Teague: We are going to dig deep this offseason to improve crowd situation

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BleedGopher

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per Sid:

Teague, unhappy with the poor crowd against Michigan, is working hard to try to sell out the final game of the season at home against Michigan State.

"It's a 2:30 start, so that will help things," he said. "Obviously Thanksgiving weekend is a different scenario, but we're selling tickets and TCF is doing a great job partnering with us to sell some tickets, and Cub Foods as well. We're looking to get a great crowd."

Teague said the department is going to investigate why student turnout has been so low.

"I told somebody the other day that we're going to dig down deep in the offseason to get to the point where we're doing some different things and make sure we're doing smart things to continue to generate more and more students coming to games," he said. "Part of it is fan experience, part of that is winning; there's a lot of different things that go into that. But I promise the Gopher fans we're going to work hard in the offseason, do focus groups, do all types of drilling down to improve that situation."

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/179385551.html

Go Gophers!!
 

any guesses on what changes teague makes for next year to tackle this issue?
 

Accidentally leave kegs of Busch Light in the Super Block at 7 a.m. on Saturdays and student attendance will suddenly skyrocket.
 

Go4 said:
any guesses on what changes teague makes for next year to tackle this issue?
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I would like to say "win" but after beating Purdue and seeing the student section turn out for the Michigan game...I'm not sure winning is the answer anymore.
 

I would imagine beating a crappy Purdue team does nothing for the casual fan. Same with Illinois.
 


Parski1 said:
I would like to say "win" but after beating Purdue and seeing the student section turn out for the Michigan game...I'm not sure winning is the answer anymore.
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I don't think one win is enough to significantly increase turnout, especially when that win came after three straight losses.

Also I believe that the Michigan game was the first home game for which they did not hand out free tickets to students the day before, maybe that had an effect on student turnout.
 

With Wisconsin, Iowa, and especially Nebraska coming, ticket sales won't be a problem next year. But 2014 will be an issue again.
 

Student attendance would not be a problem if there had ever been sustained success here in the last few decades. Football is not important to the student body at the U, and it won't be unless the team starts winning and winning consistently. You won't win the students back with gimmicks, giveaways, and promotions.
 

Teague gets it. Maturi didn't have a clue.

A "Gopher Nation" town hall meeting at TCF would be a good start. Fan input is important. Not just the students.
 




Ski U Master said:
Student attendance would not be a problem if there had ever been sustained success here in the last few decades. Football is not important to the student body at the U, and it won't be unless the team starts winning and winning consistently. You won't win the students back with gimmicks, giveaways, and promotions.
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You're 100% correct. It all comes down to winning. However, I think having a few local starters ( i.e. Nick and Phillip) helps too.
 

Fact 1: There will ALWAYS be local starters...this is true for every BCS school.

Fact 2: The students don't care where the players are from. A 9-3 team with a bunch of guys from Guam will have better attendance/buzz than a 6-6 team with a bunch of Minnesotans.
 

I would be fascinated to see a team composed of nothing but players from Guam.
 



Ski U Master said:
Student attendance would not be a problem if there had ever been sustained success here in the last few decades. Football is not important to the student body at the U, and it won't be unless the team starts winning and winning consistently. You won't win the students back with gimmicks, giveaways, and promotions.
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+1, I don't know what is so hard for people to understand this.
 

MinnesotaBoiler99 said:
Purdue could play in the Big Ten title game this year regardless of OSU and PSU being ineligible. From what I've seen of the conference thus far they are as good as anyone at this point. Will it happen? I doubt it but thru 4 weeks they are easily top 3 in the conference.
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MinnesotaBoiler99 said:
I would imagine beating a crappy Purdue team does nothing for the casual fan. Same with Illinois.
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I am confused. I thought Purdue would be a HUGE draw...
 

There is no overnight solution. As it's been said dozens of time on this board:

It took over 40 years of apathy and the consciously malfeasant efforts of several school Presidents and Athletic Directors to DESTROY this football program.

In the 1970's, the Admistration and student leadership worked in tacit partnership to maginalize football as the "sport of THE WARMONGERING MAN". Stick it to the man, stop the war, blah, blah, blah.

In the 1980's, they moved it to the Dome and marginalized any future student participation. this continued throught the 1990's--almost 20 years.

In the 2000's, they tried to "build a winner on the cheap". They fan following increased as the team won, but the students were an afterthought. When the success things finally went south, everything went with it.

Minnesota wasted 40 years. It might take 20 to get us back to where we would all like to be.
 

