Guess UW could teach WSU fan's and students one thing
- Thread starter 7ICoug
- Start date
The lack of student support is mystifying. I don’t expect a ton of people to come over from the west side for bball. But there’s what 20K kids enrolled? How TF can we not get 10% to show up when we’ve got a tourney quality team? So frustrating.
I would guess that at least a quarter of the fans at the game last night were wearing Crimson. I do agree with you that it seems like more students could wander over to Beasley to watch a good basketball team. I drove an hour and 1/2 to see them last night. Except for the erratic and sometimes downright bad refs it was a great college basketball game. Between the Cougs and the Vandals I used to go to over a dozen games a year. Being there last night reminded me of what I miss not living on the Palouse any more.
I just don't think young people these days give a shit about sports. Or being fervent about their school. Too busy being buried in their phones I guess. At the risk of being called names, I really want to walk up to people (young and old) and ask - what are you looking at? Especially when they are in groups and they are all buried in their phones.
https://www.bing.com/videos/rivervi...A9CE8DE1E7972E666822A9CE8DE1E7972E6&FORM=VIRE
About six years ago (before I retired) I was at the UI student union listening to a presentation by the author of the book the UI had used as that years "freshman read". The lecture was really quite interesting but the student sitting next to me never once looked up from her phone. At the end of the presentation I asked her, rather sarcastically, whether she enjoyed the lecture. She just gave me a disgusted look and walked away.
It is perplexing. I'm sure there is quite a bit of texting going on, and maybe I'm just jealous because I don't have dozens of friends to jabber with. But often I don't see a lot of flying fingers typing.
I do have a buddy (older than me) that spends a lot of time on his phone, mainly because he doesn't own a computer and is always on some weird site for his news, etc.
I hate my phone. I rarely get phone calls, and my texting activity is limited. I never look at the news or weather or anything else. Occasionally check my e-mail.
I have mixed feelings about my phone. I like the fact that it’s been years since I had to say “I’ll look it up when I get home.” If I need something, I can find it now. Doesn’t matter if it’s meaningless trivia, a phone number, a prescription, or a dozen eggs.
On the other hand, I miss being unreachable.
The actual ZzuCru numbers are extremely low now. I would say a couple dozen people at most. Although, the vast majority of students I know have sports passes, but that percentage may be higher here in the Greek Life crowd than the average student. Sadly, getting my fraternity brothers to come to basketball games is like pulling teeth unless we play Arizona or UW.
That was, like, 1985 wasn’t it?
I know that’s about when they stole section 25 and 26 from the students without proper reparations.
I hadn't looked at student ticket prices in years. Now I understand why they don't come. For 2023 football:
Wisconsin: No student tickets or guests. Only students with sports passes get in.
Northern Colorado: $35/seat
Oregon State & Arizona: $55/seat
Stanford: $65, limit 2
Colorado: $45
So, $255 to attend 5 games. At that price, it's totally reasonable that students aren't showing up every week.
The sports pass is $319 for Pullman students ($200 for other campuses). When I was in school, the sports pass was a no-brainer. If I went to all of the football games, I saved money compared to ticket prices. Now, you have to go to all the football games and what, 6-7 other events to break even? Probably makes more sense to just pay per game. And when you haven't already invested, it makes it a lot easier to not attend.
Bad marketing.
Geezus Christ! Outrageous for ticket and sports pass prices. A long way from when we got in free.
So Wisconsin - were there enough sports passes to fill the student section? WTF?
Basketball/VB/Baseball? Here's what the student infomration at Athletics says:
"Student tickets may be purchased online starting at 9 a.m. the day of the general public single game onsale. Student ticket prices and purchase limits depend on opponent and ticket availability.
Student tickets may be purchased on gameday at the student gate on the west side of Beasley Coliseum for basketball or at the general box offices open at Bohler Gym for volleyball and Bailey-Brayton Field for baseball. Gameday sales begin 60 minutes prior to each basketball game or volleyball match and 90 minutes prior to each baseball game. Students are encouraged to purchase tickets online in advance as prices will increase on gameday."
You have to be F-ing kidding me. Ticket prices will increase the day of the game? Unbelievable. I'm not a student so can't go online to my account to check prices for upcoming games. Unreal that the whole season isn't determined on day one.
Hey but Chun is doing a great job, right?
No sense of supply and demand economics in the AD
An 85% empty Beasley means prices are too high. Give it away and create demand.
An 85% empty Beasley means prices are too high. Give it away and create demand.
I agree. I remember the UI giving away seats to kids from local schools just to get people in the Kibbie Dome.
Far better to have people in the seats creating excitment than looking at rows of empty seats.
I don't think that they should give them away but the price is too high. FWIW, my daughter attends the Colorado School of Mines and she pays $236 per year for a mandatory athletics fee that all students pay regardless of whether they attend games or not. It also covers the cost of using the school's gyms and equipment too so it's not a total ripoff.
WSU students already pay a mandatory fee for access to the rec center. They passed that in the late 90s to help fund construction...and students immediately started paying, even the ones who graduated before it was built.
