Glimpse from your future: PSU attendance down due to mandatory donations

gimpse haha

...how do you know what they will look like?

that's stupid on penn state's part

One of Satan's lesser inventions.

Honestly, I think that they look at how much people donate each year, picked a number of season tickets they are aiming to sell, and did a cut off at that point. Any increases in donation from people who donate lesser amounts is a bonus for them. This will free up tickets for the package deals, which they can sell at higher prices per game, and single game tickets.

I really don't think they went into this without doing a huge evaluation of the situation. If they do get themselves into a bind, they could lower the amount to $250 to get more people on the waiting list again.

But the gimp's sleeping.

Well I guess you're gonna have to go wake him up, now won't ya?

I think this has been going on for a while here.  Not terribly sure when it started, but for as long as I was on the waiting list, you had to donate at least $100 to get the endzone seats, $1000 (I think) for the "outer" sideline and even more for between the 40s.

But, so far we've still been selling out and filling it up.

So are you saying, a second deck on the Big House is more or less likely?

We've had 100K+ since 1975, where I think they just expanded in 2001.  M football is a unique animal

http://bentley.umich.edu/athdept/stadium/stadtext/mattend.htm

Fergodsakes

Well, it's a good thing that they don't take attendance to the bank, they take money. It's entirely possible that they run lower attendance and make more money.

at least 2005 for season ticket holders.

Although the prices are different; about half of what PSU is demanding.  Those numbers from Penn State are very surprising -- very high.

You can see what Michigan does on the Victors Club website; premium and club seats are up around $1000 ea.

Victors = $500 ea.

Valiant = $375 ea.

Maize = $250 ea.

Blue = $125 ea.

End Zone = $50 ea.

That is for each seat, every year, before the price of the tickets.

Seats between the 35 and the goal line

...you could see why they are not selling out. Happy Valley is a long way from somewhere, there are woefully too few hotel rooms (see the first point), the stadium resembles a giant erector set in a pasture, the in-game experience is overwhelmed by pom-poms and cheesy piped-in music and PSU really hasn't been very good of late. I am sure price is part of it (2x U-M for that experience?), but it's still cheaper than Steelers season tix.

I am a current PSU grad student (UM alum) and one of the other problems with the Penn State policy is that they altered the sections comprising the "student section" this season. The student section previously followed a similar arrangement to that of UM, but this season, the student section was shifted further around the endzone and extending around only to approx. the goal line. As a result, season ticket holders were once again displaced (from the endzone)...arguably with hopes they would upgrade their seats to the previous sections comprising the student section (from around the goal line to the 30 yd. line). Obviously, these seats were more expensive to begin with. The concrete price difference, combined with the emotion vitriol of displaced ticket holders to the athletic department has culminated into general displeasure with the new policy and decreased ticket sales

We spoke with the Victor's Club earlier this year to get a read on how much exactly is was going to cost us to get off the waitlist and into prime (non-endzone) ticket nirvana.  The price at that time was $1,500 per seat.  That was the figure thrown at us to get move up to the top of the waitlist; giving you enough "points" @ 10/$100 donation.  This of course was independent of your ticket prices and future seat licenses.  U of M football has instantly become my number one most expensive hobby. 

As someone who had 1 leg and a half over the fence on finally pulling the trigger on season tickets these new policies couldnt have came at a worse time. 

$500 is alot of cash just for the opportunity to be considered for season tix.  My fear is exactly as described above.  If the goal is to reduce the waitlist and 20,000 fans pony up> $500 then it becomes a pissing contest into who can donate the most for end zone tickets.

I dont know, I really really want to do this but am hesitent to get bent over.   

This is the culmination of something that began 4 or 5 years ago.  People that held the same seats for generations (lots of dead people were still renewing) were being forced to move.  Say your family had good seats at the 50 yard line before, well those seats were moved to a corner section unless you were willing to pay some garbage fee to keep your seats.

After enough of those people were rousted, the premium seats were then resold along with a PSL to higher tiers of "donors" to the NLC.  It was very upsetting to a lot of oldsters who have supported PSU through thick and thin since JoePa arrived.  They just cannot afford this, and they have finally gotten to see the corporate face of college sports.

Couple all of this with a coach who has had at least one stroke that won't be acknowledged, no succession plan, and midling performances - you get games that aren't sold out.  I just wonder how long it will be until we see tarps covering vast portions of seats...with a corporate sponsor logo on them of course.

There's rumblings there will soon be a seat license, er, PSD, for Michigan Basketball and Hockey as well.   How much farther are we going to go with this? 

Top 1% have 50% of the seats

#OccupyBigHouse

Let's do the math.

6,000 less season tickets (8 games) at 55 per game is 2 MILLION 640 thousand dollars!!

Penn State is now at an unbelievable 94.63 percent of capacity. (M is still at 101.45 %). PSU capacity is over 106,000 so they are running over 6,000 seats less per game.

It would take 26,400 season pass holders in the end zone paying $100 per seat just to break even. Not sure there are that many seats in the end zone.

So, dropping the seat tax for end zone seats would actually make money.

And, fill the stadium!!

way of the future.... way of the future.... way of the future

Are worth less victors points than those this year so really your best bet for tix has always been to donate a ton in 1 year. If you really want tix put 1500-2000 aside over the next couple years then donate it all at once.

I was fortunate enough to bet that the depths of the RR era was as cheap donation wise as it ever would get and landed 4 using that approach

Long ago and far away, when I was young, the only games that ever sold out were MSU or Ohio.  A lot of games were played to a half-empty stadium.  It was actually pretty cool.   

Enter Don Canham.  Canham is given credit for creating a lot of what is now standard football marketing.  He was so successful that many mgobloggers have never lived in a time when a Michigan game wasn't officially a sellout, even with the fans who are masquerading as empty seats at the tops of the end zones.  

Due to the value of a University of Michigan degree, there are still enough rich alums that a lot of tickets will be sold, but I can see the average fan finally saying "enough is enough" someday.  

If Michigan prices itself out of the market, though, the people who will be really pissed are the scalpers.   Nothing neutralizes scalpers like reduced demand.  I hate to wish ill will on anyone in a personal sense, but nothing is more fun to watch on gameday than a desperate scalper with a couple thousand dollars' worth of tickets in his hand five minutes before kickoff.

...this seems like classic supply and demand.  the penn state athletic dept seems to think that people will pay whatever it takes, and the people are saying, "no, that's too much."  football is slightly different, of course - if penn state was undefeated and had an exciting team, it probably wouldn't matter.  

but i can see making the calculation in my head and deciding that one or two games a year is ok, when every game is televised and my hd tv looks like a million dollars.  i've done it myself - i know i complain about this every time it comes up, but i'm not going to pay seventy bucks (or $170, or whatever it is going to take next season) to watch eastern michigan again (or delaware state, or ball state, or akron, etc.)

plus, there's very little chance of me hearing pop evil or seeing some goddamned mascot when i'm in my living room.

Brandon is asking for the same problem with this kind of minimum donations just to have the honor of asking for seats. It's bad enough he raised ticket prices. As a young alum not yet making the big bucks, I don't have season tickets, but I've bought tickets to at least two or three individual games every year since graduation. But this ticket-gouging makes me more and more inclined to simply take the money I'd spend on tickets and buy a new televison to watch the game on instead. [I thought about doing so this year, but ultimately decided I care more about being there for Hoke's inaugural season than I care about my principles as a consumer.] Call it supply and demand--I don't ever want to see Michigan lose its 100K+ attendance streak record, but I won't be tanken advantage of, either.