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Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Eastern visits and visiting eastern teams has been slashed compared to the last couple seasons. Last season the Gophers played Union, Clarkson, Harvard, and Army West Point all @ home. In 2016-17 they played @Clarkson, @St. Lawrence, @Northeastern, @Boston College, and UMass (H).

Only St. Lawrence @ home next season. Attendance took a B1G hit last season ;) and this is an obvious budget cut. Gopher fans still lamenting over the loss of WCHA rivalries and the ridiculous increase in single game and season ticket prices seem to be driving factors for the decline.

Doug Woog and his staff were right when they argued that if ticket prices skyrocketed, it would change the traditional clientele at Gopher games. The days when a Pee Wee coach could take his entire team to a Gopher game for $1 ea. are long gone. More corporate season ticket sales has resulted in frequent no-shows. The season ticket holder base has declined 30 percent from 7,765 to 5,474 since 2010-11, with ticketing staff routinely now seeing 30 percent of distributed tickets go unused.

The actual attendance for last season's Oct. 15 game against Penn State was 4,917, the lowest number in the building for any regular-season game in the last four years. The scanned number for Wisconsin on Dec. 2 was 6,407, the lowest it has been for a rivalry game in the last four years. Last season was also the first season since moving into Mariucci that there have been announced attendance numbers under 9,000 (Vegoe, The Athletic).
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

That's nice, but there is (was?) an existing contract in place among the 4 schools that had UMTC & UW travelling to Northern NY in years 1 and 3 and Clarkson and St. Lawrence travelling to St. Paul or Madison in Years 2 and 4.

What happened to it?
 
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Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

SteveO said:
Doug Woog and his staff were right when they argued that if ticket prices skyrocketed, it would change the traditional clientele at Gopher games. The days when a Pee Wee coach could take his entire team to a Gopher game for $1 ea. are long gone. More corporate season ticket sales has resulted in frequent no-shows. The season ticket holder base has declined 30 percent from 7,765 to 5,474 since 2010-11, with ticketing staff routinely now seeing 30 percent of distributed tickets go unused.
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Adding to this, my brother just told me that he and his wife dropped their season tickets that they've held for some 10 years because when they weren't able to attend some 7-8 games, they couldn't even give away the tickets to friends of family. They also spoke to the impact of the changes in tax law and the required Williams Fund donation to keep their seats.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

joecct said:
That's nice, but there is (was?) an existing contract in place among the 4 schools that had UMTC & UW travelling to Northern NY in years 1 and 3 and Clarkson and St. Lawrence travelling to St. Paul or Madison in Years 2 and 4.

What happened to it?
Click to expand...

joe, my hope is that Minnesota asked/requested to swap their portion of years 3-4, for whatever reason. Atleast the BADgers are holding up their end of the bargain ;).
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

gopher wes said:
That's going to be weird. Come in hot with the defending champs and then two exhibition games which, to me, are as good as 'off weeks'.
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Too bad they couldn't put 'em together in one weekend. I don't pay much attention to ex games either.

St. Clown said:
Adding to this, my brother just told me that he and his wife dropped their season tickets that they've held for some 10 years because when they weren't able to attend some 7-8 games, they couldn't even give away the tickets to friends of family. They also spoke to the impact of the changes in tax law and the required Williams Fund donation to keep their seats.
Click to expand...

Earlier this year apparently AD Coyle formed a fan advisory board to collaborate on initiatives across athletics. He also put together a men’s hockey attendance committee to specifically collect actionable data from fans to improve the gameday experience. Some of the programs underway include an unused ticket exchange that allows season ticket holders to get extra seats for $4 if they missed an earlier game; Gophers Insiders, which allows pre-game interaction with coaches and alums; and incentives for perfect attendance for season ticket-holders. The marketing team also has turned to group sales involving youth hockey associations, first responders, military groups and Greek groups to try and provide unique experiences with discounted tickets. And I guess they’ll continue to refine the fan experience mixing together the band, video board content, lights, music, concessions....more cowbell, smoke and mirrors I guess. ;)

When they realized parking receipts, and selling hot dogs, T-shirts and other junk wasn't going to put a dent in their corporate debt they moved from priority seating based upon seniority to a donation to the Williams Fund to keep your seats or improve your seating.

