UConn Football Season-Ticket Sales Down Sharply From Last Season | Page 2 | The Boneyard

UConn Football Season-Ticket Sales Down Sharply From Last Season

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And elsewhere MLB has attendance issues as well. And with the economy strong - all of this is more alarming...what happens in the next recession?
MLB has an attendance issue
 
I don't care what the budget is for editing, this is embarrassing:

"And on the even of a season in which the Huskies will lean heavily on freshmen in an attempt to improve on back-to-back 3-9 campaigns, ticket sales are down sharply once again."

And this isn't an anomaly with them. People who fire off press clippings in 20 seconds on Twitter do a better job.
 
whaler11 said:
Ticket prices went way up for people paying seat donations. I tried to explain that but everyone just got mad at me.

That number includes students and the family freebees.

That is downright frightening.
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I had the same gripe. I don't think people here got mad at me, but they definitely made a face like I farted in the elevator with them.
 
Hamms30 said:
I had the same gripe. I don't think people here got mad at me, but they definitely made a face like I farted in the elevator with them.
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It would have been less annoying if they hadn’t touted they were lowering them.
 
They better show some life the next two weeks. If they get blown out the first two you could see a four figure crowd.
 
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AfgHusky15 said:
Boise, UCF, Memphis, and UH all draw good crowds; 30k plus on average. 3 of those schools play in the same conference as we do. Boise plays in a worse conference. All 4 are able to draw good crowds because they win. Yes it helps that they play an exciting brand of football (all have dynamic offenses).

No reason UConn can't get to 30k attendance on average again if we put a winning product on the field.
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This is true. When UCF, Houston, and Memphis have been bad, they do not draw fans.
 
Skiblets said:
Memphis game last year did me in finally after fifteen years. Will scalp for five bucks in the parking lot
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I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more expensive to scalp this year than the last few. So few tickets sold that the only people buying them use them.
 
People are missing the fact that when we drew those big crowds ten years ago, not only were we winning, and not only were we in a better conference, but there was also a novelty factor, a growth factor that made people want to invest. Our ascent in the FBS world was going way faster than people expected, and by the time we broke through to the Fiesta Bowl we had already knocked on the door a couple of times. It had the feel of an exciting story, to the point that people were beginning to wonder whether the program was following in basketball's footsteps.

That's gone. Even if Edsall recovers the program, and we dabble with 7-5 or 8-4, I just don't see the excitement getting back to where it was. People can say the dreams were always unrealistic, but that doesn't always matter when it comes to selling tickets. There are no more delusions of grandeur about what you can accomplish playing college football in the state of Connecticut - if we happened to join a premier conference, you'd probably see big crowds the first few times we played a marquee opponent, but after that they'd begin to dwindle with every season we spent in mediocrity. It's not like fans of Syracuse, Pitt, or BC are knocking the doors down right now because the demand is so high. The product won't be there in the northeast because the culture isn't there, and the culture is a lot harder to develop on mile 20 than mile 1.
 
Have it on account that this number does not include students. Still, the student number is not moving the needle much this year, but all students can get free tickets to UCF.
 
I love how many responses in this thread seem to be happy that they “told you so” and seem to be more happy about that then anything.

Either you support the program by going to the game or not. The single biggest driver of support is winning and that can’t be argued.
 
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4 tickets offered free to each UConn faculty/staff member. I picked up 8 since wife & I both work there. Will have 10 folks at game including my 2 season tickets. Friend who works in the ticket office tells me the number taking advantage is small, just like last year. I have had folks telling me they picked up 8 tickets but are only using 3 or 4; taking the additional tickets without using them to "insure they have adequate space for their hind ends" they told me... Not a whole lot of hype on-campus about the game... 15k might be a high number for attendance projections....
 
champs99and04 said:
People are missing the fact that when we drew those big crowds ten years ago, not only were we winning, and not only were we in a better conference, but there was also a novelty factor, a growth factor that made people want to invest. Our ascent in the FBS world was going way faster than people expected, and by the time we broke through to the Fiesta Bowl we had already knocked on the door a couple of times. It had the feel of an exciting story, to the point that people were beginning to wonder whether the program was following in basketball's footsteps.

That's gone. Even if Edsall recovers the program, and we dabble with 7-5 or 8-4, I just don't see the excitement getting back to where it was. People can say the dreams were always unrealistic, but that doesn't always matter when it comes to selling tickets. There are no more delusions of grandeur about what you can accomplish playing college football in the state of Connecticut - if we happened to join a premier conference, you'd probably see big crowds the first few times we played a marquee opponent, but after that they'd begin to dwindle with every season we spent in mediocrity. It's not like fans of Syracuse, Pitt, or BC are knocking the doors down right now because the demand is so high. The product won't be there in the northeast because the culture isn't there, and the culture is a lot harder to develop on mile 20 than mile 1.
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I think this is spot on -- if the team goes 8-4 what's the best we can get? The Boca Raton Bowl? 8-4 used to get us into the Fiesta Bowl -- now it gets us into a [insert corporate sponsor] bowl at best each year.
 
AfgHusky15 said:
Boise, UCF, Memphis, and UH all draw good crowds; 30k plus on average. 3 of those schools play in the same conference as we do. Boise plays in a worse conference. All 4 are able to draw good crowds because they win. Yes it helps that they play an exciting brand of football (all have dynamic offenses).

