Too much red!
- Thread starter Pete Purple
- Start date
I’ve only skimmed this thread.
However,
It would be absurd for NU athletics - which is a profit-making venture - to make below-face tickets available to NU fans only strictly to keep the stadium purple.
Just a hunch - but all this would do is prevent the occasional ticket-buyers from buying full-price. It would represent revenue loss only.
Unfortunately, NU is different. The other conference foe almost always has more fans than the home team. So sometimes it sounds like the Yankees in Tampa Bay.
But being different - with all the “do it the right way” and “our kids go to class” and “he’s joining some hedge fund instead of the NBA” - is part of what makes some of us NU fans.
However,
It would be absurd for NU athletics - which is a profit-making venture - to make below-face tickets available to NU fans only strictly to keep the stadium purple.
Just a hunch - but all this would do is prevent the occasional ticket-buyers from buying full-price. It would represent revenue loss only.
Unfortunately, NU is different. The other conference foe almost always has more fans than the home team. So sometimes it sounds like the Yankees in Tampa Bay.
But being different - with all the “do it the right way” and “our kids go to class” and “he’s joining some hedge fund instead of the NBA” - is part of what makes some of us NU fans.
I guess I am not counting the donation in the face value. I am taking a rather large leap that the high rollers are donating this type of coin regularly and are not in the ticket brokering business. The only suggestion was that the high rollers could return there “unused” tickets for resale at face value ( obviously no donation required) to be used by NU fans rather than be empty seats. This would be an option for them, rather than completely eating them.
It is required to even buy the tickets. What is your definition of "High Roller"? Wilson Club" might count but I would not say the $600-1500 dollar donation level would be classified as such. Possibly not even the $2500 level. For some in this group it might be easy. For others a balancing act or even a struggle to justify. And as of this year, that donation is not even tax deductible. Other donations might be but not those involved in acquiring tickets. Nor the tickets themselves.
You realize that many other schools "do it the right way" and "kids go to class", right. NU would or at least love to say our former players are in the NBA! Those kind of kids win BB games.
It would almost be as ridiculous as drastically reducing the talent pool available to you that allows you to win and maximize revenue.
It's pretty obvious maximizing revenue is not the ultimate goal for NU athletics. So why not change an unsuccessful strategy for distributing tickets and growing the fan base?
With donations and BTN, NU athletics is profitable before one ticket is sold.
The moment you give something away, it loses its value. Like all those 2-for-1 coupons you use for those early bird specials. You’ll never pay full price again.
I agree. What is a ticket to the Rutgers game worth now?
Do you really think the true market value of a crappy non-conference game is worth much more than $0?
The other question is what is the value of certain regular fans - let's say the guy who attends 3 or 4 games a year.
Also I believe there is a value to building a fan base, full houses and STHs who regularly attend. If that brings in one kid who loves the atmosphere, what's the value?
Give me a little time and I'm sure I could develop a number that is worth investing to build those characteristics.
This sounds like the approach Dollar Bill Wirtz used with the Chicago Blackhawks for years. Protect the season reservation holders by keeping home games off free TV. Rocky takes over and first thing he does is start ramping up exposure to a team that was losing a generation of their fan base. Attendance went from half full to every game selling out. Of course the product improved, but today that same franchise sits in last place and they still are selling out every game. it’s called building a fan base that sticks with you through thick and thin.
We are basically talking about a vehicle to get the prime unused Wilson Club seats in the hands of Die hard NU fans that can pay for the ticket but can’t justify a $6k annual donation. Non-alum are not likely to pony this up each year. Without non-alumni building the fan base, NU will be subject to an arena half full of blue and orange.
Nope. Dollar Bill didn’t show games on TV, because he was an idiot. Every game that anyone would be interested in is on TV now.
The ‘problem’ is not the 800 sparsely full Wilson Club seats. The ‘problem’ is that there are more Indiana fans than Northwestern fans to fill the other 5200 seats.
Free tickets won’t bring out paying fans. Free tickets will bring out people who want free seats.
You keep saying free. That is not what I am advocating. I am saying face value seats to NU fans with the money going to the STH or to NU if the ticket holder do desires. These are unused vacant seats. As a non alum, I have no issue paying the face value of the seat, but I have a big problem with the annual donation. Because 1) I didn’t go to NU and didn’t make the tall paper that many alum did and 2) I didn’t go to NU period so don’t have the emotional attachment as an alum. NU needs to cultivate more STH in the area that are not alum because the alum can’t and don’t fill the seats. The team deserves to have NU fans in their own building. It’s a bad look to have louder opposition fans and certainly can’t help when attracting recruits. It’s embarassing and NU should use their collective brainpower to do something about it rather than accepting it!
Right. Lots of winning for lots of years is how you have more purple fans than red fans at Welsh-Ryan.
Billboards and slogans and social media videos and a local coach with a local accent are cool - but a sustained run of winning is how a fan base is built. And NU’s best year ever was the fourth-best in the conference that season, and an outright disaster for Michigan State, who achieved exactly the same thing.
(And unfortunately, fans are fickle. 2 or 3 losses can cause people to lose interest. Cheering for a winner is more fun.)
(Edit) OK, I've said my peace. Unlike some recent activities, my purpose is not to go COMPLETELY out of my way to put the program in as bad a light as possible for my personal kicks.
