Season Ticket Question (Hypothetical)

[PurpleAcesFootball]

While we wait around for Sunday, I thought I would throw this hypothetical out there. I think a major part of UE's scheduling issue is that somehow the athletic department feels like it must give fans XX number of home games in the non-conference to allow for season ticket sales.

So here is a question. Compare UE to Teams X, Y, and Z. Would the below non-conference schedules make you more or less likely to buy season tickets? Keep in mind you would only have to buy the home games:

Evansville
(3 true road games, 3 MTE games)
7 Home games:
SE Missouri
Non-D1 opponent
Belmont
Alabama St
Miss Valley St
Norkolk St
Alabama A&M

Team X
(6 true road games, 4 MTE)
4 Home Games:
Western Kentucky
Lipscomb
Valparaiso
Non-D1 opp

Team Y
(7 True road games, 0 MTE)
6 Home Games
IPFW
Iona
Non-D1
Non-D1
Belmont
Missouri St

Team Z
(7 True road games, 3 MTE)
6 Home Games
Non-D1
SIU-E
Austin Peay
Stetson
Oral Roberts
Non-D1

The kicker is Teams X, Y, and Z all finished with better SOS than the Aces - despite all playing in lower RPI conferences than the MVC. It is primarily because of their non-conf SOS.

It makes for an interesting questions.
Does selling the 7th game as part of a season ticket package make you that much more money?
Do AD's and coaches not see that scheduling SWAC/MEAC schools absolutely kill your RPI/SOS as compared to non-D1s?
Do fans get more upset seeing 2 non-D1s on the schedule vs. a SWAC school?

[uniftw]

Team X is a pretty nice home OOC. If I was debating a season ticket and saw that I'd go in - assuming the conference games where interesting to me. Team Y gets a SOS boost because non-D1s don't count. The actual games? Not too shabby. Team Z? That's on par with UE for significantly worse than the other two.

Honestly, at UNI playing Dubuque, Simpson, Wartburg, or Coe is going to be a much bigger draw than Southern, Alabama State, Grambling State, Alcorn State, or any of the rest. Those games will be equally as shitty, but likely not worse. They create buzz in the area, to an extent. They are all small (less than 2,500 enrolled) private D3 schools in the state of Iowa - Dubuque is an hour away, Wartburg is 15 minutes, Coe is an hour, Simpson is just south of Des Moines. There are kids at UNI with high school teammates or AAU teammates on those teams. UNI students have friends on those teams. The kids are from the Cedar Valley.

Would I want to see 2 of them on the actual schedule vs an exhibition and then one regular season game? No. Given a choice between what a SWAC team would do to SOS and RPI or Wartburg with the local ticket sales and lack of hurting RPI/SOS it's a no brainier every single time.



Again, that's all assuming the conference schedule was one I wanted to see and the cost was prorated to equal prices per ticket - more home games may cost me more overall but price per game is the same.


UE's schedule was horrible, and it was all done by Marty in an attempt to cool his seat and rack up as many wins as possible to look good and maybe sneak enough wins to overlook the SOS/RPI issues. It bit him in the butt as even UE's NIT dreams are fading, fast

[AndShock]

Another bonus for local non-D1s over SWAC is that you're paying decent money for a SWAC school but you can get the non-D1s really cheap or for free.

[uniftw]

Another bonus for local non-D1s over SWAC is that you're paying decent money for a SWAC school but you can get the non-D1s really cheap or for free.

Yep.

UNI tends to get the local D3's for about $10,000 or less. No travel expense, no lodging, no extra anything.

A SWAC game would likely cost 3-5 times that amount plus kicking in extra for travel/lodging

[PurpleAcesFootball]

@uniftw - Team X (Belmont) and Team Z (IPFW) only had 16 conference games, so they would have 2 more non-conference games than UE. Team Y (Valpo) played 18.

All three come from lower conferences - the OVC, Summit, and Horizon, yet finished with stronger SOS numbers than UE.

Belmont, who was already on UE's schedule, played home and home non-conference games with Valpo and Lipscomb. I get Lipscomb, because it is a cross-town game with minimal travel costs. The scheduled game was @UE, so could UE have played at Belmont as well this year? I guess we'll never know.

My assumption is that the conference schedule is pretty much set. So your decision to buy season tickets is a combination of how you think the team will do vs. conference opponents and the non-conf home games.

My personal opinion is one less home game vs. a cupcake (or 3 less in UE's case) doesn't change my decision to buy season tickets. I can't imagine the finances are all that different either.

[uniftw]

@uniftw - Team X (Belmont) and Team Z (IPFW) only had 16 conference games, so they would have 2 more non-conference games than UE. Team Y (Valpo) played 18.

All three come from lower conferences - the OVC, Summit, and Horizon, yet finished with stronger SOS numbers than UE.

Belmont, who was already on UE's schedule, played home and home non-conference games with Valpo and Lipscomb. I get Lipscomb, because it is a cross-town game with minimal travel costs. The scheduled game was @UE, so could UE have played at Belmont as well this year? I guess we'll never know.

My assumption is that the conference schedule is pretty much set. So your decision to buy season tickets is a combination of how you think the team will do vs. conference opponents and the non-conf home games.

My personal opinion is one less home game vs. a cupcake (or 3 less in UE's case) doesn't change my decision to buy season tickets. I can't imagine the finances are all that different either.

Right. I understand everything you're saying. I also get difference in conference games total as well. Like I said, as long as everything worked out to be equal per home game - IE $200 for 15 home games and $175 for 13 - and I didn't have a ton of extra discretionary income I'd buy team X and team Y because the quality of games was good.

An OOC schedule like UE or team Z would, honestly, make me think twice about it if I didn't really have the money or time to get to every game if the conference rivalries weren't enough to be an auto draw

[mvcfan]

@uniftw - Team X (Belmont) and Team Z (IPFW) only had 16 conference games, so they would have 2 more non-conference games than UE. Team Y (Valpo) played 18.

All three come from lower conferences - the OVC, Summit, and Horizon, yet finished with stronger SOS numbers than UE.

Belmont, who was already on UE's schedule, played home and home non-conference games with Valpo and Lipscomb. I get Lipscomb, because it is a cross-town game with minimal travel costs. The scheduled game was @UE, so could UE have played at Belmont as well this year? I guess we'll never know.

My assumption is that the conference schedule is pretty much set. So your decision to buy season tickets is a combination of how you think the team will do vs. conference opponents and the non-conf home games.

My personal opinion is one less home game vs. a cupcake (or 3 less in UE's case) doesn't change my decision to buy season tickets. I can't imagine the finances are all that different either.

Right. I understand everything you're saying. I also get difference in conference games total as well. Like I said, as long as everything worked out to be equal per home game - IE $200 for 15 home games and $175 for 13 - and I didn't have a ton of extra discretionary income I'd buy team X and team Y because the quality of games was good.

An OOC schedule like UE or team Z would, honestly, make me think twice about it if I didn't really have the money or time to get to every game if the conference rivalries weren't enough to be an auto draw

Ian trying to understand all sides but we are giving too many excuses. There are no feasible reasons to have anything above a 200 or at least above a 225 OOC RPI.