to expand...

BINGO! A) Follow the money, and B) Free advertising. Actually beyond free; the school gets paid for the games being on TV.

Does anyone here actually know (no guessing, please, because I can do that on my own) if it would even be possible for the U to decide not televising the games? Aren't they under contractural obligations? Don't the networks have a say?
 


die hard gopher said:
They already do this for HS teams.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter that the U has tried many ways to increase attendance. A large group on this board would rather complain about attendance and the efforts of the U even though they have no intention of actually going to a game. Apparently for them, it is more fun to complain than to go to a B1G football game.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
At a certain level, people choose to spend money on things they care about. If you care about it enough, you don't worry about the cost.

But, I have no idea how you make more people care about Gopher football. If they had a 10-2 season, and went to the Rose Bowl, I have no doubt they would sell more tickets to the casual fans and band-wagon jumpers - but is that enough to make people really CARE about Gopher FB? I don't know.

Barring that, the only other way to get people to games is to make the game, and surrounding activities, an event. to the point where casual fans, girlfriends, etc will say "Hey, my friend said the Gopher Game was really fun. Let's go to the next game." That is going to take a lot more than the U is currently doing. The powers-that-be will have to loosen the reins and pull back some the restrictions to make game day an event. Let the frats hold lawn parties. Business hospitality tents with food and booze. Live music. entertainment. Food and drink options outside the stadium (because some people don't want to haul around all the tailgating equipment and supplies.) Sadly, I think the odds of the U allowing that is about 1 in 1,000. The powers-that-be would rather control the environment, and have smaller crowds, as opposed to losing control over the environment, and having larger crowds.
Click to expand...

Haven’t you said that you have never been to a game at TCF?
 

Clark W. Griswold said:
It doesn't matter that the U has tried many ways to increase attendance. A large group on this board would rather complain about attendance and the efforts of the U even though they have no intention of actually going to a game. Apparently for them, it is more fun to complain than to go to a B1G football game.
Click to expand...

Clark’s in group 2.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 


John Galt said:
Haven’t you said that you have never been to a game at TCF?
Click to expand...

I attended numerous games at Memorial Stadium and the Metrodome over the years. Have also attended games at Wisconsin, and I used to live in Iowa and followed what was going on with IA and ISU football. I think that qualifies me to offer an opinion on game-day atmosphere.

there is no comparison between game day in Madison or Iowa City to a Gopher Game. In WI or IA, you can't escape game day. It's the biggest thing in town. In MN, you may not even know there's a game unless you happen to drive by the stadium.

and, BTW, the reason I've never been to a game at TCF is that my job requires me to work on Saturday. Unless you think I should skip work to go to a Gopher game. I'm sure my boss wouldn't mind......
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I attended numerous games at Memorial Stadium and the Metrodome over the years. Have also attended games at Wisconsin, and I used to live in Iowa and followed what was going on with IA and ISU football. I think that qualifies me to offer an opinion on game-day atmosphere.

there is no comparison between game day in Madison or Iowa City to a Gopher Game. In WI or IA, you can't escape game day. It's the biggest thing in town. In MN, you may not even know there's a game unless you happen to drive by the stadium.

and, BTW, the reason I've never been to a game at TCF is that my job requires me to work on Saturday. Unless you think I should skip work to go to a Gopher game. I'm sure my boss wouldn't mind......
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but if you haven't ever been to a game at TCF, your opinion on game day atmosphere is less than meaningless.
 

John Galt said:
I'm sorry, but if you haven't ever been to a game at TCF, your opinion on game day atmosphere is less than meaningless.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. I believe it is common knowledge how little we do for game day experience at TCF as opposed to one goes on in Iowa, Nebraska, or Wisconsin.
 

#2Gopher said:
Not necessarily. I believe it is common knowledge how little we do for game day experience at TCF as opposed to one goes on in Iowa, Nebraska, or Wisconsin.
Click to expand...

I've been to all of those places and have never said "I wish we could do that at TCF". Enthusiastic fans make the atmosphere. Anyone can tailgate and have a good time. You don't have to buy a parking permit. I tailgate in a private lot that is open to anyone. We have one of the few stadiums with beer sales.
I've never met Coyle but from the way he acts on camera he seems pretty boring. I wouldn't rely on him to provide a lively atmosphere and to have a good time.
 

I went to Ohio State this year and since the house we rented was south of the stadium, there were literally no tailgate lots on the way to the stadium. I’m sure the lots (mostly more than a mile north) were happening, but my TCF Bank Stadium tailgate set up was better than the setup there (especially for an 11 am game as the walk to those lots would leave next to no tailgate time anyways).

Edit: If we drove to the tailgate lots, our walk to the stadium would have been longer.
 

John Galt said:
I'm sorry, but if you haven't ever been to a game at TCF, your opinion on game day atmosphere is less than meaningless.
Click to expand...

So you don’t agree that the game day atmosphere is better at IA and NE than at TCF?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

#2Gopher said:
Not necessarily. I believe it is common knowledge how little we do for game day experience at TCF as opposed to one goes on in Iowa, Nebraska, or Wisconsin.
Click to expand...

BS. As has been posted many, many times, the college FB team is THE big thing in those places.

Posted multiple times after going to Nebraska last Fall how underwhelming the game day experience was. The two small tailgate lots closest to the stadium (about two blocks away) were maybe half full. Most of the tailgate lots are not even close to the stadium but rather over by the baseball field, which is probably a 15 minute walk to the stadium. The 3-4 bars we frequented by campus before the game were hopping but no more than Sally's, S&H's, BWW or the Beacon on Gophs game days. Things cleared out pretty quickly after the game.

In Madison, it is the big attraction in town, hand's down. Fans there commit to it being an all-day experience and that's the main difference. It has changed as well in the last 10 years as many of the go-to bars have closed do to redevelopment around the stadium.

Like someone pointed out, the fans make the experience. There's no magical thing or things those schools do.
 


You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom