Note to MU ticket office: BAD IDEA
Written by: noreply@blogger.com (mu_hilltopper)
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Marquette announced their "5-pack" ticket plans today.
BLUE PLAN: Georgetown, Connecticut, Syracuse, Villanova and St. John's
GOLD PLAN: Wisconsin, West Virginia, DePaul, Cincinnati and Seton Hall
Notice anything unusual about this scheme? Every year, they package in 1-2 cupcake games with 3-4 solid games in each 5 pack. Not this year. All 10 games are quality Big East games.
As you can see, the hottest ticket of the year, the MU v. UW game, is also in a 5-pack. MU did this 2 years ago, forcing the hated Badger fans into buying 4 unwanted games, so they could get the UW game and befoul our Bradley Center.
What happened two years ago (http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2006/12/no-joy.html)? Half the upper deck of our Bradley Center was decked out in red. Nothing pisses me off more than having UW (or UL) fans smelling up our home court. -- Oh, and we lost. (http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2006/12/no-joy.html)
What happened later? Those same Badger fans SOLD THEIR TICKETS ON EBAY. And guess what? With auctioning off a couple good BE games, they were able to come out ahead!
This year, the UW package includes 4 high quality games. Guess what? They'll dump those tickets, and actually MAKE money buying this package.
On the other hand .. Two years ago, the demand from MU season ticket holders purchasing extras for friends was enough to sell out the place TWICE. I realize some Season Ticket Holders will commit the sin of buying for their red-devil friends, but the majority will not.
It's not too late, Ticket Office. Change the ticket packages right now, and keep the red out.
I swear to god, let me buy 100 tickets. I will find 100 Warrior fans to sit in those seats, and come back for more.
http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2008/07/note-to-mu-ticket-office-bad-idea.html
Thats very true...Those plans did look different than before at first glance. Kind of takes away the benefit of full season tickets. I could just buy both plans and get most if not all the good games for less $.
no doubt. the gold package should be uw, uwm, south central utah state and a provisional d-1 team. f-ck em. make those asshold badger fans get stuck with the crappy tickets they can't unload. plus, charge 4 games for 5 bucks too.
First .. yeah, as I said in another post .. if you are a upper deck season ticket holder .. dump them. Buy both 5 packs, that's 10 games. Buy singles for the 3-4 other games you want. Now you don't pay for the 6-10 cupcakes that are on the schedule.
Second. NO. No UW game in ANY 5 pack. Let the season ticket holders disburse them to Warrior fans. It's not perfect, but the Warrior to a-hole ratio would be way, way down.
.. And as I said after the 2006 debacle .. in the lower bowl, look at the stadium pictures, pinpoint each seat that's wearing red, and penalize the season ticket holder who gave up their seat, 5 B&G points.
As someone who lived in chicago and bought five game packages since I wasn't going to make it to enough games to buy the season ticket package i'd like to send a big 'kiss off". Those packets go to plenty of alums who can't make it to all the games and/or can't afford season tickets. They aren't lower forms of life and it has to do with more than just one game. (oh no we lost last time! we won away, is that because mu fans were in red at madison?)
The gold package two years ago sucked other than wisconsin and that didn't stop wisco fans from coming, this year the other games are good. The reason there were so many WI fans last time is because the rest of the games were so bad that mu fands didn't buy up the packages.
We go to a school that has an NBA arena in a med sized city that contains more WI fans than MU fans. How in gods name is marquette going to make sure the upper deck is in all gold? It's f'ing impossible. ANd you can claim it would be 'way down' but it wouldn't be, because mu season ticket holders will put them on the internet. But go ahead and just make up statistics.
Everyone needs to get on the phone to the ticket office and let them know as a fan, season ticket holder, or alum, that having UW in a 5 game pack yet again, is simply unacceptable. I believe that if enough people call to voice their dissatisfaction we can make a difference. There is NO EXCUSE whatsoever for the UW game to be in a 5 game pack. This infuriates me beyond belief. I had a nice long chat with my ticket rep last year about this very thing and he told me he knew and the ticket office knew that it was a problem having so much red in the stands last year and that they were "working some other ideas" to help alleviate that.
