Season Ticket Upgrades

[Iceland12]

- You better have donated money since 11/2009
- People want seatbacks but don't want to pay any premium.
- People want to be in the sun!

This came today:


The 2010 Gopher football season is approaching fast and we look forward to our second year in beautiful TCF Bank Stadium. We will continue to celebrate the pageantry, history and excitement of Big Ten Football! Thank you for your continued support of Gopher football. We look forward to seeing you this fall as the Gophers play one of the best home schedules in the country.

We have received your seat upgrade request. This year's process will be especially challenging as we renewed our season tickets at over 93% and we received over 3,000 requests for seat improvements.

What You Need to Know About the Upgrade Process

Determining Factors
The ability to fulfill seat and parking upgrade requests is dependent on a variety of factors including the renewal rate, the number requests and the desired locations of the requests. The renewal rate determines the number of seats that can be used to fulfill upgrade requests. For the 2010 season, over 93% of season ticket holders renewed their season tickets. Over 3,000 upgrade request forms were submitted and the most requested locations for the 2010 season were for:

Chairback seats in non-donation sections
Aisle seats
Seats on the visiting side of the stadium
Given our high renewal percentage and the large number of upgrade requests, fulfilling requests will be challenging. We appreciate your patience as we work through the process.

Upgrade Process Timeline
The Upgrade Process is scheduled to begin on May 14th and be completed in early June. The duration of the process will primarily depend on the number of requests that are able to be fulfilled.

How the Upgrade Process Works
All Season Ticket Holders that submitted an Upgrade Request Form will be ranked first by their Golden Gopher Fund Annual Giving Level and then by their Gopher Point Total within each Annual Giving Level. For more detailed information on how the upgrade process works please download the 2010 Football Request Fulfillment Process PDF (0.3 MB).

Communication During the Upgrade Process
Once the upgrade process begins, communication between the Gopher Ticket Office and season ticket holder will occur via phone and email.

If there ARE locations that match or are similar to the Upgrade Request:
Then the Season Ticket Holder will receive a phone call from the Gopher Ticket Office.
If the Season ticket holder answers - they will be given the seat locations that match or are similar to their request. The Season Ticket Holder must then decide to move their seats or keep their current location. Please note that once seats are upgraded they cannot be moved back to their original location. Seats will not be moved without consent from the Season Ticket Holder.
If the Season Ticket Holder does not answer - a message will be left instructing them to call a specific number at their earliest convenience to discuss possible upgrade locations.
If there are NO locations that match or are similar to the Upgrade Request:
Then the Season Ticket Holder will receive an email from the Gopher Ticket Office indicating that their Upgrade Request was unable to be fulfilled.
We appreciate your patience during this process and ask that you contact us if you have questions about the process itself. Please note that due to the large number of submitted Upgrade Request Forms the Gopher Ticket Office will not be able to give Season Ticket Holders updates regarding the status of their upgrade requests.

Thanks again for your support of Gopher Football!

 

[Iceland12]

Penn States' Plan

Penn State's seat transfer and revenue enhancement plan shows the Gophers aren't alone in revenue problems.


http://www.centredaily.com/2010/05/16/1979406/reseating-fuels-mixed-feelings.html

 

[Gold Vision]

I may be wrong, but isn't a 93% season ticket renewal rate fairly low?

 

[GoAUpher]

I may be wrong, but isn't a 93% season ticket renewal rate fairly low?

I wouldn't say it's great. It means they have approx 2500 seats to sell.

 

[dpodoll68]

I don't say this to be callous, but given the age of the average Gophers season ticket-holder, I would venture that a significant portion of the non-renewals are due to death. Not anything that would make the numbers that different, but certainly a more noticeable amount than for the average college football stadium.

At any rate, even though it is a brand new stadium, I'd assume the athletic department is pleased with that % given the product that's put out there on an annual basis.

 

[Iceland12]

I may be wrong, but isn't a 93% season ticket renewal rate fairly low?

That's probably right.

How many of those people are asking for additional tickets and not just upgrades would also be interesting to know.

