Many Iowa fans tailgating in Isabella Parking Lot, without any NU fans with them.
Iowa Fans
- Thread starter Fcmchi1
- Start date
Sign me up if we've got a full building with only 25-30% Iowa fans.
Anyone over the last week that thought we would greatly outnumber Iowa fans hasn’t been paying attention for the last 40 years. New Ryan Field. Old Ryan Field. Dyche Stadium. Doesn’t matter. Iowa fans travel well everywhere, but especially when it’s in Evanston. For many Iowa fans, this is the closest game they will play to where they live all year.
Not sure what your point is. Less Iowa fans than I expected. I’ll admit that. But the crazy amount of empty seats for every game is a problem. I know there are some on here that say they don’t care, but they absolutely should. Kids don’t want to play in front of empty seats. We have a brand new stadium in a season where we’ve been ranked and there are empty seats everywhere.
Maybe it’s more pleasant in the stadium when you’re not surrounded by opposing fans, but the look on TV is bad. No way around it.
On TV it just looked like the 50 yard line club seats were the only ones not full. THat crowd... they bakroll our operation and yeah, they suck as fans. Other than that it looked full and sounded more like an NU crowd than an Iowa crowd in the first half.
Having only 1/4-1/3 visiting fans for a big game with one of our close traditional opponents who brings a lot of fans is a GAME CHANGER and it's what I was hoping for. 25,000 NU fans vs 10,000 Iowa/WIsconsin/OSU/Nebby/Michigan fans is insanely better than 30,000 visiting fans to 25,000 home fans. Massively.
Our fans suck. We must need to admit it. They are passive.
Our fans do suck and it's not just about the numbers.
Iowa fans are the football equivalent of Purdue basketball fans.
Iowa fans are the football equivalent of Purdue basketball fans.
I sit with FCMCHI1. The stadium was between 75 to 80% full tonight During the game, the concourse was not that full. The agrumenty that foks were in the concourse fails.
I think NU over-estimated the attraction. The veneer or shine of the stadium will wear off. It really is not a college atmosphere. I FRa am not an alum. NU treats its fans like crap. Everything is shrouded in fog.
For the same proce as NU tickets, I can go to a Bulls games and si in the 100 section by the free thros line. Same drink and food prices. My 3 old tickets eqyal one in the new stadium. I have 8 tickets in my group at a rate of $200/game. If the tickets were $150/game, we might be up to 10 or 12 fans wearing purple. S
What section do you sit in? The only section that looked mostly empty were this VERY expensive seats on the West side mid field. You know what, I’ll give those high rollers credit for not pawning off those seats to Iowa!
I pay a premium for my seats because I don’t want to sit in sections with the opposition. I have no idea what you are talking about with empty seats everywhere. If you are talking about the second half, fine, the game sucked, people left early. It was a full stadium that was probably 70-75% NU. The ONLY thing that was good about tonight was the purple in the stands. I stare right at the West stands and there were not many Iowa fans there. Iowa fans dominated the North End Zone and upper deck corners. The rest were mostly in the back of the 200 section. In fact, I made the comment that this was the fewest amount of Iowa people I have ever seen at an Evanston game. If you have a problem with this game attendance wise, I think you will have a problem with every game.
You got to fix your talk to text. I am not sure what you even said.
There are not enough of us, and, yes, they don’t make much noise. But at least we’re not abnoxious like the Iowa fans near us. Pain in the *** crew. Sore winners.
And the present pricing, seats and food, is out of line for our fan numbers. The cost will chase our few fans away opening up the stadium to the unwashed hordes from those other schools.
And the present pricing, seats and food, is out of line for our fan numbers. The cost will chase our few fans away opening up the stadium to the unwashed hordes from those other schools.
I have shots from every angle of the stadium. The only empty sections were the corners by the screens and corners of the Wildcat Wall. The concourses were full. Every standing area behind the lower bowl was occupied. Some club sections had fans inside with the food instead of sitting in their seats especially after halftime.
Completely disagree. Almost everyone of the STH’s I know have had tix 10 plus years. I personally don’t know a single one that has either cancelled for cost or threatened to cancel. The cost argument comes up all the time with someone invariably saying my friends that are casual fans no longer are interested in tickets and did not renew. I am sure this happened , but you know what, I don’t see any evidence that our STH base has shrunk either overall. In fact, today was the fewest Iowa fans that I’ve ever seen for a game in Evanston. The best seats are in the hands of STH’s, it’s exactly what most fans wanted and NU has done a great job of limiting access for the opposition. There is some collateral damage, with people that have been paying dirt cheap prices and don’t want to pay the higher prices. Oh, anyone that claims the stadium would be full of purple if the prices reasonable is full of ****. Either I or one of my STH crew have had available tickets for the last 3 games that we couldn’t give away. FREE! NU offered discounted tickets that were easily accessible to any of these people that elected not to renew. I see no evidence that we could fill the stadium with 35,000 Purple fans if the tickets were $25 each.
Old Ryan Field cost very little. Not many NU fans attended. Easy decision to jack up the NU fan costs with premium amenities, milk the visiting fans for 10x what they paid before, and unload extras to loyal, cost-conscious fans.
