Attendance

[Pitt79]

The easier it is for you to get Pitt tickets, the worse the team is. See the correlation?

Crowding people together, won't necessarily make the team better. It's like a trickle down economics solution, where they keep saying that lowering taxes on "job creators" will create more jobs and it's proven that it doesn't work. I could see the tickets being more expensive, harder to get and the team still being 7-6 or 8-5 perpetually under your plan. I don't see your idea necessarily making the quality of the on field product better.

 

[pittdan77]

He meant reducing supply can create a shortage and that drives up the market price.

The fewer available tickets, the more you can charge. How much more is an answer nobody knows. It would certainly drive up the value of the ticket but I am unsure on how much.

For example, I am not advocating this but I like to use extreme examples to make economic points:

Pitt announces it is reducing capacity to 25K. Its only using the lower bowl and under no circumstances would it open the upper deck, not even if we were 11-0 and playing for a NC. They also state they are raising the ticket price of lower bowl tickets to $500 each.

What this does is shortens the supply below the demand curve. There are now far more prospective ticket buyers than there are seats available. Not only can Pitt charge more because most of us diehards are going to pay the extra few hundred to be there, but it greatly increases the value of the ticket on the secondary market. For several reasons:

1. Only lowers available, dont have to compete with thousands of tickets selling for the stubhub minimum of $6

2. Reduced supply on the secondary market. Diehards go to most games

3. The reduction in available season tickets mean there are an extra 10K-20K prospective Pitt fans that cant buy single game tickets. Their only way in is through the secondary market. Secondary market demand goes way up.

So instead of not bothering to list a Pitt/GT ticket for $10, you quickly learn how to use Stubhub because you can get $75 each for them now. There's way more incentive to ensure somebody is in your seat. This means mostly all 25K seats are filled for every game.

Now, 25K is too small. You go up to 45K and this all applies but there is a greater supply and lower demand. You go to 70K and you have the disaster we currently have.

Or, more likely, you incite a "death spiral" like response where guys like Pitt79 and I say to heck with it and don't go. Now you have empty seats in a 25k seat scenario.

You can't successfully manipulate a soft market. It's never worked and it never will. The only proven method to increase sales is always to provide something better than everyone else. Differentiate.

In this case, win. It's really pretty simple. Investing in tarps and clever marketing is cute but if you don't put 9-10 win team on the field consistently, you don't stand a chance of making people want to come see Pitt football.

 

[GrowthHormone]

TCU. BC.

If BC is like Pitt then so is Southern Cal.

 

[GrowthHormone]

where did you see 70k+ for UCLA nitter?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_UCLA_Bruins_football_team

There ya go. Now get the **** outta here with calling me a nitter.

 

[BuffetParrothead]

Crowding people together, won't necessarily make the team better. It's like a trickle down economics solution, where they keep saying that lowering taxes on "job creators" will create more jobs and it's proven that it doesn't work. I could see the tickets being more expensive, harder to get and the team still being 7-6 or 8-5 perpetually under your plan. I don't see your idea necessarily making the quality of the on field product better.

Lower taxes work ever time! Reagan and Clinton had hot economies and both lowered taxes on businesses. My company outsourced around thousands of jobs since 2009. When the Corp rate is dropped by Trump we're bringing most jobs back to the US ( where we want them), and looking at a major Corp expansion in the US. These are good fulltime jobs with 401k's + healthcare!
It works everytime but hasn't been tried in a while!

Oh yes US Corps will be repatriating cash back to the US which trapped in foreign countries for a one time projected 10% tax. Under the present tax law that cash would be taxed again at the present Corp tax rate of 38%. Those trillions will be reinvested in the US economy!

Learn the facts!

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

The easier it is for you to get Pitt tickets, the worse the team is. See the correlation?

Sure, but let's not pretend he cares about anything other than himself.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

In this case, win. It's really pretty simple. Investing in tarps and clever marketing is cute but if you don't put 9-10 win team on the field consistently, you don't stand a chance of making people want to come see Pitt football.