It's beyond a doubt that the first year in TCF sold a bleeping amount of tickets by itself. It's also fair to speculate that more then a few of those people wanted to be among the "I was there the first year" folks. We also know that many student tickets buyers thought there was some money to be made scalping tickets. They were disappointed. There must have been some regular Season Ticket buyers who thought the same thing.

Honestly, with the way the played on Offense and how they finished the season I'm pretty surprised that the renewal rate was that high. We're not exactly known as a "through thick and thin" fan base. Maybe a Home schedule that includes USC, tOSU, Penn State and Iowa kept people buying, at least for this year anyway.

Winning is going to be needed to keep those tickets sold for 2011.

 

[GoAUpher]

I don't say this to be callous, but given the age of the average Gophers season ticket-holder, I would venture that a significant portion of the non-renewals are due to death. Not anything that would make the numbers that different, but certainly a more noticeable amount than for the average college football stadium.

At any rate, even though it is a brand new stadium, I'd assume the athletic department is pleased with that % given the product that's put out there on an annual basis.

So about 5% of the season ticket base died this past season? That would be a sudden jump in older ticket holder deaths. I think its more likely that the significant number come from A) long time ticket holders (read: older) who don't want to be outside and B) newer ticket holders who jumped off the bandwagon already.

On a related note, I met a guy at Smalley's before the night game of the double-header on 5/8 whose tickets have been in his family since 1932. Now that's some loyalty!

 

[Gold Vision]

What was the season ticket base at the Dome besides the year prior to TCF opening?

 

[GoAUpher]

What was the season ticket base at the Dome besides the year prior to TCF opening?

I want to say it was approx 29,000 seats.

 

[Maroon]

The Gophers had hoped/expected renewals to be in excess of 97% this year, so the 93% is definitely not seen as "great."

 

[1983]

What?

7% not renewing is awesome. It was a cold year, the upper deck was even colder, the experience of crowded lines to enter and to get a coke, fair results on the field, poor parking, no roof...at least 7% of the ticket holders are not even close to being serious fans. This leaves more to the serious football fan who wants to watch major college football. We truly need a change over from the metro dump crowd.

 

[gophergrad]

Yeah if anything 7% non-renewal is good news to me. Means I have a better chance at getting the extra tickets I requested.

 

[Bayfieldgopher]

Ice: "Winning is going to be needed to keep those tickets sold for 2011"

Absolutely.

I think some fans wanted to be the first in and not pleased with the product on the field and called it quits. I can't imagine that many deaths as dpodoll68 suggested. I side with Jay's comment about the 7% not being serious Gopher fans.

But I disagree with the old fan thinking. I saw just as many, if not more, younger no-shows than old timers in my section. Especially on the colder days. Plus a lot of new faces in the seats. Between the 35's may be different.

 

[GoAUpher]

7% not renewing is awesome. It was a cold year, the upper deck was even colder, the experience of crowded lines to enter and to get a coke, fair results on the field, poor parking, no roof...at least 7% of the ticket holders are not even close to being serious fans. This leaves more to the serious football fan who wants to watch major college football. We truly need a change over from the metro dump crowd.

I both agree and disagree. I think you're right that many of the ticket holders who filled out the stadium were fair weather fans (often literally). And while their choice to give up their seats does mean more available for serious football fans, I question how many of them don't already have tickets. I know the Dome sucked, but if there was an abundance of serious fans who love B10 football we would have seen them in the seats before now.

 

[ruralgopher]

I love how people crap on the 'metrodome crowd' even though they paid their money in support of the program watching a bad product in a terrible stadium to keep the program afloat since well before todays students (who can't fill their own designated section) were born. I'm not down on the general student population at all, but people who get upset about the 'old fan' base are completely clueless to the fact that the old fan base kept the program afloat for nearly 30 years.

 

[wdgold]

I don't say this to be callous, but given the age of the average Gophers season ticket-holder, I would venture that a significant portion of the non-renewals are due to death. Not anything that would make the numbers that different, but certainly a more noticeable amount than for the average college football stadium.

At any rate, even though it is a brand new stadium, I'd assume the athletic department is pleased with that % given the product that's put out there on an annual basis.

Some friends of mine offered me tickets in the lower level due to ill health with an elderly couple in there group. I have also heard that some of these long time season ticket holders who are elderly and have gotten used to the dome aren't willing to drive from out of town and risk sitting in foul weather. Some of these people may be giving there tickets up.

