Captain 14
- The Last Best Place
Empty airline seat = empty hotel room = empty stadium seat = zero revenue. Can't warehouse 'em.
Pregame: Illinois vs Iowa, Saturday, October 8th, 6:30pm CT, BTN
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First, hopefully there is a sellout, but I still don’t understand why what Kansas does is relevant — especially when a sellout at both places is not an apples to apples comparison. As mentioned earlier, their stadium seats 13,000 less and they are less than an hour from a large metropolitan area. Both schools started with essentially the same base attendance number — about 37,000 in first game. The Illini’s number dropped after a loss to Indiana in a way — long drive in last minutes of the game — that many probably saw as “so Illinois.” This while Kansas has remained undefeated. And if the numbers I saw Wednesday morning were correct — about 13,000 seats remaining — Illini have sold as many tickets and the revenue from those tickets is quite a bit higher than what Kansas has received. But I think the answer as to why the game hasn’t sold out yet (though hopefully it will) can be traced to this conversation. The fan’s and general public’s perception of the program has eroded to the point that Illinois’s most loyal fans are using the vaunted Kansas football program as a measuring stick.
It takes time to get cause-related marketing deals and donations in place. I wrote about this in a earlier post, but DIA is trying to balance budget implications with maximizing getting butts in the seats. The “insane level of fandom” is only concerning itself with the butts in the seats side of the equation. In general, I’d say not blindly following advice from people on a fan forum who are only concerned with one side of the equation is probably a good thing. Many are comparing Kansas’ sellout with the Illini’s efforts to do the same. As of Weds morning, I believe the total tickets sold by both institutions was about equal, but the revenue generated from Illinois ticket sales was significantly more.
Illini keep playing well and the sellouts will come. And they will come without generating a deficit in the ticket revenue line.
Yeah but isn’t the idea behind this that the credit union covered a good bit if not all of the difference? In that case you drop the price as low as you can to get people in.
That extra $12.75 (from your $40, even if that $40 is still worth it) literally saves a family or 4 over $50, and could be the tipping point between them being able to come/not come based on their financial situation.
the national
- the Front Range
| EyeoftheIllini said: What is it with the fixation with Kansas? They’re 2 states away and in a different conference. Is it just because they used to be bad and now have seemingly turned the corner like the Illini? Not sure that warrants the other comparisons. But I’ve seen Kansas mentioned more in this thread than combined in 3 thread drifts about Bill Self leaving in the basketball topic section. |
I don’t think It’s a fixation but rather a watermark of national interest. The Illini aren’t currently getting love like Kansas but there is hope there is room for us nationally if we win. I also think it’s possible for kansas to go on a losing streak (btw, it was fluky Iowa state doinked it twice and miss a third FG). I think Illinois beats them regardless of venue, strictly from an X&Os football standpoint.
I appreciate thier fan base for coming out to support them. It reminds me when I lived in KC and the Royals turned the corner. They want to be proud of their teams. In many ways they remind me of our fanbase. Unfortunately, Illinois fan base has the unique ability to turn into Eeyore after years of bad coaching and AD mismanagement. Thankfully, I can say I’ll be attending my 3rd game of the season this Saturday while living 300miles from Champaign. Not all fans are ready to commit like I have but I think they are close.
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the national
- the Front Range
Ferentz believes officiating ‘impacted the game’ in loss to Michigan
Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz is “not questioning anybody’s integrity,” but he did not hide his displeasure with the Big Ten officiating crew after the Hawkeyes’ 27-14 loss to No. 4 Michigan.
www.thegazette.com
I guess Ferentz had some beef with the B1G officials against Mich. I’m sure he’ll be working them this Saturday.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
I simply thought the KU yardstick is convenient b/c, like us, they've been largely woeful since a high water mark in 2007, and now are suddenly relevant. As someone else pointed out, however, they're not exactly suitable as an attendance comparison b/c KC is so close. It's ~ 40 miles to downtown and the same to, say, Overland Park in the south suburbs. (I did work in Overland Park and Lanexa, KS throughout 2010 and used to drive over to Lawrence occasionally b/c it's a charming little college town.) Topeka is only 30 miles away.
40 miles That's the distance from Champaign to Decatur. It's a much heavier lift from Illini fans to drive from Chicago, even the south burbs, or Indy or StL, and especially so for a night game. Much easier, IMO, for KU to ramp up attendance given those convenient travel times.
I suppose we should also factor in that the Chicago population is roughly 5x that of Kansas City, but I think you're still probably right overall.
The 6:30 game time makes it difficult for people to travel from Chicago unless they get a hotel room. Mid afternoons (2-3 pm) are most convenient for Chicagoland to make it a day trip without getting up too early or getting back too late.
