TimMcLaughlin
Well-Known Member
Thanks. Roughly $5/game if purchased as a season ticket ($80-85).
I think I know where you're going though. And we can have that conversation...but do recall what I said, make an investment in the student section.
Student support for this team.
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Thanks. Roughly $5/game if purchased as a season ticket ($80-85).
I think I know where you're going though. And we can have that conversation...but do recall what I said, make an investment in the student section.
I feel ya man! Carver will be rocking again and our fair weathered fans will be back!
I am actually not going there.......
I am trying to figure out if it makes sense to make student tickets cheaper to actually fill your proposed area. I think it is a great idea to push back the seats, and insert cheap bleachers, hell the studens ideally will be standing most of the time anyway so some cheap bleachers are fine for the students to stand/sit on. My thing is I would want to 100% guarantee the area was full if this plan was instituted. That is why I thought about maybe decreasing the ticket cost. Heck most students really lose what 4-5 games due to winter break anyway?
I like your idea.
TimMcLaughlin
Well-Known Member
My apologies for the defensive assumption. Thanks for the constructive thought. True Hawk.
Agreed. Has to be full and rockin. If marketed creatively though, I think simply relocating the section and putting the students in a prime spot will bring more students in and of itself. However, probably not enough, initially, to assure capacity. So they'd have to get even more creative and make it the place to be with all kinds of added incentives, etc. Unfortunately, if the past is any indication of the future, I'm not holding my breath.
IowaBanker
Well-Known Member
4,000 seats in the Hawks Nest? Give it a rest. They didn't sell 1/4 of that many this year. They have allotted that many next year, but that's not what is going on today. So your comment is disingenuous.
I was there until the clock showed 0.00 after overtime, so I did not leave the team dring the portion of the game that mattered the most. Let's get that clear right off the bat. And for the record, I don't sit in Row 1 either. I'm in the first 10 rows, yes, but I'm also in a corner, and there are plenty of student section seats that are every bit as good as mine...and they're not always full either.
The students need to make an investment in the basketball program. People like my wife and I have already done that. The students need to step it up. They come 10,000 strong to Kinnick 7 Saturdays a year, but they can't get more than a few hundred to home basketball games? They're not all hunkered down studying either...they're making a choice, and it's sad. It costs them FIVE DOLLARS per game, so they aren't expensive. These kids have money to buy football season tickets and plenty of alcohol on the weekends, so I don't want to see the "they can't afford them" argument either, because it's lame.
Not only have my wife and I had season tickets for 8 years running, and donated well to the I Club, but most of those years we also had a 4 hour round trip to Carver, and we got there for almost every game (other than very poor weather). The students live right there in IC and can walk, drive, or hop on the cambus, so getting there shouldn't be an issue either.
It's all about "want to", and for the past several years, the students in large part have shown they do not want to attend games and support their men's basketball team, and that's sad. My wife and I are more than doing our part, so I'm sorry, but I don't see the need to give up our decent seats for a group of students that haven't shown an interest in supporting the team.
You didn't address my argument about other schools with strong student sections that don't have low sideline premium seats. What about Purdue, Indiana, Iowa State, or Missouri? Their students come and sit behind the baskets, and they come in droves. I want to hear what you have to say about that.
For that matter, the students in Kinnick aren't sitting on the 50 yard line either, but they show up.
I'm just tired of this lame excuse. Let's see our students show up and make their presence felt in games, rather than on the message boards complaining.
Iowafarmgirl
Banned
You have a pretty screwed up view of how this is supposed to work. The team is supposed to attract the fans, not the other way around. If you have been going to every game the last few years, then that is a you problem. You are the one who decided to pay a bunch of money to support crap. Why you demand a reward for that is beyond me.
I would rather we kick out all of the Iowa bankers of the world to the crappy seats to make room for 100 more students who can help us get a W on game day.
IowaBanker
Well-Known Member
So it's my problem now that I support the team, even when they've struggled? Yeah, that makes sense, blame one of the few people that actually still shows up for the games.
If you are a true fan, then you go to the games, even during the rough seasons, and not just when we're playing well. Bandwagon jumping fans make me sick.
Yeah, kick the people that actually pony up and buy tickets and make donations to the university, in favor of students that aren't showing up anyway. Heck, I'm more animated, cheering, and into the game than many of the students that do show up. But give someone like me the old heave ho?
I think you've been sniffing too many chemicals on the farm.
SirJamaLot
Well-Known Member
Genius! Sorry Iowa Banker, we appreciate your support both physically and financially, but we need to improve the atmosphere in Carver if we want a better product to watch! Do the right thing and make room for the students
koolhandlick
Well-Known Member
Just don't move the knitting lady. She deserves to keep her seat.
IowaBanker
Well-Known Member
The students won't show up even with sideline, prime seats. They don't come now and the tickets are nearly free. Better seating will not bring them back en masse.
So let's give these seats away for next to nothing, to a group of kids that won't use them, and tick off those people who have given a lot of money to the university in the process. Yeah, that's a smart model for long-term financial success right there.