An athletics fee has been discussed, but hasn't gotten traction. Up until now, the assumption has been that ticket sales, with their annual price hikes, were worth more than the fee would be. Might have to re-do that math after realignment.
Well WSU students do pay a mandatory $336/yr for the rec center and a $50 stadium fee. Does Mines have a Rec Center?
Damn beat me to it. That Rec Center fee has always chapped my ass. I worked at WSU when that came to being. The Rec Center is OK, and they were all the amenity rage back then,
Apparently WSU's own site lies?Shocking. "The fee was implemented starting in the spring of 2001 when the Student Recreation Center opened."
Anyway, I forget the fee the students passed back then. I want to say $100/year, but I could be wrong. In any event, WSU decided to bump it each year since at the rate of tuition increases, although the major cost (the facility) was fixed. Students never approved increases.
PRetty sure it was $150 originally.
Students weren't very smart about it. Not only did they not fix the cost, they didn't notice that it never sunsets. It was pitched as a construction fee, which should have ended when it was paid off. Instead, it turned into a maintenance and use fee...and will never go away.
Oh...and I think it was 1998 it went into effect. They had to build the rec center when they decided to kick regular students out of the facilities in Bohler and the PE building, which they did immediately after the Rose Bowl. Same time as they kicked students off the intramural fields west of the stadium and turned those into football-only - derisively termed the Ryan Leaf Memorial field for at least a while.
Yeah this is wild. $25/game so should be in the neighborhood of $175. Hell make it a mandatory fee if you’d like when you are paying what you are for tuition you’d hardly notice it.
I’d be curious to see how many passes they sell at that price.
Either way it’s an indictment on the AD and marketing efforts that they can’t get students to show up for a good bball team. Your best asset right now is Kyle Smith. Show him you give a F, all hands on deck to get every butt in the arena you can and it starts with the students. Unacceptable.
Or more appropriately couched, they got baited and switched by Administration. Then insult to injury, WSU started letting Faculty/staff and then the general public buy memberships. Never presented that way. Was that the fee that they had Athletics interns or whatever come to a basketball game(s?) and work the crowd to get signatures to put it on the ballot? Might have been the deal where they got the students to pay something like $10 million out of student reserves to pay for astroturfing Valley Road, even when the administration's own survey showed lackluster student interest in doing such a thing. Granted the grass fields got a little rough in spots. Of course a fraction of students actually vote on anything, so you've got a small % of them making decisions for the whole. Kinda of like America in general.
Not really sure this is a big issue. I have season tickets now but last season I could get tickets for $2-5 to every game except UW and Arizona, which were like $10 each.
So, they're not even selling the upper bowl for home games. I mean, not there there is a need, but seriously wth?
HS kids get in free, parents of those kids get in for $5, local residents get in for $5...
This is a serious problem and a huge indictment of the AD and their lack of "give a fck." Bring in a goddamn three ring circus for half time, idgaf, but give people a reason to be there. A couple of billboards across town isn't cutting it.
HS kids get in free, parents of those kids get in for $5, local residents get in for $5...
This is a serious problem and a huge indictment of the AD and their lack of "give a fck." Bring in a goddamn three ring circus for half time, idgaf, but give people a reason to be there. A couple of billboards across town isn't cutting it.
Yeah but that really isn't the problem. I asked the Athletic Department this afternoon how many had been sold and it was 8,800. So they are bought and paid for by 8,800 students which can attend the game(s).
Not an AD problem, not an Athletics Department problem, just apathy by the current crop of students. Which is of course there right.
Not an AD problem, not an Athletics Department problem, just apathy by the current crop of students. Which is of course there right.
8,800 sports passes have been sold this year.
Thank you,
From:
Sent: Monday, February 5, 2024 12:35 PM
To: Finch, Brandy <brandy.finch@wsu.edu>
Subject: Query
[EXTERNAL EMAIL]
Can you tell me how many 2023-24 Student Athletic passes were sold?
Thank you,
| BRANDY FINCH SPECIAL ASSISTANT OFFICE OF THE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR Washington State University Athletics Bohler Athletic Complex, 110 Office: 509.335.0200 | Cell: 509.699.5759 brandy.finch@wsu.edu | wsucougars.com |
From:
Sent: Monday, February 5, 2024 12:35 PM
To: Finch, Brandy <brandy.finch@wsu.edu>
Subject: Query
[EXTERNAL EMAIL]
Can you tell me how many 2023-24 Student Athletic passes were sold?
She's cute!
Brandy Finch - Assistant to the Athletic Director - Staff Directory - Washington State University Athletics
Brandy Finch Assistant to the Athletic Director
wsucougars.com
So 8,800. Wonder what the Martin student section holds - somewhere around there?
That said, there are plenty of pass-paying students to fill their Beasley seats. Which tells me they don't give a shit about basketball. Men's or women's.
Edit - while searching for Brandy, I ran across this EADA report that WSU posts. WTF is this thing? According to it we made money in FY23? I guess that is before all of our debt payments? I give up.
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They do have a rec center with weights, a climbing wall, pool, indoor track, courts and such. Also, they are a DII program...so you'd think that WSU being a D1 program would have more value.....
$30 a month for access to that…rude awaking awaits the students when they graduate.