Pitt is NEVER going to win 9-10 games consistently? Out of 120 teams, only about 10 of them do that. Even with 90K fans at every game and all the money at PSU, they dont even win 9-10 consistently.

Pitt is NEVER going to sell 70K. Its never going to sell 60K. It MAYBE, MAYBE can reach 50-55K if there is success similar to Pitt Basketball Glory Days success. If you look at Pitt basketball, that attendance was helped by a relatively small arena. Pitt wasnt going to sell out the Civic Arena for a midweek game against Seton Hall, even if Pitt was in the Top 5.

How do you make 40K look better?

 

[Revenge Of The Noise]

Capacity of roughly 45,000, wherever and however you'd do it, would be the sweet spot I think. Make the tickets just hard enough to get, charge a higher but still obtainable price and donation requirement. And produce a raucous enough atmosphere when full.

I don't think tarps would ever fly (except if the straps would break during a windy game...and our luck they would!). Even if no big deal to do it, the Steelers and other county/city officials managing the stadium would look to exercise their muscles over the Pitt Patsy, like the city does in Oakland. I could see them putting draconian requirements on tarps (can't be in place until the actual day of the game, must be off within 2 hours after, can't have any advertising).

Heck, just for the power trip of it, the Steelers would probably require the tarps to be yellow like the seats! "We don't want to see photos of Heinz Field with different colors that would confuse or conflict with the standard image we designed to complement the Steelers franchise, blah blah blah blah)."

And frankly, as minimal as the cost would be to have them made and installed/uninstalled and stored and replaced regularly, etc. it's still cost ... and the Pitt administration abhors that thought.

So it could easily be done without tarps just by exempting regular (aka, non ND, PSU, WVU, Clemson, FSU) game and season ticket sales of most upper deck seats. If Pitt is 6-0 and ranked top 15 and a 6-0 UNC is coming to town (yeah I know, less frequent than Vulcan sex), then open up sales of the upper deck, row by row from lower to higher, through the Pitt ticket site that week and let fans print them off.

 

[Panthergrowl13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_UCLA_Bruins_football_team

There ya go. Now get the **** outta here with calling me a nitter.

Actually the numbers you are referencing show that UCLA averaged 67,458 fans attending the 6 home Rose Bowl stadium games that seats 91,000.

HAIL TO PITT!!!!

 

[Burgh15]

Tarps aren't need at Heinz Field. If they wanted to scale down the stadium for optics on TV broadcasts and to improve the atmosphere, they can just not sell tickets in the upper deck above the home sideline. Issue fixed.

 

[HailToPitt725]

For the people saying they should just not sell any tickets instead of tarping, here's what it'd look like:

These are from when the USWNT hosted Costa Rica at Heinz Field in 2015. Sold tickets in the upper decks on the visitor side and the endzone, with no one sitting upper deck on the home side. The crowd was recorded at 44,028. Not sure if I'm a fan of it or not. As long as there's no aerial shots of it, I think it would work out.

 

[Black_Man_Panther]

Roc who else! I actually think he's been running the athletic dept for the last ten years?

I'm pretty sure if Roc was running the AD office - it wouldn't be the shambles it is currently in. That said... ROC for AD!!

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

For the people saying they should just not sell any tickets instead of tarping, here's what it'd look like:

These are from when the USWNT hosted Costa Rica at Heinz Field in 2015. Sold tickets in the upper decks on the visitor side and the endzone, with no one sitting upper deck on the home side. The crowd was recorded at 44,028. Not sure if I'm a fan of it or not. As long as there's no aerial shots of it, I think it would work out.

They set it up that way for Man City vs AC Milan also. There's a reason. Those event coordinators dont want to show 30K empties on TV. It looks bad. But Pitt doesn't care about that.

