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  1. #601
    Quote Originally Posted by Acymetric View Post
    FWIW, we've had positive scoring margins in ACC home games twice (2014: +1, 2013: +9)
    I wonder if our margins were better on the road however...particularly in 2013.

  2. #602
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by HereBeforeCoachK View Post
    I wonder if our margins were better on the road however...particularly in 2013.
    We were undefeated on the road* in 2013 so almost certainly yes.

    *Not counting neutral site games (FSU/Texas A&M).

  3. #603
    Jason suggested reviving this thread rather than polluting the coaching threads, so here goes. In response to this post:

    the cost of tickets is not the problem. Duke gives away huge numbers of tickets each game.
    I disagree...to a point. Per
    https://goduke.com/documents/2021/6/...rice_Chart.pdf

    for the last three games, the cheapest walk-up tickets were priced at $23 (GA) and then jumped to $49 for seats in sections 2 and 3, etc... Unless you happen to be handed free tickets, that's pretty steep compared to comparable alternatives. Let's take the Durham Bulls. AAA baseball vs. college football seems a reasonable comparison. This may not be fully up-to-date, but it's close:

    https://images.app.goo.gl/YgbVFwunyCNrojEV6

    Excellent seats for $12-$14. So $92 GA/$196 reserved for a family of four for a football game vs. $48-$56 for great seats for AAA baseball? Guess which stadium sells out?

    I'm not saying tickets should be free...but if Duke is serious about drawing crowds, at least price the tickets somewhat commensurate to the market. Or demand. Or anything resembling reality...

  4. #604
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Durham
    Quote Originally Posted by BlueDevil2K View Post
    Jason suggested reviving this thread rather than polluting the coaching threads, so here goes. In response to this post:



    I disagree...to a point. Per
    https://goduke.com/documents/2021/6/...rice_Chart.pdf

    for the last three games, the cheapest walk-up tickets were priced at $23 (GA) and then jumped to $49 for seats in sections 2 and 3, etc... Unless you happen to be handed free tickets, that's pretty steep compared to comparable alternatives. Let's take the Durham Bulls. AAA baseball vs. college football seems a reasonable comparison. This may not be fully up-to-date, but it's close:

    https://images.app.goo.gl/YgbVFwunyCNrojEV6

    Excellent seats for $12-$14. So $92 GA/$196 reserved for a family of four for a football game vs. $48-$56 for great seats for AAA baseball? Guess which stadium sells out?

    I'm not saying tickets should be free...but if Duke is serious about drawing crowds, at least price the tickets somewhat commensurate to the market. Or demand. Or anything resembling reality...
    I'm on game day staff. I'm acutely aware, perhaps as much as anyone on this board, of what kinds of groups duke gives tickets away to each week, and what the max expected attendance might be.

    I'm also acutely aware of how many people show up each week. None of these people are becoming lifelong fans. They show up because their cheerleading group gets to go together and perform, or because it's duke staff day and they get a few hotdogs and can go home. Duke staff can get free tickets so many games...so why aren't they showing up for every game?

    It turns out for most people, the market for a crappy football team is about one token game a season. This is incredibly harsh, but I don't back down from it. When duke was winning, I was going to every game, and disappointed when I had to bail to drive a golf cart, or whatever. Now I almost DREAD the days when I have to uhser games, despite being there the whole time. It's miserable.

    Now that I think about it, the best times during the season were the northwestern and kansas games. I don't mean to be sarcastic, but I don't think it's a newsflash that games are fun when you win, and not so much fun when you don't...and are miserable when you're not even competitive.



    Duke lowered prices. Duke made parking free. Duke brought beer into the stadium. Duke relaxed its bag policy. But Duke also didn't put a product on the field, and the result is obvious. If we had the same product we had 8 or whatever years ago, I have no doubt those reforms would have kept attendance high and a good gameday atmosphere...but Duke didn't, and the #1 factor that will bring fans to the game is winning football. We had winning football, and maybe people here have short memories or delusions, but games WERE fun when we were winning. Games were fun when we could compete even when we didn't win. Games are not fun right now, and there is no non-negative price that will cause people to come out and sit through something that isn't fun.

