Season Tickets for 2019-2020

[John]

It appears to be part of the bigger school-wide fundraiser they're doing this week (UConn Gives). I wouldn't read any deeper into it.

except for the fact that I have never gotten emails about this type of Go Fund Me stuff from UConn prior to this year and have been a season ticket holder for a very long time.

 

[huskymedic]

It appears to be part of the bigger school-wide fundraiser they're doing this week (UConn Gives). I wouldn't read any deeper into it.

except for the fact that I have never gotten emails about this type of Go Fund Me stuff from UConn prior to this year and have been a season ticket holder for a very long time.

FAQ | University of Connecticut Giving Day

>>Groups across all five campuses will connect with their supporters around the world to raise funds for the programs and causes important to them.

The possibilities are endless. Whether it’s a school, college, department, club, student group, or research area, give to what’s most important to you.<<

They did the same thing last year...

 

[John]

FAQ | University of Connecticut Giving Day

>>Groups across all five campuses will connect with their supporters around the world to raise funds for the programs and causes important to them.

The possibilities are endless. Whether it’s a school, college, department, club, student group, or research area, give to what’s most important to you.<<

They did the same thing last year...

thank you - this is my first time hearing about it

 

[RF79]

What non conference schools are on the home schedule next year besides Florida? It just seems like the last few years, our home games with the largest attendance has been vs OOC teams.

That’s true....last season it was Arizona

 

[Chief00]

Is this real?

In the past, Chief has allocated maybe 25% of my donation to some non major sports teams. They have usually been appreciative and send hand written personal thank you cards. Chief got a lot of satisfaction helping these teams out in a small way.
Now the university has thoughtlessly chosen another route with a focus on predatory priced seat donations. This will dry up much of the donations these other sports receive.

 

[hthusky74]

It will still be based on priority points but you have to be willing to pay whatever the seat donation is for certain seats. From what I was told it sounds like the best seats will be $400 a seat per venue on top of the ticket cost.

Wrong. It will be $800

 

[RayRay19]

Maybe this is foreshadowning...what if we will be getting 4 - 5* star recruits, joining the Big10 of ACC and be contenders next year?

 

[John]

Maybe this is foreshadowning...what if we will be getting 4 - 5* star recruits, joining the Big10 of ACC and be contenders next year?

or maybe it's a sinking ship trying to fleece the people that have supported to program for so long

 

[Chief00]

or maybe it's a sinking ship trying to fleece the people that have supported to program for so long

Yes, the P5 conference get multiple times more money from TV contracts. UConn instead is charging their dwindling fan base base and students.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Is this real?

I'm waiting to splurge until I see one for lacrosse.

 

[UConnJim]

BC did something similar when they moved to the ACC. My buddy and I had great BC basketball season tickets for almost 15 years to see all the Big East teams and made a very small donation every year. When they moved to the ACC, BC tried to charge a seat license, but we wouldn’t pay it. So, we were moved out of our great chairback seats into the bleachers. We gave up our season tickets after one year (we didn’t care about the ACC) and so did lots of people. Between the seat license, poor performance and moving to the ACC, attendance declined. (When BC was in the Big East, it was easy to get friends to go to games as we knew people who went to many Big East schools. When BC went to the ACC,friends were only interested in seeing UNC and Duke. The later expansion improved the schedule with Syracuse and ND.)

 

[Chief00]

BC did something similar when they moved to the ACC. My buddy and I had great BC basketball season tickets for almost 15 years to see all the Big East teams and made a very small donation every year. When they moved to the ACC, BC tried to charge a seat license, but we wouldn’t pay it. So, we were moved out of our great chairback seats into the bleachers. We gave up our season tickets after one year (we didn’t care about the ACC) and so did lots of people. Between the seat license, poor performance and moving to the ACC, attendance declined. (When BC was in the Big East, it was easy to get friends to go to games as we knew people who went to many Big East schools. When BC went to the ACC,friends were only interested in seeing UNC and Duke. The later expansion improved the schedule with Syracuse and ND.)

Chief likes to see good teams regardless of where they are from. I am also ready to move on from the old Big East but I acknowledge I enjoy some of the old rivalry games. I do agree with many of your points about how predatory pricing tactics will lower attendance and interest in the team and actually produce less revenues.

 

[McLovin]

The saddest part of all this is thinking about the hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of dollars the athletic department probably spent on a consulting firm to come up with this new "strategy" and how to sell it to the fan base.

