Season Opener Solutions

[SF_Rabbit_Fan]

Although I like to hunt, I will be at CAF on Saturday night.

One thing that kind of bothers me about everyone's attitude seems to fall into two camps:

1-We just shouldn't schedule home games on the Pheasant Opener.
2-We are never going to get a good crowd at Pheasant Opener, that's just the way it is.

THIS IS DII THINKING! Let's start getting creative people!

To me, it seems like we are missing out on a HUGE opportunity to tie the two events together (like Thanksgiving and NFL). Lots of people get excited for Pheasant Opener, lots of people get excited for SDSU football. If we could draw 1 out of every 10 pheasant hunters to the game, it would be a sellout!

I wanted to start a thread for solutions to the Season Opener slump to give hunters a little incentive to come out to the game. A few ideas:

-Push the start time to 7 PM.

-Organize alumni hunts. With so much of the private/public land tied up on opening day lots of out of state alumni hunters (and in state hunters from Sioux Falls) might jump at the chance to come back to Brookings for a weekend, hunt a little, and take in a game.

-Blaze Orange Night-Wear blaze orange to the game and get 1/2 off admission. This could draw in people who might not go to any other game of the year, but with the price of half price admission might tip the scales in the favor of an SDSU game.

-Pheasant License-Show your pheasant license at the concessions area, get 1/2 off

-Gun show/Outdoor show-I guess guns would be a little tricky, but why not do an outdoor show that day? If the SF airport can sell spots in the airport for an extra 2000 passengers, vendors should be willing to pay for spots to show their wares to 8,000+ potential in state hunters...

-We have the Beef Bowl and Cereal Bowl. Why not have this game be the Outdoor Bowl? Have Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, etc hand out big fat checks to the Dept for Wildlife and Fisheries dept? Auction off a weekend at a hunting lodge, etc...

Finally, a little analogy. Say I own a restaurant across the street from the Metrodome. Do I think to my self, "Football games are a huge event, nobody will show up at my restaurant on Sunday, I might as well close up shop for the day." Of course not! Realizing that such a huge event is taking place in my own back yard, I'm going to try to take advantage of the situation! I'd hang Vikings banners in the windows, have the pregame on all the TV's, and have some Vikings specials on the menu.

To me, Pheasant Season is the biggest event in SD every year, and we are not capitalizing on the opportunity at hand!

[musicman]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

Those are some great Ideas and may just work. Hope you can send that to the right people to try and organize. The crowds have been great all year and my son says it is a real lift to the team to have the stands full. We need to realize that we are a top 20 team that could quite possibly play in post season our first year. What more would someone need to get them excited to come and cheer.

[JackrabbitGuy]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

Playing pheasant opener home games at 7 p.m. would help, but still there are enough of us that come to the games from a distance that I don't think it would make that much difference in the attendence. It will be in my head though, that if we have a good day of hunting early that I could grab a couple of family members and make it down for the game.

Perhaps a Friday night game when a home game falls on the opening weekend. I'm guessing that most schools like to keep the Saturday schedule, but college football games are played on non-Saturday's all the time.

[bigticket1]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

I would think that Friday nights would be off-limits to avoid competing with high school games.

[launcher46]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

I would think that Friday nights would be off-limits to avoid competing with high school games.

Yeah sadly that would likely be the case... it's about time that nonsense ends and people come out and support the Jacks regardless.

[AnimalHouse83]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

I would like to think playing on the pheasant opener is not our first choice, but may be a product of other team's scheduling as well.

I really like a lot of SF Rabbit Fan's suggestions -- good stuff! You're not going to know if something is going to work unless you try it. An Outdoor Game/Pheasant Bowl has another great SDSU tradition written all over it. I'd hate to see somebody else try this before we do ...

[bub94]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

I don't see why having a home game the Friday of pheasant opener is such a bad idea. Brookings High School would just have to plan for a road trip every year(even though they paid for the lights, I would think an SDSU event should take priority). I think a lot of the out-of-staters would actually go to the game. Put up flyers in the hotels and eating establishments advertising the game. What else do they have to do that night. Sit there planning their outfit of orange. NO, they were already wearing it on the plane. I think a lot of college kids would also stick around that night and leave on Saturday to get home for hunting.

[SturgisJeff]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

Have the Game,Fish and Parks move the Pheasant Opener to Sunday instead of Saturday. All us old folks are probably sore from the first day on saturday from all that walking and climbing and the gun hitting our shoulders that we take sunday off anyways. This way go to the game, be fresh on Sunday and go to work on Monday and do the suffering there.