ShadasRevenge
Well-Known Member
I think you've got that backwards.
Attendance is up in both students and public, right now I think the student section has been awesome the past few games, showing up in big numbers lately. Student support has been on the ups all season long, and winning is only going to improve it more. Students who do go to games generally get into them and cheer hard, however the reason the section isn't packed is because many students who aren't gaga for basketball aren't convinced that their time will be well invested if they go out to cheer for a 10 win team. This year there has been a slight buzz about basketball on campus for the first time in about 3 years, and its only going to get better if Fran can continue to improve this team. I think that next season if the team gets off to a hot start, students will be back in full force by the time Big Ten play rolls around. Right now there is just one more home game this year and you can expect the same student crowd we've seen the last few games, but next year, with an improved team, should be a different story.
SirJamaLot
Well-Known Member
Not trying to irritate you, just wondering how we can gain a better home court advantage for the team and recruits. Players want to play in front of a rowdy raucous crowd, would it kill you to move back ten rows and have a bunch of college students going crazy in front of you? Just maybe it would improve the experience for everyone, tickets are hard to come by at Duke, Kansas, MSU maybe it is more than just better players, it would be nice if Jon would ask Fran what his opinion is on the location of the student section and playing in other B10 arenas.
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IowaBanker
Well-Known Member
You have a funny way of not trying to irritate me.
Would it kill a couple thousand of our students to come to our home games, rather than a couple hundred, regardless of where they sit? Do they really have something better to do for a couple of hours?
deanvogs
Well-Known Member
I wouldn't move the students, they have seat that are fine, heck they are better than the ones I pay $25 to go see a game.....What I would do is just let the students in free next year for the whole year. We are trying to build a fan base here, and we need the students. You create fans, by showing them it is both fun and worth it to go to the games. Get them emotionally involved with this team. Give them expectations for the next year. Look at what happend to football tickets sales this year when everyone expected the team to contend for the NC. If this team improves next year, then the following year we will have expectations, and the fans will come. This way when the fans EXPECT a good team in year 3 of Fran, they will both show up to watch, and pay again to watch this team.
TimMcLaughlin
Well-Known Member
And this is the main reason the Iowa basketball program has had the problem it has had for more than half of a decade now. For some reason far beyond my comprehension they, like Iowa Banker, believe that people should consume their product "just because" or if they're a "true Hawk." While that logic may work in the land of unicorns, in reality if you put a ****-poor product on the court coupled with a complete lack of marketing and excitement, you get what you got the last half decade.
(Note: I, like you Iowa Banker, stand by this program and always have because it's in my blood and I have a passion for the Hawkeyes. Win or lose. Half-decade long stretches or not. But to expect that most people do the same and/or even think it remotely possible is like saying world hunger should end - there's no doubt it should and you won't find anyone who disagrees, but simply pleading people to fix it isn't gonna make it happen. Let's get real about fixing the problem.)
The whole customer-product relationship with regard to UI athletics is treated just how Iowa Banker so aptly put it and NOT how it should be treated. You know, the way major corporations and programs (Michigan, Illinois, MSU, etc.) treat their paying customer.
TimMcLaughlin
Well-Known Member
Capacity is 4,000. Obviously there haven't been that may students at a game in 5+ years. Stick with me.
To your point about IN, ISU, and MO: Are you really using ISU and Indiana in your argument? How have their teams played recently (last 2-3 years)? How about IL, Michigan, Duke, KU, MSU, Penn State, etc to name a few. Their students are right in the action and it's made a huge difference in their programs success(es).
Iowafarmgirl
Banned
Just because you have nothing better to do than flush your life away watching mediocre basketball doesn't mean you have to project on the students who have better things to do. And trust me, it isn't much of a stretch for a 20 year old to find something better to do on a weekday night than go and get crappy seats to watch a basketball team that hasn't been relevant since they were in middle school.
Trust me, if they boot you and your granny to make way for students, take your checkbook home and pout, because they'll find someone else to pay up. I am sure the student's enthusiasm and applause will lift the team higher than the sound of you and granny patting yourselves on the back.
Two points:
The generation of students is quite different than 15-20 years ago. If teams don't win kids don't come........todays world is about immediate satisfaction and not much long term dedication.......this also helps explain the rising divorce rate, but thats another topic.
&
Football games are a very social event. The weather is generally better and the tailgating is really a big draw. BB just doesn't have the appeal unless the team is really good. I think it is sad that our wrestling team doesn't draw a lot more folks too, but it has to do with season and social "draw" in my opinion.
The generation of students is quite different than 15-20 years ago. If teams don't win kids don't come........todays world is about immediate satisfaction and not much long term dedication.......this also helps explain the rising divorce rate, but thats another topic.
&
Football games are a very social event. The weather is generally better and the tailgating is really a big draw. BB just doesn't have the appeal unless the team is really good. I think it is sad that our wrestling team doesn't draw a lot more folks too, but it has to do with season and social "draw" in my opinion.