 

[wdgold]

Foul weather

Maybe I should be careful what I wish for, but I plan on being at every home game this year despite the weather. Actually I am kind of looking forward to the first game played in a blizzard or something like it. Call me crazy but I love Gopher FB and was a first time season ticket holder last year and absolutely loved it and I don't plan on giving them up anytime soon no matter what.

 

[highwayman]

Renewal Rate is Two Numbers

I may be wrong, but isn't a 93% season ticket renewal rate fairly low?

It was 98% for ticket holders that have has season ducets for more than 2 years (at least two in dome and one in TCFBS). It was around 90% for one in dome, one in TCFBS or one in TCFBS only. That 98% is pretty damn good.

 

[Too Long in the Wasteland]

Don't fear the reaper

I was curious about mortality rates after reading this thread and did a quick google. You'll be happy to know our tax dollars are being well spent to figure stuff like this out. A few conclusions:

1. it sucks to be a guy
2. the median age of our ticket base would have to be about 81 to have 7% of the ticket holders checking into the Wooden Waldorf every year
3. Even at age 60 the rate of males kicking the oxygen habit is only about 1%
4. Once you get past age 90 it doesn't make sense to purchase extended warantees

bottom line, fans slipping this mortal coil can't explain much of the renewal gap, even with our overaged fan base. There's a reason Ray C. is pimping mortuaries on the radio broadcasts. Its going out to their target customer base

 

[mplsbadger]

There's a reason Ray C. is pimping mortuaries on the radio broadcasts. Its going out to their target customer base

Never thought I'd see Ray Christiansen and 'pimping' in the same sentence.

 

[dpodoll68]

Just for the record, I never said anything even remotely resembling "all of our non-renewals are deceased persons". If you go back and read my post, my point is that deaths no doubt account for a greater portion of non-renewals than the average college football fanbase. As I've already said as well, it's likely not statistically significant.

 

[GopherGod]

Just for the record, I never said anything even remotely resembling "all of our non-renewals are deceased persons". If you go back and read my post, my point is that deaths no doubt account for a greater portion of non-renewals than the average college football fanbase. As I've already said as well, it's likely not statistically significant.

What is the age of the average college football fanbase then in comparison to Minnesota's?

 

[dpodoll68]

What is the age of the average college football fanbase then in comparison to Minnesota's?

Higher than the number of fake Gopher fan/Tom Osborne knob-gobblers who post on GopherHole.

 

[MplsHammer]

93% is not very alarming to me. New stadiums are going to attract a large amount of fair weather season ticket purchases on novelty alone. Underwhelming seasons will slowly erode this base. It will open up opportunities for core fans who want to expand/upgrade their allotment.

 

[GopherGod]

Higher than the number of fake Gopher fan/Tom Osborne knob-gobblers who post on GopherHole.

Don't get defensive for getting called out for making a claim that you didn't support with facts and data.

 

[GoAUpher]

Just for the record, I never said anything even remotely resembling "all of our non-renewals are deceased persons". If you go back and read my post, my point is that deaths no doubt account for a greater portion of non-renewals than the average college football fanbase. As I've already said as well, it's likely not statistically significant.

No one accused you saying that. Also, your point is unclear because your original statement is contradictory. You said:

I would venture that a significant portion of the non-renewals are due to death. Not anything that would make the numbers that different, but certainly a more noticeable amount than for the average college football stadium.

You first say a "a significant portion of the non-renewals" (which I would take to mean over half of the 7%) and then say that its not enough to make the numbers different. Either its significant or its not. People (including me) may have focused only on the first part of your contradictory post, but the erroneous statement is there.

 

[dpodoll68]

your point is unclear because your original statement is contradictory

You're right, and I apologize for my poor word choice in the initial post. "Significant" was not the right word. I guess my point, which was muddled somewhere in there, is that death loss is more noticeable in this fanbase than others.

---

And for all the Big 12 ball-washers in the room - no, I do not have any evidence to back this up. It is an opinion, an educated one based on logic dictating that not many fanbases across the country have appreciable numbers of fans with 70+ years of season ticket holding (as evidenced in the Strib article a few years back).