Parski1 said:
I would like to say "win" but after beating Purdue and seeing the student section turn out for the Michigan game...I'm not sure winning is the answer anymore.
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I think win is still the answer, but it needs to be more than mediocre out of conference opponents and 2 conference opponents with a combined 1-11 record. If we fail to beat Nebraska or MSU (I still like our chances against MSU), then going in to next season, then no student in the undergraduate body (except for those on the 5+ year plan) will have seen a Gopher football season with a conference winning percentage of better than 25%. 25% is abysmal in any league, and it is tough to get students who aren't the diehard fans excited for a team that even the seniors have not ever seen be competitive in their own league. We haven't even been .500 in B1G play since 2005, the year before we fired Mason. That's a long time waiting to just show that you are an average team in your conference. The long drought against Wisconsin doesn't help. If we don't win our next game, then going into next season, a student could have gotten a 4 your undergrad degree, a 3 year grad degree, and neither seen us break even in conference or beat our rival. If we can get the win at home against Bucky next year and fight our way to a 4-4 conference record (that would be an average improvement of 1 conference win/year since Kill's first year), then I would be shocked if we still had attendance problems this bad the following year.
 

My hope with Teague is that he recognizes there is a difference between having TCF full and having TCF full of Gopher fans. Maturi only cared about the former; the emphasis needs to be placed on the latter.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
I think win is still the answer, but it needs to be more than mediocre out of conference opponents and 2 conference opponents with a combined 1-11 record. If we fail to beat Nebraska or MSU (I still like our chances against MSU), then going in to next season, then no student in the undergraduate body (except for those on the 5+ year plan) will have seen a Gopher football season with a conference winning percentage of better than 25%. 25% is abysmal in any league, and it is tough to get students who aren't the diehard fans excited for a team that even the seniors have not ever seen be competitive in their own league. We haven't even been .500 in B1G play since 2005, the year before we fired Mason. That's a long time waiting to just show that you are an average team in your conference. The long drought against Wisconsin doesn't help. If we don't win our next game, then going into next season, a student could have gotten a 4 your undergrad degree, a 3 year grad degree, and neither seen us break even in conference or beat our rival. If we can get the win at home against Bucky next year and fight our way to a 4-4 conference record (that would be an average improvement of 1 conference win/year since Kill's first year), then I would be shocked if we still had attendance problems this bad the following year.
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You make some great points. It is hard to get behind a team that is a footstool to several Big Ten teams. Badgers have OWNED us. Michigan has OWNED us. Ohio State has OWNED us. Nebraska has OWNED us. We've got to get some exciting surprise wins against some quality opponents to say, "Yeah, my university can hang with the big boys!"

No team should have more than a few games win streak against the University of Minnesota. We should be competetive and win against any team, especially in OUR HOUSE. That's what our students are waiting for. They're waiting for a winner. They'll get behind it. They'll show up when we start winning with some consistency.

People want to identify with a winner. We are not a winner yet. But progress is being shown.

Go Gophers!
 

Teague should seek the advice of programs that market successfully despite recent records of losing in this market. Maybe the Vikings, Twins, Wild, and Wolves would provide tips on how to fill seats.
 

Parski1 said:
I would like to say "win" but after beating Purdue and seeing the student section turn out for the Michigan game...I'm not sure winning is the answer anymore.
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Wow. Ding. Anyone who comes here and states "just win baby!" clearly hasn't watched what happens the instant we lose a game. Or what happened to MSU. Or even what the student attendance at Wisconsin has been this year. Those same students that aren't showing up at Wisc won't be buying season tickets and being diehards in the future if their team has 3 down years. We need to do something more than win to bring people in. I've posted literally a ton of ideas in the past, GL has done an even more amazing job. I'm sure Teague will be willing to do a heck of a lot more than Maturi was.
 

FanSinceTheFifties said:
Teague should seek the advice of programs that market successfully despite recent records of losing in this market. Maybe the Vikings, Twins, Wild, and Wolves would provide tips on how to fill seats.
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Marketing to consumers is fairly easy. Marketing and drawing students to the games is a whole different animal. A lot of things change overnight when a student comes to campus. There are tons of different things that influence the interests of the student body at large. Some have never cheered for the gophers in their entire lives. If it isn't the cool thing to do, they won't just get up and do it. Consistently attracting students to any college sporting event requires greatly altering the current culture on campus at the U.

Out of of state students who attend Ohio State instantly want to go to the games. Why? because it is what you do. Sure, they win all the time. But even in tough times the fans in Columbus would still go. They went last year.

