Attendance 2017

[davecisar]

There was an article in the Omaha world herald today talking about last years true attendance

The number of scanned tickets
The last 3 games there were less than 70,000 fans

Osu was just 67000

I said on this site that Riley was going to be gone primarily because of one thing
Ticket sales

When I mentioned all of the empty seats around me I was scoffed at
Lots of people jumped in and said stadium was full where they sat

That wasn’t true at all

About 20 percent, 1 in 5 seats weren’t being used and that is why you could buy tickets for 30 percent of face value for those last 3 games in front of the stadium

Fan apathy under Riley was at a historic high and those scanned ticket numbers proved it
Couldn’t believe people actually tried to debate the issue

 

[litespeedhuskerfan_rivals19671]

OK?

 

[Pennsyhusker_rivals246774]

There was an article in the Omaha world herald today talking about last years true attendance

The number of scanned tickets
The last 3 games there were less than 70,000 fans

Osu was just 67000

I said on this site that Riley was going to be gone primarily because of one thing
Ticket sales

When I mentioned all of the empty seats around me I was scoffed at
Lots of people jumped in and said stadium was full where they sat

That wasn’t true at all

About 20 percent, 1 in 5 seats weren’t being used and that is why you could buy tickets for 30 percent of face value for those last 3 games in front of the stadium

Fan apathy under Riley was at a historic high and those scanned ticket numbers proved it
Couldn’t believe people actually tried to debate the issue

Saw that article too. It does resolve an issue that was being debated last year. Some on here were saying that the announced attendance was based on the number of scanned tickets and therefore was an accurate assessment of how many fans were there. Now we know that is not true. So what do they base the announced attendance figures on then? Anyone know?

 

[RealTucoSalamanca]

Tickets sold

 

[Pennsyhusker_rivals246774]

Tickets sold

Ok. But every game is a sellout. So why are there different attendances at all then? More media, donors, guests, etc... for the bigger games?

 

[RealTucoSalamanca]

Ok. But every game is a sellout. So why are there different attendances at all then? More media, donors, guests, etc... for the bigger games?

The stadium has 85,458 seats. So anything above that is a sellout.

What actually constitutes a sellout is subjective. I know that many athletic directors are walking around with a half dozen or so tickets in their pocket every game “just in case”.

 

[Sinomatic]

Sellouts are based on sales not actual butts in seats.

U of Mars could see one fan decked out cheering the Green Machine on in a stadium that seats 100 Martians and still be considered a sellout because the martian who bought the rest overslept for the game and is at home with the other 99 tickets.

 

[Pennsyhusker_rivals246774]

The stadium has 85,458 seats. So anything above that is a sellout.

What actually constitutes a sellout is subjective. I know that many athletic directors are walking around with a half dozen or so tickets in their pocket every game “just in case”.

Well, my definition of a sellout is that all the tickets were sold, regardless of whose pockets those tickets might be in. And if stated attendance statements are based, as you said above, on "tickets sold" then the announced attendance should be 85,458 plus media, guests etc...

I don't see how that is subjective. Now, if you define sellout as an actual attendance of 85,458, then the number of scanned tickets being less than that would mean there is no sellout. But we still say our games are "sold out" so obviously the athletic department is using the metric of sold tickets to make that determination. And that makes sense since the criterion for a "sell" out should be what we "sold".

But it seems deceptive to me for the athletic department to incorrectly state what the actual attendance was. How hard can it be to make the official "announced attendance" line up with the number of scanned tickets?

Not a big deal though. Enough said

 

[HUSKERFAN66]

Yeah I don't know. Good question. You are saying everything that I have always heard and believed to be true. Sellouts are tickets sold and attendance is scanned that day which includes butts in the seats, visiting recruits, staff etc. I have been told it also includes players, media, vendors, ushers, security... basically anyone in the stadium. Now it sounds like this may not be true. Not sure i can handle that.

 

[RealTucoSalamanca]

It’s subjective because the tickets in the ADs pockets were never “sold”. There are other administrators with similar perks.

As I said last year when we were having a similar discussion, the sellout streak is just something that people are holding on to as a last bastion of the days of yore. There are boosters and corporations that buy any remaining tickets simply to keep the streak alive. This is even more evidenced by the number of empty seats referenced in the article.

 

[HUSKERFAN66]

Yes. I think we are all in agreement what the definition of sellout is and sellout does not correlate to actual attendance. I have season tickets and didn't go to all the games.

