Shama: Gopher Football Ticket Sales Decline; down 2,572 from last year, no Fleck bump

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mraveling said:
Along these lines, I tried to do some (fast) research into ticket prices... Admittedly, some universities are better than others regarding ticket prices and donation prices... Would love for someone to challenge any of these numbers so we can have a more accurate picture. Based on my research, corner endzone prices here are 5th highest in the Big Ten.

TeamPrice at LL<BR>Goal LinePrice at LL<BR>20 yard linePrice at LL<BR>35 yard linePrice at LL<BR>50 yard line
Minnesota4806309301130
Wisconsin478578678778
Iowa4606108101010
Northwestern185230315355
Purdue224299430430
Illinois159198274379
Nebraska1399189921492899
Michigan64093010601060
Michigan State443643743943
Maryland457.50620845845
Indiana343343343343
Ohio State681681681831
Penn State52082010201020
Rutgers400535635735

I love watching the Gophers, believe in Fleck's ability to turn this around, love the stadium and enjoy my seats, but the price, while less than a Vikings game, seems excessive. Have thought about dropping from 4 seats to 2 as my kids have grown up and moved away. For me, the better pricing model for our program is similar to Rutgers or Wisconsin rather than the Penn State/Michigan model. I know others would suggest based on our success we should be closer to the Purdue/Indiana model. FWIW, I have a hard time believing my Nebraska numbers are accurate (same with Illinois and Northwestern on the cheap end).
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Capacity Comparison:

Minnesota - 50,800
Wisconsin - 80,312
tOSU - 105,000
Nebraska - 85,000
Penn State - 106,507
Michigan - 109,901
Iowa - 70,585
Michigan State - 75,005
Northwestern - 47,330
Maryland - 51,802
Illinois - 60,670
Rutgers - 52,454
Indiana - 52,929
Purdue - 57,236



http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-big-ten-stadium-rankings-photos-photogallery.html
 
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rockford said:
Immaterial.

Are you trying to say if capacity was 40,000, the prices should be even higher?

JTG
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Nope. I'm saying that rather than hit "Review Post", I hit "Post Reply". :mad:

Been that kind of day.

Though yeah, when you're looking at revenue, capacity of stadium is hardly "immaterial".
 



The U's specific problems on here are well documented. The first and foremost being the seat donation/price.

I find it more interesting why the reason for the decline in ticket sales throughout the country. The game has experienced huge changes in the last few decades. To name a few, conference expansion, college playoff, and game vastly skewed towards offense. Now a better TV situation can be ignored, but all these things have not seemed to make the game more appealing. And they haven't to me either. I like college teams playing regional rivalries. I don't really care if there is a National Champion. And I especially find 4 1/2 hour games where little or no defense is played. Last minute drive to win games are great. Games now that have several TD drives in the last 2 minutes and whoever gets the ball last wins is quite frankly boring.

All these things were suppose to vault college football into immense popularity. It doesn't seem that way.
 

Iceland12 said:
Though yeah, when you're looking at revenue, capacity of stadium is hardly "immaterial".
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You're right, of course, at least generally speaking. But in this case, with the evident low demand for tickets, it's impossible to justify higher prices just because our stadium is "boutique."

JTG
 




rockford said:
You're right, of course, at least generally speaking. But in this case, with the evident low demand for tickets, it's impossible to justify higher prices just because our stadium is "boutique."

JTG
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That wasn't the point. They made an understandable but bad decision in going so small. After listening to the constant whining in e-mails, phone calls and on Gopher fan sites about being outnumbered by opposing fans at the Dome, and after looking at historical attendance figures, they thought that 50K was a good number. Make it a tougher ticket to get and set-up an increase in revenue.

IMHO that was a bad decision. Understandable, but a bad decision.

By bringing the capacity down so low but kicking the cost way up, as long as they're getting what, 40K plus they can't slash tickets across the board without killing revenue. They just don't have enough seats to make it work. Looking at the number of tickets sold, they haven't got below 43,800 yet. Even after that disaster that was that massive donation increase. Though, after the scandal and with how they've looked in Big Ten games the last two seasons they might get below 40k this year.

The other reason to look at the capacity numbers of the other stadiums is too see how much of a revenue disadvantage they are at against some of the other schools. Schools that all share in the BTN money at the same rate.

"Pay our assistant coaches more! Hire more coaches! Recruit all over! Hire more people at the stadium to get us thru the gates! To get our food quicker! etc."

