Attendance & Alcohol

[Nidaros]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Interesting article about Ole Miss finally implementing Beer sales

"Believe it or not, they waited until the Texas A&M game and pretty much executed the new beer sales plan with relatively few glitches. The university reported approximately 15,400 beers were sold on Saturday netting around $130,000, so potentially we’re looking at a $1M revenue stream for seven home games if those sales trends hold true."

https://www.redcuprebellion.com/201....ingway-stadium

I did simple division and $130,000 divided by 15,400 equals $8.44 per beer. Not a bad day at the office.

[Crashola]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

I also attended both schools and I do agree that many SDSU students go into law and doctoral studies after undergrad. My question as I have asked myself is why attend the undergrad university that does not offer the professional degrees? Say what you want about a study by USD to see if the law school was best fit in Vermillion, I don't see why that is such a bad idea. In the end this years class will be the largest to date.

I do agree that the ag sector follows sports much closer and have much more expendable time to attend then the professionals.

In my 20 years of practice in big law firms, I would say the large majority of attorneys I practiced with went to law school somewhere other than where they got their undergrad degrees. An very large majority.

[Mr_Tibbs]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

I'm just going to post here regarding yesterday's lackluster attendance so it's in the proper thread. No need to start bitching about it in the ISUr thread. I'm going to look later today to confirm, but I have a feeling that we've had more sub 9k November games in this new stadium this decade than in Coughlin 2010 to 2015. Might be wrong, but it just seems like thennosedove in laye season drop off has been worse in the new building.

I have no idea how you fix it, but we're going in the wrong direction.

[mitchellrabbit]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

The 3 day weekend really hurt with the student section. I get that many of them had to go home to help on the farm. Hopefully it can be full next week and give us 2-3 thousand students. That would put us over 10,000. At this point, i would be happy with that

[UWMandSDSU]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

I'm just going to post here regarding yesterday's lackluster attendance so it's in the proper thread. No need to start bitching about it in the ISUr thread. I'm going to look later today to confirm, but I have a feeling that we've had more sub 9k November games in this new stadium this decade than in Coughlin 2010 to 2015. Might be wrong, but it just seems like thennosedove in laye season drop off has been worse in the new building.

I have no idea how you fix it, but we're going in the wrong direction.

One of my favorite excuses that I have seen from social media so far for lackluster attendance was: “Also we need a new announcer that gets the fans into the game”.

Another social media poster says they can’t afford the expensive tickets BUT would come more often if they sold beer. What? Doesn’t want to pay for “expensive” tickets but will pay for $8 beers?

[CappinHard]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Here's my take on things that would make a difference in attendance. Some of these may be seen as excuses, but there's validity to them:

Dome - Obviously that's not going to happen, so let's acknowledge that it would increase attendance, but move on to things that can be changed.

Championship - I think we would see a small bump, but tbh, it might have to be a couple to really get sustained buy in.

Ticket prices - I think we have seen that for November games, the ticket price is not the driving factor.

Tailgating - This is in the top 2 for me of ways to increase attendance. It can be so much better.

Alcohol sales - This is just outside the top 2. Whether people believe it or not and like it or not, beer sales would increase attendance. Also, stop tying logic against it to ticket prices.

Advertising - This is the other one in the top 2. So much more can be done. Hopefully the marketing firm we hired makes a difference.

[slosho]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Alcohol sales - This is just outside the top 2. Whether people believe it or not and like it or not, beer sales would increase attendance. Also, stop tying logic against it to ticket prices.

Only insomuch as it creates a better game-day experience for an individual or group.

[GoJacks]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

How Colleges Should Prepare for Alcohol Service

https://www.athleticbusiness.com/col...DAUEaHf0.email

[Nidaros]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

How Colleges Should Prepare for Alcohol Service

https://www.athleticbusiness.com/col...DAUEaHf0.email

Excellent link. I would think our AD is well aware of this service. I think it might be helpful to our staff and UPD.

[CappinHard]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

We're not alone with attendance woes. Montana, who historically has very good attendance, is having issues selling tickets to this week's matchup against conference foe #3 Weber State. They are selling 50% off tickets to get people to show up.

[Mr_Tibbs]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

We're not alone with attendance woes. Montana, who historically has very good attendance, is having issues selling tickets to this week's matchup against conference foe #3 Weber State. They are selling 50% off tickets to get people to show up.