I was also there and I agree. Also, those lower club seats on the west side were only about 50% full when the game started but almost completely full probably halfway thru Q1.
I think you need to see an opthalmologist. We sit in the 100 ;level. The stadium was 75 to 80% full.
You want to attact people. People in the seats buy food and alcohol. Do you know what the profit margin is on a can of beer? You want folks in the stands. It pays the bills. To say otherwise, is stupid. It is your type of arrogance, "I pay premium," which is NU's mistake and/or creates the persona that NU fans are arrogant elitist pieces of _____ . That feeling already exists and you are just pouring gasoline on that fire. Let;s make that pontetial fan base smaller. Good idea.
I’ve had season tickets since ‘93, lean and good years. I’ve been to all the pre-expansion Big Ten stadiums to see NU, plus Penn State and Nebraska. I’ve also been to three bowl games.
I’m a fan. But I’m feeling gouged with the current seat and food prices. And with loads of Iowa fans today, many empty seats, little crowd house, the bells and whistles of the new place don’t suddenly make the experience feel like big time college football.
If we’re not required to renew in ‘27, NU can take for granted and overcharge whomever it wants, give lower priced tickets to whomever it wants, have as many fireworks displays and screaming former players as emcees as it wants, I will watch from the comfort and with the better food of my home.
The game was a disappointment but the crowd was a massive achievement $875 million in the making
While I admit I'm a bit disappointed with the pricing there's an easy remedy, don't buy anything. None of us bought anything in the stadium last night. With tailgating you can get you're eating/drinking done pre-game. This goes for all sporting events. If you only go to a couple events you bite the bullet and splurge. If you're a STH and go to all or most you have a "been there/done that" attitude and don't buy.
That being said I'm stunned NU doesn't offer a STH discount on concessions. The Bears give me 20% off and the Cubs give me 10% off (alcohol excluded). While not a game changer it at least coves the tax. With everything electronic it's real easy to do. I have a QR code in my Bears & MLB apps that I scan at checkout, easy/peasy.
I already have a top notch ophthalmologist and it seems like more people require one as well as they saw what I saw.
This constant bitching about the crowd is ridiculous. It was a good crowd, the seats were sold and the Iowa contingent was smaller than it has ever been since I have been going. Sounds horrible. The smaller fanbase is assumption based on cost is ******** and it’s not backed up by any facts. Is our STH base smaller this year? Would people buy tickets and support the Cats if they were cheaper? If it makes me arrogant to say that I expect a different experience for paying a premium, so be it. I didn’t even go to NU, so the elitist fan claim is funny. The stadium experience is infinitely better than it has ever been at NU and only a fool would think otherwise!
Cool watch from home. That is the choice we are all presented with. If you don’t see the value watch from the comfort of your own home. I have been a STH for a long period of time too and I made a different choice. It’s expensive, but I knew that coming in and made a different choice. So be it. It’s not 1993, Welcome to 2026.
I’ve heard this from multiple people as well. Especially with how ridiculously the athletic department botched pricing. We have a very small fanbase and yes they’re rich but rich people don’t like to be ripped off either.
My buddy’s seats in 136 are $275/each face per game. I sat in 107 for $72/each last night.
What a slap in the face to STHs.
You are right, it’s 2026, but it feels like the movie, Groundhog Day, we still can’t fill a state of the art new stadium for a prime time game against a ranked opponent.
We couldn’t even fill the small Lakeside Stadium, so charging as if we had a fan base like the big boys is delusional.
We’ve had four games at the new Ryan and only the first was filled. So the bloom is already off the rose of the new facilities.
Just as you kindly invited me to watch games from home, I return the favor: pay whatever the marketing people want to charge you and enjoy being surrounded by the chanting, inebriated yahoos of the other Big Ten schools.
Why would you want to go to a Bulls games for the same proce as NU tickets?
I am admittedly not the sharpest person on the site, but I don’t follow your argument at all.
if we couldn’t fill the Lakeside faculty at much cheaper prices than NRF, how would lowering those prices in NRF result in a purple packed field? IMO, it wouldn’t result in NU fans pouring in. Maybe you are suggesting something else?
For the record, I have been to every game in NRF, and there has been next to no opposing fans in my section. The few that have been there are yuking it up as a guest of what clearly is NU STH. I was pleasantly surprised to see only about 4 of them in my section of about 200. The ticket strategy whether you agree with or not was to keep NU fans together and in the most desirable seats. Those inebriated fans surrounded me in the 49 yard line of ORF. So far, I have had zero of them at NRF. The reduced cost seats were intended for NU fans. If you are seating in those sections and these seats were not sucked up by NU fans, what can I tell you? If you are suggesting lower prices would have resulted in a purple crowd that wasn’t subject to drunken Iowa fans, I’m going to disagree. The ticket office made every reasonable effort to keep those seats purple. The Iowa fans had no problem paying the full price, while we had these poor abused fans that weren’t willing to pay half of what they paid.
Whatever the marketing department is doing isn’t working.
