Can anyone offer brief insight into the prominence of lowered prices for GT season ticket holders in this year's ticket availability announcement?
Many Gopher fans are still reeling from a 3-year, tiered implementation of price hikes from a former, disgraced AD (don't ask) that led many long term season tix fans to drop their seats.
The current UMn AD has indicated the need to be creative in getting butts back in the seats but lowering prices is not part of the mix yet.
I don't have any actual insight, but it makes a lot of logical sense to me! You make big changes; you come off a couple of mediocre years; you need make sure the first year has some positive changes to the fan base. Someone somewhere mentioned that when Blank bought the Falcons he did the same thing to get attendance up. Maybe this was TStan's idea; maybe it was CGC's. Who knows? I find it smart.
There were a lot of empty seats around me last year, so I think lowering the cost to go for more qty may or may not increase the overall revenue this year, but it affords people the opportunity to be there, making the experience better, and a result, a long-term uptick might occur. With HD TVs and 400 channels, people can watch at home - make them want to come out to the game - and more people there cheering makes for better experiences. And with the lower price, I'm even happier about buying my tickets early - and am trying to talk others into buying some, too because they are reasonable prices!