The bad and the good should be always be openly discussed ... in an HONEST and truthful manner. But that doesn't mean it needs to sit out here for every recruit and AAU scumbag to comb through.
Go Cats!!
The bad and the good should be always be openly discussed ... in an HONEST and truthful manner. But that doesn't mean it needs to sit out here for every recruit and AAU scumbag to comb through.
Go Cats!!
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Then that's even more of a reason to make single game tickets available to other Chicago area fans. You know , try and grow a larger fan base.
A new arena attracts no new fans.
Single game tickets are available for every game. Anyone who wishes to pay for a ticket may attend, whether via NU or the secondary market. The other guy has more fans.
"Of course the product improved" is doing a lot of work there. Had Rocky Wirtz put the games on TV but the team had continued missing the playoffs for another decade, the UC would still be a mausoleum. Likewise, if NU wins three national championships in six years, I bet we'll be selling games out for a while and we'll discover a lot of NU fans we didn't know we had.
The best seats, should be occupied by NU fans, not empty chairs.
But single game tickets *are* available. Is there any evidence that the reason Chicago-area fans don't go to games is because visitor fans take the tickets, or are we just assuming that is the case because there are more visitor fans in the stands?
True, but my counterpoint was the “free product” on TV did not limit ticket sales.
I need to take a step back, because I obviously get more worked up about the embarrassing inability to fill a small arena with NU fans than many alum on this board. I’ll just watch on TV too until we start winning titles.
Having a team that was winning cups had a little to do with that.
It is hard to build a non alum base for college BB in a pro town. I have no problem with Wilson Club members doing what ever they want with tickets. If that is giving away the ones they do not use, fine. But it is their decision.
There are a number of individual game tickets available for every game. Something like 1400. Now for the big games you likely have to go after those tickets as soon as they are available just like any other hot ticket but otherwise....
One of the reasons it got put on TV is that it was a significant additional revenue source that it wasn't when Wirtz Sr instituted the policy.
The fact is that we do not have that many alums in Chicago area that are sports fans and have the time to go to a number of BB games a year. Evanston is not exactly an easy place to get to. Even though I am 20 -25 miles away, it often takes over an hour. There is simply no easy way for most to get to Evanston. And while there are always some non alum fans, in a pro town there really are not that many. Add to that the decades of frustration our fans have been subject to and it is not hard to understand why the seats are not filled with purple. Even Loyola that had an epic NCAA run to the final four cannot sell out their arena. Depaul has also been challenged for decades.
The advantage of going down in size is that even when we are facing a team that travels well, we are now only 50-50 rather than outnumbered 3-1
it would be nice if they tried , very hard to give them to NU fans. Guess those big buck donors just don't care or they need tipping cash.
Again who are you suggesting as Big Bucks donors? If it is the Wilson Club donors, indication was very few seats occupied by opponents fans and that could be attributed to family members or others that the donors gave their tickets to. Places opponents fans could be found in include upper deck where all 1400 single game tickets are located as when as where you don't seem to have a problem with ST holders selling their tickets or extras. Also certain areas of lower bowl including corners ($600 donation) and possibly $1500 donation areas. I would not consider any of those areas Big Donor areas.
It can be a hassle even giving away tickets. Could NU make it easier? Maybe. But most of the seats open seemed to be in Wilson Club. Many of them are older fans that donated to support NU but have trouble making it to a number of games and some of them might be out of town (FL?) So even if NU came up with a way, still likely limited in how many could be made available.
Under your theory (and mind you, I agree with you about the big buck folks, but it's just not reality), someone with a lot of money should not have any interest in making small amounts of money. No matter how much anyone has, they always want more.
Again, if he is talking about Wilson seats, not many were in hands of opponents fans and there are other ways other than sales that that could happen. If other seats are included the money from sale could make a difference.
Embarrassing that we can’t get 5000 Purple clad to every Big Ten game, even if we are subpar. This is the third largest metropolitan area in the country.
College sports are just not a Chicago thing - at least not a *native* Chicago thing. NYC is the same.
I grew up on the northwest side of the city and I had no clue about anything Northwestern other than the existence of the school until I applied, got admitted, and watched my first college game ever - the victory over ND in 1995 - on TV. And I grew up a huge sports fan.
With tons of competition for college hoops fans, not to mention the Bulls and two pro hockey teams and many other kinds or entertainment. Again, Loyola, easier to get to, coming off a final four run with three starters back, and they've had trouble filling a 5,000 seat arena in a "major metropolitan area."
Sorry but I am not sure that was true when he originally implemented it. As time went on and it became a solid revenue source his position became out dated but when he originally put it on it likely was a reasonable business decision for maximizing his revenues and profits. And I believe it was home games that he didn't allow on TV. Later it became more of an albatros that needed to be changed for the advancement of the Black Hawks and he was slow to get that.
It is a pro sports town. Evanston is difficult to get to and College BB is not on the average sports fans list of things to do. And guess what. I don't think that College BB teams in those two larger metro areas are successful at filling the stands if the teams (or who they are playing) are mediocre
Once per year at home, maybe. And we do fill the stadium for that game, just with MSU fans. Of course, they outnumber NU alums in Chicago about 4-1 or more and seeing MSU at NU is likely the only place they have an opportunity to see them in person. Plus they likely have the opportunity to see a win.
This is all too true . . . and it's not a good look.