The question is, how was announced attendance determined on gameday if it wasn't from scanned tickets.

Who made the decision and when did they make it!!!

 

[Pennsyhusker_rivals246774]

It’s subjective because the tickets in the ADs pockets were never “sold”. There are other administrators with similar perks.

As I said last year when we were having a similar discussion, the sellout streak is just something that people are holding on to as a last bastion of the days of yore. There are boosters and corporations that buy any remaining tickets simply to keep the streak alive. This is even more evidenced by the number of empty seats referenced in the article.

Ok. Now I get what you were saying.
I assume, though, that the perks our admins get in the form of free game tickets is a standard practice at most, if not all, P5 schools. And all of those schools simply deduct how many tickets are "perk tickets" from the total pool of "tickets for sale to the public". So any "sellout" would then be based on the pool of available tickets for sale. And, once again, that does not seem subjective or deceptive to me. Stadium holds 85,500? You give 2000 free perk tickets away to admins? A sellout would then be 83,500 tickets sold to the public. Seems straightforward to me.

And yes, various deep pocket people buy up unsold tickets to keep the streak alive. So the sellout is a bit of a scam if a sellout means actual tickets sold to John Q fan. But hey... at least our football program still means enough to those deep pockets to do this. It still shows community support for the team. I wonder what the reaction would be in the business community of cities like Lawrence or Boulder if the AD asked them to pony up for thousands of seats in order to pad the attendance figures?

Still... I get your larger point about the sellout being something we cling to. I agree.

 

[TFrazier_rivals269992]

There was an article in the Omaha world herald today talking about last years true attendance

The number of scanned tickets
The last 3 games there were less than 70,000 fans

Osu was just 67000

I said on this site that Riley was going to be gone primarily because of one thing
Ticket sales

When I mentioned all of the empty seats around me I was scoffed at
Lots of people jumped in and said stadium was full where they sat

That wasn’t true at all

About 20 percent, 1 in 5 seats weren’t being used and that is why you could buy tickets for 30 percent of face value for those last 3 games in front of the stadium

Fan apathy under Riley was at a historic high and those scanned ticket numbers proved it
Couldn’t believe people actually tried to debate the issue

 

[JohnRossEwing]

The sellout streak is a fun thing...everyone knows it isn't "real" anymore but there is still a charm to it...

 

[21Husker1984]

There was an article in the Omaha world herald today talking about last years true attendance

The number of scanned tickets
The last 3 games there were less than 70,000 fans

Osu was just 67000

I said on this site that Riley was going to be gone primarily because of one thing
Ticket sales

When I mentioned all of the empty seats around me I was scoffed at
Lots of people jumped in and said stadium was full where they sat

That wasn’t true at all

About 20 percent, 1 in 5 seats weren’t being used and that is why you could buy tickets for 30 percent of face value for those last 3 games in front of the stadium

Fan apathy under Riley was at a historic high and those scanned ticket numbers proved it
Couldn’t believe people actually tried to debate the issue

Dammit you’re impressive.

 

[davecisar]

Saw that article too. It does resolve an issue that was being debated last year. Some on here were saying that the announced attendance was based on the number of scanned tickets and therefore was an accurate assessment of how many fans were there. Now we know that is not true. So what do they base the announced attendance figures on then? Anyone know?

The “debate” I was referring to was about all the empty seats and low resale ticket prices

Quite a few people here said there weren’t open seats and resale prices we’re stable
That simply wasn’t true at all

This article proves that

 

[Pennsyhusker_rivals246774]

The “debate” I was referring to was about all the empty seats and low resale ticket prices

Quite a few people here said there weren’t open seats and resale prices we’re stable
That simply wasn’t true

No it wasn't true. But the people who were making that claim had an agenda: save Mike Riley

 

[davecisar]

No it wasn't true. But the people who were making that claim had an agenda: save Mike Riley

That is very true

At the end of the day you can have your own opinion- which is fine
Not your own facts

 

[davecisar]

There are NOT 2000 freebie tickets handed out by admins every game

The vast majority of tickets available are those that are turned in from the visiting teams required allotment

The vast majority of seats sold are season tickets

Then some single seats
Because most season ticket holders do not want to buy singles

Sometimes not always the opposing team won’t sell their allotment

Those aren’t turned in until the week of the game

Those are the situations where a booster might on occasion help

There isn’t some vast right wing conspiracy to hide 5000 onsold tickets every week
Doesn’t happen
No matter how much Iowa fans want to push that story
Same for county scholarships

 

[RealTucoSalamanca]

Pretty sure the 2000 was a hypothetical and just an arbitrary number. But don’t let that stop you from having a little self manifested outrage.