 

[LivinWell]

When Big Ben retires, the Steelers will likely go into period of mediocrity. Happened in the 80's and will happen again. That's when Pitt needs to go on a run.

 

[HailToPitt725]

When Big Ben retires, the Steelers will likely go into period of mediocrity. Happened in the 80's and will happen again. That's when Pitt needs to go on a run.

That's a good point. Could pick up a few more casual fans that are looking for good football. They have a 3-year max window for contending and after that, who knows. Narduzzi's program should be in full spring by then and would be nice if we can become a consistent Top-25 program. Steelers will always be king, but that certainly wouldn't hurt.

 

[GrowthHormone]

Actually the numbers you are referencing show that UCLA averaged 67,458 fans attending the 6 home Rose Bowl stadium games that seats 91,000.

HAIL TO PITT!!!!

Actually the numbers I am referencing answer the question of "what school like Pitt gets 70k?" Maybe you are confused?

 

[daminals76]

Agree. Pitt doesn't have an attendance issue as much as it has a stadium capacity issue.

I don't know how many times I bring up this example. Stanford sucked. Played in this cavernous 80,000 seat stadium. Sucked. Nothing. In 2006, they tore it down and on the same site rebuilt a 50,000 seat stadium.

In the 11 seasons prior to their stadium rebuild they went to 3 bowl games, and had 2 seasons of over 7 wins (and that was one 8 and one 9 win season). In the 11 seasons after?? 8 Bowl games. 3 seasons of 12 wins, 2 seasons of 11 wins and a 10 win season. Plus two 8 win seasons.

I am not saying that the stadium was the only reason, but you can't tell me that there was no correlation.

Jim Harbaugh.

 

[Panthergrowl13]

Actually the numbers I am referencing answer the question of "what school like Pitt gets 70k?" Maybe you are confused?

Not confused.


Actually UCLA (44,947 Wikipedia) has a larger Student Body than Pitt (28,617 Wikipedia) which produce a significantly larger pool of alums who can attend football games.

UCLA had a football home attendance average of 67,000 (2016) fans while Pitt had a home attendance average of 48,000 (2016). UCLA produces 1.57 alums for every 1 Pitt alum.

If Pitt were as large as UCLA I would expect Pitt to average about 1.57 times 48,000 or 75,360 fans (similar to UCLA but Pitt is smaller.

I think Pitt needs to tarp (Right Size) Heinz Field down to 55,000 fans (Old Pitt Stadium seating) when not playing Notre Dame, Penn State West Virginia.

Penn State on the other had has a student body of almost 90,000 students so their alums ratio would be about 3 PSU alums for every 1 Pitt alum. The fact that Penn State can get 95,000 plus alums/fans to attend football games is not unexpected.

HAIL TO PITT!!!!

 

[GrowthHormone]

Not confused.


Actually UCLA (44,947 Wikipedia) has a larger Student Body than Pitt (28,617 Wikipedia) which produce a significantly larger pool of alums who can attend football games.

UCLA had a football home attendance average of 67,000 (2016) fans while Pitt had a home attendance average of 48,000 (2016). UCLA produces 1.57 alums for every 1 Pitt alum.

If Pitt were as large as UCLA I would expect Pitt to average about 1.57 times 48,000 or 75,360 fans (similar to UCLA but Pitt is smaller.

I think Pitt needs to tarp (Right Size) Heinz Field down to 55,000 fans (Old Pitt Stadium seating) when not playing Notre Dame, Penn State West Virginia.

Penn State on the other had has a student body of almost 90,000 students so their alums ratio would be about 3 PSU alums for every 1 Pitt alum. The fact that Penn State can get 95,000 plus alums/fans to attend football games is not unexpected.

HAIL TO PITT!!!!

Aaaannnd there we have it. Eternally moving goalposts of what defines "like Pitt."

 

[HailToPitt71]

How will tarping force the no shows in the lower bowl to show up?

 

[Panthergrowl13]

How will tarping force the no shows in the lower bowl to show up?