[RunninRabbit]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

Yeah sadly that would likely be the case... it's about time that nonsense ends and people come out and support the Jacks regardless.

Thank you!

There was a time not too long ago that I never would have guess that there would the fan support that we now enjoy... so it seems tough to fathom but a Jacks game WILL overshadow the hunting opener some day.

Go Jacks!!!!

[Nidaros]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

I just noticed this thread. I like the ideas proposed to start the thread and I dont even hunt, but I like anything that would be a positive for SDSU athletics. I did notice that there was a Celebration of South Dakota theme for Cal Poly game. I dont know how much effort was put into this promotion. Apparently they got all surrounding towns of Brookings, like Volga, Arlington, White,Astoria etc to participate but how I am not sure. Whether the commerical clubs or Chambers of these small towns put up the money for the free tickets is not known to me. Apparently, they went to these communities and encouraged them to promote the football game at SDSU in some shape or form.

On the front of the Arlington Sun, the newspaper for Arlington there was a clip coupon that says:

Celebration of South Dakota
In appreciation of your support of South Dakota State Athletics, we'd like to invite you and one guest to attend the folloing football game FREE OF CHARGE-
SAT. OCt 18th vs CAL POLY - 6:00PM.
Simply cut out this coupon and present it at the ticket booth on the west side of Coughlin-Alumni Staduim prior to the gameor stop by the Jackrabbit Ticket Office during normal business hours (M-F 8:00AM - 5:00PM.

So apparently there are a few free tickets available but from for people in towns around Brookings, but if you lived in Los Angeles and received the Arlington Sun, you could have received a free ticket with the coupon.

I have no idea how successful this promotion was. I guess the number of coupons will tell the story. Also I am old enough to recall a similar promotion that SDSU used in the early 1950's calle Hi Neighbor Night, it was basically promoting in the small town around Brookings and how successful that promotion I can not say. Also records other than newspaper accounts do not exist. Times have changed so much and other than these towns being bedroom communities, the farm population has shrunk and main street business is hardly in existence. So I for one will want to know how many coupons were turned in for free tickets.

Getting back to the hunting promotion idea, you would need all the hunting and outdoor trade associations and groups to get behind this. With the Cereal and Beef Bowls you have trade association involved the year around. The live-stock and grain trade association groups have been working with SDSU since Day one and those checks on paper board that are presented at half time represent funding for on going research. I dont know if there is as much of wildlife research going on. Maybe there is in which case a hunting or outdoor promotion has possiblities. If SDSU could get the Outdoors groups behind this with their dollars, this promotion could work. Its a give and take, it can not be all free coupons for tickets to make it work. It requires interested alums who have connections to these groups and who are willing to work hard in making this promotion happen. Like I said upfront, I am not a hunter nor a member of outdoors groups.

[usdfbalum63]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

Why not plan now for an annual "Pheasant Bowl" game where you play USD? Attendance would be really strong every year. Play the game either Saturday night (Day of Pheasant Opener) or Friday Night (Day prior).

[sfjacksfan99]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

Why not plan now for an annual "Phesant Bowl" game where you play USD? Attendance would be really strong every year. Play the game either Saturday night (Day of Pheasant Opener) or Friday Night (Day prior).

So the first year of the Pheasant Bowl will be 2020?

[usdfbalum63]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

So the first year of the Pheasant Bowl will be 2020?

That probably will not work either since you will be in the BCS then, right?

[trueblue]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

As a high school fb coach and season ticket holder (who has not missed a home game since we became season ticket holders) I would be very disappointed by a Friday night game. How about Thursday night at 7? We had an open week prior to last nights game anyway- so it still would have been plenty of preparation time. BTW I am also a hunter.

[State_fan]

Re: Season Opener Solutions

As a high school fb coach and season ticket holder (who has not missed a home game since we became season ticket holders) I would be very disappointed by a Friday night game. How about Thursday night at 7? We had an open week prior to last nights game anyway- so it still would have been plenty of preparation time. BTW I am also a hunter.

I've always thought a thursday night game would be the ticket for this week. Its on an evening during the week, student turnout would be much greater. There really just isn't anybody around on saturdays for this (season opener) game, campus this weekend was dead. Moving it to Thursday evening would solve the student attendance issue. But on the other hand, I'm not sure how it would affect the regular ticket holder's ability to attend the game being midweek, or if they can schedule another team on a thursday night that late in the season.