 

[Chief00]

The losers are the UConn Foundation, loyal fans and ultimately the students who will have to absorb the impact of another poorly thought out decision in their student fees. Donors make voluntary donations and can walk, unfortunately the captive audience revenue stream (students) will have to pick up the slack in student fees.

 

[John]

The losers are the UConn Foundation, loyal fans and ultimately the students who will have to absorb the impact of another poorly thought out decision in their student fees. Donors make voluntary donations and can walk, unfortunately the captive audience revenue stream (students) will have to pick up the slack in student fees.

I just keep coming back to the fact that $1600 will get me even better seats than I have now if I buy games off the secondary market.

 

[gampelcrazies]

Renewals are showing up in UConn accounts

 

[John]

Renewals are showing up in UConn accounts

What are people doing? I think we're done with season tickets and will buy secondary market. Never thought we'd bail completely out of UConn sports in one calendar year, but football out and now MBB heading there too.

 

[gampelcrazies]

What are people doing? I think we're done with season tickets and will buy secondary market. Never thought we'd bail completely out of UConn sports in one calendar year, but football out and now MBB heading there too.

Think we are going to stick with them just because but definitely not happy about the cost increase

 

[John]

Think we are going to stick with them just because but definitely not happy about the cost increase

And to verify, this seat donation will be a yearly and not a one-time thing? I'm assuming it'll be yearly.

 

[husky8273]

And to verify, this seat donation will be a yearly and not a one-time thing? I'm assuming it'll be yearly.

correct

 

[ctjz1]

After 12 years with 4 seats I am out. I will grab tickets here and there for my son but there are way to many games that have no value what so ever to be charging $100 per seat per game. It is simply a non starter. There were multiple games that I couldn’t give the seats away and the arena was half empty. I will continue with woman’s tickets for my parents but only because they didn’t increase those tickets 5 fold.

Maybe we can call this the UConn Blue New Deal.

 

[Excalibur]

I'm out. Next year I'll drop football tickets and go back in for hoops.

 

[Chief00]

Unless Chief is wrong (unlikely), it’s amazing how much UConn is misjudging their market. They should have a better handle on this type of thing. Their market segmentation strategy seems to be - have 20% of the fans foot maybe 90% of the bill. The other 80% will effectively get into the building cheaply and move into the better seats. Chief has never been bothered by this casual fan practice but now that I am paying $100 a seat times 4 and they are paying perhaps $15. It doesn’t pass the smell test.

One Chief observation, I have never in all my years in business seen a management team so prone to copying what doesn’t work. It’s a novel approach that’s not likely to succeed.

And if there is erosion in the 20% group the entire model collapses in a very ugly manner. Similar to what they have done with mid field football chair back seats.

The one team that has had some success this season WBB, where perhaps they would benefit from sone momentum - they take a discriminatory position and do not impose these prices on females and older people, the WBB fan demographic. But middle age men of all colors - hammer them with predatory pricing.

 

[ColchVEGAS]

Unless Chief is wrong, it’s amazing how much UConn is misjudging their market. They should have a better handle on this type of thing. Their market segmentation strategy seems to be - have 20% of the fans foot maybe 90% of the bill. The other 80% will effectively get into the building cheaply and move into the better seats. Chief has never been bothered by this casual fan practice but now that I am paying $100 a seat times 4 and they are paying perhaps $15. It doesn’t pass the smell test.

One Chief observation, I have never in all my years in business seen a management team so prone to copying what doesn’t work. It’s a novel approach that’s not likely to succeed.

And if there is erosion in the 20% group the entire model collapses in a very ugly manner. Similar to what they have done with mid field football chair back seats.

The one team that has had some success this season WBB, where perhaps they would benefit from sone momentum - they take a discriminatory position and do not impose these prices on females and older people, the WBB fan demographic. But middle age men of all colors - hammer them with predatory pricing.

There are few games on their home schedule that warrant the $100+ per seat they are looking for. You literally cannot give away tickets to the likes of ECU, Tulane, Tulsa, and others on most years in the recent past. That is the issue at the moment. As the process moves on and UConn gets back to the level we all have come to expect in theory yes the price tag for the tickets should go up. Unfortunately the University officials are failing to account for it takes two teams to play a game and unless you are playing premier teams or regional rivalries the tickets will not hold their face value.

Tickets were available all season last year for 1/2 to 1/3rd of the face value of tickets and the stadium still did not sell out. I am fine with paying a slight increase for tickets but I will not stand for the ski mask approach. I am leaning towards making a donation to a specific team and using thr secondary market to pick up the games I cannot miss as a loyal alumni and fan, rather than purchase season tickets.

