Shooter: Dome vs. TCF Attendance

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MNGoldenGophers1

MNGoldenGophers1

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Shooter's "article" in today's press indicates that TCF hasn't helped attendance and is down compared to the hump dump. He is a real simpleton and doesn't explore what might be the reasons for this situation. Like most things in life it is probably a complicated set of circumstances. For example, the economy of the past few years has impacted leisure spending and probably ticket sales for Gopher football and elsewhere. Not that we'll ever know but who is to say attendance wouldn't be even worse had they stayed in the dome? Unfortunately, simpleton's like Shooter just like to make controversial statements and while the facts may not be inaccurate, the story line can be very misleading.
 

Or the fact attendance at the dome was inflated thanks to the visiting team's fan base.
 

Didn't we just go through this a week or so ago?
 


memorial stadium2.jpgThere are people that miss the dome and when I hear that I am at a loss for words. That being said, Memorial should have never been torn down. The open end could have closed in like the shoe. That is all in the past but to think what could have been. TCF is fantastic so in a month or so the dome will be gone and we can move on.
 


maroonfive said:
View attachment 2425There are people that miss the dome and when I hear that I am at a loss for words. That being said, Memorial should have never been torn down. The open end could have closed in like the shoe. That is all in the past but to think what could have been. TCF is fantastic so in a month or so the dome will be gone and we can move on.
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That being said, TCF is much better than Memorial was and could have been.
 

maroonfive said:
View attachment 2425There are people that miss the dome and when I hear that I am at a loss for words. That being said, Memorial should have never been torn down. The open end could have closed in like the shoe. That is all in the past but to think what could have been. TCF is fantastic so in a month or so the dome will be gone and we can move on.
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I am too young to know as they knocked Memorial Stadium down a few years before I was born, and too lazy to look it up, but how many people did Memorial Stadium hold in it's day? Just curious.
 


e.bigelow said:
I am too young to know as they knocked Memorial Stadium down a few years before I was born, and too lazy to look it up, but how many people did Memorial Stadium hold in it's day? Just curious.
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I am not sure as they were all bleacher seats but I do believe they could squeeze 60,000 in there with the fire marshall looking the other way. It is interesting as this had come full circle. You were able to take the street car to the game back in the 30's and 40's and next year we have the light rail line right on campus.


Go Gophers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 



e.bigelow said:
I am too young to know as they knocked Memorial Stadium down a few years before I was born, and too lazy to look it up, but how many people did Memorial Stadium hold in it's day? Just curious.
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totally off the top of my head and I'm too lazy to look it up as well. I think it was around 60K
 

There are probably lots of reasons for attendance being down. Among them is that many non-football purists (including students) don't want to watch outdoor football games when the temps are in the 30's and 40's. Particularly, when the team isn't winning many Big 10 games.
 

UpnorthGo4 said:
There are probably lots of reasons for attendance being down. Among them is that many non-football purists (including students) don't want to watch outdoor football games when the temps are in the 30's and 40's. Particularly, when the team isn't winning many Big 10 games.
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Sad and true. However, temps in the 30's and 40's make me want to go outside and watch football.
 

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the Gopher's were averaging less than 40,000 per game in their last few years in Memorial Stadium.
 



I had student season tickets back in 79-82 and we were at about the 50 yard line half way up. Great seats for a very good price! 60,000 sounds about right for capacity.
 

maroonfive said:
I am not sure as they were all bleacher seats but I do believe they could squeeze 60,000 in there with the fire marshall looking the other way. It is interesting as this had come full circle. You were able to take the street car to the game back in the 30's and 40's and next year we have the light rail line right on campus.


Go Gophers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Good point, Maroonfive on coming full circle! Certainly will be interesting to see how that affects people traveling to campus for a game next season!

Beat Becky! :)
 

e.bigelow said:
I am too young to know as they knocked Memorial Stadium down a few years before I was born, and too lazy to look it up, but how many people did Memorial Stadium hold in it's day? Just curious.
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una23195_8ac9d73aed.jpg
 

Thanks Station19! That is what I love about GopherHole - eventually somebody comes up with an answer, and in this case a great visual.
 


Yes, thanks 19! Awesome picture! I have seen quite a few old pictures of Memorial Stadium, but I have never seen this drawing of it! Much appreciated! :clap: :)
 

e.bigelow said:
I am too young to know as they knocked Memorial Stadium down a few years before I was born, and too lazy to look it up, but how many people did Memorial Stadium hold in it's day? Just curious.
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According to brickhouse.lib.umn.edu, a schematic of Memorial in 1954 had 52,315 seats in concrete stadium and 9,770 temp seats for a total of 62,085.
 