Yup, its definitely a trend, and one that I don't understand. Some schools have been able to avoid it, but many have not.

Personally, I think it boils down to this:

In South Dakota, we don't have enough fans of the game of football to begin with. Next, of those who are fans of the game, not enough are fans of college football for whatever reason (no local FBS team, no long winning history in the state, etc.) Next, of those who are college football fans, there aren't enough that are excited by FCS football and/or understand it. And by proxy, they don't understand how good SDSU is and our relevance on national stage for our level. They maybe understand that NDSU is great, and if we aren't beating NDSU, we must not be great. Finally, of those few South Dakotans who are College football fans and get how good SDSU is, we still have to fight weather, long weekends, sub PAR gameday atmosphere, tailgate issues, harvest season, and other day to day distractions.

My point in all that rambling is that there are a lot of things that we can do to improve gameday, tickets, tailgating, etc., but we're fighting an uphill battle and attacking the problem at the wrong end of the funnel. All of those things will help, and will help retain new fans once they experience a good game day. But I think our biggest issue right now is that we have a culture in this state that is flat out not passionate about football, and definitely doesn't care a whole lot about FCS ball. Things like College GameDay help that, but we need to figure out a way to expand our market pool if we want to grow the fan base. Because relying on alums and those who have a connection to SDSU isnt doing it right now.

I think those ****heads on KWSN kind of sum it up for me. They have a weekly segment dedicated to the Jack's, but they only have a passing idea of what happened in the game, don't know how the final score came to be, and just sound like they couldn't give less of a **** about anything non-power 5 football related. If it isnt Huskers/Hawkeyes/Gophers, it's not worth their time in analyzing. That attitude, and that attitude specifically in Sioux Falls, is what is standing in the way of getting better attendance, imo. How you fight that, I'm not sure. But in my opinion, it starts with getting kids in SF excited about the Jack's, talking about the Jacks at school the next Monday, etc. I would make a hard push to have a presence in every after school sports program you can down there, do ticket give always for local schools, get area high school teams to come to select games for free, organize more watch parties for away games, etc.

I think the only way this attendance issue gets better is by growing the number of people interested in FCS football in the state. If we do that, there's really only one option for those that want to see a winning product on the field.

[UWMandSDSU]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Notre Dame had the second longest sellout streak (behind Nebraska) and there was talk that streak was in jeopardy this week.

[GoJacksSW]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Notre Dame had the second longest sellout streak (behind Nebraska) and there was talk that streak was in jeopardy this week.

I saw that ESPN article, the Notre Dame AD said this weekend and next weekend are not expected to sell out, attendance and tickets are an issue everywhere right now for sure

[BTownJack]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Yup, its definitely a trend, and one that I don't understand. Some schools have been able to avoid it, but many have not.

Personally, I think it boils down to this:

In South Dakota, we don't have enough fans of the game of football to begin with. Next, of those who are fans of the game, not enough are fans of college football for whatever reason (no local FBS team, no long winning history in the state, etc.) Next, of those who are college football fans, there aren't enough that are excited by FCS football and/or understand it. And by proxy, they don't understand how good SDSU is and our relevance on national stage for our level. They maybe understand that NDSU is great, and if we aren't beating NDSU, we must not be great. Finally, of those few South Dakotans who are College football fans and get how good SDSU is, we still have to fight weather, long weekends, sub PAR gameday atmosphere, tailgate issues, harvest season, and other day to day distractions.

My point in all that rambling is that there are a lot of things that we can do to improve gameday, tickets, tailgating, etc., but we're fighting an uphill battle and attacking the problem at the wrong end of the funnel. All of those things will help, and will help retain new fans once they experience a good game day. But I think our biggest issue right now is that we have a culture in this state that is flat out not passionate about football, and definitely doesn't care a whole lot about FCS ball. Things like College GameDay help that, but we need to figure out a way to expand our market pool if we want to grow the fan base. Because relying on alums and those who have a connection to SDSU isnt doing it right now.