Guess they didn't come up with anything. >:( I will be calling tomorrow. Everyone else needs to as well.
Send this to Cottingham....with all of his extensive athletic department experience he might have just overlooked this one.
Agree, silly. Very silly. The idea of mini-ticket plans is to help sell the dog games that no one wants to buy. If you make them too attractive you cut into the very purpose of them to begin with.
Based on this ticket pricing scheme...the hiring process remains flawed...for AD.
However, I wouldn't be as worried about season ticket holders dropping their tickets to get mini-plans, wouldn't they lose their points position or are mini-plans awarded points too?
Another possible consequence that hasn't been mentioned is that there may well be even lower attendance at the "cupcake" games. Very rarely, I assume, are tickets to those games bought at single-game tickets, but people who already have the tickets through a package might still go.
Quote from: CrackedSidewalksSays on July 08, 2008, 09:45:09 PM
Note to MU ticket office: BAD IDEA
I realize some Season Ticket Holders will commit the sin of buying for their red-devil friends, but the majority will not.
It's not too late, Ticket Office. Change the ticket packages right now, and keep the red out.
I swear to god, let me buy 100 tickets. I will find 100 Warrior fans to sit in those seats, and come back for more.
http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2008/07/note-to-mu-ticket-office-bad-idea.html
To this point, if there are any season ticket holders that are interested in getting 2 additional seats, I can guarantee my son and I will be wearing gold and not red.
Quote from: muguru on July 08, 2008, 11:40:10 PM
Everyone needs to get on the phone to the ticket office and let them know as a fan, season ticket holder, or alum, that having UW in a 5 game pack yet again, is simply unacceptable. I believe that if enough people call to voice their dissatisfaction we can make a difference. There is NO EXCUSE whatsoever for the UW game to be in a 5 game pack. This infuriates me beyond belief. I had a nice long chat with my ticket rep last year about this very thing and he told me he knew and the ticket office knew that it was a problem having so much red in the stands last year and that they were "working some other ideas" to help alleviate that.
Guess they didn't come up with anything. >:( I will be calling tomorrow. Everyone else needs to as well.
Having been to almost all of the UW games in the BC for the past decade or so, I really didn't notice that much of a difference. There is always a lot of red for that game because, well, UW has more fans than we do. Think about it...if you just sold this game as single game tickets, that wouldn't prevent any more red than through this plan - plus they earn more revenue by forcing people to buy a package. If you sold them only to MU season ticket holders, you may not have a sell-out. It would look more silly to have empty seats for the game.
Quote from: CrackedSidewalksSays on July 08, 2008, 09:45:09 PM
On the other hand .. Two years ago, the demand from MU season ticket holders purchasing extras for friends was enough to sell out the place TWICE. I realize some Season Ticket Holders will commit the sin of buying for their red-devil friends, but the majority will not.
Wasn't nearly half of the lower bowl also red two years ago? I remember accusations at the time of season ticket holders not necessarily buying for their "red-devil friends", but buying to make a buck regardless of who purchased the extra tickets.
Also, I hope something changes with the suites. They were 80% red last time, and it was embarassing.
Hmmm...gotta' go with RawDog on this one.
It may be that since there are 4 "good" games packaged with UW that more Marquette fans will be interested in the pack? Seriously, perhaps the reason a lot went to Wisconsin fans last time was because they were willing to suck up the cost and/or resell the 4 games they didn't want. MU fans could have looked at the pack and thought "it's a waste of money -I only want to see UW".
We'll see how it plays out, but to me this 5-game pack is much more intriguing than one with UW and 4 cupcakes.
Topper, I understand your though/plan about letting season ticket holders pick up more tickets for the UW game and then making sure they go to MU fans. But (as you know) unfortunately only a small percentage of fans read MUScoop (or other fans sites) making the distribution more difficult. If we could just afford an advertising banner at the BC your plan may just work : "Need tickets to the UW game? Ask season ticket holders at MUScoop.com" :)
Does anyone know when individual-game tickets go on sale?
