Under 7,000 people at the game

[Aggie Monster]

Nov 15, 2012 10:24:33 GMT -5 Bornthrilla said:

We can do whatever we want to do.

There is no rule that says if you overprice your general admission tickets one year, you can't correct that mistake the next year.

So what would be your suggestion for tickets prices next year.? Season and individual games? Reserved and general admission?

I would love to hear the reasoning behind the decrease. The money guys would probably kick you out the room, LOL. The first thing I would holla is that we finish 5-3 in the conference(assuming we beat NCCU) and finished 2nd among HBCU attendance and probably rank in the top portion of FCS attendance. What's the financial reason for the decrease? Seems like our tickets are priced just right, wouldn't you say?

My next comment would be lets get that 5-3 up to 7-1 or 8-0 and watch the paper roll in.

You know what, forget attendance numbers. What's the season ticket and pay at the gate numbers like in comparison to other FCS programs because that's what really matters. How much cash is being made? because a high student turnout can skew attendance numbers and think your making more money than you're not.

[DOOMS]

My opinion is that the ticket prices are ridiculously high and have been forever.

My thinking is that if you lower the prices and get more people who are willing to come, even more people will want to buy tickets. If there's a bunch of people going to the game Saturday, the halfway fans and non-fans are that much likely to also want to go because they will want to go where everybody else is going. That's why non-Aggies show up at homecoming every year. It's not like it's a great game or the band is that much better. They go because it's the thing to do.

I can go and see a better product on the field for free right now. For free. If you are jonesing for live football that bad and you live in Greensboro, you can pay 25 bucks to watch a difficult to stomach A&T team, or pay nada and watch a difficult to stomach Greensboro College or Guilford College team. If you take off your Aggie cap and look at it from the viewpoint of the average potential paying customer, you simply can't support that price.

[Aggie Monster]

Again, what is you guys suggested pricing? We do have a program to pay ya know. I dont think a reduction of $5 will get the desired result. Then again, I dont know how many currently in attendance are "pay at the gate" fans. Having those numbers would make things clearer. With out that number you cant make a decision and be confident it will work..

[DOOMS]

I charge what my research shows the market will bear and will increase attendance. I haven't researched it (I get the feeling I ain't the only one) so I don't know what that number is. Personally, anything over $15 and I ain't coming.

Methinks you could try $20 and give a $5 discount for wearing a gold (hi yella) Aggies shirt. Have kiosks nearby selling some cheapo shirts for three bucks. You hopefully get better fan support and more attendance.

But we can suggest pricing all day long. It reads as if even the AD can't do a thing about the pricing.

[Aggie Monster]

But that's what I'm saying. Are we already there? Seems to me that we might be. We are not packing Aggie stadium, but we are high in attendance vs everyone else. and not to mention had a TERRIBLE record for the last 10 years. Maybe winning, good marketing(like the t-shirt idea), and package deals is all they need and not a ticket price adjustment?

I would keep a family pack deal for every game. Once you buy more than 3 tickets in advance at the same time you should get some type of discount.

[aggieclt]

I have been following this thread for the last few days & trying to keep my fingers idle. I am not able to keep them still any longer.

#1 - As posted on this site numerous times before, if more alums contributed to AAF, we would not have the Game Zone in the first place. Contrary to what some believe, there are plenty in my circle that buy football tickets & tailgate only without ever going inside the stadium. Granted, they are attending fewer games. But they are paying. Pre-Game Zone, A&T would not have received this ticket money. The double perimeter idea is popular among my circle. But would instituting this concept be cost effective since additional staffing would be required at the stadium entrances? More importantly, would tailgate only money pay for the additional staff AND generate profit for A&T? A&T is part of the community and always should be. The Laurel St. lot is the community lot now, I imagine. The bottom line is that A&T Athletics needs money to be successful. My eyes are opened to the fact that, pre-Game Zone, thousands of people would flock to GHOE, keep Ciroc on deck, keep the sausage dog man tipped at the club, keep the rental car full of gas, pay Holiday Inn $114/night & not one game ticket was purchased nor was one donation left at 1601 East Market. And the game is the centerpiece of GHOE! Not enough alumni giving back + no game tickets purchased for our product (win or lose) = Game Zone. (side note: This is NOT a Game Zone endorsement. This is an 'A&T get your money' endorsement.)