That all takes money that they don't have if they want to compete with the better schools in the Conference. It's probably not a coincidence that the schools racking in the most money win the most games. Too late now to figure out which came first.

https://gophersports.com/sports/2018/5/21/sports-m-footbl-spec-rel-attendance-records-html.aspx
 
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There's a reason the stadium should be expanded. By doing so, the U will drop ticket prices. Let's get going on construction, ASAP.
 

How ill-advised were the price increases? This is quick and dirty, but should give a very rough idea of the financial impact.

After the 2015 increase, the average price of a season ticket was $661.25. Multiply that by 27,885 season tickets sold, and you have $18.44 million in revenue.

In 2016, after the second round of increases, the average price of a seat was $792.50 (a 19.85% increase). Multiply that by 22,706 season tickets sold, and you have $17.99 million. That's a 2.4% drop in revenue.

How about the impact on food and beverage sales? Tougher to estimate. But let's start with a guess that an average fan spends $15 on F&B per game. (I suspect that's very conservative; personally, our spend is closer to $40-$50 per person.) In 2016, there were 10,679 fewer season ticket holders than there were two years earlier. Mulliply that by $15 and seven games, and you have $1.12 million less revenue.

So, the increases succeeded in alienating about 1/3 of season ticket holders, people who had been happy ponying up the money -- and likely wound up reducing ticket and F&B revenue by somewhere around $1.5 million a year.

Well played.

Anybody know ticket prices in 2014, prior to the first increase? I searched online but couldn't find anything.

JTG
 

rockford said:
How ill-advised were the price increases? This is quick and dirty, but should give a very rough idea of the financial impact.

After the 2015 increase, the average price of a season ticket was $661.25. Multiply that by 27,885 season tickets sold, and you have $18.44 million in revenue.

In 2016, after the second round of increases, the average price of a seat was $792.50 (a 19.85% increase). Multiply that by 22,706 season tickets sold, and you have $17.99 million. That's a 2.4% drop in revenue.

How about the impact on food and beverage sales? Tougher to estimate. But let's start with a guess that an average fan spends $15 on F&B per game. (I suspect that's very conservative; personally, our spend is closer to $40-$50 per person.) In 2016, there were 10,679 fewer season ticket holders than there were two years earlier. Mulliply that by $15 and seven games, and you have $1.12 million less revenue.

So, the increases succeeded in alienating about 1/3 of season ticket holders, people who had been happy ponying up the money -- and likely wound up reducing ticket and F&B revenue by somewhere around $1.5 million a year.

Well played.

Anybody know ticket prices in 2014, prior to the first increase? I searched online but couldn't find anything.

JTG
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somebody could do the math. 2015 prices are know...above. Work backwards if you know the amount of seats in each zone.


"The highest donations for premium seating at football games, Zone 1, will double in three seasons from $500 in 2014 to $650 in 2015, $800 in 2016 and $1,000 by 2017.

The Zone 2 donations will increase from $250 in 2014, to $450 in 2015, $600 in 2016 and $750 in 2017.

The Zone 3 donations will increase from $100 in 2014, to $150 in 2015, $300 in 2016 and $500 in 2017.

For the first time, the fans seated in Zones 4 and 5 will be required to pay donations. The Zone 4 donations start at $75 in 2015, $150 in 2016 and $250 in 2017. Zone 5 donations will be $50 in 2015, $100 in 2016 and $150 in 2017."
 
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I suppose at the end of the day (thanks to donations/“donations”) if the bottom line is positive Coyle gets a pass despite ticket sales plunging far mote than the national average.

“In 2014, the U’s three most lucrative sports raked in a combined $26.7 million in ticket revenue. That dropped to $19.1 million in 2017. The biggest declines came from men’s hockey, down 33.5 percent, and football, down 28.8 percent.

Coyle said the department’s fundraising has reached record levels, so the slump in ticket revenue has not caused immediate financial harm. But a continued decline could hurt future budgets, and dwindling attendance will dampen the atmosphere at games. Though Coyle acknowledged that “we need to win in those revenue sports” to stimulate demand, the problem is more complicated than that.”


https://www.winonadailynews.com/how...cle_e06c1f35-71f4-5477-ab93-97b7b247aa5f.html
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Coyle said the department’s fundraising has reached record levels, so the slump in ticket revenue has not caused immediate financial harm.
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Such a bull**** comment by Coyle. A more accurate statement would be, "We begged people for donations, which we used to plug the financial hole we created by raising ticket prices." Or how about, "Our donors really stepped up to the plate. Too bad there's no net benefit to the U because we blew off our own foot with ticket increases."

