Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

[SteveO]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

I’m sorry but none of this reflects reality. I’ve been a season ticket holder for 15 years now and I’ve never seen it worse. Ever.

You should care about butts in seats. That’s what drives fan experience. The only people who care about tickets sold are those in the athletic department. Way to carry their water for them.

The mistake you made is you didn't follow the paper trail.

I compare the corporate buyers to being in a dead church. They can stay home...I'm ok.

BTW I DO CARE ABOUT BUTTS IN THE SEATS!!

Steve

Hard to quote part of a long post on mobile but ticket sales are struggling for the U, too. Not just butts in the seats.

I'm a STH and I know the STH base has been dropping alarmingly and will likely drop significantly again next summer barring a huge price drop.

Don't compare to others with smaller arenas. Trend is very important financially.

READ THIS

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

Tickets sales does not indicate the health of a program. Butts in seats does. I don’t recall any game being more than 60% full at any point this year.

[Bonin21]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

He's in denial that the program is in rough shape

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

I mean, it’s possible this is the new normal the administration is comfortable with. Hard to tell.

It’s almost like they’re ok with hockey being pushed out on an ice floe to join the rest of the Olympic sports.

[The Rube]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

Tickets sales does not indicate the health of a program. Butts in seats does. I don’t recall any game being more than 60% full at any point this year.

This. I'm not sure, but I think corpies can write off tickets as some sort of promo expense. I'd rather see a full 5K arena then 5K in a 10K arena. It becomes mob-mentality, and the fans feed off each other, and gets everything going.

Graveyard attendance stinks.

[SteveO]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

Tickets sales does not indicate the health of a program.

False. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are data trends that you can track regularly to evaluate the health of your business. IMHO the following are the KPIs for any business model:

• Revenue is growing.
• Expenses are staying flat.
• Cash balances demonstrate positive long-term growth.
• Debt ratios are low.
• Profitability ratio is on the healthy side.
• Activity ratios are in-line and consistently active.

All main revenue generating sports at the U (basketball, football and hockey) over the last three years are down a combined 28% (approx. $8M in losses). The University of Minnesota addressed this and their burgeoning debt ratio by introducing an increase in ticket prices and a fee-attached season ticket schedule. The unfortunate result was they essentially priced the "blue collar" fanbase right out the door and sacrificed them on the altar of a corporate business model.

The U is a land grant university and a premier public research institution that has a long history of engaging in partnerships with corporations and foundations.

Thus, the AD in cooperation with University Finance which provides leadership and accountability for short and long-term financial planning, forecasting, analysis, management, and financial oversight of the University of Minnesota system created a corporate culture with donors such as 3M and others alongside a marketing strategy to secure financial commitments from corporate partners in return for long term financial growth.

You're right, the AD does not care as much about butts in the seats as it does about the corporate revenue stream that they've been targeting hard since 2011. The largest drop in Gopher hockey ticket sales revenue in the last 10 years was 8.6% in 2016-17. This came on the heels of rising ticket prices and built-in donations attached to season ticket packages (2015) that created a tipping point for a diaspora of long time season ticket holders and fans.

Do you honestly think the powers that be were unaware that when rising ticket prices, concessions and mandatory donations for seating were initiated that a corresponding fan attrition rate would escalate? Wake up man. They knew there would be fallout. All that matters is reducing their debt ratio by any means possible or heads will roll. Those are the facts, and fans that no longer attend or are no longer season ticket holders get it.

I am not a season ticket holder and I will NEVER be one as long as the corporate business model continues with prices as they are. IMHO in an effort to compete in the "NCAA arms race" of recruiting through facility expansion, the University of Minnesota created tremendous financial risk with it's expansion projects at the expense of it's most valued and time-honored asset of it's "blue collar" Gopher hockey fanbase. Their butts are gone and the fan experience from corpies is dead. Thank you AD.

[Koho]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

False. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are data trends that you can track regularly to evaluate the health of your business. IMHO the following are the KPIs for any business model:

• Revenue is growing.
• Expenses are staying flat.
• Cash balances demonstrate positive long-term growth.
• Debt ratios are low.
• Profitability ratio is on the healthy side.
• Activity ratios are in-line and consistently active.