 

[whaler11]

Unless Chief is wrong (unlikely), it’s amazing how much UConn is misjudging their market. They should have a better handle on this type of thing. Their market segmentation strategy seems to be - have 20% of the fans foot maybe 90% of the bill. The other 80% will effectively get into the building cheaply and move into the better seats. Chief has never been bothered by this casual fan practice but now that I am paying $100 a seat times 4 and they are paying perhaps $15. It doesn’t pass the smell test.

One Chief observation, I have never in all my years in business seen a management team so prone to copying what doesn’t work. It’s a novel approach that’s not likely to succeed.

And if there is erosion in the 20% group the entire model collapses in a very ugly manner. Similar to what they have done with mid field football chair back seats.

The one team that has had some success this season WBB, where perhaps they would benefit from sone momentum - they take a discriminatory position and do not impose these prices on females and older people, the WBB fan demographic. But middle age men of all colors - hammer them with predatory pricing.

If the new president doesn’t fire anyone and everyone attached to this we know he’s another useless blowhard.

 

[Lefty2one]

I've never been a season ticket holder so I ignored this thread until this morning. I just read all of it; another chapter in the disastrous collapse of UConn athletics where the powers that be seem detached from reality.

As Chief said, talk about misjudging your market. On top of it all, this is New England; it's a pro market with a million other things to do. It's not some remote hayseed village in the south or midwest where there's nothing else to do for a thousand miles. The basketball team is a bad product in a bad conference and people around the state aren't going to care. Most already don't. They certainly aren't going to accept a massive price increase when the program is the worst it's been in 30+ years. Winning will cure some of it but not all of it; you can't sell a fanbase that's used to filet mignon a McDonald's burger and expect them to be excited about it or pay more for it. For most people, "loyalty" is a cheap trick to try to guilt you into staying. I'd be insulted if I were a season ticket holder.

I have never cared about attending live sporting events, especially since HDTV was introduced. My father had Jets season tickets for 25+ years but it was a no-brainer to drop them when MetLife and PSLs came around. This seems like that situation all over again. Paying way more to see a blah product when you can get tickets on the secondary market for a fraction of the cost. Pulling the loyalty card on UConn fans takes a mix of balls and stupidity that's rarely seen. Forget the age-old XL vs Gampel debate, pretty soon we'll be playing games in the practice facility in front of 200 fans.

 

[John]

has the media picked up on this and written anything yet?

 

[John]

There are few games on their home schedule that warrant the $100+ per seat they are looking for. You literally cannot give away tickets to the likes of ECU, Tulane, Tulsa, and others on most years in the recent past. That is the issue at the moment. As the process moves on and UConn gets back to the level we all have come to expect in theory yes the price tag for the tickets should go up. Unfortunately the University officials are failing to account for it takes two teams to play a game and unless you are playing premier teams or regional rivalries the tickets will not hold their face value.

Tickets were available all season last year for 1/2 to 1/3rd of the face value of tickets and the stadium still did not sell out. I am fine with paying a slight increase for tickets but I will not stand for the ski mask approach. I am leaning towards making a donation to a specific team and using thr secondary market to pick up the games I cannot miss as a loyal alumni and fan, rather than purchase season tickets.

I think my ticket group probably covers the entire spectrum - we have 3 guys paying for 4 seats. One guy bailed becuase he literally cannot afford it now (fixed income). The other guy can afford it, but is so outraged he said he won't do it (he uses the term hostage situation). I'm outraged, can afford it, but will go along with the other two even though I hate to lose our seats. The saddest thing is I'm 100% sure that we will make out like bandits applying just a portion of the $1600 seat fee to the secondary market and be getting great seats in the process.

 

[Imdone]

My group is %100 out - while all of us could afford to keep the seats we are all so outraged there was no discussion - to a man we all said "we are done".

Due to procrastination (although I was suspicious when they pushed for early renewals with the carrot of "guaranteed blue parking") - we had not yet renewed our football seats ... and now those will not be renewed as well.

Call it "trickle down stupidity" not only are they harming the mens basketball team - it's trickled down to harm football as well.

 

[ctjz1]

I wonder who thought that more then quadrupling ticket prices while the team sits out another March Madness tournament was a good idea.

Houston is battling for the elite 8 against Kentucky as I type while UConn is home on the couch sending desperate please to their beleaguered fan base for money and patience.

The good news is we can watch the games on cable tv next year, oh on second thought I meant we can watch them stream on ESPN + if we pay another 5 bucks a month.


Will the last person left please turn the lights out?