How are we feeling about NRF season ticket pricing?
- Thread starter jne381
- Start date
Alright you got me there. Must have been making some assumptions about Hammond.
"I’m sure New Ryan Field is going to be great from an amenities standpoint/state-of-the-art."
I'm old school. I just don't care. I don’t need 210 minutes of continuous stimuli. I'm coming to watch the game. I'll talk to others or look at my phone durong breaks.
I still feel like this high end, high $ stadium is a colossal mistake. After a 1-2 year (max) novelty period wears off, it will be half empty for low demand games and full of visitors for the others. Particularly if the team is mediocre. We just dont have that type of fan base. We can't even fill the lakefront stadium
You make lots of good points! Do you think some disillusioned Chicago bears fans might think it might be cool to attend a nu game jump on el clean to central st instead of going to Hammond to steep themselves in benzene and other carcinogenic dementia in the coming years?
Candidly I’m still not sure the Hammond move is happening just because they currently say it is. But even if it does, Bears fans will complain and then still support the team anyway. What’s the alternative, cheering for the Packers? Not gonna happen in the Chicago market.
I need to offer a delayed reaction to this point too, because I agree, but I think it cuts to the heart of the new calculus for teams.
What has more value to a program: the support of more people in the cheap seats, or extracting more money from the cheap seats?
Some would say that's a false binary/that you can have both. But I nonetheless feel like years ago if pressed the school would have chosen the former, and now would choose the latter. The logic of the former was some mix of finding it appropriate to prioritize alums writ large, growing goodwill among your fanbase, building generational fandom, and cultivating an actual home field advantage. The logic of the latter is that nothing sells like winning and you can't win without money.
Can see both points, and have a lot of sympathy for Northwestern trying to keep up with the Joneses when some of the Joneses are the Ohio States and Michigans of the world. Can live with them making the second choice -- as long as they own it. But they can't pitch me on overpaying for bad football in a crowd compromised with opposing fans if that's the model: They gotta win. From my perspective, that's the ultimate bottom line.
If they move to Hammond (that's a big IF) I won't cancel my Bears STs but I'll only go to a couple games at the new facility and I'll turn the rest. I guarantee the new site won't have easy public transportation or $20 parking options like Soldier Field.
I guess from my perspective, NU already has a good idea what that finite number of NU fans attending games is. The tickets were dirt cheap and it didn’t grow the base much.
I am not confident there is a price point that exists that would result in more purple until the program is consistently winning. As a STH of about 15 years in the same seats on the east 40 yard line, I have no idea who owns the seats directly south of me. I don’t know who owns the seats behind me. I do know the same people show up every other year for the game with their favorite B1G team. Minny to my South and Iowa behind me. Every other game is either empty or sold on the secondary market. With the new high pricing these people go away.
if sure seems like seats are in demand. I couldn’t get in the Loft club, so the entire West side between the end zones should be purple every game. Most of the premium seats are sold right now except the most expensive out there. Basically all of the first level and mezzanine between the end zone should be NU peeps.
My ticket rep said they were going to be variable pricing for single game tickets based on demand. For instance the PSU price is likely to be higher than the average STH cost and Ball State is lower than the average STH price. There is a conscious effort to get as many NU people in the best seats as possible. Honestly, I am not convinced that you could give away the tickets with single game sales and fill the stadium with purple. I think the NU plan makes sense.
We agree more than we disagree. I'm with you on this too, there are diminishing returns in reducing prices at a certain point.
However, the inverse doesn't automatically hold. We're about to find out whether it is also true that there are price points which may eventually result in less purple...
The prices are based on a 7-game home schedule and are prorated.
this is the world of college athletics like it or not
suck it up
this is the world of college athletics like it or not
suck it up
How many season tickets did we have the last year we played a the old Ryan Field, anyone know?
Let's say it's 20,000 (truly just guessing here). All you need are 15k fans from other well traveling schools then. I bet not a single Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio State or Michigan game will be not sold out at the new place. Probably Illinois too and maybe Indiana will have more fans now. With a stadium of 35,000 seats we do not need 35,000 season ticket holders. Yes, Rutgers will be tough to fill up. How many Washington (the one in Seattle) fans are in Chicago? For that matter how many Maryland fans are there that don't live near the other Washington. Yeah those will be tougher. But if we have good seasons we will fill it up. I still say we built too small but I have said my peace on that many times in the past.
I have confidence (based on the strategy the school is plainly employing here) that we have built the correct size stadium to optimize revenue. It'll be as full as they want it to be at the price points they want it to be, for maximum gate revenue possible under the circumstances.
That does potentially mean a different thing than creating the most "Northwestern" crowd possible, though as Purple Pile Driver pointed out, more than fair to observe that they've tried getting more purple in the stands via cheaper tickets before with mixed results, too.
Like I've said earlier in this thread, it's all too expensive and also exactly as expensive as one should expect in the current era of college sports. (Or as HappyNUyear would put it: "this is the world of college athletics like it or not suck it up")
If nothing else it'll definitely be a nice stadium.