If you have the stadium tarped down to 55,000 and 48,000 (average attendance 2016) show up, the stadium will be 87% capacity and look respectable for a televised game.

HAIL TO PITT!!!!

 

[HailToPitt71]

How will tarping force the no shows in the lower bowl to show up?

If you have the stadium tarped down to 55,000 and 48,000 (average attendance 2016) show up, the stadium will be 87% capacity and look respectable for a televised game.

HAIL TO PITT!!!!

Your missing the point. The lower bowl is sold out very year. Tarping the upper deck won't make those people show up.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

How will tarping force the no shows in the lower bowl to show up?

Glad you asked.

If you tarp it down to 45K seats, you can increase season ticket prices which do 3 things:

1. It incents people who buy tickets to actually use them

2. It forces some people who buy season tickets to go to 1-2 games per year to not renew. Their seats in the lower bowl are taken by upper deck folks who want to move down. There would be less "good" upper deck seating since 1 side would be closed.

3. It inflates the secondary market value because there is less of a ticket supply so people can get more than the Stubhub $6 minimum for selling their tickets. This means people would be more incented to sell their tickets rather than giving them away.

It is ridiculously stupid that Pitt tries to sell 70K seats. Even if we win the next 3 National Championships, Pitt is not a 70K seat program.

 

[HailtoPitt]

Your missing the point. The lower bowl is sold out very year. Tarping the upper deck won't make those people show up.

Yes, they would. Fewer available seats means higher demand for those seats. If people pay more then they are more likely to show up or give their tickets to someone who will.

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

When Big Ben retires, the Steelers will likely go into period of mediocrity. Happened in the 80's and will happen again. That's when Pitt needs to go on a run.

Absolutely. I thought about this again this weekend. Pitt needs to have its ducks in a row and be really good in a few years, because the Steelers will be do for a drop off. I am not saying you are going to replace fans one for one, but you could gain some interest. That was the problem in the 80's, when the Steelers tanked, so did Pitt.

 

[pittdan77]

Pitt is NEVER going to win 9-10 games consistently? Out of 120 teams, only about 10 of them do that. Even with 90K fans at every game and all the money at PSU, they dont even win 9-10 consistently.

Pitt is NEVER going to sell 70K. Its never going to sell 60K. It MAYBE, MAYBE can reach 50-55K if there is success similar to Pitt Basketball Glory Days success. If you look at Pitt basketball, that attendance was helped by a relatively small arena. Pitt wasnt going to sell out the Civic Arena for a midweek game against Seton Hall, even if Pitt was in the Top 5.

How do you make 40K look better?

Virginia Tech does it. I hardly see what they've accomplished as insurmountable for Pitt football.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Pitt is NEVER going to win 9-10 games consistently? Out of 120 teams, only about 10 of them do that. Even with 90K fans at every game and all the money at PSU, they dont even win 9-10 consistently.

Pitt is NEVER going to sell 70K. Its never going to sell 60K. It MAYBE, MAYBE can reach 50-55K if there is success similar to Pitt Basketball Glory Days success. If you look at Pitt basketball, that attendance was helped by a relatively small arena. Pitt wasnt going to sell out the Civic Arena for a midweek game against Seton Hall, even if Pitt was in the Top 5.

How do you make 40K look better?

Virginia Tech does it. I hardly see what they've accomplished as insurmountable for Pitt football.

You are comparing Pitt to Virginia Tech, a large STATE school who is the primary source of entertainment for anybody living within 2 hours of Blacksburg, VA? Blacksburg is the closest thing there is to State College, PA.

 

[pittdan77]

You are comparing Pitt to Virginia Tech, a large STATE school who is the primary source of entertainment for anybody living within 2 hours of Blacksburg, VA? Blacksburg is the closest thing there is to State College, PA.

Not really. Blacksburg makes Penn State look metropolitan. And they enroll about six thousand or so more undergrads than Pitt.

