Why do you believe this?
My experience is consistent with that of DeonThomas. Attending a college football game at the University of Illinois is a relative bargain compared to nearly all in-person sporting events. (And I appreciate in-person sports is an experience not accessible to all fans.)
My observation is the DIA has elevated marketing across all athletics, hired two great coaches (and staffs) for the revenue sports, invested significantly in new facilities, and taken a leadership position in embracing NIL.
I am confused why you would “honestly believe the DIA was not even trying” to sell football tickets? In other words, the DIA wants to excel in just about every aspect of major collegiate athletics except having fans watch a winning football team?
The blemish on this season is that we haven’t had more than 46,000 fans in Memorial Stadium despite a 6-1 records, a 5-0 record at home, and a defense that has only given up 2 TDs at home. I don’t blame the DIA (or at lease the current leadership of the DIA) for this.
Those are all fair questions, and good points. First of all I agree that the Illini game tickets are a relative bargain, and that the DIA has marketed these games more in past years and have done an impressive job selling tickets the week before a game. I totally agree with your points on that.
My point is that the DIA is not attempting to sell 60,670 tickets per game; that is not their goal even though that is their publicly stated goal. They want to sell tickets, and they want to sell them at their price points, but they aren't interested in selling 60,670 tickets.
Here's why I think that:
1. The DIA sold more season tickets this year than they did last year. Season ticket prices this year were sold at 5 price points, plus a FamILLy Four Pack. They did not sell-out standard season tickets, but they did sell out FamILLy Four Packs:
Prime = $51
Sideline = $40
Orange = $27
Blue = $22
Horseshoe = $22
Four Pack = $15
2. The DIA raised single game prices, changed their pricing strategy to a flat $75/$85 price, and sold fewer tickets this year through the first 3 games than they did last year. They sold 3,058 more tickets last year total over the first 3 games than they did this year. This information coupled with the increase in season ticket sales tells me they sold fewer single game tickets this year than they did last year.
3. Ticket "sales" to the Virginia and Chattanooga games included thousands of free ticket promotional give aways which inflate the sales numbers beyond the natural consumer demand at the $75/$85 single game price point.
4. Flash sales for Iowa and Minnesota at $24 helped increase ticket sales 7,000 over previous weeks. The $18 flash sale for Michigan State sold 13,000 tickets, but did not sell out the stadium.
The fact that the FamILLy Four Pack sold out at $15 per ticket, and the 18 hour flash sale results for Michigan State tell me there is a natural demand at the $15-$20 price point. The DIA can play gimmicks to get as many people as possible to buy the $75/$85 tickets, but that is not where their demand is at. How the Illini prices compare to the other BigTen teams does not matter at all in this context.
They knew coming into the season demand was saturated at the standard season ticket price points, and there was still demand at the $15 FamILLy Four Pack price. If they wanted to sell more tickets they needed to be sold at price points between the season ticket prices and the Four Pack prices; in other words $15 - $20. The success of the Michigan State sale compared to the Iowa (rival night game) and Minnesota (homecoming) sales tells me that fans are still price sensistive and that same $15-$20 price point is the sweet spot even when special draws like homecoming are factored in.
The DIA knows the only way they'll ever sell out the stadium is to set prices at $15-$20 until demand is saturated, and then lower prices even further, or incetivize through promotions. The problem is they have never allowed demand to saturate at its natural levels so they don't really know how many potential butts are out there sitting at home that would be in a seat in the stadium at the right price.
Keep in mind, this year even with the promotions and team success is on track to be one of the 5 worst attended seasons in the last 20 years. Its not like the fans don't have a history of attending games; it's quite the contrary. The problem in my opinion is the pricing structure and ticket sales strategy is anti-fan.