And, for others, if nothing else, the games will still be on TV...!
I used to think we had 20,000 season tix holders but that’s not logical if the in would be two tix per holder.
Based on me being in group 2
group 1 was 300 people
Group 2 was 700 people
3500 tix sold in the clubs and lofts
I bet we have around 5-8,000 season tix holders representing 10-20,000 tix.
Based on me being in group 2
group 1 was 300 people
Group 2 was 700 people
3500 tix sold in the clubs and lofts
I bet we have around 5-8,000 season tix holders representing 10-20,000 tix.
I think it was well below 20K More like 12K for 2023, I think we peaked at somewhere around 18-19K and 2023 was after Covid and after firing of Fitz. And we will tend to have fewer games against the bigger draws with the new conference scheduling since we will no longer be playing WIS and IA every other year at Ryan Field. Hard to find fault with having a smaller capacity
It is 300 accounts remaining to be place in group 1 and 700 accounts in group 2. Each account likely averages somewhere around 4
I highly encourage STH’s that don’t have tickets to call their rep. They have opened up Mezzanine seats on the east side which they haven’t publicized. I missed the cut for Loft and moved me up in line to get these seats. They were very accommodating.
I hope you find NU fans that will purchase them. Be sure to post here so we can look to keep the seats Purple.
What happens to demand when we’re not in the inevitable “super league” that starts around 2030 which we won’t be in? Thats my biggest fear. Might have 40% vacancy.
Probably, unless the super league excludes teams that we actually care to play. Will it be based on attendance or actual performance?
I could see 3-4 other B1GW teams being excluded. Wisconsin can't find their *** with either hand. Purdue is perennially weak. MN IL arent going to have the super league throwing money at them. Nebraska has nothing to offer. Iowa is probably strongest in performance/attendance.
NUFBs 10, 20 and 30 [32 actually] year performance metrics match up with our Midwest brethren except Iowa
Why the proponents for the super league fail to realize about college football, is that its popularity stems from ALL the teams having some sort of vested interest in the current system. If the vast population that went to all the schools that would not be in the super league have no interest in who gets in, what makes them want to watch lower tier professional ball instead of the NFL? I attended undergrad at NU and grad school at MSU. If neither were in the mix, I would not watch the super league. As it is now, I of course watch MSU and NU games, but I also watch other games that may impact the B1G or the national picture.
Yeah, I don’t disagree but have you seen who’s in charge? These guys are wildly obtuse. Not the sharpest tools in the shed.
I guess the one silver lining to concerns about a future 40% empty stadium is that it's not like this ticket pricing scheme is locked in for 100 years. If it's floundering 10 years from now, they can always re-assess and change how they are selling seats.
Whether we should have any confidence in the NIL era that athletic leadership will prioritize access over revenue generation is a different question, but just saying...
Whether we should have any confidence in the NIL era that athletic leadership will prioritize access over revenue generation is a different question, but just saying...
10 years. Lots of guys here that are pretty old. Might be dead or in the Accessible section by then
The prices are outrageous. We are long, long time season ticket holders and not renewing. We will go game by game. The pricing is delusional. Very disappointed.
That's why PRJ keeps mentioning that NRF will be the most accessible stadium in college football!
I finally checked into the website to look at available seating and prices. A pair of tickets for five games worth of mediocre seats in the end zone are comparably priced to my great seats at WRA for all home games.
I'll pass.
Probably buy a couple of tickets for one of the cheaper home games and see what the new venue offers, but I definitely won't be getting season tickets until the prices tank.
I'll pass.
Probably buy a couple of tickets for one of the cheaper home games and see what the new venue offers, but I definitely won't be getting season tickets until the prices tank.
While some may have done that, it was limited and most did not. In 30 years I never put seats on secondary market and ST holders that I knew did not either. At least the normal ST holders, There was the feeling that a NEB of dOSU (or for the ND game)fan might buy STs that they only had use for a game or two and did what you say with their other tickets but that was not the normal ST buyer
Re secondary market, I'm casually interested in the lakefront games but didn't want as part of STH package. Feels like they are playing chicken with ticket buyers: buy STHs or stay home. No single game tix yet. If they try to get cute with the lakefront games, there will be 5k people there for SDSU.
I'm very much a basketball guy, but I'm interested in the other sports programs and I like football. I probably fit pretty well into the category of casual football fan who could be enticed into buying affordable season tickets
NU has been hard selling football to me since late last year. And the e-mails and phone calls have really stepped up in the last two months. So I gave it a look see, and holy wow.
I have an honest question about etiquette when selling tickets to others that post on this site. Do you sell the tickets at about cost, or do you ask for what the market is generally going for? I really would like to go to the Penn State game, and I still may, but logistically it does present several challenges for me to get to that game. I would imagine that is the most valuable ticket of the season (being the first game in the stadium and a big opponent). When tickets were more affordable, I generally just tried to get cost for tickets, but is it bad form to try to maximize return on the more valuable games now?
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