Well obviously there are pluses and minuses to the ticket packages arranged as they are. As someone who is from out of state...about a 4 hr drive away...I think these packages are great. I don't know any season ticket holders, so chances are I won't be seeing the MU-UW game unless I buy the game package. Since I am reduced to a few games a year due to distance, it would suck to by the package and have crappy games in the deal. I can't drive up for every game or else I would have season tickets and I certainly am not making a 4 hour drive to Milwaukee to watch them play some craptastic teams. No way. So perhaps these packages were designed more for alums like me.
Second I was at the last MU-UW home game (knew some students who hooked me up since i had just graduated) and I do not remember seeing as much red as some of you are complaining about. Yes there were Badger fans, but it wasnt an overwhelming amount (such as when we play at DePaul and seriously outnumber their fans).
The downside of this is that of couse it allows Bucky fans to get tickets. But maybe, just maybe some of them will show up to the other 4 games in yellow. And for those that sell their remaining tix on Ebay? I dont see much room for profit in any game except maybe West Virginia. DePaul, Cincinnati and Seton Hall
will probably go for face value or may not even draw any interest.
I'm curious to see how this plays out. I was planning on buying season tickets this season, however given that I have other expenses this year(house and wedding) buying these two packages seems to be a good alternative, but means the team brings in less money. This may increase interest from MU fans and keep Bucky out but at the expense of season ticket packages.
As to the punishing people for bringing, buying for Bucky fans, I'm split on that. I understand it, but at the same time I'm marrying a rabid Bucky fan this fall.....she wears gold and cheers Marquette on every day but those days where Bucky is directly involved. She will always be wearing red to those games nothing I can do about it. I think the AD needs to be creative in keeping the red out but punishing people via photographic evidence I don't think isn't one of them.
I'm in Chicago as well and have bought the five game packeges recently. Last year all five games were against Big East oponents as well - Providence, Notre Dame, DePaul, Rutgers and Georgetown.
Furthermore, 4 of those games were on Saturday, which is a big help.
This is clearly a ploy by TC so that he can guarantee max sellouts for each game in the package and thus set state records each time by allowing one more fan in at each game.
The nerve of the guy.
I live in Chicago as well and love the 5 game plans. I hope they do it the same way as they did last year: put all the weekend games in one package and all the weekday games in one package. However, I don't know if they did that/could have done that since the dates aren't known yet.
As for including UW in a package with other good games; I'm all for it. It is up to MU fans to buy up those tickets.
Quote from: mu03eng on July 09, 2008, 10:25:55 AM
As to the punishing people for bringing, buying for Bucky fans, I'm split on that. I understand it, but at the same time I'm marrying a rabid Bucky fan this fall.....she wears gold and cheers Marquette on every day but those days where Bucky is directly involved. She will always be wearing red to those games nothing I can do about it. I think the AD needs to be creative in keeping the red out but punishing people via photographic evidence I don't think isn't one of them.
I go to every game MU plays at the Kohl Center--why? Because my partner has season tickets and takes me to the game. I wear gold. My partner goes to every UW game at the BC--why? Because I have season tickets and invite him to the game. He wears red. There are plenty of folks who have similar arrangements because of work relationships, or marriage, or even siblings. To punish season ticket holders because there is red in a season ticket seat is a bit harsh.
Sir Lawrence : You are banned.
Quote from: chapman on July 09, 2008, 08:25:20 AM
Wasn't nearly half of the lower bowl also red two years ago? I remember accusations at the time of season ticket holders not necessarily buying for their "red-devil friends", but buying to make a buck regardless of who purchased the extra tickets.
Also, I hope something changes with the suites. They were 80% red last time, and it was embarassing.
80% of the suites at the kohl hole were gold the last 2 years too. It's an easy way for fans of the other teams to pick up tickets to the game, especially in madison.
now if I could convince my damn father in law to retire one year later, we'd be back in the kohl hole next year too.
