I dont think people buy season tickets for the coach per se. A Kansas fan doesnt buy tickets to see Bill Self coach the game, but the coaches style, recuits and success do matter. I would hazard a guess if Smith/Dutcher got the job they would have been up a bit from these numbers simply because we would have probably pushed a little harder for "win now" guys and you could say hey look at their recent teams, we might be solid! I think under Muss they would have been up from last year because thats how Muss recruits, he gets high profile grad transfers that people can talk themselves into. "Hey I dont know if he is any good, but he was a 4* and went to Duke, and this guy put up 26 ppg who cares if it was at Winthrop, and this guy lead the ASun in rebounds and blocks, hey we are going to be exciting and good lets do it!" None of those things have to do with the person the coach is, but the coaches choices do lead to these numbers. We got a group of under whelming names who have been largely assumed to get destroyed this year, along with a non-rah rah personality leads to a drop in sales. That isnt a knock on BJ its just the truth. Like many said, his personality or style wont matter if we win games. People can complain about Wisconsin all they want, but if the Gophers go 22-10 every year it wont matter if we average 42 points a game and only get 2* recruits, the place will fill up.
The administration (Gable, Coyle, Regents, etc) had to know this was almost a 100% given when they made the hire. The odds we see a huge bump in ticket sales for the next 1-3 years isnt really high, we all hope it is, but that will be a wait and see thing.