And again no one said it was 5000 per week. I said that the sellout streak would have been over many times over the years if not for boosters buying up tickets, even if it only 10 or 20

 

[cornhustler]

Well, my definition of a sellout

That is the definition of a a sellout alright! People confuse attendance and sellout all the time. They also like to bring up boosters buying a lot of tickets, irrelevant, it is still a sell out. It is a very simple concept to grasp. No other teams fan base has done this longer, thus the NCAA record. #easy

 

[Pennsyhusker_rivals246774]

Pretty sure the 2000 was a hypothetical and just an arbitrary number. But don’t let that stop you from having a little self manifested outrage.

And again no one said it was 5000 per week. I said that the sellout streak would have been over many times over the years if not for boosters buying up tickets, even if it only 10 or 20

Yes, my use of 2000 and 5000 were purely arbitrary and merely used as a hypothetical example.

 

[Pennsyhusker_rivals246774]

That is the definition of a a sellout alright! People confuse attendance and sellout all the time. They also like to bring up boosters buying a lot of tickets, irrelevant, it is still a sell out. It is a very simple concept to grasp. No other teams fan base has done this longer, thus the NCAA record. #easy

Exactly. A sellout, it seems to me, isn't a hard concept to grasp

 

[hddude55]

The sellout streak is a fun thing...everyone knows it isn't "real" anymore but there is still a charm to it...

I think a 4-8 season pretty much stripped away any charm from the football program.

 

[nwualum_rivals330058]

I would still like to have someone show me a photo of any home game in the last couple of years that appear to have 20,000 empty seats at kickoff. I've been to every game and the stadium has always been full. There may have been a couple of open seats here and there, but 20,000 seats would be glaring and obvious both in person and on tv.

 

[JohnRossEwing]

I think a 4-8 season pretty much stripped away any charm from the football program.

The Riley Hire...Where does it rank in CFB Blue Blood hires?

Bottom 3?

 

[davecisar]

I would still like to have someone show me a photo of any home game in the last couple of years that appear to have 20,000 empty seats at kickoff. I've been to every game and the stadium has always been full. There may have been a couple of open seats here and there, but 20,000 seats would be glaring and obvious both in person and on tv.

What motivation would there be to lie?

In my section there were swaths of 4- 6 empty seats all over the place

Supply and demand matters
That is why a $130 Ohio state ticket was very hard to sell for even $50
Iowa was the same deal
Less than half of face

Lots of long term fans in my section
People we had seen every week for 10-15 years
Didn’t bother attending

 

[HUSKERFAN66]

I would still like to have someone show me a photo of any home game in the last couple of years that appear to have 20,000 empty seats at kickoff. I've been to every game and the stadium has always been full. There may have been a couple of open seats here and there, but 20,000 seats would be glaring and obvious both in person and on tv.

I kinda agree with this. Even the games I didn't make it to and couldn't sell my tickets for a reasonable price, the TV sure didn't look like the stadium was only 80% full

 

[LBremser_rivals78367]

I would still like to have someone show me a photo of any home game in the last couple of years that appear to have 20,000 empty seats at kickoff. I've been to every game and the stadium has always been full. There may have been a couple of open seats here and there, but 20,000 seats would be glaring and obvious both in person and on tv.

I agree, the student section often takes awhile to fill up and there are sometimes holes in the upper seats, but I haven't seen anywhere close to 20,000 empty seats at the beginning of a game. I looked up the article, the scanned number doesn't include the band, players,

The Riley Hire...Where does it rank in CFB Blue Blood hires?

Bottom 3?

Probably not that low, off the top of my head and can think of two each for the Domers and Oklahoma that were worse.

 

[davecisar]

No reason to lie about the numbers

In my section we didn’t just stay scrunched ion our seat numbers
We spread out
That’s probably why it may have looked a bit more full

 

[Blindcheck]

The stadium can feel full with 20% less people, because the seats are so close together in the north and south endzone...if four people don't show up, you can spread out on the benches and it still is tight.