Quote from: mu_hilltopper on July 09, 2008, 11:25:34 AM
Sir Lawrence : You are banned.
That's OK--I'll go sit in the shade of my well appointed, brand new garage. Living the dream in Larryland.
I think that this ticket book is the best thing mu offers in terms of ticket options. congrats to those of you who buy upper deck season tickets but I don't see why you do it. And I'll never understand why you want mu to fill it with crap games for those of us who enjoy having that option. Why? Because the upper deck of an nba arena had opposing fans in it what, demagraphically speaking, is a neutral floor???
You are all basically saying: Hey MU, we are sick of the people who buy the 5 game passes getting such good games! Please Screw up there 5 game booklet by putting some crap non-con games. That way there will be a few less madison fans and they will be forced to have a ticket to some game against a 200+ rpi team.
Well thanks guys. Thanks, for your Desperate desire to have me go to crappy games instead of UWmadison.
Quote from: RawdogDX on July 09, 2008, 01:33:07 PM
I think that this ticket book is the best thing mu offers in terms of ticket options. congrats to those of you who buy upper deck season tickets but I don't see why you do it. And I'll never understand why you want mu to fill it with crap games for those of us who enjoy having that option. Why? Because the upper deck of an nba arena had opposing fans in it what, demagraphically speaking, is a neutral floor???
You are all basically saying: Hey MU, we are sick of the people who buy the 5 game passes getting such good games! Please Screw up there 5 game booklet by putting some crap non-con games. That way there will be a few less madison fans and they will be forced to have a ticket to some game against a 200+ rpi team.
Well thanks guys. Thanks, for your Desperate desire to have me go to crappy games instead of UWmadison.
Your perspective on this is valid, certainly. There's no solution that is a win-win for everyone. As someone that has sat in the seat of having to sell tickets to the masses, however, I disagree with this approach they have taken. I'm not so much concerned about the UW-madison game....there's always going to be some red in the lower section though back in the day I thought it was policed better then it is now.
My concern is the dog games now will be even harder to get a lift for. At least by throwing in 1 or 2 dogs in a packet you are artificially going to bump attendance, even if most of it is on paper. Say you sell 3000 gold packages that included dog #1. That's 3000 extra seats you sold for that game that likely would not have been sold (or 95% of them certainly wouldn't).
On the other hand, including these better games will help close the gap in the number of sellouts this year pushing the totals closer for some. It's also a great value for the customer....from a customer service perspective it's terrific but from a financial bottom line perspective there is more risk then I would be comfortable taking. I'd rather have the extra 3000 for the dog game then the extra 3000 for say DePaul because I can still get close to that extra DePaul sales in individual tickets and game day walk-ups, I can't make up the difference with the dog games.
Quote from: ChicosBailBonds on July 09, 2008, 01:50:06 PM
My concern is the dog games now will be even harder to get a lift for. At least by throwing in 1 or 2 dogs in a packet you are artificially going to bump attendance, even if most of it is on paper. Say you sell 3000 gold packages that included dog #1. That's 3000 extra seats you sold for that game that likely would not have been sold (or 95% of them certainly wouldn't).
This gaurntees a sell out for all home confernce games. Take away the 5 packages and we might not. That makes a differnce when games are on TV.
But that's not my point. What i hear from you is that you think Marquette could possibly sell an extra 5-7 thousand tickets a year by jobbing over people who buy five packs and you think they should jump all over that like greedy tax collectors.
That's what you are saying now right? "Raw, you only can make it to a few games a year, but I think MU should force 40% of those games to be against crap non-con teams. I'm estimating that this will put a couple k on to the end of the year ticket sales total, I'm sure you'll understand."
Well, no i don't.
I was disappointed with our attendence at last year's Big East games. If this improves attendence for Big East games, then it is a good idea.
Really? Last year, we set a record for average attendance. The BE games weren't all sell outs, but, jesus, it was the best year in history, and you were disappointed?