#2 - Ticket prices are...high. I suppose that is true. But what other program can you compare Aggie football? Central? WSSU? SWAC schools? Not! If ticket prices were lowered, would that guarantee increased attendance - to the point that we would make MORE money??? And would we take a chance on reducing ticket prices - especially since we are consistently in the top 20 in FCS attendance annually (win or lose) Let me type that again. IF...A&T lowered football game tickets for the 2013 season, would the attendance spike cover what we are making now AND increase our profit??? (Side note: I took my Econ classes at UNCG during the summer school so pardon me if I sound foolish...)

When you get a chance, look & see how much mediocre Jackson State & lowly Southern Univ. charge for their football game tickets.

[oleschoolaggie]

can someone, anybody, please explain to me how the "game zone" makes more money for a&t? i have yet to hear nor read a tangible explanation that says it does. attendance isn't increasing, it's decreasing. so how is it possible that the game zone increases revenue for a&t?

if you purchase a ticket only to tailgate, you still get counted as a ticket purchased which is reflected in the paid attendance count. my season ticket cards get swiped upon entering the perimeter gate, not upon entering the stadium. so let's call a spade a spade. the only thing the game zone has done is clear out the perimeter of aggie stadium. nothing more, nothing less.

ain't no "new" revenue being generated. a fence (game zone) doesn't encourage more ticket purchases, it discourages it...

[marchingband1969]

I don't think we should cut our ticket prices. A&T football was hit by a perfect storm...a decade of sorry football plus a recession. But now that we are starting to rebuild our program (win more games) and the recession is less of an issue, I think we will be okay.

Rather than cut ticket prices across the board I would suggest we do some "creative marketing" to increase attendance and buzz. If you look at most businesses they don't cut their prices; they just give discounts or coupons. People like to get "deals" on products and services. Pick some historically low attendance games to run a "buy two get one free" sales. Or offer free parking (next to Alumni Office) and shuttle bus service for "seniors." Or 25% discount to public service workings that show their ID's when they purchase their tickets. Or buy one adult ticket and one kids ticket and get 2 additional kids tickets free. Or buy two single game tickets and get two hot dogs and chips at the game.

Hell on those poorly attended games like FA&MU, Del State, Morgan or Howard what harm would it do to run some special programs to create some buzz and get a few more butts in the seats. I don't think we need to cut all out ticket prices just try some different ways to give our fans some more value.

[Aggie Monster]

Oleschool, we get it. The Fan Zone destroyed your Aggie experience that you were used to. It will never make sense to you cause you cant go bug eyed looking at all the "sites" as much while you tailgate, LOL.

[captaggie]

[@ProfBellamy]

Old School, a Game Zone concept had been floated around for years. I know we have watched what South Carolina State and NCCU have done recently with their game zone concept. We can also look and see how Norfolk State and Delaware State charges everyone for parking on campus on game days. We can even go look at how NCSU charges everyone to come into Carter-Finley on game day. It's at the end of the day about the revenue. How to diversify our revenue streams.

Also, we have not done a good job as an institution on explaining how athletics is financed. In this forum most of us know that athletics is a) not funded by the state and that b) over 50% of the athletics budget is funded via student fees. So we know this, but the normal alumni or even community member doesn't. We have to educate our constituents and be frank about why we brought in Game Zone. The average tailgater wasn't opening their pockets to support the program. (Average tailgater, not the majority of the people on BDV)

We have seen some improvement in some marketing concepts and I firmly believe that more are coming down the pipe. But this has to be a collaborative effort between the university, AAF, alumni association, student activities, etc to make coming to the game and being in the game zone worthwhile.

I can say definitively that from my population of young alumni I work with there was an increase of people who bought tickets to go to the game during GHOE. However, after the game they were on the plots. Game zone didn't make a difference for them...

