Upper Deck Expansion

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Since the Gophers haven't been to even one Rose Bowl in 50 years, the claim that we wouldn't have a demand greater than 50,000 even with TWO Rose Bowls is utterly lacking in evidence. There is simply no basis for such a claim. I don't know how by how much demand would increase, but generally a better product sells more tickets, and a poorer product sells less tickets. When a winning Big Ten season is a once in a decade high point, it is hard to sell people on the product. I'm hoping for better, and hate to be focused on the failings of the past, but there hasn't been a lot to really draw people in.
 

RodentRampage said:
Since the Gophers haven't been to even one Rose Bowl in 50 years, the claim that we wouldn't have a demand greater than 50,000 even with TWO Rose Bowls is utterly lacking in evidence. There is simply no basis for such a claim. I don't know how by how much demand would increase, but generally a better product sells more tickets, and a poorer product sells less tickets. When a winning Big Ten season is a once in a decade high point, it is hard to sell people on the product. I'm hoping for better, and hate to be focused on the failings of the past, but there hasn't been a lot to really draw people in.
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I don't think people are trying to claim that there wouldn't be demand at a high level immediately following a Rose Bowl (or multiple RB's). It would be. But since it is very unlikely that such a level of success becomes the norm the question is whether the subsequent "step back" in performance to a more reasonable average results in a loss of some of the bandwagon. History suggests yes. You don't expand based on the high water mark if you want to keep demand up, improve the atmosphere, and avoid empty seats. You expand to a number that can be consistently supported based on the "average" level of success you can expect as a program.
 

I'm not talking about expanding based on a high-water mark. It is not at all unreasonable to think that the average "water level" could be considerable higher. The team wouldn't have to become a super-power to do this. Maybe two winning conference seasons per decade instead of just one.
 

RodentRampage said:
The solid data we have for comparison is tickets sold, that's what every other school is reporting. If someone wants to gather the butts in seats data, that's fine, but it isn't meaninful to compare butts in seats for the U vs. tickets sold at other schools.
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We've been through this before. In game at the stadium, they don't say "Today's number of tickets sold was XXXX!!" They say "Today's attendance was XXXXXX!" Box scores on ESPN, BTN, anywhere else say ATTENDANCE. Not tickets sold. Do other schools likely report the number of tickets sold (because it's an easier to track, or earlier number, or makes the school/gameday look better when looking back at "attendance" vs. capacity)? Yes. Does that make it right? No. Does every school absolutely track actual attendance through turnstyles (do they exist anymore?) or electronic ticket scanners (just as quick and accurate as sold tickets)? Yes.

In addition, all those other schools' who report "attendance" the way we do are far more likely to have a closer number to the truth than we do? I can guarantee you when Michigan reports 110,000 in attendance they are either correct or much closer to the truth than us. Why? The reasons are many. Product on the field at nearly every B10 school has been better than ours. Therefore, the people who buy the tickets actually go a higher % of the time. UMN is in a large metro area with plenty of possibilities for buying tickets as a broker hoping to sell them on the internet or at the stadium on gameday to a much larger audience. We also have a history of not drawing fans to our games, and opposing fanbases (including Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, and even NDSU) are able to purchase either combo packs or entire season packages for tickets, show up to one game or 2 and not go to any other games. Guarantee this has happened MUCH more often at MN than almost any school in the B10.

Therefore, our "solid" data does not compare to other schools. Anyone who looks at the reported "attendance" figures and draws a conclusion that we're only 5% away from having solid-filed stadiums TODAY as a measure for how much work it would be to drive demand to a point of expanding the stadium by tens of thousands is out of their minds. We need to get actual ATTENDANCE up before we do anything else. Those people may be "buying" tickets, but they're not supporting the U through parking, concessions, etc the way people in seats do.
 

If you want to compare actual attendance, be my guest, collect the data.
 


RodentRampage said:
I'm not talking about expanding based on a high-water mark. It is not at all unreasonable to think that the average "water level" could be considerable higher. The team wouldn't have to become a super-power to do this. Maybe two winning conference seasons per decade instead of just one.
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Maybe. The optimist in me wants to agree. In the end there is no proof one way or the other to go on. I think the point is that the level of success you discuss has happened once in recent years (Mason) and the season ticket sales still didn't reach the levels required to consistently sell out TCF and the single game numbers fluctuated wildly (plus it was all in the Dome which makes it a hard comparison to use anyhow). As a result, I'd argue that it would be better to err on the side of caution rather than expand too early and undermine the attempts to improve demand and atmosphere. We may not know if the Gophers fanbase will consistently sell out a larger capacity stadium based on history, but we do know that not selling out can create a detrimental, negative cycle/cloud for the program.
 