All main revenue generating sports at the U (basketball, football and hockey) over the last three years are down a combined 28% (approx. $8M in losses). The University of Minnesota addressed this and their burgeoning debt ratio by introducing an increase in ticket prices and a fee-attached season ticket schedule. The unfortunate result was they essentially priced the "blue collar" fanbase right out the door and sacrificed them on the altar of a corporate business model.

The U is a land grant university and a premier public research institution that has a long history of engaging in partnerships with corporations and foundations.

Thus, the AD in cooperation with University Finance which provides leadership and accountability for short and long-term financial planning, forecasting, analysis, management, and financial oversight of the University of Minnesota system created a corporate culture with donors such as 3M and others alongside a marketing strategy to secure financial commitments from corporate partners in return for long term financial growth.

You're right, the AD does not care as much about butts in the seats as it does about the corporate revenue stream that they've been targeting hard since 2011. The largest drop in Gopher hockey ticket sales revenue in the last 10 years was 8.6% in 2016-17. This came on the heels of rising ticket prices and built-in donations attached to season ticket packages (2015) that created a tipping point for a diaspora of long time season ticket holders and fans.

Do you honestly think the powers that be were unaware that when rising ticket prices, concessions and mandatory donations for seating were initiated that a corresponding fan attrition rate would escalate? Wake up man. They knew there would be fallout. All that matters is reducing their debt ratio by any means possible or heads will roll. Those are the facts, and fans that no longer attend or are no longer season ticket holders get it.

I am not a season ticket holder and I will NEVER be one as long as the corporate business model continues with prices as they are. IMHO in an effort to compete in the "NCAA arms race" of recruiting through facility expansion, the University of Minnesota created tremendous financial risk with it's expansion projects at the expense of it's most valued and time-honored asset of it's "blue collar" Gopher hockey fanbase. Their butts are gone and the fan experience from corpies is dead. Thank you AD.

I am not a business guy, but it seems like this approach might not be the best long-term solution. I assume part of the attraction (besides a write-off) for some corps is to share tickets with customers and as perks for employees. So in this case, there is some consideration for what team to support based on the experience of those who use the tickets versus cost. If you can't give the tickets away, what are you getting for your money? My perception is that corpie seats haven't always been largely empty, but it has been an increasing trend as the atmosphere at games has declined. The better the experience at the game, the more likely someone wants to use the seats and the more likely the corporations continue to support the team instead of switching to a different team/sport or write-off option. Corpie ticket sales have helped the bottom line considerably in recent years, but with the poor atmosphere it has helped create, will it eventually lead to less corpie sales? And with a lot of the season ticket holders already chased away, will things get worse in the future as Corpies leave and no one is there to buy more tickets? Of course, all they need is a couple NC's to raise interest for a little while.

[Bonin21]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

It's not just blue collar fans that are gone. White collar fans like myself (and probably DX) are thinking about leaving, too, because any rational consumer can see the value derived from the product right now isn't worth the cost. Especially with the other sports options around like the NHL team across town.

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

It's not just blue collar fans that are gone. White collar fans like myself (and probably DX) are thinking about leaving, too, because any rational consumer can see the value derived from the product right now isn't worth the cost. Especially with the other sports options around like the NHL team across town.

Nailed it.

I’m not close to leaving. But I can see why so many people who are both blue-, and as you pointed out, white-collar who just don’t see the value anymore. That’s an especially bad disease for a sport or a franchise.

The gophers are competing for cash in this market. When I can go to the X for the same price as Maroosh, something is wrong. You really nailed it.

Steve, you can quote all sorts of KPIs the AD can pull out of its ***, but Koho and Bonin are 100% right. Additionally, no good business runs entirely on KPIs. You need forward looking goals and metrics. A company run on KPIs is a company that doesn’t grow and a company that’s on its way out.

That, and half the KPIs you had mentioned have little applicability to college athletics. Especially sports that are barely revenue sports. Most universities would kill to have three revenue sports and would build a model around that to protect them. The U doesn’t seem intent on growing hockey like it should. You get fans back by lowering prices to where you can fill the seats. Then you can slowly tick up the prices to find where the market’s appetite is. The U just said **** it and raised prices. Season ticket sales have gone off a cliff and if you want to maintain a program, you build them on the foundation of season ticket holders. They are your most loyal fans. Lose them and you’re ****ed.

