[NU Sports] Attendance Woes

[Thiegs, Joe]

I remember that--that was a great thread!  Took me back to the days of my SPSS class at NU....

The Big Ten single-game ticket prices are too steep for NU, IMHO.  If seats to 'Cat games were a hot commodity, it would be a different story, but that's not the case and hasn't been so for close to a decade now. Cut it back $5 or $10, and I bet there'd be an overall net revenue gain within a year or two as more tickets sold made up for lost $$ due to the price cut.  OTOH, if that doesn't work, then you're stuck with low attendance AND less revenue from the lower ticket prices.  It could be a worthwhile experiment, though.  The season tickets seem priced about right to me, and although the discount is a nice incentive, I don't know that the discount has to be as great as it is.  I.e., it would be okay with me if the single-game ticket prices came down closer to the per-game season ticket prices.  I say this, in full disclosure, as someone who can only travel to Evanston once a year or so for an NU game and therefore has only bought single-game seats in recent years.  -Joe 

-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 4:36 PM
To: Tom Maycock; nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com
Subject: RE: [NU Sports] Attendance Woes


I remember that when I ran a regression on different factors affecting
attendance that current-year success is not a strong predictor of
current-year attendance.

Rather, the combined winning percentage of the prior 2 years was the
strongest predictor of current-year attendance (around 40%) with a very
small effect from the head coach variable.  History (albeit recent)
matters.  If that holds, we should see an increase next year - though
not huge.

-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com]
On Behalf Of Tom Maycock
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 2:23 PM
To: nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Attendance Woes

> 04   28,408

Thanks for pulling together the numbers.

I was real disappointed in the turnout this year, especially after we
beat OSU (and remember, that average includes a sellout for the OSU
game, due to 60% or so OSU fan attendance).

Two things come to mind: ticket prices and TV.

If anyone has too much free time, and can find a way to get the data,
I'd love to see the average NU ticket prices over that same span of
years. Might prove informative. I know that the prices this year were
almost steep enough to dissuade us from renewing season tix. 

Also, almost every home game was on TV this year, yes? I wonder how
many folks considering going to a game look at the ticket price, check
the TV guide, and decide to stay home and watch it on TV instead?

I have no idea if these explain the poor attendance or not, but I'd be
surprised if they weren't at least part of the answer.

That drop from 98 to 99 is interesting too. I'd guess it is mostly to
do with how bad the 98 team was, and maybe with the publicity and
"style" of Barnett's departure, but it's still surprising. 

Tom

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