 

[HailToPitt71]

Yes, they would. Fewer available seats means higher demand for those seats. If people pay more then they are more likely to show up or give their tickets to someone who will.

They are already paying for those tickets, they are season ticket holders. And more importantly, because of the location of the seats, probably long time season ticket holders. Yet, look at the no shows. Tarping will fix the scattered seats in the upper deck, it will not fix the no shows in the lower bowl. And there is really not much Pitt can do about because they want the donations.

 

[HailToPitt71]

Glad you asked.

If you tarp it down to 45K seats, you can increase season ticket prices which do 3 things:

1. It incents people who buy tickets to actually use them

2. It forces some people who buy season tickets to go to 1-2 games per year to not renew. Their seats in the lower bowl are taken by upper deck folks who want to move down. There would be less "good" upper deck seating since 1 side would be closed.

3. It inflates the secondary market value because there is less of a ticket supply so people can get more than the Stubhub $6 minimum for selling their tickets. This means people would be more incented to sell their tickets rather than giving them away.

It is ridiculously stupid that Pitt tries to sell 70K seats. Even if we win the next 3 National Championships, Pitt is not a 70K seat program.

I completely understand your points. But I don't see how it affects that lower bowl. For as long as I've been going, the lower bowl is not alway filled. Raising ticket prices is not going to affect those seats. Those are long time ticket holders, high priority points, and probably big donors. They are going to keep the tickets and show up when they want.

The only way I see it working is if they tarped the upper deck and put some type of system for renewal based on how many games your tickets are scanned. But that will not happen, because again, the athletic department wants the donations.

You want to fill the lower bowl. The answer is win. Tarping doesn't solve everything. You have to win.

 

[TIGER-PAUL]

If you're gonna do this it has to be the bleachers to start. It would cut capacity about 10%. Yes the lower ones have good sight lines but they're bleachers and that level easiest to close security wise. Closing the home side makes no sense. More people buy tickets there and that is where the students overflow is. Where would they go? Plus the visitor side is sun.

 

[Las Panteras]

Michie stadium....home of the Army Black Knights......would be the perfect stadium for pitt.

For those that have been there.....thoughts????

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

You are comparing Pitt to Virginia Tech, a large STATE school who is the primary source of entertainment for anybody living within 2 hours of Blacksburg, VA? Blacksburg is the closest thing there is to State College, PA.

Not really. Blacksburg makes Penn State look metropolitan. And they enroll about six thousand or so more undergrads than Pitt.

If you want to increase Pitt attendance, move the campus and stadium to Erie or Scranton. VT is the pro team in SW VA. There is literally nothing else to do. You cannot compare Pittsburgh to Blacksburg just because enrollments are fairly similar. Lets also not forget VT cultivated a large diehard fanbase when they spent a decade in the Top 5/10.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Yes, they would. Fewer available seats means higher demand for those seats. If people pay more then they are more likely to show up or give their tickets to someone who will.

They are already paying for those tickets, they are season ticket holders. And more importantly, because of the location of the seats, probably long time season ticket holders. Yet, look at the no shows. Tarping will fix the scattered seats in the upper deck, it will not fix the no shows in the lower bowl. And there is really not much Pitt can do about because they want the donations.

A lot of no shows are corporate tickets. They are so cheap, every corporation buys some and goes to 1 game. If they get more expensive, they buy less and those seats get filled with regular season ticket holders who go.

 

[HailtoPitt]

They are already paying for those tickets, they are season ticket holders. And more importantly, because of the location of the seats, probably long time season ticket holders. Yet, look at the no shows. Tarping will fix the scattered seats in the upper deck, it will not fix the no shows in the lower bowl. And there is really not much Pitt can do about because they want the donations.

It will not fix every no show, but it will fix a lot of them. More people will be looking for those tickets when they can't get cheap ones for $5 in the upper decks.

Doesn't matter though because the Rooneys aren't ever going to go for it.

