You just might get your wish sooner than you thought. WRAL reports "House Bill 389 cleared the N.C. Senate Monday night on a bipartisan 33-12 vote. It would allow sales in college stadiums if university boards of trustees at individual campuses consent."
I suspect this is great news to many here on DBR (it is to me at least), based on previous discussion regarding how to improve the gameday experience in Wallace Wade.
We've been kicking around the question of how to get bigger crowds at WW on another board, so I thought I'd throw in my two cents, and maybe that's overpriced.
Some things won't change: Duke's a modest sized private school with a small local alumni base, surrounded by much larger and more popular state schools. And all the games are on TV. But the problem isn't insurmountable.
The key is winning...that hasn't happened a whole lot in Durham in the past 50 years, but when it has, people DO show up.
Case in point: Duke started well last year, had some fine wins (4-0) including at NW...we were ranked #22, and as a result, the TV gods gave us a night game at home vs Virginia Tech. And we played like dog poo...there was a nice
crowd there (32k announced, maybe a tad exaggerated, but it was a really good atmosphere)...Duke's performance sucked the energy out of the place (VT had previously been thwacked by Old Dominion, it wasn't one of their better teams, but they dominated Duke regardless of what the stats may imply).
Perhaps a more important observation: as a result of this poor performance, Duke was given the ugly noon slot two weeks hence vs UVA, only 20k (if that) showed up, lousy atmosphere, lousier on field performance. The point being, when Duke wins, people will show up...and by winning you get better time slots, which only helps the attendance and enthusiasm level...
I’m sure I’ve said it before, so just for fun:
1- free admission for all. Reserve press box side 40 to 40 for Iron Dukes if you must
2- Beer
3- rewards system. Spend a dollar, get a point. Redeem points for in stadium food or gear. Points available for spending next game.
The huge step forward Cut has done for Duke is to transform from a team that was difficult to watch into a high level competitive football team.
This is dead on. I’ve been at Wally Wade through Franks and Roof, and before. It’s been great with Cut. The failure to win when a big crowd shows up, though, hasn’t been just bad, but epic. It feels like one big win against a quality opponent in a night game with a big crowd would fuel attendance for a couple of seasons.
Not that laying an egg in front of a big crowd in a big game doesn't help, but Duke hasn't always folded at night. Duke won a very exciting game (28-27) against the Trubisky led Heels a couple years ago. And of course, had the refs not made the worst calls ever known to the game of football, Duke would have beaten Miami in 2015.
There needs to be more than one big (or one close) game, though. That infamous Miami loss leeched into a downward spiral. The team finished 8-5 that year, with a win in the Pinstripe, but OH WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN! The victory over the Heels unfortunately was followed by drubbings from Pitt and Miami in away games, and we stayed home in the post-season.
So showing up on the big stage is one thing, showing up the next game, whether at home or away, is even more important.
In other words, not just winning, but steady winning, will put fannies in the seats. Anything else will put fannies on the couch.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
Having a team that can win helps. Winning exciting games against good teams or rivals helps.
But those aren't real, actionable strategies to get people into Wallace Wade. They are only marginally more useful plans than "drive the fastest" to win a stock car race.
The beer angle really is the key here. It doesn't even have to be beer per se, that's just one example of the overall required transformation. Have y'all seen what they are doing at pro sports stadiums/arenas in the last few years, especially at ballparks? They are transforming them into a great experience even for people that don't care a lick about the game. There's great food, drinks, and activities. Wallace Wade already has a bit of this sort of thing, but Duke needs to embrace the strategy wholeheartedly, especially as a supplement to the modest tailgating experience afforded by the Blue Zone and Cameron lots. It's the type of atmosphere that is perfectly in sync with the new Durham, which is replete with people enjoying the sun outside their favorite brew pubs on Saturdays and Sundays. Let those businesses come in and offer special game-day selections.
TL;DR let people drink overpriced but good beer in the sun
I like this idea. Admission is, for all practical purposes, free anyway. High school football tickets are expensive by comparison, and if you don't buy a ticket, you can rest assured that by game time, bringing a can of beans or having an uncle who participated in the Civil War will qualify you for admission to the game. Once the word quickly spreads that admission is free, I think the stadium would burst at the seams and the incidental money would flow and the atmosphere would electrify.
Obviously Duke has lots of people to pay on game day, so "free" won't work, but kids for free would be doable, as long as they are accompanied by a ticket holding parent. And kids likely spend more at the concession stands than the adults do, so it would probably at the very least work out even, if not be more profitable.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
I just want to clarify that while this is true it doesn't matter (there is no rule involved that depends on on campus vs. off). Not selling alcohol at the stadium seems specially silly since Duke sells beer on campus.
Outside of Hog Heaven and Highway 55 burgers the food is absolute trash, even by stadium food standards. Some of the worst I've ever had anywhere. The chicken tenders are passable.
I think the biggest problem is that when we lose at home, we lose ugly. An awful lot of games where we just looked totally outclassed from kickoff to the final whistle. If we were losing at home 55-54 it wouldn't be such a problem (we save those games for @Pitt), but we have a tendency to lose at home with 7-34 type scores. Losing is always disappointing, but a game can still be fun up until it ends in a loss...we have a tendency to make our losses excruciating experiences.
I will try the Hog Heaven, the irony being that we sat on the Sahara like East side for decades, now that we have resettled on the West side, they get some edible food eh?
Meanwhile the food stands are manned by amiable zombies who could not be slower if they tried, and sometimes they do. (getting bottled water on a hot day can be a struggle)
I bet you would be surprised at how very little money is generated in ticket sales. The cheapest season tickets are about $6 a game and as I alluded to above, weekly promotions start giving tickets away at $5 or less (or free). I think that most who buy the expensive tickets do so as a virtual donation to Duke sports, and their support wouldn't change. Go free for a year and I bet we would never go back. A full stadium, an exuberant and loyal fan base, and motivated recruits would be hard to give up.
Your math appears to be a little off as it cost me $342 to purchase four season tickets in General Admission (cheapest tickets available). That is 24 tickets total which equates to $14.25 per ticket. Each season ticket was $78 ($312) plus a $30 shipping and handling charge for a total cost of $342.
Bob Green
Let's be very generous and say the average paid price for a football ticket at Duke is $20.00. Let's be even more generous and say Duke averages 15,000 paid tickets per game. At six games per season, that's $1.8M, which is a statistically insignificant amount of money for a P5 football program. I stand by my belief (speculative though it may be) that free would work wonders for the program. At the very least, the financial hit would be negligible.