Second attempt
- Thread starter CMcCat
- Start date
For this year or are you talking in the new stadium? Have not seen those prices yet. I am sure not finding much to like about this year's pricing and to the extent it continues in the new stadium, they better be putting a d**n good product on the field consistently or the place will be a mausoleum
The prices are what they are. For this year, the only game that WON'T be a giveaway on the secondary market is Oregon. Maybe.
For the new stadium, there will be some novelty for ~2 years then you will again get cheap seats except for the behemoth schools. I plan to be a shared STH indefinitely, but you will be able to get cheap tix for 4-5 home games a year.
25 season. I got an email yesterday. Cheapest ticket is north end zone at $500 each. I had 2 tix in section 110 for 25+ years, the last of which I paid ~$750. Equivalent location this fall for two tickets is…$2,629. It appears to me they may have restructured the pricing to lower the ticket cost and increase the required donation level compared to last year.
Yes, secondary market tickets for NU games in Ryan Field will be a fraction of the cost of secondary market tickets for concerts at Ryan Field.
750 to 2629 seems quite reasonable given there are only 1/4 the seats in the lakefront stadium.
There is an easy solution. Don’t buy tickets.
Before I get jumped, what percentage of the stands are NU fans with the cheap prices? I haven’t been able to give away tickets in football unless I give them to opposing fans, which I refuse to do. Everyone bitched about BB pricing , yet you could attend the USC game for $2 and it was still less than full. Do you think if Jackson lowered tickets to $20 a game the stadium would be packed with Purple? No, the sales would go to money whore brokers and fair weathered fans looking to make a buck on Hawkeye fans.
I have said this plenty of times, the way to increase NU fans is to improve the experience for NU fans not lower the prices. Lowering prices will at best have minimal impact of NU fan support. How embarrassing is it for us STH’s to bring a friend for the first time and have 70% of the fans around you wearing candy striped red bib overhauls and chanted “go to the library nerd” in your own stadium? These drunk opposing fans aren’t paying $5 to be obnoxious. The school might as well make the money off these clowns and invest it in activities that actually improve the experience for NU Fans!
Before I get jumped, what percentage of the stands are NU fans with the cheap prices? I haven’t been able to give away tickets in football unless I give them to opposing fans, which I refuse to do. Everyone bitched about BB pricing , yet you could attend the USC game for $2 and it was still less than full. Do you think if Jackson lowered tickets to $20 a game the stadium would be packed with Purple? No, the sales would go to money whore brokers and fair weathered fans looking to make a buck on Hawkeye fans.
I have said this plenty of times, the way to increase NU fans is to improve the experience for NU fans not lower the prices. Lowering prices will at best have minimal impact of NU fan support. How embarrassing is it for us STH’s to bring a friend for the first time and have 70% of the fans around you wearing candy striped red bib overhauls and chanted “go to the library nerd” in your own stadium? These drunk opposing fans aren’t paying $5 to be obnoxious. The school might as well make the money off these clowns and invest it in activities that actually improve the experience for NU Fans!
And that is my solution. It will result in my transformation from being a 25-year season ticket holder and loyal fan to a casual observer who attends one or two games a year. Who exactly is going to replace guys like me? Winnetka concertgoers?
Recognize what NU is doing. It has committed to an elite entertainment complex (not a football stadium as it would be utterly nuts to build what they are building for football alone or even as a main aspect). Luxury boxes are central to the new plan. Major (and minor) concerts and other events geared to upper income patrons are at its core.
Longer term, this is entirely working against the goal of building a Chicago-area fan base of significant size. With the new Ryan Field, NU has junked the Chicago’s Big Ten Team plan for an aspiration to be The North Shore’s Entertainment Mecca.
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If you choose to not buy tickets that is your decision but I think you're getting a little ahead of yourself unless you're one of unfortunately too many NU fans that are simply looking for an excuse NOT to buy tickets. Without question NU really jacked up the prices for Lakeside this year but NU has also made it very clear that existing STHs won't lose any type of seniority in the new stadium if they opt out of Lakeside seats. As far as the new stadium goes we already have the existing NU example of Welsh-Ryan where there are large numbers of fantastic seats that require no donation. I'm quite confident the new stadium will be the same and you (as a 25 year STH) will be fairly high up in the pecking order.
Of course if you're that upset at the increased costs of attending NU games you can always shift to Cubs, Bears, or Hawks for cheaper options....