Quote from: RawdogDX on July 09, 2008, 02:17:10 PM
This gaurntees a sell out for all home confernce games. Take away the 5 packages and we might not. That makes a differnce when games are on TV.
But that's not my point. What i hear from you is that you think Marquette could possibly sell an extra 5-7 thousand tickets a year by jobbing over people who buy five packs and you think they should jump all over that like greedy tax collectors.
That's what you are saying now right? "Raw, you only can make it to a few games a year, but I think MU should force 40% of those games to be against crap non-con teams. I'm estimating that this will put a couple k on to the end of the year ticket sales total, I'm sure you'll understand."
Well, no i don't.
I think it makes no difference for television. TV doesn't capture the upper deck so it doesn't influence it at all.
As far as "jobbing" people, the basketball revenue has to fund the entire department. It's a lot easier to sell an incremental 3000 seats to DePaul, Nova or G'Town then it is Southern Utah State or some other dog. MU has to maximize revenue and by loading up these game ticket plans without putting a few dogs in, that isn't maximizing revenue.
There is almost no walkup for those games (maybe 200 tickets) and very few incremental sales for those dog games, but if you force people to buy them by anchoring them to those packages you are properly maximizing revenue on a slew of games that have very little upside.
I know that doesn't sit well with folks, perhaps you feel jobbed, but that is the reality of the situation. What tickets need the most help to sell? The dogs...so they should be helping to sell those in those packages in my opinion. The other attractive games will sell on their own with much less effort.
Quote from: bilsu on July 09, 2008, 05:40:47 PM
I was disappointed with our attendence at last year's Big East games. If this improves attendence for Big East games, then it is a good idea.
Why? Looking at the numbers they were very strong, perhaps strongest in the history of the program.
No doubt this will help attendance during those games, but it essentially is going to make the dogs worse then ever.
Quote from: ChicosBailBonds on July 09, 2008, 08:16:48 PM
Why? Looking at the numbers they were very strong, perhaps strongest in the history of the program.
No doubt this will help attendance during those games, but it essentially is going to make the dogs worse then ever.
This is how the packages were set up last year if you substitue UW-Madison for UW-Milwaukee. Given that the announced attendance for that game was 18,283, I don't know how this will help attendance at all.
Is there anything that the ATO can do that you guys won't bitch about? Waaaaa the schedule sucks, waaaa the ticket packages are not set up correctly. Do you people ever enjoy anything about life? You know what, it sucks that UW is much larger than MU and therefore has more fans to pack the upper deck. Tough. Until MU sells out every game, this is the way its going to be regardless of what kind of system they set up. You could make tickets only available to season ticket holders but I bet there are many UW fans who know MU season ticket holders, and there may even be some MU fans who do NOT know a season ticket holder. Nothing is perfect.
If people care that much, they should buy the five packs before UW fans do. I agree with the earlier poster that said you could probably resell all the tickets separately for a profit in the aggregate.
As it is, MU will have a full house for it's 9 most important games of the home season (the Big East Conference games) when the players need the most support.
They may not be maximizing revenue, but they may be maximizing support. The UW fans will probably go to the remaining games, sell the remaining games under face value or give away the remaining games to MU fans.
When do the Big East dates get announced?
Quote from: ChicosBailBonds on July 09, 2008, 08:15:44 PM
I know that doesn't sit well with folks, perhaps you feel jobbed, but that is the reality of the situation. What tickets need the most help to sell? The dogs...so they should be helping to sell those in those packages in my opinion.
Your opinion on the topic may not sit well with me, however it appears the powers that put together the packages this year don't share your opinion. So, I guess I can go on my merry way now :)
A quote from the Gomarquette.com article:
Quote"Fans interested in either package can email athletics@mu.edu or call 414-288-GOMU prior to the release date, and a Marquette Ticket Representative will contact you when they become available."
So...would they be allowed to 'discriminate' this way to try to sell tickets to fans that will wear gold? i.e. Pass up those that are located in the Madison area or that they can find are UW-Madison students or alumni, and favor any alumni that get tickets this way, families of current students, business sponsors/partners?