When you see attendance numbers like 48,807 for New Mexico State and 49,950 for Miami (OH), it's obvious that the number reported is tickets sold, not butts in seats. There were thousands of empty seats at those games last year. The Pick Your Pack deals paid off, by making Husker, Badger and Hawkeye fans buy an additional game ticket if they wanted to see their team play at TCF.
 

RodentRampage said:
If you want to compare actual attendance, be my guest, collect the data.
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I sure would love to if the U reported gate entry data. My point wasn't that we should all go do that. My point was that someone above used the bogus ticket sales numbers as "attendance" to show that it hasn't dipped all that much since the first year in an effort to show that a little work on marketing and winning would move the needle enough to get us back to a packed crowd. I think it will take much more than that given the lack of actual attendance so using those numbers as a barometer is a bad way at looking at the real situation.

In my opinion, average attendance of Gopher fans (including NE, IA, WI, NDSU games) has been not more than 30-35k since the MSU game in the first year. That's disheartening and a big uphill climb just to get back to Sept 12, 2009 attendance and enthusiasm.
 

GoAUpher said:
Maybe. The optimist in me wants to agree. In the end there is no proof one way or the other to go on. I think the point is that the level of success you discuss has happened once in recent years (Mason) and the season ticket sales still didn't reach the levels required to consistently sell out TCF and the single game numbers fluctuated wildly (plus it was all in the Dome which makes it a hard comparison to use anyhow). As a result, I'd argue that it would be better to err on the side of caution rather than expand too early and undermine the attempts to improve demand and atmosphere. We may not know if the Gophers fanbase will consistently sell out a larger capacity stadium based on history, but we do know that not selling out can create a detrimental, negative cycle/cloud for the program.
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I'm not saying it is a sure thing that attendance would improve enough to merit expansion. On the other hand, there are people insisting it would not improve enough to merit expansion, no matter how well the Gophers did. Over the last 40 years, the Gophers have averaged one winning Big Ten season per decade. The Gophers have had only 13 non-losing Big Ten seasons per in the past 40 years. No bowl game better than the Sun Bowl. All I am saying there is a lot of room for improvement, the bar is very low.
 



RodentRampage said:
I'm not saying it is a sure thing that attendance would improve enough to merit expansion. On the other hand, there are people insisting it would not improve enough to merit expansion, no matter how well the Gophers did. Over the last 40 years, the Gophers have averaged one winning Big Ten season per decade. The Gophers have had only 13 non-losing Big Ten seasons per in the past 40 years. No bowl game better than the Sun Bowl. All I am saying there is a lot of room for improvement, the bar is very low.
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Stating the obvious here is a dangerous concept my friend! Will this fall's 6-0 start be enough to tear down all the negative culture you describe above?
 








FreakyDeke said:
First of all, it's frustrating paying full price for season tickets when you can currently get them basically free from a scalper. I get that, and expansion would only make that worse, along with more empty seats or more badger/hawkeye fans. However, if we are EVER going to expand (a guy can dream of 80,000 packed into TCF, right?) and the Vikings could pay for it now, rather than awful temp seats, I would maybe be in favor of that if we could do something like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Soundersfcqwestfield.jpg

The Seattle Sounders block off the upper level of the Seahawks' stadium, and it doesn't look as ridiculous as the Twins upper deck tarp did. It's not ideal, but if we got a free expansion out of the deal it does make sense if we ever plan on having a stadium on par with Camp Randall or Kinnick in terms of capacity. Obviously, if our attendance is never going to be higher than 50,000-ish, we shouldn't. Thoughts?
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Rather than expanding the upper deck, why not rent the new Vikings stadium for those high ticket demand games?
 

hungan1 said:
Rather than expanding the upper deck, why not rent the new Vikings stadium for those high ticket demand games?
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Because they'll be trading home field advantage and atmosphere for an extra 15,000 seats. The additional earnings from which will be chopped into by the rental fees.
 

hungan1 said:
Rather than expanding the upper deck, why not rent the new Vikings stadium for those high ticket demand games?
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Does anyone remember the numerous discussions on whether the Gophers should have an on-campus stadium?
 

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