With all due respect, no one has been replacing you even with the VERY cheap pricing in the past. We have to be honest here, NU football just isn’t a hot ticket with locals. The University gets terrible press locally and if the team isn’t winning there is no reason for locals to invest a weekend day of their time to be surrounded by obnoxious opposing fans. It is a complete fallacy to believe cheaper prices means more loyal NU fans ( at least enough to make any difference experience wise). Being a STH, I would think your would see the experience for a die hard NU fan actually sucks at our home games. Pricing isn’t the reason why.
And that is for only 5 games. My tickets are about the 15-20 and they are $1100 each for 5 games.
I've never been a football STH. I've gone to (single ticket) non-conference games over the years and enjoyed myself, and last year had pretty much convinced my wife we should pick up season tickets and try to work some games into our fall schedule. But the sticker shock killed that.
I had enough trouble seeing my basketball tickets go from $500 in the 100s to almost $2000 in the 200s, but I decided to stick with it. After all, we're getting close to 20 games a year for that price, and even in the 200s I got seats I was satisfied with location-wise, and we keep falling for the spirit of the kids on the teams.
But the cost of the lakeside tickets and the seating available, all for maybe five to seven games? un-fricking-believeable.
We'll stick to our men's and women's basketball season tickets, and continue buying a non-con football game here and there if the prices seem worth the product. NU has completely priced us, and I'll bet a surprising number of other fans, out of the stands.
I had enough trouble seeing my basketball tickets go from $500 in the 100s to almost $2000 in the 200s, but I decided to stick with it. After all, we're getting close to 20 games a year for that price, and even in the 200s I got seats I was satisfied with location-wise, and we keep falling for the spirit of the kids on the teams.
But the cost of the lakeside tickets and the seating available, all for maybe five to seven games? un-fricking-believeable.
We'll stick to our men's and women's basketball season tickets, and continue buying a non-con football game here and there if the prices seem worth the product. NU has completely priced us, and I'll bet a surprising number of other fans, out of the stands.
His point was that they are driving him out with the high prices and he is not alone. So that means LESS NU Fans and not more. Those visitors will still come to the one off games and the NU fan experience gets worse and not better. Make the poor experience 4 times the cost and drive away even more
Tired of this argument. The experience sucks, you know that, you go to the games. It’s not suddenly better because we have 30% of the crowd instead of 25%. Short of fisticuffs each game, not sure how it gets much worse. We get verbally abused in our own stadium if we cheer too loudly.
I would pay twice what I pay now if it was a good experience. I will bet anything that the cost to my now fixed Income percentage is higher than 98% of the people complaining.
Like I said, just don’t pay the prices. If they care enough to get you back, they will adjust prices. They will side with the position that makes them most money.
A large % of NU fans that actually go to games are in that fixed (or semi fixed) income group including myself, I have missed all of 2 home games in 30 years. I have taken a lot of people over the years but harder to justify with what they have done with prices.
The experience has not been that bad but go on this way make it a more questionable experience AND quadruple the prices and you head for disaster,
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That is a novel business plan-fill your stadium with full price visiting fans. Now that I have a condo near the stadium , I will rely on OTSE for tickets and an 85" OLED tv when I can't get one.
I hope this logic is right. I can't wait for the new 35,000 seat stadium then, when tickets prices will be adjusted down to $2600/3 because there will be 3 times as many seats available.
They split the ticket money with the visiting teams (with whatever formula that they use) but the donations they do not. For single tickets I do not believe the have the donations required but the individual tickets are higher priced so that it is a similar price to what is paid by ST holders
I have 4 STs around the 15-20 and this year they are $1100 each (plus fees and parking)for the five games, And that does not even include the Michigan or MINN games so jack that price up to $1500-2000 per seat, Sightlines are not great., $6 K will buy a pretty nice tv system and it can even be used for away games and it will last for more than one year. I share the expense on a couple of the tickets and I take different people to the different games but at these prices getting pretty hard to justify. It is one year and will have to see what they offer in new stadium but they are on thin ice because i sure don't get 300% increases in what I have coming in.
You should have been sitting with us in Section 110 for the last 25 years. I had few complaints. Concessions got better post-pandemic. They relocated two ticket holders near me who always sold to visiting fans and let me take their seats. Relocated the student section next door so ours was populated with recruits and the other sports teams they featured on-field. Sunshine, open air. Great memories.
