I’m not saying the DIA is perfect nor do I know how its or the university’s budgets are set, but they have a revenue goal for ticket sales to meet that I’d guess is basically given to them. They put together a plan to meet that, and part of that plan was to make the Iowa game — because of its inherent appeal as a hated rival — a premium priced game (no reduced price ticket packages). I believe most if not all of the other games have such packages. That means they are counting on this game to be integral in achieving their revenue goals.
If ticket prices in general are too high, that is something that should be addressed prior to the season and depending on how the budgeting process works ticket prices might not be totally up to them — or at least their yearly ticket revenue goal might not be. I’m not sure why they would make an adjustment after the second game of the season (when we are 1-1) that they or the powers to be didn’t think needed to be made during the off season. BTW weren’t the free tickets given away more for the Chattanooga game?
Thankfully, the team has exceeded expectations (maybe not everyone’s but certainly most) and more people want to go to the Iowa game, bringing this to the forefront. But simply cutting prices last Sunday doesn’t really seem financially feasible. I don’t know, but let’s say that at that time there were 40,000 tickets sold. (I think it was probably more in the 35-37k range but no idea). And since Kansas has been used as a comparison, let’s use $40 (I think that is about the cost of their ticket) as the reduced price. Given that it seems to be trending that the crowd Saturday will be about 55,000 with all reduced priced/free tickets underwritten, that means $525,000 would have been left on the table. I have no idea what their ticket sales revenue goal is, but that’s probably a good sized chunk of it.
Again, are ticket prices in general too high? I really don’t think $75 is a crazy price for a game of this magnitude, but surely lower prices would help with attendance. I just think that the DIA did a decent job maximizing revenue while giving some options, however late (and given the number of posts I’ve seen on here of those buying the reduced priced tickets, not too late) for some cheaper tickets.
As to BB and Josh’s pleas to sell out the stadium, I don’t think that is all that uncommon for a game like this for a program that is just getting turned around — and hasn’t had a sellout since 2016. I seem to remember BU doing the same thing early in his tenure.
OK, that was way too long. Sorry.
Beat them Hawkeyes.