    Duke football isn't fun right now (okay, except for commisserating with Bob and devilDeac and richard jackson and ozzie the like), and no amount of free tickets is going to encourage people to come out to an event that fundamentally IS NOT FUN.
    1200. DDMF.

  5. #605
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Durham
    Quote Originally Posted by uh_no View Post
    I'm on game day staff. I'm acutely aware, perhaps as much as anyone on this board, of what kinds of groups duke gives tickets away to each week, and what the max expected attendance might be.

    I'm also acutely aware of how many people show up each week. None of these people are becoming lifelong fans. They show up because their cheerleading group gets to go together and perform, or because it's duke staff day and they get a few hotdogs and can go home. Duke staff can get free tickets so many games...so why aren't they showing up for every game?

    It turns out for most people, the market for a crappy football team is about one token game a season. This is incredibly harsh, but I don't back down from it. When duke was winning, I was going to every game, and disappointed when I had to bail to drive a golf cart, or whatever. Now I almost DREAD the days when I have to uhser games, despite being there the whole time. It's miserable.

    Now that I think about it, the best times during the season were the northwestern and kansas games. I don't mean to be sarcastic, but I don't think it's a newsflash that games are fun when you win, and not so much fun when you don't...and are miserable when you're not even competitive.



    Duke lowered prices. Duke made parking free. Duke brought beer into the stadium. Duke relaxed its bag policy. But Duke also didn't put a product on the field, and the result is obvious. If we had the same product we had 8 or whatever years ago, I have no doubt those reforms would have kept attendance high and a good gameday atmosphere...but Duke didn't, and the #1 factor that will bring fans to the game is winning football. We had winning football, and maybe people here have short memories or delusions, but games WERE fun when we were winning. Games were fun when we could compete even when we didn't win. Games are not fun right now, and there is no non-negative price that will cause people to come out and sit through something that isn't fun.

    Duke football isn't fun right now (okay, except for commisserating with Bob and devilDeac and richard jackson and ozzie the like), and no amount of free tickets is going to encourage people to come out to an event that fundamentally IS NOT FUN.
    I wanted to respond to myself since I and BlueDevil2K are having an offline chat and I think there is more nuance than my argument presents. In no particular order:

    1) A great product on the field is likely most impactful
    2) JUST lowering price is likely ineffective

    It turns out there is a missing factor: random nonsense.

    A 30 truck food truck rodeo?

    All you can eat hot dog day?

    Local Craft Brewery Day?


    While I stand by my argument, I agree with BlueDevil2K that just because lowering prices alone, or random nonsense alone may not be enough. But lets have random nonsense WHILE having low prices. The above things are REAL THINGS that people turn out (or would turn out to) in droves. Why can't those things happen AT A DUKE FOOTBALL GAME? What is the attendance at raleigh's brewgaloo? Why can't duke make that happen AT A FOOTBALL GAME?

    I 100% agree with him that even given the product on the field, the department isn't trying hard enough. Isn't thinking outside the box enough. It may take some risk and some investment...but doing what we're doing IS NOT WORKING.

    (not that I have any confidence on the depatment to execute on any of this, as they'd have to compromise their mediocre food contract with whatever concessions provide that can't even provide bojangles at games where bojangles is a major sponsor...but whatever)
    1200. DDMF.

  6. #606
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    North Raleigh
    I think just winning some games would help tremendously
    Not just the gimmes but fighting like hell and putting fear in to an opponent we have no business being close to… show heart in a loss or manage to win the doggone thing. People will show up.