No reason UConn can't get to 30k attendance on average again if we put a winning product on the field.
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Yup. When Memphis sucked they averaged 20K. They once had a home game vs ECU with an announced attendance of 4K.

They'll average over 40K this year. Winning and being competitive in our losses with get us to 30K+.
 
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Exit 4 said:
And elsewhere MLB has attendance issues as well. And with the economy strong - all of this is more alarming...what happens in the next recession?
MLB has an attendance issue
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All sports are, on the whole, experiencing attendance issues. There's a lot of contributing factors - cost of tickets, having to pay Ticketmaster/Stubhub/etc. fees, parking fees, high cost of concessions, poor facilities or seats, increasing numbers of excessively drunk fans causing problems with no response from the facility, poor sightlines from seats, donation fees/PSLs, people's increasing lack of desire to be in public spaces with large numbers of people, and increasingly better HDTV and home entertainment experience....to name a few.

Sports teams are only starting to learn that they can't continue to take advantage of fans via nickel and dime fees, bad seats, and high cost of food. Fans are responding accordingly by not showing up.
 
brasssbonanzaa said:
Bingo. I'd bet you 90% of CT residents can't even tell you what UCF, ECU, and SMU stands for.

The primary culprit is the conference. Winning will bring some back, but unless we're going 11-0 every year, no one is going to care about seeing us play AAC teams. Doesn't matter how much Aresco and/or Benedict try and talk up the conference, there's absolutely no cache.
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Yup. And it hasn't hurt other teams as much because most of them have witnessed a bump in conference prestige. This is much better than their old Conference USA. The only other team who would be disappointed is Cincinnati. They have the benefit of a nice, on campus stadium. I'm sure they're struggling, but they haven't been nearly as bad as us for as long as we have.
 
Milo65 said:
Besides losing regional and historic rivals, sometimes over time in Connecticut, the newness factor wears off. I've seen the Bridgeport Bluefish, New Haven Ravens, multiple minor league hockey teams all open with huge followings, only to lose attendance year after year until they fold. Winning would change a lot of this. I hope
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HawkHusky said:
Yup. When Memphis sucked they averaged 20K. They once had a home game vs ECU with an announced attendance of 4K.

They'll average over 40K this year. Winning and being competitive in our losses with get us to 30K+.
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Right, but Memphis didn't go from playing big time programs that they had established regional rivilaries with to playing lesser programs. So winning means a significant bump. We can't count on that because their are other variables outside of winning. Of course, it'll help, but we're never gonna average 35-40k again
 
Skiblets said:
Memphis game last year did me in finally after fifteen years. Will scalp for five bucks in the parking lot
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UCF is going to drop at least 50 on our young defense... Watching Memphis put up 70 was certainly demoralizing...
 
Is the old stadium next to Gampel still around? Perhaps they can take the few thousand showing up and put them there.

There was novelty back in the Big East to showing up to games against big rivals like Cuse and Pitt. The tailgating scene was always a blast. Now i feel like you have to tailgate to numb the game experience.
 
Letsgohuskies11 said:
Is the old stadium next to Gampel still around? Perhaps they can take the few thousand showing up and put them there.

There was novelty back in the Big East to showing up to games against big rivals like Cuse and Pitt. The tailgating scene was always a blast. Now i feel like you have to tailgate to numb the game experience.
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That’s long gone
 
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I received some tickets in the mail today that I ordered over the weekend. Not even a simple yet polite Thank You.
Apparently, my lowly $ 180 for these was just not enough to warrant politeness even though these were extra tickets I was purchasing.
They were stuffed into a plain envelope.
Strike 2.

To compare, I spent $60 on another event recently, and I was thanked in an email and via thank you note included with the tickets.
SMH. Clueless up in Storrs.
 
UConn76 said:
UCF is going to drop at least 50 on our young defense... Watching Memphis put up 70 was certainly demoralizing...
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So the undefeated national champions of 2017 could not put 50 on UConn with their star coach and UConn with zero talent, a 1st year coach and a scared DC; and yet this year UCF with a new coach in their 1st game of the season will drop at least 50 on us.
Boy that is a real indictment of HCRE2.0 and his DC's coaching ability and HCRE2.0's game management ability.
If UCF gets over 50 points it had better be a shoot out or HCRE2.0 has "some 'splainin' to do".
 
The Viking said:
We live in a state where there are 10 + pro and college sports teams within a couple of hours. CT people are not going to stick through hard times for very long before putting their time and attention to something else.
Sucks but it is what it is. Lots of pressure on Edsall to turn this around in the next couple of years.
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Not to mention lives. I finally had to give-up my season tickets this year because I have 2 kids playing fall travel baseball through October, then winter travel basketball starting in November on top of fall rec soccer from September through November. Add my job, yard work, etc. Its not possible right now in my life. After the kids are older, maybe.

Oh, and the never ending construction on I-84 is not helping...
 
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HawkHusky said:
Yup. When Memphis sucked they averaged 20K. They once had a home game vs ECU with an announced attendance of 4K.

They'll average over 40K this year. Winning and being competitive in our losses with get us to 30K+.
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Exactly, thats why JMick argument doesn't make much sense, its devoid of facts.
 
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