Re the high ticket prices, I believe it has and will continue to put off NU fans. You are right, whether lower prices would bring in new NU fans is open to question.
We are in section 118, near the aisle towards the 50 yd line. We have eight seats in two rows, four each. Every seat to our right/north was taken by Iowa fans. The entire north end zone in the lowest level looked and sounded like it was full of Iowa fans.
The new arrangements, attitude, way of doing things are not accommodating to NU STH. Catfans5 and I want five extra tickets each for the Illinois game. Our ticket agent said they will only sell us 8 in our rows even though they are not held by STH.
Odd way to do business.
Re the high ticket prices, I believe it has and will continue to put off NU fans. You are right, whether lower prices would bring in new NU fans is open to question.
We are in section 118, near the aisle towards the 50 yd line. We have eight seats in two rows, four each. Every seat to our right/north was taken by Iowa fans. The entire north end zone in the lowest level looked and sounded like it was full of Iowa fans.
The new arrangements, attitude, way of doing things are not accommodating to NU STH. Catfans5 and I want five extra tickets each for the Illinois game. Our ticket agent said they will only sell us 8 in our rows even though they are not held by STH.
Odd way to do business.
You'll be able to buy plenty of seats in your section when IL tix go on sale. I'm sure they'll be offering a discounted STH pre-sale prior to the general sale like they have for every other NRF game. My gut tells me they'll also be plenty of room to move around for IL as crowd will be less than that for IA. Granted it's a new state of the art stadium but it's still NU/IL on Thanksgiving weekend.
Section 118, you mean near the 20, not the 50 yard line, right? You were sitting near the Iowa cheerleaders? Certainly the seats to your right were predominately Iowa fans. We just don’t have many STH‘s in the end zone seats. In fact, we don’t have many single game ticket holders there. You seem to be near the cutoff line of NU fans to your left and opposing fans to your right. Unfortunately, you probably will be in this predicament next season if you choose to renew. I have been following the secondary market closely. There clearly are folks selling their tickets in the 100 level, but not nearly as many as were in ORF.
My understanding is then only let a STH buy 4 extras after they release them. I assume this is to give everyone a shot at the tickets. If it helps, I can facilitate the other 2 tickets for you. There may be some transfer restrictions on the tickets that prohibit brokers from easily buying blocks for general resale. However, worst case these two extra fans could walk into the stadium with me. I go to every game.
You were able to buy a non-scalped Penn State ticket the day of the game?
I think the cost factor is highly over-rated. My wife and I had season tickets since 1978 and donated heavily to the program for much of that time. We canceled our subscription and stopped all donations when Fitz was wrongfully discharged by whimpy administrators hoping to avoid any hint of controversy on their watches. How did that work for them? But, that is now history and the reason we do not return is that college football is no longer any fun for us. Conference championships mean nothing; all that seems to matter is whether a school's team makes the darn playoffs - and it will be worse next year. Players have become traveling mercenaries and the schools are worse, selling out to TV networks that schedule games and seemingly control the sport. There used to be nothing better than a crisp fall day in Dyche Stadium spent with good friends, and we loved going to bowl games when they meant something. Postgame tailgates and dinners at Hackneys provide some of our fondest NU football memories regardless of whether NU won the game. But, such affairs are impossible with night games, and TV demands those. Finally, how can a school in good conscience pay student athletes two or three times more than it pays tenured professors? That is capitalism run amok.
Tis was the first game I actually used my tickets because my friend had been giving me his fancy tickets with the club access. I was extremely impressed with the comfort of the seats. Plenty of leg room. I could use a bit more shoulder room, but I have two five-year olds, so I am good there. I am in the North corner/endzone, in the middle section, and the sightline was really really good.
Since I did not have complementary food and drink this game, I was shocked to pay $8 or $9 dollars for a Coke, and $13 for a tiny pizza (although it was not a bad pizza).
The disappointing part was being surrounded by Iowa fans behind and in front of me. I was a little miffed thinking about how they probably paid less for their tickets than I did.
Why would they have paid less than you did ? Secondary wasn’t going below face value unless it really dropped right before kickoff, I didn’t check then.
Some things never change, like NU season ticket holders selling their tickets to opposing fans.
Remember the big to-do about the Loft Club being an NU fan-only space? The signs NU put up announcing that there would be no opposing fan gear tolerated in that club? Well, several Loft STHs sold their seats last Saturday to Iowa fans, who wore their black and yellow like they owned the place.
Look, there are good arguments for-- and against-- the Loft Club rules. But the program should either scrap the rules or enforce them. Doing neither is not acceptable.
Also: why the hell do you splurge for Loft Club tickets, only to sell them to opposing fans?
Remember the big to-do about the Loft Club being an NU fan-only space? The signs NU put up announcing that there would be no opposing fan gear tolerated in that club? Well, several Loft STHs sold their seats last Saturday to Iowa fans, who wore their black and yellow like they owned the place.
Look, there are good arguments for-- and against-- the Loft Club rules. But the program should either scrap the rules or enforce them. Doing neither is not acceptable.
Also: why the hell do you splurge for Loft Club tickets, only to sell them to opposing fans?
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