Teague on low attendance at Purdue game: "We're still scratching our head."

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per Doogie's scoops:

• On the miniscule crowd for last Saturday's home football game against Purdue, Teague said: "We're still scratching our head. I'd like to use the 11 a.m. excuse, but I can't. ... We will get to the bottom of that in the offseason. ... We have some reseach to do. ... We have to put a strong effort in." Among many gameday changes he wants to implement next year are turning the block in front of Mariucci Arena into more of a party atmosphere with a band, more food options, more individualized tailgates and large TVs. "We need to make it more of an event, an all day deal," Teague said. „... We need to activate our Greek system more."

• Teague is worked up about the lack of attendance, but still is a big-time believer in coach Jerry Kill: "Things are going great internally," Teague said. "I'm very, very upbeat with how the football program is progressing."

http://m.1500espn.com/pages/sportswire.php?sID=5935

Go Gophers!!
 

A plaza party will help, as will active greek activities.

The need to release the students! Party party party party. The gameday atmosphere will never get better until they allow for looser attitudes towards student partying on gamedays.
Make it a party and they will come, stay, and come the next week regardless of the game.

They also need to mix in first come first serve tailgating spots among the big money donors.

Slapping the crap out of the city and neighborhood groups currently holding nearby potential private tailgating lots hostage would help too.

Ultimately if they will not make an effort to spice up the stuffy and stale atmosphere on campus nothing will change. Even winning will not solve all the problems without a change in attitude among the decision makers in the administration.
 

I don't know what they're scratching their heads over. There was still a lot of residual anger of the decision to drop UNC and pay $800,000 to do it, they were 0-3 in the B1G coming into the game, and it was Purdue.
 




Changing the atmosphere on campus should help with student attendance, might not have a major impact on the general public. As for low attendance, welcome to Minnesota athletics, if you don't wins the fans don't show.

It is going to take some consistent winning in the Big Ten to get the fan base energized. I like the NT is focused on addressing the issue and coming up with creative ways to get butts in the seats. Going to be an uphill battle though.
 

Biglew33 said:
Just win baby!
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That, more than anything else, will help attendance. Going into the game, we had played three big ten games. In two of them, we got embarassed, and in the other one, we embarassed ourselves. If we had won either the axe or the pig, and beaten Northwestern, the place would have been rocking. I expect a good showing tomorrow (I'll be grilling and cracking open a beer on campus at 7:30, and it will only be that late because my girlfriend won't let me drag her out any eariler).
 

John Galt said:
I don't know what they're scratching their heads over. There was still a lot of residual anger of the decision to drop UNC and pay $800,000 to do it, they were 0-3 in the B1G coming into the game, and it was Purdue.
Click to expand...

I don't think the UNC decision had any impact on the student attendance. For diehard Gopher fans, we follow that stuff pretty closely. A lot of students (especially the one's failing to show) are as casual of fans as could possibly be. If they even heard of the UNC debacle, I doubt they cared a whole lot.

I think it had much more to do with being an 11 am start, being 0-3 and playing Purdue.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I don't think the UNC decision had any impact on the student attendance. For diehard Gopher fans, we follow that stuff pretty closely. A lot of students (especially the one's failing to show) are as casual of fans as could possibly be. If they even heard of the UNC debacle, I doubt they cared a whole lot.

I think it had much more to do with being an 11 am start, being 0-3 and playing Purdue.
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FWIW, the kick-off was at 2:30 last week. I'm not sure why Teague mentioned 11:00 a.m....
 




Bob_Loblaw said:
I think it had much more to do with being an 11 am start, being 0-3 and playing Purdue.
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The Purdue game was a 2:30 pm start. NT was saying that he couldn't use the start time as an excuse this time.

Really, why is he scratching his head? Gopher football fans are fickle. Of course, there are the diehards, but the majority are fringe/bandwagon fans. Get off to an 0-3 start with 2 games that weren't close, and low attendance is the result. Plain and simple.
 


I think having the Vikings at TCF will be a huge benefit for the Gophers. The Vikings will bring a huge gameday, the residential complaints will fall on deaf ears and the Gophers will be able to loosen things up and mimic the Viking experience where appropriate.

I suspect after two years of NFL, the residential groups will see that the Gophers aren't such a problem.
 



John Galt said:
FWIW, the kick-off was at 2:30 last week. I'm not sure why Teague mentioned 11:00 a.m....
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I took it to mean that he'd like to blame the poor attendance on an 11 am start, but he couldn't because the game wasn't early.
 

Same reason that the "fans" bolted from the Northwestern Game. Minnesotans, as a whole provide great support to a winner. You're not a winner? No support. What bothered me about the Purdue game was the lack of attendance by season ticket holders, not the students.

The kids deserve better, the U doesn't. Hope Mr. Teague can solve some of the problems we have, but unless and until we win. Consistently. There will be attendance issues.

Honestly was hoping this weekends game would have been moved to 7pm. Might have brought a bigger crowd.
 

caliGopher said:
Same reason that the "fans" bolted from the Northwestern Game. Minnesotans, as a whole provide great support to a winner. You're not a winner? No support. What bothered me about the Purdue game was the lack of attendance by season ticket holders, not the students.

The kids deserve better, the U doesn't. Hope Mr. Teague can solve some of the problems we have, but unless and until we win. Consistently. There will be attendance issues.

Honestly was hoping this weekends game would have been moved to 7pm. Might have brought a bigger crowd.
Click to expand...

Big Ten doesn't play anymore conference night games once the calandar flips over to November. Best you can hope for is the 2:30 timeslot.
 

