NDSU Football TV Ratings

[Green1]

What?

Let me ask you this. If you were to decide "Hey, i think I wanna go to a Boston Celtics game." What do you do? Do you perhaps go to their website?

Is the internet this giant mystery? How about a telephone?

You're acting as if NDSU is missing out on millions of dollars on the very large market of people unable or unwilling to use the internet.

I like your post because they are accurate and without drama.


You are the one questioning how there can be empty seats with the "monstrous" assault by the ticket office on facebook.

I am pointing out that the sales model used by the ticket office may need some tweaking if they want to avoid empty seats in the playoffs in the future. I don't think I am going overboard on my suggestions. Others may have even better suggestions but to simply throw your hands up and insist nothing can be done to sell these seats in the Fargodome suggests that you are unable to entertain a change in sales techniques. I don't believe that is an approach that will solve this problem.

[Professor Chaos]

I like your post because they are accurate and without drama.


You are the one questioning how there can be empty seats with the "monstrous" assault by the ticket office on facebook.

I am pointing out that the sales model used by the ticket office may need some tweaking if they want to avoid empty seats in the playoffs in the future. I don't think I am going overboard on my suggestions. Others may have even better suggestions but to simply throw your hands up and insist nothing can be done to sell these seats in the Fargodome suggests that you are unable to entertain a change in sales techniques. I don't believe that is an approach that will solve this problem.

We're clearly not on the same page in terms of what "simply throw your hands up and insist nothing can be done" means because I didn't see them doing that at all last week. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that.

In any case, the fact remains that the crappy marketing hasn't changed for years yet the first two playoff games this year were the 2 least attended non-Thanksgiving weekend playoff game ever in the Fargodome (which does only go back to 2010). There's more to it than just people not realizing that there are tickets available.

The silver lining to all this transition with Klieman and the outgoing seniors is that it might kick some fans out of the rut (if you can call it that) we've gotten into as a fan base.

[bisonsupporter]

I like your post because they are accurate and without drama.


You are the one questioning how there can be empty seats with the "monstrous" assault by the ticket office on facebook.

I am pointing out that the sales model used by the ticket office may need some tweaking if they want to avoid empty seats in the playoffs in the future. I don't think I am going overboard on my suggestions. Others may have even better suggestions but to simply throw your hands up and insist nothing can be done to sell these seats in the Fargodome suggests that you are unable to entertain a change in sales techniques. I don't believe that is an approach that will solve this problem.

Ticket office can only do so much. If people want tickets, its really not hard to get information.
Games being on TV, NDSU usually winning by blowout, or just overall cost to go to a game have more of a reason why playoff seats are empty.

Those who say "I didn't know tickets were for sale or available" really didn't try or didn't really care to try. Finding event tickets are common sense.

[IndyBison]

I like your post because they are accurate and without drama.


You are the one questioning how there can be empty seats with the "monstrous" assault by the ticket office on facebook.

I am pointing out that the sales model used by the ticket office may need some tweaking if they want to avoid empty seats in the playoffs in the future. I don't think I am going overboard on my suggestions. Others may have even better suggestions but to simply throw your hands up and insist nothing can be done to sell these seats in the Fargodome suggests that you are unable to entertain a change in sales techniques. I don't believe that is an approach that will solve this problem.

I agree with your comments if the team was really interested in expanding their reach to get the extra tickets sold. I'll use my father as an example. He now lives in Fargo and has gone to a couple games this year, but he's not visiting the Facebook page or gobison or any of those sites. He usually just plans to watch the games on TV. But if he were watching the news or reading the paper and saw there were 2000 tickets available, he may decide to go to the game. I would imagine there are a lot of fans like him out there other marketing efforts could reach. They likely also have a long list of businesses that would like to sponsor or buy season tickets so they could reach out to them (this is possibly already done). There are a number of things like that they could do to meet the customer where they are. But it could be a resource issue, a timing issue, or a priority issue. Other than saying the game is sold out there may not be a big enough advantage to make the extra efforts to sell the last 2000 tickets.

[StL Bison Fan]

I read posts continually from people wanting tickets. They are on the internet whining, but cannot use the internet to help themselves. If you give them an answer then the whining begins about how it’s too expensive and there are fees. This tells me they don’t really have the energy or will to really go.

I imagine there will be a review on how this is done this off season if they haven’t started already.

