100% agree. Not even new deals--promote the 4-pack! $99 for almost any 4 tickets to a Big Ten West championship game (essentially) is a great deal, but if people don't know about it, then what is the point?
Yeah, I am not even giving an opinion on what pricing should be (although, given last week and the weather and that this is the final game ... I would be in favor of free student tickets and see no downside). However, to not be BLASTING this on social media and hyping up the importance of the game seems like an uncharacteristic blunder for our PR team this year.
As we diehards have reiterated here, this is the biggest game we have played in since at least 2007 and our biggest home game in 20+ years, easily. I'm not going to "fight against logic" here given the years of losing our fans have endured, but we want to become a big time football program and we are pretty much playing for a trip to the BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIP GAME ... and having an attendance of 45k and a half-empty upper deck because we lost one game and the weather will be a bit cold will be a pathetic look on national TV for this program, sorry to burst anyone's bubble. We can explain away the logistics of it all we want, but the programs we want to compete against will have packed houses this weekend (Iowa has sold out its 70k-seat stadium vs. Wisconsin, for example). I know a lot of us are still getting used to this "being good at fooball" thing, but do we all realize how pathetic of an excuse "sunny and cold" is for not attending a football game to win your division, at least in the eyes of a national audiance??
It seems like a simple decision for the DIA, if you ask me ... giving up some revenue for this one game to make Memorial Stadium appear to be a snake pit for this one is WELL worth it in the long run and for sending a message that Illini Football can become a winner and a place recruits want to be.