STrib: Attendance watch; Gophers only had 42,832 today

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per Joe:

Attendance watch

The Gophers could not have dialed up better November weather for their second-to-last home game of the season.

The announced attendance was 42,832, giving the Gophers a season average of 44,756 at 50,805-seat TCF Bank Stadium.

Last year, the Gophers played to near-capacity crowds every game; several were against marquee foes.

This year has been a struggle. The Gophers opened with a Thursday prime-time game against Oregon State and drew an announced 44,582. The next four home games all started at 11 a.m., against Indiana State (41,026), Colorado State (44,854), Iowa (49,145) and Rutgers (46,096).

The Purdue game started at 2:30 p.m.

http://www.startribune.com/rodney-s...urdue-with-153-yards-and-three-tds/400151091/

Go Gophers!!
 

Oh thank goodness. I was waiting for permission to moan about attendance...
 

First I've heard of the attendance issue this year. Why did it take so long to uncover this?


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It wasn't that big of a crowd, but there was a lot of cheering. Except for a few points when the crowd was understandably silent.
 


It will be interesting to see what happens next year with a better conference schedule and coming off a national championship
 

I'd be interested to hear how this is playing out across the Big Ten
 

At least we can lay to rest the myth that if we would just schedule Big Ten Conference games at 2:30 in sunny 70 degree weather complaining fans would attend. Okay, maybe not.
 

As I have said in the past - the hard-core fan base for Gopher FB is about 30 to 35,000. Any attendance on top of that is casual fans and opposing fans. Purdue doesn't draw a lot of fans. It's sad that the only way the Gophers can sell out a game is to play a top-10 team like TCU, or play a rivalry game where the other team's fans will buy up all of the available tickets.

And, I have no idea what could be done to change the equation. Maybe if the Gophers rattled off 2 or 3 10-win seasons in a row, that might bring some of the borderline fans back. But, short of the U dropping ticket prices or slashing the donation fees, I don't see a huge influx of new season-ticket holders jumping onto the bandwagon. MN fans put a price tag on their loyalty, and if the price is too high, loyalty goes out the window.
 



Wins is all we need.

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short ornery norwegian said:
As I have said in the past - the hard-core fan base for Gopher FB is about 30 to 35,000. Any attendance on top of that is casual fans and opposing fans. Purdue doesn't draw a lot of fans. It's sad that the only way the Gophers can sell out a game is to play a top-10 team like TCU, or play a rivalry game where the other team's fans will buy up all of the available tickets.

And, I have no idea what could be done to change the equation. Maybe if the Gophers rattled off 2 or 3 10-win seasons in a row, that might bring some of the borderline fans back. But, short of the U dropping ticket prices or slashing the donation fees, I don't see a huge influx of new season-ticket holders jumping onto the bandwagon. MN fans put a price tag on their loyalty, and if the price is too high, loyalty goes out the window.
Click to expand...
You answered your own question in the second paragraph.

Gopher attendance has always been fragile and must continue to be nurtured. The U has failed on this and needs to take a few aggressive steps to fix it.

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The U needs to build their fan base at the student level. They won't on adults. It will take time, but the only way is to make it a "must do" for today's students and let them pass it on to future students, families, etc.


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If the Gophers were 8-0 the game would not have been sold out. You can only fool the public for so long. Those of us who have been upset with this mediocrity have finally accepted that nothing is going to change. Being upset has turned into just not caring. Where I sit there are a lot of long time season ticket holders and there was an interesting discussion. Things would be so much different if you were to grow up a Buckeye or Wolverine fan. I would love to experience there fandom just once. One can dream.

Go Gophers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 



jonnyganas said:
Wins is all we need.

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Click to expand...

Very, very pretty wins is what many fans are now demanding. Oh and where are the posters who were telling us that tickets were so hard to come by for the game?
 

Students and young families should be the focus. They should have attractive family ticket packages for every home game.



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short ornery norwegian said:
As I have said in the past - the hard-core fan base for Gopher FB is about 30 to 35,000. Any attendance on top of that is casual fans and opposing fans. Purdue doesn't draw a lot of fans. It's sad that the only way the Gophers can sell out a game is to play a top-10 team like TCU, or play a rivalry game where the other team's fans will buy up all of the available tickets.

And, I have no idea what could be done to change the equation. Maybe if the Gophers rattled off 2 or 3 10-win seasons in a row, that might bring some of the borderline fans back. But, short of the U dropping ticket prices or slashing the donation fees, I don't see a huge influx of new season-ticket holders jumping onto the bandwagon. MN fans put a price tag on their loyalty, and if the price is too high, loyalty goes out the window.
Click to expand...

I would try to recreate the situation that existed in Memorial Stadium back when I was a student at the U of M, 1971 - 1975. In those days, I believe high school football teams were provided free admittance. They would all sit together as a block, in their jerseys. We have plenty of empty seats in the upper deck northwest side end zone. We should expand the zone of consideration to all high school athletic teams, i.e., field hockey, hockey, basketball, volleyball, soccer, you name it. They should be seated for free until we fill the stadium consistently. We would concurrently be building good will and grooming the next generation of Golden Gopher football fans and University of Minnesota future freshmen. It is not a bad thing to have high school kids identify with their one and only Land Grant University in the State of Minnesota. We will not do this because it will interfere with Ziggy Wilf's plans to have every baby, child, and adult in the State of Minnesota pledge allegiance to the NFL / Minnesota Vikings, and spend every disposable dollar of income on Vikings tickets or Vikings paraphernalia. The state of Minnesota is owned and operated by corporate / professional sports franchises and their allied sports gambling kerietsu. Sadly, we cannot turn back the hands of time. The StarTribune is owned by such interests, and that is why almost all articles written about the Golden Gophers has a negative spin. A dollar not spent on Golden Gopher Sports will hopefully be redirected and spent on the NFL / Vikings, NBA / Timberwolves, NHL / Wild, WNBA / Lynx, and whatever other corporate sports franchises there are in the Twin Cities. I lost count.
 


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