Students showing loyalty is the problem? Or is it Cyclone Alley who gets preferential seating and can walk in 5 minutes to tip?
Pollard On Student Section
- Thread starter SpiderClone
- Start date
Students showing loyalty is the problem? Or is it Cyclone Alley who gets preferential seating and can walk in 5 minutes to tip?
They could sell the upper deck to students as reserved seats. That way if you don't want to wait in line you can just buy those. If you want the good seats in the lower section you will still have to wait in line as usual. I think that could help a little.
Jamie needs to cool his jets. It must be rough being an AD when your over-sold student section isn't showing up to your liking...
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Jamie needs to cool his jets. It must be rough being an AD when your over-sold student section isn't showing up to your liking...
Saturday afternoon, two top-25 teams, conference game... just over half of the section is full. Every year, we hear complaints that the students need more and/or better seats, but they shoot themselves in the foot by not showing up to games.
But but but. DANCE MARATHON!!!
I honestly wonder how many people actually go to that thing. In my 4 years in Ames, I can count on one hand the number of people I met that actually did anything with it.
And it's growing at a fast rate. Raised $427,000 this year after raising $327,000 last year.
Student section will likely shrink out of necessity next year. ISU leaves plenty of money on the table with that many student seats. No AD in his right mind is going to allow that many seats to go unused for that many games every year when ISU basketball is a hot ticket.
Yeah. It has gotten way bigger recently. I never did it, but when I was a junior and senior it seemed to be getting really big. Iowa is one of the biggest schools for it since the children's hospital is right there on campus. That was the first place I actually heard about it.
I still say it needs to go to a points system. Reward the students who go to the most games and encourage continued loyalty. The more points you have, the better seats you receive. If there's ever a tie, a running total based on seniority should be used. People will know that they don't have to wait for hours in the cold to get good seats.
The key thing is to not **** on the people who go to every game. I have missed one game and it was the second one. Don't remember who it was because it was some awful school who we beat by like 30. The reason I didn't go is because most of my favorite tv shows were on and I don't get anything out if watching a scrimmage.
My point is for big games like Iowa and Kansas you can't have the people who actually go not get in. That is an awful message to send. Even though you are one of our loyal fans you weren't in line for 3-4 hours just to get in.
I dont have sympathy for others who don't get in just don't leave the loyal fans who do come outside.
My point is for big games like Iowa and Kansas you can't have the people who actually go not get in. That is an awful message to send. Even though you are one of our loyal fans you weren't in line for 3-4 hours just to get in.
I dont have sympathy for others who don't get in just don't leave the loyal fans who do come outside.
Student seats are the only ones in the building that are being sold twice. Right now, the AD is selling 1,000 season tickets that don't even exist to students. Your bolded statement makes no sense.
I see no way that the student section shrinks for next year, and it shouldn't.
But don't the "loyal fans" get there early enough to get in? I feel like the problem of not getting students in is a problem for those who don't go often, and don't find it important enough to wait in line. So a big portion of these empty seats are students who think they won't get in because they don't want to stand in line, and who is the majority of these students? Fair weathered fans.
As a junior here who has never missed a non break game, I'd love to see us go to a reward/loyalty system. I also like the idea of having to pick up tickets, which would reduce line length, and allow the university to sell the unclaimed tickets. If we continue to have problems filling that upper deck (which we've had problems with each of the past 3 years) then the student section needs to be reduced by a certain amount. Students are running out of legitimate excuses (Dance Marathon is a legitimate excuse, but not wanting to stand in line isn't).
Seriously no one is going to call you out on this? Fine I will you sir should just put down the keyboard for a minute and slap yourself. Raising money for CANCER is considered worthy of losing your man card? Congrats on the dumbest post I've ever read.....
Class? Sub-zero windchills? Those are the reasons for not standing in line. There's also the thing that some fair weather fans care only about being on tv so they go super early for one or two games.
I'm not saying you should just show up at game time but you shouldn't have to stand in line for double the amount of time the actual game is going on just to get in.
For Iowa we got in line at about 3:30 and were some of the last people to get in. That is 4:30 before the game.
Maybe they need to tweet out estimates or something of how many spots are left. That would help people judge when to come. The rewards system is the best idea as far as I'm concerned. Either way this system is not working.
ISU student season tickets for basketball cost about $125 for 15 games, even if you completely discount the fact that amount also purchases student tickets for gymanastics, wrestling, volleyball, and women's basketball; as well as Cyclone Alley membership (and a t-shirt) and Student Alumni Association membership on top of that. While the tickets are indeed oversold (not twice as many, only about 40% more) the student section has exceeded 50% capacity only twice this year so far.
3500 student ticket slots x $125 package price divided by 2500 actual student seats divided by 15 games = $11.66 per seat, per game. Even oversold. Even ignoring everything else the $125 price gets you. Those seats are worth a hell of a lot more than that to any potential walk-up consumer of Cyclone basketball. Possibly triple that much.
Students get a hell of a deal and don't utilize it. If there is routinely 1000-1500 student seats being unused, it is hard to justify continuing the practice, when selling them for $36 would net the athletic department anywhere from $350K - $450K more income over the course of the season.
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You're forgetting there are 35,000 students paying about $40 (or that's what it was in 2012) per semester to the athletics department through University fees. Do you really think Jamie wants to bite the hand that feeds a few million dollars into the athletics department? He loses validity to his business plan if he cuts down on the availability of his #2 product. Even if he only is able to increase it 2% per year on average and they tell him no increases he's losing a couple hundred thousand dollars and for what?
And your $36 is off...they'd be resold as season tickets likely for $150-$200 as there's a market to sell there.
In a somewhat unrelated point, I can think of at least 4 games it was over 50%...yesterday, KU, Iowa, Michigan.
I believe it was fully appropriate for JP to point out the need for overselling tickets. It is also reasonable to assume a significant subset of students who attended the dance marathon would have been predisposed to attending the game if there had not been a scheduling conflict. Combine that with the synergistic impact of 3 consecutive losses and the handling of the Bubu situation and you might have a more complete explanation.
That said, anyone who didn’t attend missed out on one heck of a game! I could not have been any more proud of Matt Thomas. Between warm-ups and the actual game it appeared Matt was almost unstoppable as he was hitting virtually every 3 he put up! Hopefully, this will put a stop to those pseudo-Cyclone fans who have been taunting him on Twitter and possibly Cyclone Fanatic! Dustin Hogue was an absolute beast on the boards! I have never seen anyone fight harder. Melvin was incredible in the second half. His steals, blocks, rebounds and total points had to make him the player of the game. Monte Morris is more impressive with every outing and while DeAndre did not have his best game, he is an incredible talent and I am glad he is wearing Cardinal and Gold! Georges has his 3 ball stroke back and we even got to see Percy banging bodies. I can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon!
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I think somebody said 1,200. But even if all 1,200 of those participating had student tickets (which is unlikely) there still would have been 900 students who had tickets but did not use them.
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