[D2D]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

I am not a business guy, but it seems like this approach might not be the best long-term solution. I assume part of the attraction (besides a write-off) for some corps is to share tickets with customers and as perks for employees. So in this case, there is some consideration for what team to support based on the experience of those who use the tickets versus cost. If you can't give the tickets away, what are you getting for your money? My perception is that corpie seats haven't always been largely empty, but it has been an increasing trend as the atmosphere at games has declined.

I bet as compared to the Gophers a far greater percentage of the Wild's fanbase are "corpies", and yet they don't seem to have the same "atmosphere" problem, or nearly the number of unsold and unoccupied seats, that is currently plaguing the Gophers. That said, if the Wild keeps losing like they have lately maybe they'll start having those problems too.

[Slap Shot]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

The bad thing is because the talent on the ice has been down/inconsistent it's difficult to get a baseline read on what the interest could be at present. If the Gophers were rolling into the NCAAs most of the past several years (with at least 1 FF and not necessarily a NC) I doubt they'd be selling out, but would they at least be getting 8k+ plus in the building? I imagine the atmosphere (regardless of some of the current obstacles such as piped in music, etc) would be measurably more electric with more mouths and hands in the seats and more excitement on the ice.

And what makes Wild games that much more exciting for someone that has in the past been attending Gophers games? Isn't the allure completely different? People complain about the piped-in music at 3M but aren't NHL games infinitely louder and busier with sideshow attractions? And while the NHL game is faster the Wild haven't exactly lit up the league lately, there's never more than a few MN kids on the team, and while the Wild perhaps have more exposure than the North Stars the Gophers did just fine with they were still in town.

The U athletic department does need to get off their butts and do something more than they have.

-Finalize the funding for upgrades and finally shrink the ice sheet
-Sell beer for god's sake
-Let the band dominate
-Fill the student sections
-More effective marketing
-In this day and age find ways to engage fans on their phones (if they don't already) during TV timeouts and in between periods
-Lower prices to account for the changes with deducting the cost from taxes
-Reward ticket holders more significantly than they have been doing
-Start effing winning

[D2D]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

After every single game I attend - both men and women - I get an email from Gopher Sports asking for my rating and comments on things like my "experience", in-game entertainment, the experience, the food and beverage, etc. In such future responses to their inquiries I think I will be a little more critical and assertive. Might even plagiarize some of the comments here, including those just posted by Slap Shot above.

[St. Clown]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

After every single game I attend - both men and women - I get an email from Gopher Sports asking for my rating and comments on things like my "experience", in-game entertainment, the experience, the food and beverage, etc. In such future responses to their inquiries I think I will be a little more critical and assertive. Might even plagiarize some of the comments here, including those just posted by Slap Shot above.

I've done that the past few times I've received the user experience surveys from the U. They need to make the game a college experience, not an NHL imitation. SCSU can get away without using a band because 1) it was always awful, including when I was in school; 2) the Xcel isn't just 5 miles down the road.

The U was once known for its band. The tradition of the band marching a tour around the arena prior to taking its spot in their seats should be restored.

[trixR4kids]

I’m sorry but none of this reflects reality. I’ve been a season ticket holder for 15 years now and I’ve never seen it worse. Ever.

You should care about butts in seats. That’s what drives fan experience. The only people who care about tickets sold are those in the athletic department. Way to carry their water for them.

Not just fan experience but even player experience which eventually affects recruits. I get that in game attendance isn’t only an issue here but it used to be an advantage.

[D2D]

Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Season 2018-19: The Motzko Era Begins!

The U was once known for its band. The tradition of the band marching a tour around the arena prior to taking its spot in their seats should be restored.

That's one thing they still do, but most fans (who show up) get there too late to see it. Starting with their warm-up at the west end they get going around 35-40 minutes before puckdrop, then the march around about a half-hour before, ending with the Rouser back at the east end. The one change is that there are not nearly the number of fans (mostly students) who follow them around - used to be a trail of maybe 100 feed behind, now it's more like 25-30 feet. But of course that's not the band's fault. My only issues with the band these days is that (a) they don't play enough, and (b) they don't play enough variety. I'll include these sentiments on the next survey.