IMO that was a strategic marketing error and like your bro some fans got fed up and gave up tics they've held for decades. When you average the donation per ticket that makes for a very expensive night out. Those who sat next to others and became good friends over the years were inevitably separated based upon the donation scheme, which is not good for improving the overall fan experience for a financially loyal group of long time season ticket holders.

For me, lots of students at the games usually makes for an exciting college atmosphere. Years ago student season tickets used to be dirt cheap, but now it's a good chunk of cash for some students. What do students pay for a season pass at SCSU?
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

Said himself he probably wouldn't be playing hockey without the move to the State of Hockey.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

SteveO said:
For me, lots of students at the games usually makes for an exciting college atmosphere. Years ago student season tickets used to be dirt cheap, but now it's a good chunk of cash for some students. What do students pay for a season pass at SCSU?
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Nothing for the ticket. SCSU charges a sports fee to all students, something nominal, like $5 per course credit, which grants access to all sporting events by merely scanning your ID. I'm not positive of the exact fee, but it was all of $17.xx per term when I was there. Student sections were always general admin when I was in school (graduated May '99), with exception to UND and Gopher games - those games required students to get in line at the ticket box at 8:00AM on the Wednesday before the game to claim their seats.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

St. Clown said:
Nothing for the ticket. SCSU charges a sports fee to all students, something nominal, like $5 per course credit, which grants access to all sporting events by merely scanning your ID. I'm not positive of the exact fee, but it was all of $17.xx per term when I was there. Student sections were always general admin when I was in school (graduated May '99), with exception to UND and Gopher games - those games required students to get in line at the ticket box at 8:00AM on the Wednesday before the game to claim their seats.
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That's awesome and as it should be... The U introduced their "student package plan" last month. They're pushing the Gold Package as the BEST VALUE which includes: 1 Football Season Ticket, 1 Men’s Basketball Season Ticket & 1 Men’s Hockey Season Ticket for $260.

The kicker is you have to pick which night you want to see a hockey game, either Game 1 or Game 2, but not both. That's 11 games in the student section (excluding the EX with Trinity Western).

Not a fan of this strategy considering the fee structure for the avg. student is pretty steep per semester as it is.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

St. Clown said:
Nothing for the ticket. SCSU charges a sports fee to all students, something nominal, like $5 per course credit, which grants access to all sporting events by merely scanning your ID. I'm not positive of the exact fee, but it was all of $17.xx per term when I was there. Student sections were always general admin when I was in school (graduated May '99), with exception to UND and Gopher games - those games required students to get in line at the ticket box at 8:00AM on the Wednesday before the game to claim their seats.
Click to expand...
Mankato did a similar deal for their student tickets when the Gophers came to town IIRC. It was still GA seating but you had to go wait in line to get a ticket.
 
Re: Minnesota Golden Gophers Season Off-Season Thread 2018

SteveO said:
That's awesome and as it should be... The U introduced their "student package plan" last month. They're pushing the Gold Package as the BEST VALUE which includes: 1 Football Season Ticket, 1 Men’s Basketball Season Ticket & 1 Men’s Hockey Season Ticket for $260.

The kicker is you have to pick which night you want to see a hockey game, either Game 1 or Game 2, but not both. That's 11 games in the student section (excluding the EX with Trinity Western).

Not a fan of this strategy considering the fee structure for the avg. student is pretty steep per semester as it is.
Click to expand...
I'm not disagreeing with you that it's probably on the expensive side for student tickets. But........

As of just a couple years ago men's hockey was selling out both nights I'm pretty sure. Saturdays were definitely sold out. So the U was selling out student tickets as of not that long ago and they were still having attendance issues. That means students were paying for tickets and still not showing up and/or not caring enough to sell or give to a friend the games that they couldn't go to. What makes you think free tickets will suddenly make attendance skyrocket? If they don't care enough to show up when they have money invested in tickets, I should think they'd have even less reason to show up if they have free tickets. JMHO.
 
SteveO said:
That's awesome and as it should be... The U introduced their "student package plan" last month. They're pushing the Gold Package as the BEST VALUE which includes: 1 Football Season Ticket, 1 Men’s Basketball Season Ticket & 1 Men’s Hockey Season Ticket for $260.

The kicker is you have to pick which night you want to see a hockey game, either Game 1 or Game 2, but not both. That's 11 games in the student section (excluding the EX with Trinity Western).

Not a fan of this strategy considering the fee structure for the avg. student is pretty steep per semester as it is.
Click to expand...

That actually sounds like a really good deal.
 
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