I think those ****heads on KWSN kind of sum it up for me. They have a weekly segment dedicated to the Jack's, but they only have a passing idea of what happened in the game, don't know how the final score came to be, and just sound like they couldn't give less of a **** about anything non-power 5 football related. If it isnt Huskers/Hawkeyes/Gophers, it's not worth their time in analyzing. That attitude, and that attitude specifically in Sioux Falls, is what is standing in the way of getting better attendance, imo. How you fight that, I'm not sure. But in my opinion, it starts with getting kids in SF excited about the Jack's, talking about the Jacks at school the next Monday, etc. I would make a hard push to have a presence in every after school sports program you can down there, do ticket give always for local schools, get area high school teams to come to select games for free, organize more watch parties for away games, etc.

I think the only way this attendance issue gets better is by growing the number of people interested in FCS football in the state. If we do that, there's really only one option for those that want to see a winning product on the field.

This is spot on here - best post on this thread, hands down. This is the issue we face, not tailgating, weather, opponent, etc.

[Nidaros]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Yup, its definitely a trend, and one that I don't understand. Some schools have been able to avoid it, but many have not.

Personally, I think it boils down to this:

In South Dakota, we don't have enough fans of the game of football to begin with. Next, of those who are fans of the game, not enough are fans of college football for whatever reason (no local FBS team, no long winning history in the state, etc.) Next, of those who are college football fans, there aren't enough that are excited by FCS football and/or understand it. And by proxy, they don't understand how good SDSU is and our relevance on national stage for our level. They maybe understand that NDSU is great, and if we aren't beating NDSU, we must not be great. Finally, of those few South Dakotans who are College football fans and get how good SDSU is, we still have to fight weather, long weekends, sub PAR gameday atmosphere, tailgate issues, harvest season, and other day to day distractions.

My point in all that rambling is that there are a lot of things that we can do to improve gameday, tickets, tailgating, etc., but we're fighting an uphill battle and attacking the problem at the wrong end of the funnel. All of those things will help, and will help retain new fans once they experience a good game day. But I think our biggest issue right now is that we have a culture in this state that is flat out not passionate about football, and definitely doesn't care a whole lot about FCS ball. Things like College GameDay help that, but we need to figure out a way to expand our market pool if we want to grow the fan base. Because relying on alums and those who have a connection to SDSU isnt doing it right now.

I think those ****heads on KWSN kind of sum it up for me. They have a weekly segment dedicated to the Jack's, but they only have a passing idea of what happened in the game, don't know how the final score came to be, and just sound like they couldn't give less of a **** about anything non-power 5 football related. If it isnt Huskers/Hawkeyes/Gophers, it's not worth their time in analyzing. That attitude, and that attitude specifically in Sioux Falls, is what is standing in the way of getting better attendance, imo. How you fight that, I'm not sure. But in my opinion, it starts with getting kids in SF excited about the Jack's, talking about the Jacks at school the next Monday, etc. I would make a hard push to have a presence in every after school sports program you can down there, do ticket give always for local schools, get area high school teams to come to select games for free, organize more watch parties for away games, etc.

I think the only way this attendance issue gets better is by growing the number of people interested in FCS football in the state. If we do that, there's really only one option for those that want to see a winning product on the field.

By in large I agree with your post, and have long time ago turned off KWSN and their blather. I am sure our staff are working very hard trying to get things going in Sioux Falls. As I stated in another post, putting efforts and support in attracting SF support seems to be a relatively new concept, that was a big recommendation in the Carr Report which was the study for considering D1 move. Before these events, trying to attract support beyond SDSU Friends and Alums in SF was unheard of. I think Admin thought they could support 18 or 19 sports from following and support from approximately 68 counties rural counties. In the distance past, I sensed that the Admin did not need the "big shots from SF, who ruined the rural hunting by leaving cattle gates open". There seems to be that kind of rural attitude today but maybe not as much as there once was. I think AD Sell has a big task ahead of him with the alcohol issue. It really needs to be implemented carefully and since this is what society wants, then the SDSU has no choice but to follow. Another n poster commented and shared a link, that there is this organization that specializes in alcohol impairment. I think it would be a good investment. Some of our very proud tailgaters, who might be dealing with an alcohol problem will have more that the UPD to deal with. An other set of impartial eyes. Our game day experience should be a good one with good clean fun, and not a kegger atmosphere. I enjoy your posts, they are thoughtful and informative.

The bottom line is that our decisions made 30 or 40 years ago impact today. Perhaps this why we struggle with a growing fan base.