The nice thing about zero demand for tickets is that I can pick up an extra ticket on the street for $5, leave at halftime, have a few beers from my cooler, use the port-o-potty, and head back in to catch the 2nd half using my $5 ticket. I've done this three times this year. It's great.
 



Put heaters in the seats and bill the Vikings for them. Most of the people bolted the Purdue game because of the cold. I saw people dressed like it was 60 degrees.
 

John Galt said:
I don't know what they're scratching their heads over. There was still a lot of residual anger of the decision to drop UNC and pay $800,000 to do it, they were 0-3 in the B1G coming into the game, and it was Purdue.
Click to expand...

This maybe deterred 5 people from not coming (and I am rounding up). This had no impact on the number of people in the stands. Anyone who follows college football understands that this happens across the country - MN media likes to overreact.

One additional thing to keep in mind is that it was Playoff Saturday for High School Teams. I know from our personal situation that we had extra tickets that we had to work extra hard to find homes for on Saturday due to our usual guests all attending the local high school games.
 

Winnipegopher said:
I think having the Vikings at TCF will be a huge benefit for the Gophers. The Vikings will bring a huge gameday, the residential complaints will fall on deaf ears and the Gophers will be able to loosen things up and mimic the Viking experience where appropriate.

I suspect after two years of NFL, the residential groups will see that the Gophers aren't such a problem.
Click to expand...

#1 answer.
 

Now we know what happened to Teagues' hair..................lots of head scratching over the years.
 

"We have to put a strong effort in." Among many gameday changes he wants to implement next year are turning the block in front of Mariucci Arena into more of a party atmosphere with a band, more food options, more individualized tailgates and large TVs. "We need to make it more of an event, an all day deal," Teague said. „... We need to activate our Greek system more."

He's right. It's not like so many markets where the University football games are the biggest events in town. For the U to be noticed in a pro market like MSP, it takes constant promotion. Despite replacing the newest stadium in the Big Ten with the newest new stadium in the conference, our attendance continues to drop in the face of competition from more well-covered sports attractions.
Minnesota
2011: 47,714
2010: 49,513
2009: 50,805

By the way, the lowest attendance in the conference is in the largest market in the Big 10, Northwestern.
Build the promotions, Teague. Recruits want to go where they are at least noticed.
 

My focus on what was said was this "On the miniscule crowd for last Saturday's home football game against Purdue, Teague said: "We're still scratching our head. I'd like to use the 11 a.m. excuse, but I can't. ... We will get to the bottom of that in the offseason. ... We have some reseach to do. ... We have to put a strong effort in." Among many gameday changes he wants to implement next year are turning the block in front of Mariucci Arena into more of a party atmosphere with a band, more food options, more individualized tailgates and large TVs. "We need to make it more of an event, an all day deal," Teague said. „... We need to activate our Greek system more."

I find this to be great news. Under JM nothing ever seemed to get done like this. Lots of work needs to be done in regards to gameday atmosphere. Lots of discussion on this earlier in the year. I am optimistic that we see some major changes for the better next year.
 

MJGopher said:
This maybe deterred 5 people from not coming (and I am rounding up). This had no impact on the number of people in the stands. Anyone who follows college football understands that this happens across the country - MN media likes to overreact.
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It doesn't happen across the country, there are limited (if any) examples of teams paying $800,000 to get out of a game they are supposed to play in the following year. So you think it's a complete coincidence that the lowest attendance in the 4 years of the Gophers playing at TCF Banks Stadium happened to be the game following this debacle? Even lower than the 3-9 season of two years ago with a lame duck coach? Sure, the season ticket holders still showed up, but I guarantee you the casual fans were less inclined to purchase tickets.
 

Not much of a head scratcher. 0-3 in the Big Ten, including getting destroyed by Wisconsin and Iowa, and a disappointing home loss in cold rain against Northwestern. That's enough to kill the momentum and good will built up by the Syracuse game.

Win against Michigan and Illinois and the stadium will be full for Mich. St. Rome wasn't built in a day. The casual fan doesn't believe in Kill and the Gophers yet.
 

One thing I like about Norwood Teague. I haven't heard him say a word about non-revenue sports. He knows where the focus is. Unlike Joel.
 

John Galt said:
It doesn't happen across the country, there are limited (if any) examples of teams paying $800,000 to get out of a game they are supposed to play in the following year. So you think it's a complete coincidence that the lowest attendance in the 4 years of the Gophers playing at TCF Banks Stadium happened to be the game following this debacle? Even lower than the 3-9 season of two years ago with a lame duck coach? Sure, the season ticket holders still showed up, but I guarantee you the casual fans were less inclined to purchase tickets.
Click to expand...

You mean like K-State backing out of the game with Oregon this year?

Man...that is really hurting K-State.
 

FanSinceTheFifties said:
"We have to put a strong effort in." Among many gameday changes he wants to implement next year are turning the block in front of Mariucci Arena into more of a party atmosphere with a band, more food options, more individualized tailgates and large TVs. "We need to make it more of an event, an all day deal," Teague said. „... We need to activate our Greek system more."

He's right. It's not like so many markets where the University football games are the biggest events in town. For the U to be noticed in a pro market like MSP, it takes constant promotion. Despite replacing the newest stadium in the Big Ten with the newest new stadium in the conference, our attendance continues to drop in the face of competition from more well-covered sports attractions.
Minnesota
2011: 47,714
2010: 49,513
2009: 50,805

By the way, the lowest attendance in the conference is in the largest market in the Big 10, Northwestern.
Build the promotions, Teague. Recruits want to go where they are at least noticed.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more. Considering their place in the pecking order promotion, tunring the game day experience into an event will go a long ways to improve attendance. Winning will help too of course.
 

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