[Green1]

Ticket office can only do so much. If people want tickets, its really not hard to get information.
Games being on TV, NDSU usually winning by blowout, or just overall cost to go to a game have more of a reason why playoff seats are empty.

Those who say "I didn't know tickets were for sale or available" really didn't try or didn't really care to try. Finding event tickets are common sense.

You guys continue to miss my point.

It's not that people don't know how or can't use the internet or the phone to buy tickets. It's the knowledge that the effort to do so would be rewarded with the opportunity to buy tickets. How many consecutive games has the Fargodome been effectively sold out for Bison football? Seasons? Assumptions are made as to future availability of tickets by prospective buyers.

Fast forward to this season. For what ever reason, the dome is not sold out for some early playoff games. You can debate why this is occurring but in any case, it happens. How do you make prospective ticket buyers aware that their long drought is over? They can actually buy tickets this year. It takes an active sales campaign, that's what.

I'm sure for some of us, it's hard to imagine people that are not near a computer all day or using a smart phone to read social media during their work or family life but these people actually exist! More than some realize. Some of these people actually like Bison football. Heck, they may be willing to buy a ticket or tickets to attend a game! Your not going to get your message out by posting only Facebook and Twitter. Especially in a time sensitive fashion involved with weekly playoff games. Once tickets are turned back, you only have a couple days in which to market the tickets. It takes an active sales strategy and I think NDSU needs to add some additional sales techniques to market these tickets. I think the demand is there.

[Professor Chaos]

I agree with your comments if the team was really interested in expanding their reach to get the extra tickets sold. I'll use my father as an example. He now lives in Fargo and has gone to a couple games this year, but he's not visiting the Facebook page or gobison or any of those sites. He usually just plans to watch the games on TV. But if he were watching the news or reading the paper and saw there were 2000 tickets available, he may decide to go to the game. I would imagine there are a lot of fans like him out there other marketing efforts could reach. They likely also have a long list of businesses that would like to sponsor or buy season tickets so they could reach out to them (this is possibly already done). There are a number of things like that they could do to meet the customer where they are. But it could be a resource issue, a timing issue, or a priority issue. Other than saying the game is sold out there may not be a big enough advantage to make the extra efforts to sell the last 2000 tickets.

Another consideration in the playoffs is there's not much gain to spend money on newspaper/TV ads since 75% of the gate goes to the NCAA. But there was an article in the Forum about available tickets and I'm fairly sure it was mentioned during the Valley News sports segment (I believe someone mentioned that on here last week - I don't watch so I don't know) at least once. Those aren't advertisements per se but they're in the same medium and bring the same awareness that ads in those places would that tickets are available.

[bisonsupporter]

Another consideration in the playoffs is there's not much gain to spend money on newspaper/TV ads since 75% of the gate goes to the NCAA. But there was an article in the Forum about available tickets and I'm fairly sure it was mentioned during the Valley News sports segment (I believe someone mentioned that on here last week - I don't watch so I don't know) at least once. Those aren't advertisements per se but they're in the same medium and bring the same awareness that ads in those places would that tickets are available.

Along with several of the big radio stations in town had ads to call 231-NDSU

[IndyBison]

Another consideration in the playoffs is there's not much gain to spend money on newspaper/TV ads since 75% of the gate goes to the NCAA. But there was an article in the Forum about available tickets and I'm fairly sure it was mentioned during the Valley News sports segment (I believe someone mentioned that on here last week - I don't watch so I don't know) at least once. Those aren't advertisements per se but they're in the same medium and bring the same awareness that ads in those places would that tickets are available.

Those are excellent examples too. There just may not not have been a huge demand for those two games. 16k is still more than anyone else so it's not a bad number. It's likely any spend of money or time to get the word out even more doesn't produce anything else so why bother. I thought of the gate split with NCAA as well which reduces the motivation even more.

[PattyBison]

What's the matter with some active marketing? TV ads? Google Ads? Newpaper ads? You know, something where you actively reach out to people that are uninformed of the ticket situation.

If they don't see the article in the newspaper, see the article online in the newspaper, hear that tickets are available on the radio (including non sports stations) or see it on the news, why would they notice a paid advertisement on any of the same mediums??????? They are NOT paying attention. So why would NDSU pay for an advertisement that will also be ignored? Everything I listed was done last week.