  7. #607
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Outside Philly
    Quote Originally Posted by wilko View Post
    I think just winning some games would help tremendously
    Not just the gimmes but fighting like hell and putting fear in to an opponent we have no business being close to… show heart in a loss or manage to win the doggone thing. People will show up.
    They remained pretty stagnant during the Cutcliffe bowl years, including the year we won the division, IIRC. That was following years of absolute historic basement dwelling but I was disappointed that Cutcliffe's program revitalization (at least for a while) didn't translate to more fan support.

  8. #608
    Quote Originally Posted by wilko View Post
    I think just winning some games would help tremendously
    Not just the gimmes but fighting like hell and putting fear in to an opponent we have no business being close to… show heart in a loss or manage to win the doggone thing. People will show up.
    Maybe - but there has not been a lot of intrinsic love for Duke football for 30 years. Most of the love is toward basketball and for good reasons. Basketball is strongly associated with Duke and that is a big problem for football. Students devote many hours to bball games and tenting. Grad students have their own ugrad allegiances and the alumni fan base around Durham is fairly small. Duke had 3 straight years of winning football (2013-2015) and it did not markedly change attendance. It will take a sea change to get folks to come to watch. One good season may get a few more to think about attending and then a blowout or even a close loss like against Ga Tech this year will change minds. A new stadium and cool new scoreboard- box seats- better concessions has not really changed the numbers of folks in seats. As the generation of folks who are now in their 60’s and 70’s shuffle off- it will be even harder. This will affect recruiting and retention of coaches etc. and that is not a recipe for winning. Years of disappointment are hard to erase. Somebody needs to endow football with a 1B gift and find some gimmick-like a lucky ticket contest where at the end of the year where you could win 1M dollars if you go to every Duke game. Folks will need to get creative.

  9. #609
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Vermont
    Yes, put something watchable on the field and fans will come because they HAVE come on those occasions when we've played well. Someone on this forum put together a nice summary of good crowds we've had when playing well. I recall the VT game (night game?) when we were 4-0 not too long ago, ranked I think (22?) and we had a really nice crowd, nice atmosphere in WW, and we performed miserably. End of good crowds. I've had season tickets for about 36 years, and know there's a strong correlation between a good product on the field and attendance. Our product the last couple seasons hasn't been just bad, but embarrassingly bad.

  10. #610
    Quote Originally Posted by budwom View Post
    Yes, put something watchable on the field and fans will come because they HAVE come on those occasions when we've played well. Someone on this forum put together a nice summary of good crowds we've had when playing well. I recall the VT game (night game?) when we were 4-0 not too long ago, ranked I think (22?) and we had a really nice crowd, nice atmosphere in WW, and we performed miserably. End of good crowds. I've had season tickets for about 36 years, and know there's a strong correlation between a good product on the field and attendance. Our product the last couple seasons hasn't been just bad, but embarrassingly bad.
    Additionally, in recent seasons we've had horrible time slots for home games. Primetime slots go to good teams in September. I suspect we'd have better turnout at 7pm on an early season Saturday than at noon.

  11. #611
    Quote Originally Posted by Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15 View Post
    Additionally, in recent seasons we've had horrible time slots for home games. Primetime slots go to good teams in September. I suspect we'd have better turnout at 7pm on an early season Saturday than at noon.
    If we have better teams and wins we will get better time slots. To the victors go the spoils.

  12. #612
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15 View Post
    Additionally, in recent seasons we've had horrible time slots for home games. Primetime slots go to good teams in September. I suspect we'd have better turnout at 7pm on an early season Saturday than at noon.
    Yeah. Occasionally someone will try to just do a quick/naive analysis by looking at past schedules and reported attendance. "Hey, we were 5-3 and this conference game only drew 12k!"