 

[Baxter48_rivals204143]

My first game was against okie st in the mid 1970s it was cold late October maybe November Saturday had tickets in the upper 1/2 of north end, you could pick any seat you wanted to an estimate 12-15 rows straight up from goal posts but yet it was called a sell out as a high school kid who had the new math in grade school it sure didn't look anywhere near a sellout, then I had it explaining to me all the tickets were sold. Similar to airlines over booking except in reverse, airlines hope some are no shows but still have a plane full, where as university sell all the tickets but can't sell it again even if there are empty seats

 

[davecisar]

Big difference
In the 70s you didn’t have to slash the price of your ticket to 1/3 of face value to get rid of them on a consistent basis like we did under riley

 

[dand84]

Sell out and attendance are really not rocket science and never have been. We have sold out every game on our home schedule since 1962. That is a fact. It isn't open to debate. It is an impressive record, an objective record, and one that is the simplest to compare across teams, year, sports, etc. It is one almost entirely driven and owned by fans. It can't be taken away except by our own actions really.

What is being argued about is attendance. I bet it has NEVER been the case that attendance has equaled tickets sold. This one is harder to track but there have been empty seats in the stands since the 60s and certainly when I was going to school there in the student section.

People love to denigrate or belittle our streak by conflating the two and they do this on purpose. They have been doing it since it was started being tracked and will continue to do so. It is neither new nor particularly profound nor insightful.

That attendance has been dropping though is easy to see through the Riley years and those 80% numbers for OSU are very troubling. The danger being when does attendance drop enough to really impact ticket sales? I never really thought about the actual sellout stream being in danger until Riley, however.

 

[RealTucoSalamanca]

Single game Tickets bought by people with no intention to give them out or use them makes the streak a bit of a sham. IMHO. LaVar Ball buys all of his Big Baller Brand shoes in stock......never mind the streak is legit. Ha ha ha

 

[davecisar]

Sell out and attendance are really not rocket science and never have been. We have sold out every game on our home schedule since 1962. That is a fact. It isn't open to debate. It is an impressive record, an objective record, and one that is the simplest to compare across teams, year, sports, etc. It is one almost entirely driven and owned by fans. It can't be taken away except by our own actions really.

What is being argued about is attendance. I bet it has NEVER been the case that attendance has equaled tickets sold. This one is harder to track but there have been empty seats in the stands since the 60s and certainly when I was going to school there in the student section.

People love to denigrate or belittle our streak by conflating the two and they do this on purpose. They have been doing it since it was started being tracked and will continue to do so. It is neither new nor particularly profound nor insightful.

That attendance has been dropping though is easy to see through the Riley years and those 80% numbers for OSU are very troubling. The danger being when does attendance drop enough to really impact ticket sales? I never really thought about the actual sellout stream being in danger until Riley, however.

The real danger is this
Season ticket holder is paying upwards of $100 per ticket inclusive of required donation

If I see tickets to Ohio state and Iowa at 1/3 face without even adding in my contribution
Why would I bother to pay the inflated face value price plus required donation??

Then if the weather is awful or the opponent is bad I can watch that one on television, cut my expenses by thousands- 4 tickets and only go to the games I want to

Can upgrade my husker room with the difference

Had the Riley lovers gotten their way and he was still coaching here, the sellout streak would be gone

Looks like it wouldn’t have mattered to them based on the comments here
That entitled Millenial crowd always likes to take stabs at greatness to make their mediocre accomplishments seem like more
I’m doubting they would go to the games even when the tickets got down to $20

 

[Baxter48_rivals204143]

Another thing that has hurt is TV every game is on and when Riley and company were in charge looks like 20+ thousand elected to watch it on tv instead of watching a poor product plus not speeding $200 to watch in person 200 just a estimate tickets, food,drinks, travel expenses not including motel room

 

[GeorgeFlippin]

I "officially" declare the old sold out streak null and void, a new streak shall be commenced first home game of 2018. So let it be written, so let it be done!

 

[WoodRiverJennings]

No reason to lie about the numbers

In my section we didn’t just stay scrunched ion our seat numbers
We spread out
That’s probably why it may have looked a bit more full

Y'all must be some bigguns if you were able to hide 20,000 empty seats by "spreading out" :Cool:

 

[Charlie Marlow_rivals363743]

I remember crowds being thin at times back in 1990 and 1991 time frame. RiLLLLLLLLey just needed a few more years.