Dévito is practicing and running drills. I think Josh plays this weekend
Pregame: Illinois vs Minnesota, Saturday, October 15th, 11:00am CT, BTN
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That’s a good sign if he’s practicing and running drills. May play this weekend.
Little gamesmanship by coach
TheFlyingIllini1317
- Chicago, IL
I can't tell if ticket sales look better or worse than last week. Didn't seem like a lot of movement today looking at the map.
I've been following the map all week and I'm not sure either. I don't know how accurate the map is because it seems to occasionally change from sold out to some tickets available in certain areas.
If I had to guess, I would say sales are slower for this game than the Iowa game.
TheFlyingIllini1317
- Chicago, IL
Hard to beat the "we're Illinois and can't be trusted" mindset. If we pull this off without Devito bet we'll start seeing 50's for rest of season.
Flash sales only go so far. I think part of the problem is the young alumni who would be more apt to short notice plans attended school with bad teams and didn’t go to games as students; therefore, why would they bother now? The older alumni don’t have free Saturdays just waiting to pounce on a flash sale 5 days beforehand.
And while I get the economics, the shift to a "TV studios with thousands of seats" model discourages big walkup sales. Game times often don't get announced until a week or two before the kickoff and with every one broadcast everywhere, there isn't the urgency of having to buy a ticket to see what is an unexpectedly big matchup. Even if you live within an hour of C-U, you're talking about minimum five-hour commitment on a Saturday and with youth sports and other activities, that can be too much, especially if the time block is prone to moving around.
Teams with consisent success and those that are closer to large fan base areas will have more people who are ready in July to devote six or seven Saturdays to games regardless of kickoff times or what the team's record is that year. People marvel at Nebraska's attendance, but within an hour of their Memorial Stadium you have Lincoln, which has about 300K population and Omaha with about 500K. If you extend past C-U, by time you get to that many people, you're well into the area where it's closer for people to go to a Bears game and within the demographic of poeple who buy Husker season tickets, you still have a large portion of people who remember them winning national championship.
It's not just college football. As a kid, I remember several times on a nice weekend morning my parents deciding on the spur of the moment to take the family into a city for an MLB game. Now, it's more like something you need to plan and budget for, like a trip to Disney World or something. Even with the NFL, I remember as a kid dreading when Dallas would come to town because that was the one game where there might be enough road-team fans to hear them cheering. Now that's every game because instead of a stadium filled with home season-ticket holders who have devoted eight or nine Sundays to their team, people go a few times and sell the rest on the secondary market, or don't get season-tickets at all and pick out the game or two they really want to attend.
Disappointing. 40k again for attendance this week or less? This is a big game, wonder why people are not getting up for it?
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To add to my post and I didn’t think about this until now, it may be because we’re a basketball school and football just isn’t that big of a draw yet? Once the football team starts winning consistently and winning championships/getting to bowl games than the attendance will increase.
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First of all, that sucks. Depressing really. Not sure what more we could ask of this team and staff this year. Even asking them to get to this point before the season would have seemed unreasonable.
If there are open seats, how strict are they about people moving around within the stadium? I got the horseshoe tickets, but if there’s a ton of open seats on the sidelines, are they gonna stop me from moving?
Illinisteve25
- Champaign
Move all the time never once been told not to...
Joel Goodson
- ties will be resolved
Illinois coach Bret Bielema will try to remain perfect vs. Minnesota
Bielema has an 8-0 career record against the Golden Gophers dating to his time as the coach of Wisconsin.
chicago.suntimes.com
turnaround3
- 1st & Daniel
Nailed it.
We just hired a kid at my office (Chicago burbs) who's freshly graduated this past May in the class of '22. Very casual sports fan, will watch football but far from a diehard of any kind. That said, he asked me yesterday if I (33 y/o, class of '11) was going back for homecoming and I of course very much would be but happen to have a softball tournament tomorrow. So he goes on to tell me that he is of course going back and when I asked where his seats were he said the plans for him (and as far as he knew, most if not all of the guys in his frat) were just to tailgate all day, no plans to go to the game itself. The football team was a non-consideration his *entire* tenure in Champaign, so even while going back for the experience of homecoming weekend, the thought of actually going to the game itself seemed to hardly even register with him.
So he now has 4 tickets in his Apple wallet with the requirement I be sent a picture from the seats at kick.
I-L-L
Neither have I.
Just a hypothetical...if we would have beaten Indiana do you think this game would be a sellout? I'm thinking, close to it. We would be undefeated and higher ranked (thanks Capt. Obvious) and there would be MUCH more hype in the Chicago area .
It's hard to sell 30-35k single game tickets every week.
TheFlyingIllini1317
- Chicago, IL
Yup we need a larger season ticker holder base, hopefully that happens in the offseason.
Big Jack
- Decatur
I am sure it doesn't effect everyone but honestly 11 is a crappy time for a football game.. Hard enough I have to play golf tape the game and hope everyone around me keeps theirs mouths shut
Illinisteve25
- Champaign
Went back and watched highlights from last years game at Minnesota here's a few thoughts. Both teams have a lot of the same players back. We seemed to control the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. We sacked Tanner Morgan 6 times! He also threw 2 picks and had a QBR of 25.3 which is terrible. Chase ran for 147 and that's with Tony Petersen calling plays. We win this game with a turnover or two, running the ball, and playing solid defense.....
I would agree...but this is homecoming week....you would think that in itself would be worth an additional 15-20,000....no?
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