    What tends to get lost is things like:


    1. Oh, that was a noon game and it was 100 degrees without a cloud in the sky. Of the people that showed up, several were carted off by EMS for heat/dehydration related issues.
    2. Oh, that was a 7:30 night game, and it was 38 degrees and raining
    3. Oh, we lost our two previous home games that season, including one horrible blowout
    4. Oh, it was Thanksgiving weekend and also there was a hurricane


    You get the idea. There are a small​ handful of games where I would say the crowds were truly disappointing given the context of the season and the weather, but for the most part when Duke is winning at home people turn out for subsequent home games. Duke's home record has unfortunately not been great.

  13. #613
    Join Date
    Feb 2018
    Location
    Dur'm
    Quote Originally Posted by uh_no View Post
    I wanted to respond to myself since I and BlueDevil2K are having an offline chat and I think there is more nuance than my argument presents. In no particular order:

    1) A great product on the field is likely most impactful
    2) JUST lowering price is likely ineffective

    It turns out there is a missing factor: random nonsense.

    A 30 truck food truck rodeo?

    All you can eat hot dog day?

    Local Craft Brewery Day?


    While I stand by my argument, I agree with BlueDevil2K that just because lowering prices alone, or random nonsense alone may not be enough. But lets have random nonsense WHILE having low prices. The above things are REAL THINGS that people turn out (or would turn out to) in droves. Why can't those things happen AT A DUKE FOOTBALL GAME? What is the attendance at raleigh's brewgaloo? Why can't duke make that happen AT A FOOTBALL GAME?
    While I commend your inventiveness, for this n=1 family, if the game isn't going to be enjoyable, we aren't coming. That holds regardless of prices, and regardless of the special events. I don't want to go to an employee-discounted (aka fan-begging) conference game to watch my team lose by 30. And that hypothetical 30-point loss would have actually been better than our average conference game this season. I might consider coming if I think there's actually a chance of a competition breaking out, and I won't feel like I've wasted four hours, so long as the game was in doubt somewhere after halftime or we *gasp* actually managed to win a time or two.

    TL;DR: With all due respect to BD2K, your first post was more accurate.

  14. #614
    Quote Originally Posted by Phredd3 View Post
    While I commend your inventiveness, for this n=1 family, if the game isn't going to be enjoyable, we aren't coming. That holds regardless of prices, and regardless of the special events. I don't want to go to an employee-discounted (aka fan-begging) conference game to watch my team lose by 30. And that hypothetical 30-point loss would have actually been better than our average conference game this season. I might consider coming if I think there's actually a chance of a competition breaking out, and I won't feel like I've wasted four hours, so long as the game was in doubt somewhere after halftime or we *gasp* actually managed to win a time or two.

    TL;DR: With all due respect to BD2K, your first post was more accurate.
    The key phrase here was "to watch my team" - I think that's the wrong way to think about this problem. We've already noted that there's a fairly small alumni base in the area (i.e. people who consider Duke "my team"). I really believe that the key to increasing attendance is to attract people who don't really have a vested interest in who wins or loses but who really enjoy the experience. When I go to a Bulls game, my enjoyment of the game isn't really shaped too much by who wins (though admittedly it's more fun when it's competitive). I mentioned to uh_no last night that the ultimate example of this was Columbus Chill hockey back in the 90s...the experience was everything, and the hockey was almost incidental. The Chill sold out hundreds of consecutive minor league games, and everybody had a blast. All it took was some marketing genius.

  15. #615
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    New Bern, NC unless it's a home football game then I'm grilling on Devil's Alley
    One way to get fans in the stands on Saturday is to never host a Thursday night game again.
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  16. #616
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by CameronBornAndBred View Post
    One way to get fans in the stands on Saturday is to never host a Thursday night game again.
    I think we've had good Thursday/Friday attendance before. Can't generalize from this season.

  17. #617
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Somewhere on another thread I jokingly suggested that Duke should pay people to attend football games.

    But it was a joke.

    I don't have an MBA but I'm pretty sure there are DBR posters who do. Isn't there a theory that giving away your product or pricing it well below the competition simply sends out the message that your product isn't worth much?