I don’t know what experience you are looking for? Video entertainment? Shade from the sun? Comfortable seats? A variety of food choices?
All that I get at home.
I think the strategy is to clean house and get rid of every existing STH and it seems to be working. Here’s the plan:
1. Alienate your neighbors and the city of Evanston by bribing your way to rezone the neighborhood surrounding Ryan Field into an entertainment zone.
2. Have no plan in place for where to play games during stadium construction.
3. Build a makeshift venue on the lake fill that seats less than 13k attendees, which can’t be filled with NU fans.
4. Triple prices for lower quality seats. Sure there are nice views of the lake, but 90% of the seats are end zone bleachers.
5. Significantly increase required STH donations to punish once loyal fans and further reduce STHers.
6. Exclude the best games from the STHer package and force NU fans to pay even more for the horrible, opposing fan dominated Wrigley Field experience.
7. Plan to raise tickets and required donations so that Pat Ryan and his fat cat friends don’t have to share his cathedral of vanity with the low life, fixed income riff raff that have supported the team despite long stretches of terrible football. Hopefully, he has built in soundproofing so he doesn’t have to hear the stadium filled almost exclusively with opposing fans.
Good job NU Athletics Department!!!
1. Alienate your neighbors and the city of Evanston by bribing your way to rezone the neighborhood surrounding Ryan Field into an entertainment zone.
2. Have no plan in place for where to play games during stadium construction.
3. Build a makeshift venue on the lake fill that seats less than 13k attendees, which can’t be filled with NU fans.
4. Triple prices for lower quality seats. Sure there are nice views of the lake, but 90% of the seats are end zone bleachers.
5. Significantly increase required STH donations to punish once loyal fans and further reduce STHers.
6. Exclude the best games from the STHer package and force NU fans to pay even more for the horrible, opposing fan dominated Wrigley Field experience.
7. Plan to raise tickets and required donations so that Pat Ryan and his fat cat friends don’t have to share his cathedral of vanity with the low life, fixed income riff raff that have supported the team despite long stretches of terrible football. Hopefully, he has built in soundproofing so he doesn’t have to hear the stadium filled almost exclusively with opposing fans.
Good job NU Athletics Department!!!
Geez, this new stadium opening sure is going to be fun around here.
Remember when they renovated Welsh-Ryan and reduced capacity and raised prices and mandated donations and made us pay to watch awful basketball in Rosemont for a year and scheduled some games at even pricer venues like the United Center and Fiserv Forum and created a special part of the arena reserved for Pat Ryan and his fatcat friends so they wouldn't have to share space with the hoi polloi? What a disaster that must have been! Can you imagine something like that rapidly transforming into one of the best venues in the conference? The very idea is laughable.
Is this the same Welsh-Ryan Arena that offers amazing seats at mid-court that cost only $430 for the season and require NO donation?
For years, many on his site complained about Dyche Stadium. Now, we are about to get a state of the art facility being built with ZERO taxpayer dollars at one of the most expensive places to build such a structure (USF just built one in Tampa for less than half the cost) and this is the reaction???? Yes, I am sure there will be some very pricey seat options with donations next year, just like there are at Welsh Ryan, but I am also sure there will be some reasonably priced areas as well, just like at Welsh-Ryan. The temporary lakefront stadium was something people on here thought was great, but there are only 15,000 seats and you may have noticed the price of doing business these days has skyrocketed due to the portal and players' salaries, which most of you are ok with, so, yes, they are asking for big donations these last two years to subsidize it.
It is! And I know this very well because I have two of those very seats! And furthermore I expect there will be similarly affordable seats with good views in the new football stadium!
For my two seats in the rafters I was recently forced to make a donation for the upcoming season because the seats are proximate to mid court. By next year, all seats will require a required contribution. They’re very close to pricing me out of WR. The stadium I’ve already beer priced out of—sadly.
I am reading this post to the tune of Springsteen’s Glory Days.
Uh, things have changed a smidge in the last two years. And they are supposed to be playing football in the new entertainment complex which has very different aspects.
But the one similarity between the current WRA and the future NRF is the cheap available tix on secondary market.
“I hope you’re doing well! As a valued Northwestern football season ticket holder, I want to take a moment to thank you for your past support and loyalty. I understand that last season, due to the temporary facility, you decided to forgo your season tickets.
Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium was a huge hit last season, and I want to make sure that you have the first opportunity to get seats for our last season there! You will have exclusive priority to secure your tickets before they become available to the general public.
I want to remind you that your status as a season ticket holder HAS NOT ended. Much like we said last season, you will go into New Ryan Field with the same season ticket holder status as you had before last season.
We look forward to having you back with us for another exciting season of Northwestern football. Thank you again for your understanding and continued support!”
Do they understand or do they not understand? And what is it that they believe I understand?
I was not one of them. Were there issues? There always are but most were relatively minor and could have been addressed for relatively modest amounts, Always a little short on bathrooms and I felt that the big screen should not have been angled as it made it harder to see from East stands. A solid wi fi system would allow seeing those replays on phones. Even seating could have been upgraded for relatively small to moderate sums. But overall great sight lines and a solid place to see a game. While it will be interesting to see what a $Billion brings, most of the amenities that that sum buys don't mean that much to the average fan, especially if providing those amenities to the well heeled few prices the average fan out of the stadium
Yup. My story is I've been to most games since the mid-seventies, STH for about 30 years. Worked my way from the 10 yard line, 50th row to Row 27, 50 yard line. Price never changed much, could take my kid and her friend and if they didn't watch the game much, who cares - no loss. You all know what that seat is going to cost now. I could pay it I suppose, but at that cost, it changes the nature of the leisure a bit at my family's wealth level. So we'll see what the options are. But I watched all of the Dark Ages (happily because I love the game) to get to that 50 yard line so it hurts a bit.
My analytics on this is that as long as you're over the threshold of really poor facilities, a really good one doesn't have big marginal return. The practice facility didn't move the program; I doubt the new stadium will either. Win/Loss history + NIL - Admissions = Win total.
I was on the 50 East side. As you say once you are beyond really poor, if you are there to watch the game and have tailgate parking, there are only certain things that mean anything. (nobody is going there for concessions so they are nice if you have them but don't really mean all that much) More bathrooms and theater seating might make it more appealing but not much else, Luxury suites don't mean a thing to the average fan and if they don't consistently put a really good product on the field the fat cats won't either. Have seen that at White Sox Park (Big splash at first and died down after a couple years and I have news, we ain't the CUBS or the BEARS) If we had wanted them they were available.
Can we at least agree that high prices don't bring in more fans? (good performance is likely best way to do that) And at this point we are not talking lowering the prices but rather keeping the prices from being out of sight as they are this year., What we are really talking is that the high prices and donation requirements for STs drive away the ST fans NU has had and keeps newer grads from ever becoming ST holders. We currently are using a stadium that holds something like 12-13K (1/3 the size of the new stadium) and with the current price structure it is not really coming across as being too small.
As far as the visiting fans, individual tickets are always more expensive and keeping ST prices reasonable does not keep them from gouging the visiting fans
No. This is NU (finally) pricing like a modern college football team rather than a dinosaur.
With business and with culture, what is right is what is right for you. I hope the administration ran models something like this:
Higher prices will generate more money from hard core fans and donors.
Higher prices will cost us revenue from casual fans, which means Chicago area and most of our alumni
Higher prices will generate more revenue from visiting team fans; those who drop out will be offset by higher payers who stay
There will be some revenue bump the first couple of years as casuals have a look at the new stadium.
If we become really good, revenue from all groups will rise.
If we remain middling, or fall back, the casuals will be priced out - which I believe costs us some community culture.
Doubt any additional revenue that comes in will materially affect team performance. I don't think $ is the main reason we don't sign lots of 4s and 5s.
At the end of the day, administration has to do what is in the best service of the Northwestern community as a whole balancing academic standards, money, winning, tradition and culture.
Higher prices will generate more money from hard core fans and donors.
Higher prices will cost us revenue from casual fans, which means Chicago area and most of our alumni
Higher prices will generate more revenue from visiting team fans; those who drop out will be offset by higher payers who stay
There will be some revenue bump the first couple of years as casuals have a look at the new stadium.
If we become really good, revenue from all groups will rise.
If we remain middling, or fall back, the casuals will be priced out - which I believe costs us some community culture.
Doubt any additional revenue that comes in will materially affect team performance. I don't think $ is the main reason we don't sign lots of 4s and 5s.
At the end of the day, administration has to do what is in the best service of the Northwestern community as a whole balancing academic standards, money, winning, tradition and culture.