Fundraising and ticket sales are not an either/or proposition. You can do both at the same time.

JTG
 
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OddStack said:
somebody could do the math. 2015 prices are know...above. Work backwards if you know the amount of seats in each zone.


"The highest donations for premium seating at football games, Zone 1, will double in three seasons from $500 in 2014 to $650 in 2015, $800 in 2016 and $1,000 by 2017.

The Zone 2 donations will increase from $250 in 2014, to $450 in 2015, $600 in 2016 and $750 in 2017.

The Zone 3 donations will increase from $100 in 2014, to $150 in 2015, $300 in 2016 and $500 in 2017.

For the first time, the fans seated in Zones 4 and 5 will be required to pay donations. The Zone 4 donations start at $75 in 2015, $150 in 2016 and $250 in 2017. Zone 5 donations will be $50 in 2015, $100 in 2016 and $150 in 2017."
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So, assuming seat prices didn't change, just "donations," the prices in 2014 likely would have been $830, $580, $430 and $330 ... for an average of $542.50. Multiply by 33,385 season tickets sold, and we have $18.11 million in revenue.

I think we can safely say that the price increases were an abject failure in terms of raising revenue. On the other hand, they did a great job of alienating the fan base.

JTG
 

rockford said:
So, assuming seat prices didn't change, just "donations," the prices in 2014 likely would have been $830, $580, $430 and $330 ... for an average of $542.50. Multiply by 33,385 season tickets sold, and we have $18.11 million in revenue.

I think we can safely say that the price increases were an abject failure in terms of raising revenue. On the other hand, they did a great job of alienating the fan base.

JTG
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So, a good old lose-lose situation.
 

tikited said:
So, a good old lose-lose situation.
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You think that rolling back that 2nd donation increase would bring some of those season ticket buyers back? Or at least stop more defections? Because betting a big season from the team to do it seems like a bad bet indeed.
 



I remember trying to look up ticket prices when the 2015 "donation" plan was announced, and surprised to find that our prices would be creeping up towards and surpassing Iowa/ Wisconsin and all but the bluebloods in the instances I could verify.

This chart is great as it confirms what I suspected and was only able to partially confirm in 2015. Going to a game as a season ticket holder at Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue,Indiana ect, is dirt cheat compared to where Mark Coyle has us now.

We are about at the same levels as Iowa and Wisconsin who have been to major bowls in recent years and not had many more than one or two mediocre years in the last 30 total. We always hear about this being a pro sports town and having to compete for the $$$ in a way that no other Big Ten team does, yet we charge absurd prices for our tickets, in the face of all this competition.

We as Gopher fans are getting screwed big time by the ticket office. The Basketball tickets are pretty out of control relative to the Big Ten as well, when considering our records in recent years, and the dead Williams Arena environment reflects that.
 
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DarrenTheGreek said:
2013: 33284 season tickets sold. Gophers host Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin (very attractive schedule) and finish 8-5, losing in the Texas Bowl. Optimism is starting to creep up for Kill.
2014: 33385 season tickets sold. Gophers host Iowa and Ohio State. Team contends for Big Ten West and makes NYD Bowl. Ticket increase is announced towards end of season.
2015: 27885 season tickets sold. 1st year of increase. Kill suffers mid-season health issues and leaves the team. Gophers finish a disappointing 6-7. Claeys is signed to extension.
2016: 22706 season tickets sold. 2nd year of increase. Announcement that 3rd year of increase is suspended. Gophers finish 9-4. Claeys fired. Fleck hired.
2017: 22990 season tickets sold. Gophers finish 5-7.
2018: 21682 season tickets sold. Only marquee game is Iowa. Gophers finish ??????

You'd have to be a fool to look at these stats and not realize that the ticket increase is directly responsible for the plunge in attendance. After our best season in decades, we lost 5500 season tickets overnight due to phase 1.
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Thanks for pointing this out. This all traces back to that POS lackey the President brought with him.

Your post also makes me miss Jerry Kill.
 

per Shooter:

Through four home games this season, Gophers football, in coach P.J. Fleck’s second season, is averaging just 42,233 spectators. That’s 1,580 fewer per game than in predecessor Tracy Claeys’ final season of 2016, when the average was 43,813.

In Fleck’s first season last year, Minnesota averaged 44,368. The Gophers have three home games remaining, against Indiana, Purdue and Northwestern. TCF Bank Stadium has a seating capacity of 50,805.

https://www.twincities.com/2018/10/...ings-adam-thielen-as-consummate-professional/

Go Gophers!!
 

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