(P.S. - Never, not once, have you repudiated claims that you are a fake Gopher fan. You're probably also not an alumnus, as you have insinuated previously. Good job at letting the truth stand. I also feel sorry for someone who builds up a fake persona so he can post well over 1,000 times on a lowly team's fan board.)

 

[GopherGod]

You're right, and I apologize for my poor word choice in the initial post. "Significant" was not the right word. I guess my point, which was muddled somewhere in there, is that death loss is more noticeable in this fanbase than others.

---

And for all the Big 12 ball-washers in the room - no, I do not have any evidence to back this up. It is an opinion, an educated one based on logic dictating that not many fanbases across the country have appreciable numbers of fans with 70+ years of season ticket holding (as evidenced in the Strib article a few years back).

(P.S. - Never, not once, have you repudiated claims that you are a fake Gopher fan. You're probably also not an alumnus, as you have insinuated previously. Good job at letting the truth stand. I also feel sorry for someone who builds up a fake persona so he can post well over 1,000 times on a lowly team's fan board.)

Thanks, that was all you needed to say.

I have stated numerous times that I am a gopher fan as well as an alum, however you will never believe that so I don't feel the need to keep stating it in response to each one of your claims.

(P.S. - With the amount of free time you clearly have during the workday to post on here and try and prove your intellectual superiority on a message board, you must be worried about future university budget cuts and how they will impact you.)

 

[dpodoll68]

I have stated numerous times that I am a gopher fan

Actually, you have not, at least not previous to this one. I have read every post you have made on this site, and you have never done so. Pull one up with a time and date stamp, and I will never bring it up again.

as well as an alum

Yes, as I said, you have said this. However, I still don't believe it, and even if true, you are an embarassment to the maroon and gold.

With the amount of free time you clearly have during the workday to post on here

The second you start signing my paychecks, I'll care about your concern for how I spend my day. Furthermore, you have no idea what I do or how the ability to post on a web page fits in with my job responsibilities and duties. As with everything else you say, the opinion of a Husker/faux-Gopher fan means nothing to me.

try and prove your intellectual superiority on a message board

I don't need to prove anything. I know that I'm smarter/more attuned than some here (presently company included), and not as smart/attuned as others. But that's not why I post here. I post to call out people who say unrealistic/stupid things and agenda-driven posers (present company included). The fact that you have divined some non-existent agenda shows your lack of self-esteem. It's not a good color on you - wait, actually, it is. It goes great with the rest of your Husker gear.

you must be worried about future university budget cuts and how they will impact you

Not even remotely. Regardless, I'm not sure what that has to do with my fanhood of Gopher football. Your attempts to really cut to the core of me are transparent and pathetic.

 

[GopherGod]

Actually, you have not, at least not previous to this one. I have read every post you have made on this site, and you have never done so. Pull one up with a time and date stamp, and I will never bring it up again.



Yes, as I said, you have said this. However, I still don't believe it, and even if true, you are an embarassment to the maroon and gold.



The second you start signing my paychecks, I'll care about your concern for how I spend my day. Furthermore, you have no idea what I do or how the ability to post on a web page fits in with my job responsibilities and duties. As with everything else you say, the opinion of a Husker/faux-Gopher fan means nothing to me.



I don't need to prove anything. I know that I'm smarter/more attuned than some here (presently company included), and not as smart/attuned as others. But that's not why I post here. I post to call out people who say unrealistic/stupid things and agenda-driven posers (present company included). The fact that you have divined some non-existent agenda shows your lack of self-esteem. It's not a good color on you - wait, actually, it is. It goes great with the rest of your Husker gear.



Not even remotely. Regardless, I'm not sure what that has to do with my fanhood of Gopher football. Your attempts to really cut to the core of me are transparent and pathetic.

Sounds like someone needs to get a life or a hobby. So do I have an agenda or not as you seem to be contradicting yourself here? If I do have an agenda I would love to hear what it would be for a "Husker/faux-gopher fan" as you labeled me. Let's see, do those two programs play each other, no? Are they in the same conference, no? Do they compete with one another for a significant number of recruits, no?