We sucked in a big way for most of the time in The Bank. Not that we didn't suck a lot in the dome but Brew has been a historic buzz kill relative to our program. It'll come back and we will sell out every game; we are on that path.
 


GopherJack said:
Thanks Station19! That is what I love about GopherHole - eventually somebody comes up with an answer, and in this case a great visual.
Click to expand...

Actually someone linked this site on a different thread a couple weeks ago. I started looking through all the different sections and came across this pic. Many, many more great photos.

Be sure to check all the different subcategories;
The Brickhouse-The Gridiron-The Pageantry-The Life Inside-Your Stories
http://brickhouse.lib.umn.edu/exhibits/show/brickhouse/construction/page06
 

If you were to cap the Dome at 50,805, TCF is averaging better than the Dome by more than 1,000 per game.

From 1988-1994 the average was not more than 44,600 and these include at least one game over the 50,805 against NEB, WI, or Iowa.
 

I stated this in the old thread, but to reiterate, announced attendance figures at the Bank often stretch credibility, but the announced figures at the Dome defied belief and too often had no connection with reality. It's hard to put stock in any of the numbers given at either venue for most games. The eye test, looking over the stadium and doing a visual rough count, works best. On that front, I'd venture that for run of the mill games, the crowd figures aren't too different while the revenue at the Bank is higher. The Gophers didn't get suite or club seating dollars at the Dome while the oversupply of tickets saw the U of M implement far more inexpensive ticket promotions. It's ridiculous to think the new stadium isn't helping matters or was some sort of folly.
 

Keep in mind, that there are many other goals and objectives the U had beyond a simple attendance number. Among them:

- Rein in suite, concession, and parking revenue that were lost due to sharing a stadium. Even better negotiating would likely still have resulted in less than they're getting today
- Build a collegiate experience that connects with those that do show up to games. Branding, logos, music, the feel of the venue, etc all play in to this
- Help with recruiting. Yes, the same was said for the Dome; using an NFL caliber venue to lure HS kids was seen as a panacea to an aging Memorial facility. This tactic has proven not to work at pretty much every college sharing a venue (Syracuse, Pitt, NIU, Miami, etc, with the latter bringing in talent with money and the promise of babes/weather/beaches)
- Ancillary university benefits such as providing a home for the UMN Marching band (freeing up Northrop and the parking lot for other, more productive uses (both athletic and academic)), adding space on campus for career fairs and other academic meetings
- Additional revenue potential by hosting weddings, concerts, and other events in the stadium
- Use this revenue to cut down the amount of subsidy from the university to athletics and/or add more sports long term and/or build other athletic training facilities

Yes, it would be great if the venue itself could simply pull in crowds of people more than the Dome did, and for all we know (given recession, poor team performance, etc), it actually DID pull in more people than the Dome would during the same timeframe. But I think even the biggest TCF fanboy knew that after 1-2 years, most casual fans would have visited TCF for the novelty and it would come back to W/L and general atmosphere to bring fans in.

As for these 2 articles... excellent reporting, don't bother evaluating data/information any further than surface-level!
 

station19 said:
una23195_8ac9d73aed.jpg
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The numbers on that graphic are for the configuration through about 1970. When they installed artificial turf in the early 70s (maybe to take full advantage of Rick Upchurch's speed) they raised the field a bit and that eliminated those bench seats on the track all the way around the horseshoe, reducing the capacity by 3,000 to about 59,000.

The bleachers in front of Cooke Hall were pretty massive. They dismantled them after each football season because they obstructed the track. Work crews made up of football players spent a good portion of the summer putting them back up.
 

I love the "Students Seated By Class Rank" in the old stadium.
 

The max at Memorial was 65,000+. Purdue in 1948 (I was there) had about 66k. But Memorial was in very bad shape by 1980 - TCF much, much better. I remember that Pioneer Press sports columnist Don Riley got his paper to publish drawings of a refurbished Memorial (maybe even with a dome), which he claimed would cost much less than the Dome, which was a bargain at $50 to $70m, depending on what costs are included. Now we have a $300m Gopher stadium and pending $1b Viking Taj Mahal.
 

The dome has a higher seating capacity than the bank. That's the reason for the higher average attendance.
 

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