Attendance & Alcohol

[RowdyRabbit]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

The club seating allows alcohol doesn't it? Were those sections full yesterday?

[jakejc795]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Have you attended the Summit League tournament ?

I certainly hope Athletics isn't making a direct comparison to alcohol sales at a tournament in Sioux Falls to justify implementing similar sales in Brookings without considering complications in Brookings, which include considerable differences in venue (outdoors versus an indoor venue with HVAC and considerably greater refrigeration capacity, differences in existing sponsorships, etc.), security costs, post-game travel, etc.

[Nidaros]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

The club seating allows alcohol doesn't it? Were those sections full yesterday?

Section 304 Row 5 Seat 28 was empty. I suspect many others were too.

[mitchellrabbit]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

The club seating allows alcohol doesn't it? Were those sections full yesterday?

I dont know if the club seats were full but those people have the option to stay inside where it is warm and where there is alcohol.

[Rabbitball]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

The club seating allows alcohol doesn't it? Were those sections full yesterday?

No they weren't. But there were A LOT of people inside the club drinking and watching the game on tv.

[Justwin]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Have you attended the Summit League tournament ?

I have never missed a single game!

[Nidaros]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

I certainly hope Athletics isn't making a direct comparison to alcohol sales at a tournament in Sioux Falls to justify implementing similar sales in Brookings without considering complications in Brookings, which include considerable differences in venue (outdoors versus an indoor venue with HVAC and considerably greater refrigeration capacity, differences in existing sponsorships, etc.), security costs, post-game travel, etc.

Looking at SF events seems to be a fair judgement, but I wonder about such events as a Twins or a Viking event where barley beverages are sold. If they have minor incidents of driving while under the influence and any other alcohol related incidents then why not? It would might be a lost opportunity to concessions sales. I am not so sure that cutting off beer sales at the end of the third quarter helps that much. Some who have consumed many by the third quarter might need much more time than the fourth quarter to make them legal for driving home.

[jakejc795]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Looking at SF events seems to be a fair judgement, but I wonder about such events as a Twins or a Viking event where barley beverages are sold. If they have minor incidents of driving while under the influence and any other alcohol related incidents then why not? It would might be a lost opportunity to concessions sales. I am not so sure that cutting off beer sales at the end of the third quarter helps that much. Some who have consumed many by the third quarter might need much more time than the fourth quarter to make them legal for driving home.

My concern would be that you risk extraneous variables such as greater likelihood of increased alcohol consumption at Summit Tourney when the person is either a Sioux Falls resident or someone who has a hotel room in town and knows s/he can "sleep it off" at hotel that evening. In addition, a person can spend several hours indoors at the Summit Tourney (with only the break between sessions). Lastly, there would need to be modifications at DJD to facilitate greater alcohol sales, which would at least partially decrease ROI. Relatedly, isn't it likely that SF Sports Authority and sponsors are bearing the cost of the tourney, while SDSU (and more limited sponsorships) would be responsible for the costs of sales at football games? Granted, they could recoup some of the loss by fees/charges transferred to fans and aforementioned sponsorships.

[CappinHard]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Personally, I'd rather not have sales on east side because people already disrupt game viewing sans alcohol sales, but if they are going to sell it, particularly without vendors with trays, I'd question how they'd do so without disrupting game viewing (unless they limit sales to pre-game and at halftime).

Are you serious with this? See every stadium that already sells alcohol.

[CappinHard]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

The club seating allows alcohol doesn't it? Were those sections full yesterday?

Before I answer this rhetorical question, tell me whether you think this is actually a good indication of whether or not alcohol sales would increase attendance in other sections of the stadium.

[jakejc795]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Are you serious with this? See every stadium that already sells alcohol.

I'm willing to compromise, so let's have a discussion rather than jumping to extremes. I don't think it's unreasonable to want to watch the game and not have people standing in front of me during game action. Sorry, I don't pay for tickets to subsidize someone else's alcohol consumption or reunion with friends in the middle of the dang row where I'm sitting.