A friend and I are coming to the game and we both live in the Chicago area. We plan to drive down and then drive back after the game. We do not make a habit of attending these late-start games but we do make exceptions for important games. (We did not come to the Chattanooga game). My only hope is this does not turn into a repeat of the NC night game early in Lovie's tenure. I also attended that game.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
That's a good point. + KU Lawrence is a smaller campus than UIUC, with only around 20k undergrads, and so 1/3 fewer undergrad alums than we generate annually. In terms of generating sporting excitement and ability to draw butts to seats, however, it seems that KU would have the upper hand given the proximity to KC. And KU's Memorial stadium is easier to fill, as it seats 47k; ours holds 61k, which is 30% more.
I understand the comparison to Kansas as to where the two programs are right now — second year coaches have seemingly turned around the programs or at least have them headed in the right direction. But the attendance/sellout comparison is just plain silly.
I don’t know if we’ll get to a sellout or not, but it would appear it will at least be the largest (or close to it) crowd since the second game in Lovie’s tenure. This will have been achieved with the DIA/ticket center maximizing ticket revenue by not discounting tickets initially as many on here called for, and having a donor and a company underwrite 1,000 free tickets for students and a reduced ticket package to keep ticket sales momentum. I know anything less than a sellout will be deemed a failure by the Ill-ansas crowd on here, but seems to me that the DIA handled this pretty dam well from a revenue and attendance perspective.
Don't know how many here read Robert on IlliniBoard, but I assume a high percentage. I assumed the Kansas stuff originated there, where he has posted about the ranking drought. Longest spell used to be KU but they just broke it. Now it is Illinois who has gone the longest without being ranked. To be hopefully rectified in the near future.
redwingillini11
White and Sixth
- North Aurora
Still, Kansas was a literal punchline football program as recently as a few months ago. They were far lower than we were. And yet, the attendance snapped up to the max immediately. Yes, their capacity is smaller than ours, but I'd be willing to hazard a bet that they had fewer fans coming than we did over the past 5 years.
Is it the end-all-be-all perfect situation to compare? No. But it is another glaring data point that we appear to be in a very special class of teams that the fan support is really slow to increase in attendance much more than what our floor is (30,000), compared to the rest of Power 5 college football. Can we get there eventually? I'm sure we can. How soon? I'd like to think that if the team continues this momentum, we can sellout most of the conference games next year. If we beat Iowa, I definitely think the Minnesota crowd will be very good.
I'd rather that we weren't spending all week talking about attendance and ticket prices. But Coach and the athletic department made a sellout a focus as soon as the Wisconsin game ended, so now we have to get as close as we can otherwise it looks bad on everyone involved if its another poor turnout.
Is it the end-all-be-all perfect situation to compare? No. But it is another glaring data point that we appear to be in a very special class of teams that the fan support is really slow to increase in attendance much more than what our floor is (30,000), compared to the rest of Power 5 college football. Can we get there eventually? I'm sure we can. How soon? I'd like to think that if the team continues this momentum, we can sellout most of the conference games next year. If we beat Iowa, I definitely think the Minnesota crowd will be very good.
I'd rather that we weren't spending all week talking about attendance and ticket prices. But Coach and the athletic department made a sellout a focus as soon as the Wisconsin game ended, so now we have to get as close as we can otherwise it looks bad on everyone involved if its another poor turnout.
I agree completely, but I don’t absolve the DIA for this fiasco that’s resulted in public pleas from the coach and AD to attend the games which publicly advertises a lack of fan support when I believe the fan support is there and has always been there - the problem is the prices.
This has been an ongoing issue through the whole season. The DIA needed to address this in the week leading up to the VA game with a solution that would work for the remainder of the season. Instead they just gave away free tickets to the UVA game without meaningful strategic adjustments.
The result is now Illini FB fan support is perceived as a program hurdle which I completely disagree with, and it is 100% the DIA’s fault imo.
Not sure it's fair to say fan support has always been there but has just been hindered by price. We've had games over the past few years where tickets are less than $10 and the stadium is still empty.
We've been one of the very worst p5 football programs for a long time. Fans are understandably hesitant to buy in. Just give them a couple more wins and they'll be back. I don't even see it being all that gradual of a process. Win Saturday and we'll sell out our remaining games or at least come close to it.
Yes. Smart man. Let's hope for 101.
Keep stackin those seats peeps!!
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.
Both defenses will be the storyline here and think it will be a low scoring rock fight throughout with lots of punting.
I think an early Illinois TD holds up and they enter the 4th up 10-6. An Iowa turnover deep in their own end late in 4th leads to the back breaking TD.
17-6 Illinois.
I think an early Illinois TD holds up and they enter the 4th up 10-6. An Iowa turnover deep in their own end late in 4th leads to the back breaking TD.
17-6 Illinois.
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