    I agree, Duke can and should improve the game-day experience. And the demographic realties aren't going to change. Duke is always going to have a small student body and a small, geographically-dispersed alumni base and Duke is always going to be surrounded by two large, state-supported universities. But putting fannies in the seats, IMO, starts with the quality of the football team.

  18. #618
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    New Bern, NC unless it's a home football game then I'm grilling on Devil's Alley
    Quote Originally Posted by Acymetric View Post
    I think we've had good Thursday/Friday attendance before. Can't generalize from this season.
    This year's Thursday night attendance was likely our lowest attendance in years. Probably the lowest of Cutcliffe's tenure, and while the performance on the field was partly to blame, I know for a fact that it kept many people away who normally travel simply because they had to work the next morning. (I also think it was our first one, I don't remember tailgating on a Thursday before.)

    But that being said, my point is you can't be there on Saturday if you are playing on Thursday.

    (I'm ok with Friday nights, btw. Still not a huge fan of them, but at least it's the weekend at that point.)
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  19. #619
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Durham
    Quote Originally Posted by Acymetric View Post
    I think we've had good Thursday/Friday attendance before. Can't generalize from this season.
    shame that the team often isn't in attendance for said games
    1200. DDMF.

  20. #620
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Franklin TN
    Quote Originally Posted by uh_no View Post
    I'm on game day staff. I'm acutely aware, perhaps as much as anyone on this board, of what kinds of groups duke gives tickets away to each week, and what the max expected attendance might be.

    I'm also acutely aware of how many people show up each week. None of these people are becoming lifelong fans. They show up because their cheerleading group gets to go together and perform, or because it's duke staff day and they get a few hotdogs and can go home. Duke staff can get free tickets so many games...so why aren't they showing up for every game?

    It turns out for most people, the market for a crappy football team is about one token game a season. This is incredibly harsh, but I don't back down from it. When duke was winning, I was going to every game, and disappointed when I had to bail to drive a golf cart, or whatever. Now I almost DREAD the days when I have to uhser games, despite being there the whole time. It's miserable.

    Now that I think about it, the best times during the season were the northwestern and kansas games. I don't mean to be sarcastic, but I don't think it's a newsflash that games are fun when you win, and not so much fun when you don't...and are miserable when you're not even competitive.



    Duke lowered prices. Duke made parking free. Duke brought beer into the stadium. Duke relaxed its bag policy. But Duke also didn't put a product on the field, and the result is obvious. If we had the same product we had 8 or whatever years ago, I have no doubt those reforms would have kept attendance high and a good gameday atmosphere...but Duke didn't, and the #1 factor that will bring fans to the game is winning football. We had winning football, and maybe people here have short memories or delusions, but games WERE fun when we were winning. Games were fun when we could compete even when we didn't win. Games are not fun right now, and there is no non-negative price that will cause people to come out and sit through something that isn't fun.

    Duke football isn't fun right now (okay, except for commisserating with Bob and devilDeac and richard jackson and ozzie the like), and no amount of free tickets is going to encourage people to come out to an event that fundamentally IS NOT FUN.
    I’m not familiar with how Duke handles free tickets to specific groups, so I may be terribly wrong in my analysis. My idea of free tickets is pick a game where you know there will be slim crowd, such as Miami on Thanksgiving weekend. Sell reserve seats on the west side only. Literally open the gates on the East Side. Everyone gets in free, no assigned seating. Advertise some type of thrilling half time show. Set up bounce houses for the kids. Drive buses to the Emily K center to bring families. Give away vouchers for a free hot dog. Make the experience like a county fair, without the strip joints at the old Durham Co. fair. (I never knew such existed until my freshman year at Duke.) Make it fun. And just maybe create some new fans. Who knows what a 5 or 6 year old kid might become. Because of the physical separation I’m not sure Duke has ever connected very well with the less advantaged parts of Durham. I don’t see that there is much downside.

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