[oleschoolaggie]

Nov 15, 2012 13:56:49 GMT -5 Aggie Monster said:

Oleschool, we get it. The Fan Zone destroyed your Aggie experience that you were used to. It will never make sense to you cause you cant go bug eyed looking at all the "sites" as much while you tailgate, LOL.

monster, all i'm asking is that someone explain to me how the fan zone increases revenue. that's all. cuz i don't see it. if anything, its trending in the opposite direction.

the concept alone never made sense to me given the last 10 years of aggie football. why would anybody make it more difficult to attend our games when our program has been the worst in all of hbcu football for the last decade? just doesn't make sense to me.

so folk keep saying how beneficial the fan zone has been but the only benefit i see (if ya wanna call it a benefit) is that it cleared out the perimeter of aggie stadium. if we paid all that money to construct a fan zone only to clear out the area, i'd say that money could've been better spent else where...

[oleschoolaggie]

Nov 15, 2012 14:06:10 GMT -5 @ProfBellamy said:

Old School, a Game Zone concept had been floated around for years. I know we have watched what South Carolina State and NCCU have done recently with their game zone concept. We can also look and see how Norfolk State and Delaware State charges everyone for parking on campus on game days. We can even go look at how NCSU charges everyone to come into Carter-Finley on game day. It's at the end of the day about the revenue. How to diversify our revenue streams.

Also, we have not done a good job as an institution on explaining how athletics is financed. In this forum most of us know that athletics is a) not funded by the state and that b) over 50% of the athletics budget is funded via student fees. So we know this, but the normal alumni or even community member doesn't. We have to educate our constituents and be frank about why we brought in Game Zone. The average tailgater wasn't opening their pockets to support the program. (Average tailgater, not the majority of the people on BDV)

We have seen some improvement in some marketing concepts and I firmly believe that more are coming down the pipe. But this has to be a collaborative effort between the university, AAF, alumni association, student activities, etc to make coming to the game and being in the game zone worthwhile.

I can say definitively that from my population of young alumni I work with there was an increase of people who bought tickets to go to the game during GHOE. However, after the game they were on the plots. Game zone didn't make a difference for them...

m.ed, all of that sounds good and i've always advocated that we should utilize our classroom parking lots to raise money to park on campus during game days like norfolk does. but everybody who pays for a ticket to tailgate within our fanzone gets counted for paid attendance. yet, attendance is on the "decline", not an incline.

its very easy to determine whether the fanzone increases revenue because paid attendance would "increase", not decrease. like obama says, its simple "arithmetic". when paid attendance goes up, then we can "assume" that the fanzone increased revenue. but when paid attendance goes down, no matter how you look at it, no one can legitimately claim that the fanzone increased revenue. in fact, one could argue that it "decreased" revenue.

i'd be willing to bet my house and my family dog that we've lost a lot of walk up ticket purchases because we've locked out the community from hanging out around the stadium. no one is gonna hang out in the street, so they don't even bother to come.

monster is right, yes i enjoy the big crowds that use to hang out around aggie stadium. but i could also argue that out of that crowd that use to come, we generated more walk up ticket purchases than we do now with the fanzone.

but we've already beat this topic to death about a year ago, so there's no need to do it again. i feel like most republicans felt after obama got reelected. hail, ain't nothing we can do about it now, the fanzone (obama ;D) is here to stay...

[JeffAggieFan]

Just going to middle school basketball game at $5 a pop is just crazy or going to see a 13 year old cousin playing in an AAU tourney is like $10. i always thought $20 was a good price for the regular game and $30 for homecoming and NCCU

[DECKS]

Folks, once again attendance is down for virtually all HBCU's! This isn't just an Aggie issue. Imo, The game zone & ticket prices have little to do with it . The big issue is scheduling. We simply had too many home games this year with seven. Only FBS schools can realistically support that type of schedule. Then when you factor in 2 highly desireable road games in Coastal Carolina and NCCU and it's like 9 games to choose from.

I buy 6 season tickets every year for friends and family and there were games this season I could barely give my extras away which is why I offered tickets to some of you guys. The average Aggie fans is only going to attend no more than 4 games. Next season we'll probably see a big spike in average game attendance because there will be no more than 5 home games. If three of those home games are Elon, homecoming and NCCU then it's entirely possible we may lead BCF in attendance.