[mitchellrabbit]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Looking at SF events seems to be a fair judgement, but I wonder about such events as a Twins or a Viking event where barley beverages are sold. If they have minor incidents of driving while under the influence and any other alcohol related incidents then why not? It would might be a lost opportunity to concessions sales. I am not so sure that cutting off beer sales at the end of the third quarter helps that much. Some who have consumed many by the third quarter might need much more time than the fourth quarter to make them legal for driving home.

Not everyone is going to drink and drive. My wife might have one, two at the most. So she drives. In Sioux Falls for the Summit Tourney, we stay at the Sheraton so we dont have to drive anywhere. As for Twins/Vikings games, a lot of people are staying downtown in hotels so they walk or take the train. Or we now have Lyft and Uber. Plenty of options to not drink and drive if people are smart enough to take advantage of those. But not everyone is.

[Mr_Tibbs]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

For the record, I'm pro alcohol sales at the stadium. I think it could help a few different aspects of the game day. But I don't think it's going to move the needle in a huge way for late season attendance.

I don't know what the answer is for the lackluster showings we continually have. It's not a simply fix though, and I doubt it's going to be solved by policy changes or incentives. Those may help, and I'm all for making gamed the best possible experience we can make it. But I think all of this stuff is piecemeal when our problem is systematic.

The questions should be:

How do we get our alumni who don't have a strong connection currently to become interested in being a part of gameday? And how do we make people who have no natural alumni/Brookings connection to SDSU become a part of gameday?

Alcohol sales might be something that makes their first experience more enjoyable. Incentives and giveaways do the same. Wifi, reentrance, family centered stuff, etc. are all good too. But I don't think those things alone are what is going to lead us to where we want to go. Winning is essential, but we've thankfully got that covered.

Better media coverage out of Sioux Falls news stations and rapid city stations would be a nice start. All of this Augie to D1 talk promoted by the media should tell you all you need to know about how interested the Sioux Falls media is in covering the local D1 schools.

I just think our battle is going to be uphill the whole way, and that simply fielding competitive teams and making gameday better isn't enough. In order to be like the Montana/MSU''s of the world, we need to be a huge presence in the state, border to border. Right now, we are the largest presence in the state, but we aren't large enough. If we can reach our potential in that regard, then I think we'll be on the right track.

To me, a good and achievable attendance goal should be Hobo Day, Beef Bowl, and USD/NDSU are always a sellout. And our other three home games are at or above 14k. Playoffs, assuming we aren't playing on Thanksgiving weekend, should be at or above 14k, regardless of weather. Go watch the 2009 Montana vs App State semi-final if you think that's unrealistic in a December snowstorm in Brookings.

I know all of this takes time, and it'll happen in small steps. I'm just not sure that we are currently making strides in that regard. It feels more like a plateau.

[jakejc795]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Before I answer this rhetorical question, tell me whether you think this is actually a good indication of whether or not alcohol sales would increase attendance in other sections of the stadium.

This assumes that alcohol availability exerts greater influence than ticket prices, and our responses likely reflect our biases. You're more apt to focus on alcohol, and I focus on ticket prices.

My rationale for focusing on prices is that decreasing prices has potential to engender greater activity among a more diverse group of fans (e.g., families, teetotalers, minors, etc.)

[Southeast]

Re: Attendance & Alcohol

Among people I know, the root problem is that they see FCS (or as most of them call it "1AA" or "D2") as the collection of schools used as September punching bags by the big boys. This includes a bunch of SDSU and USD grads, many of whom go to at least one game each year. Is it because (as someone else mentioned in the earlier thread) this is "Big 10 country"? I personally think it's something like that - and that's definitely not the case out in Montana. Take a look at the teams in the top-25. Elon, Stony Brook, Towson, Colgate, Wofford, James Madison, Dartmouth, Kennesaw St. Even I literally can't tell you which state a single one of those is in. I don't know how you fix this, but I think it is a big part of the reason locals don't want to go out in even slightly chilly weather. Rain in November, forget about it unless it is USD/NDSU. Turning that around in the days of easy TV viewing is going to be tough.