 

[HailtoPitt]

A lot of no shows are corporate tickets. They are so cheap, every corporation buys some and goes to 1 game. If they get more expensive, they buy less and those seats get filled with regular season ticket holders who go.

Or more people at those corps will want the free tickets, since they can't walk up and get a ticket for $5 in the upper decks, or for free from someone else.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

A lot of no shows are corporate tickets. They are so cheap, every corporation buys some and goes to 1 game. If they get more expensive, they buy less and those seats get filled with regular season ticket holders who go.

Or more people at those corps will want the free tickets, since they can't walk up and get a ticket for $5 in the upper decks, or for free from someone else.

The bottom line is that no-shows are a direct result of people buying a season to go to 1 or 2 games because the price is so cheap, they just get the renewal in the mail and send it in. These are either corporations who are spending other people's money or very rich alums who dont care about sending Pitt some money so they can maybe go to a game or 2.

Very few "true" Pitt fans buy season tickets and say to themselves "if Pitt is a 7-5 or 8-4 team, thats it, Im done. I'll only go in Nov if they are competing for the CFP and its 60 degrees."

The cheap price sells more seats than Pitt should probably be selling. Same goes for student tickets which are essentially free. They should be $100, with maybe a portion refunded if you scan your ticket upon leaving AFTER the game. So Pitt sells 10K student tickets and get 2K-3K per game. Why? People bought the season for 1 or 2 games.

 

[HailtoPitt]

The bottom line is that no-shows are a direct result of people buying a season to go to 1 or 2 games because the price is so cheap, they just get the renewal in the mail and send it in. These are either corporations who are spending other people's money or very rich alums who dont care about sending Pitt some money so they can maybe go to a game or 2.

Very few "true" Pitt fans buy season tickets and say to themselves "if Pitt is a 7-5 or 8-4 team, thats it, Im done. I'll only go in Nov if they are competing for the CFP and its 60 degrees."

The cheap price sells more seats than Pitt should probably be selling. Same goes for student tickets which are essentially free. They should be $100, with maybe a portion refunded if you scan your ticket upon leaving AFTER the game. So Pitt sells 10K student tickets and get 2K-3K per game. Why? People bought the season for 1 or 2 games.

All schools have plenty of people who buy season tickets for 1 or 2 games. The difference is that the tickets are in demand so they can easily give or sell them to someone who will go. The problem is that the supply FAR outreaches demand at Heinz for Pitt games. If OSU had a 200,000 seat stadium, there would be a lot of empties. Why?

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

The bottom line is that no-shows are a direct result of people buying a season to go to 1 or 2 games because the price is so cheap, they just get the renewal in the mail and send it in. These are either corporations who are spending other people's money or very rich alums who dont care about sending Pitt some money so they can maybe go to a game or 2.

Very few "true" Pitt fans buy season tickets and say to themselves "if Pitt is a 7-5 or 8-4 team, thats it, Im done. I'll only go in Nov if they are competing for the CFP and its 60 degrees."

The cheap price sells more seats than Pitt should probably be selling. Same goes for student tickets which are essentially free. They should be $100, with maybe a portion refunded if you scan your ticket upon leaving AFTER the game. So Pitt sells 10K student tickets and get 2K-3K per game. Why? People bought the season for 1 or 2 games.

All schools have plenty of people who buy season tickets for 1 or 2 games. The difference is that the tickets are in demand so they can easily give or sell them to someone who will go. The problem is that the supply FAR outreaches demand. If OSU had a 200,000 seat stadium, there would be a lot of empties. Why?

Yes but dont you see by limiting supply to 45K, you are increasing demand which increases the value on the secondary market? If people could get a reasonable amount for their tickets, they'd be more likely to sell them.

 

[RaleighPittFan]

Michie stadium....home of the Army Black Knights......would be the perfect stadium for pitt.

For those that have been there.....thoughts????

That would be one heck of a bus ride for students.