I recall articles before the Syracuse game that talked about professors bringing up gopher football, and kids being excited about maybe going 4-0. Sure enough, the place was packed for the game. If Kill can turn this thing around, and consistently do well that will pay dividends in the long run. That also means Teague and the AD can figure out ways to actually bring Gopher Football back to the center of Student Life again. It will take time, but it can be done. Get students talking about it during the week (and not making the generic comment of, "yeah they still suck" or "we are probably going to lose") and that is a step in the right direction.
 

GopherVotary said:
With Wisconsin, Iowa, and especially Nebraska coming, ticket sales won't be a problem next year. But 2014 will be an issue again.
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I think part of it is don't go 0-3 to start the conference. If they go 4-0 each year and then keep at least a .500 level throughout Big Ten play they will see full houses. Going 1-1 in conference gets you to 5-1 at mid season and tickets will take care of themselves.

2014 won't be a problem if they finish with at least 8 wins next year and win a trophy game or two.
 

TCF=UnitedWeStand said:
My hope with Teague is that he recognizes there is a difference between having TCF full and having TCF full of Gopher fans. Maturi only cared about the former; the emphasis needs to be placed on the latter.
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Without highjacking the thread into a party v no party thread, I'll just say this:
as long as the administration continues to marginalize students and young fans by catering to a watered down "NFL" gameday atmosphere there will be problems.
The lack of a "college feel" on campus is striking, absolutely striking. And shameful.

Roads/open spaces need to be shut down and opened up for the kids to gather before games. The oak street facepainting booth doesn't count and is a slap in the face of students and fans who crave a real college gameday.

A much more inclusive tailgating atmosphere would also help, paying several grand for a spot is going to outprice the majority of young fans/alumni. These are the engines for atmosphere that can parlayfun times into an expanded fanbase.
You are catering to older fans, many of whom show up late, leave early and add nothing to a gameday atmosphere.

If from the beginning TCF Bank was not going to be a "tailgate-centric" experience, then you need to lean/push/slap the bejesus out of the minneapolis city council to open things up for the bars and businesses around stadium village and dinkytown to operate as they wish and create a much more rich bar/pregame scene. At the same time you need to ensure that students can gather and celebrate in the light of day outside on lawns/frat row/other places without fear of harassment or prosecution for alchohol/noise issues.

The prices for tickets don't matter, it's the overall experience that is going to draw fans in. The U cannot compete with the pro franchises head to head, they need to find a niche market and exploit the H out of it, that niche is a true college football gameday atmosphere, something this town doesn't have anywhere and the vikings/twins/wolves/wild cannot replicate if done properly.
/Rant

Again, I don't want to argue about party v no party, just pointing out the very obvious problem for students/younger fans.
 


Gopherdrummer said:
Out of of state students who attend Ohio State instantly want to go to the games. Why? because it is what you do. Sure, they win all the time. But even in tough times the fans in Columbus would still go. They went last year.
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The problem with this comparison is that we have no idea what the fans in Columbus would do with multiple bad years, because they don't have them. Ohio State was mediocre once and nobody jumped ship, but what if they were 15-30 over four years (as we were with Brewster). Would they still be coming? Would it still be the "thing to do" if they were losing to Michigan by 55 points? Or 58 points? Or if they hadn't won a league championship in two generations?

That we can say "OMG but we beat Purdue!!" and expect the casual fan to show up shows a serious disconnect with the expectations of the casual fan. I think we'll need multiple seasons of 8+ wins (including bowl games) before we can start selling the stadium out at full price again. People need to be convinced that this isn't the same ol' Gophers, and beating Purdue and Illinois isn't going to do that.
 

Well, the issue with "just win" is we're unlikely to become a program where 9 wins is just an assumption and anything less is disappointing. The time it will take for something like that to take hold will probably be a little while.

But even so, this team has a shot at 9 wins (hehe), and I'd say at least a small legitimate shot at 8 this year. And yet, there's little excitement from the fanbase cause they already assume we're not touching that. That's what 40 years of crap and letdowns does. People already are expecting us to go 6-7 this year. It's gonna take a team truly breaking through MULTIPLE times, and capturing huge wins on a yearly basis to get people truly excited and able to fight off the occasional losses that WILL happen every year.

In the meantime, Teague's gonna have to be creative while this process is taking place. At least he's willing to put the time in to research this and evaluate.
 

highwayman said:
I am confused. I thought Purdue would be a HUGE draw...
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Things can change quickly in college football. Wheels fell off vs. Michigan and they lost 5 straight. Amazing that they still have a decent shot a bowl game, but that doesn't do much for me or the fan base in general.
 



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