Sell outs- how many?

[COUGinNCW]

I'd expect USC and Boise will sell out before the season starts. Oregon St possibly and will for sure if the Cougs stomp Boise. 4 wins in September and Colorado will be sold out (homecoming) and Stanford should sell out - Dads weekend. Montana St, not a chance with 4 more September games and on Labor Day. Nevada- win the first 3 games and it may sell out as well.

Time to expand the stadium.

 

[YakiCoug]

I'd expect USC and Boise will sell out before the season starts. Oregon St possibly and will for sure if the Cougs stomp Boise. 4 wins in September and Colorado will be sold out (homecoming) and Stanford should sell out - Dads weekend. Montana St, not a chance with 4 more September games and on Labor Day. Nevada- win the first 3 games and it may sell out as well.

Time to expand the stadium.

To 70,000 ...

 

[CPtheCoug]

To 70,000 ...

Only way to be competitive. Remember wins always correlate to stadium size!

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

To 70,000 ...

120,000....go big(gs) or go the hell home...

 

[froropmkr72]

120000....go big(gs) or go the hell home...

Rungrado https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/mo...reas-Rungrado-May-Day-Stadium-highly-detailed

make Michigan fans envious.

 

[95coug]

I'd expect USC and Boise will sell out before the season starts. Oregon St possibly and will for sure if the Cougs stomp Boise. 4 wins in September and Colorado will be sold out (homecoming) and Stanford should sell out - Dads weekend. Montana St, not a chance with 4 more September games and on Labor Day. Nevada- win the first 3 games and it may sell out as well.

Time to expand the stadium.

You're forgetting how fickle Coug fans are. We have trouble getting people to show up 2 weeks in a row, and this season we're asking for 5. Not gonna happen.

Even if we win both of the first 2, Boise state selling out likely means OSU doesn't. I think BSU does, but there will be a significant amount of blue in the stadium, and since it's also a night game there will be empty (but sold) seats.

OSU will get a bit of a bump because it's an afternoon kick, so some will make this their home opener, but that won't fill the place. Being 2-0 won't be enough to generate the necessary bandwagon.

Nevada won't come close, even if we're 3-0. Sandwiched between conference games, this becomes the one to miss, regardless of kickoff time.

People are coming to USC. It sells out of we're 3-1 or better.

Colorado and Stanford both could sell out, depending on how well we're playing. Stanford is more likely.

So...2 fairly sure sellouts, maybe as many as 4 if we're winning.

 

[Fab5Coug]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. WSU needs to take seats away from students waaaaay before considering expanding the stadium. Why expand the stadium when you're essentially GIVING AWAY a quarter of it in the first place?

 

[Fab5Coug]

I believe WSU has the largest student section in the conference (percentage wise) and they are prime seats. Look at the other Pac12 stadiums seating charts. No one is giving 40 yard line seats to their students for practically nothing. Sell those seats for market value and move your students up into the corners like everyone else.

 

[wazzubruce]

I have to disagree... The students should stay for now. They attend the University and it should matter.

 

[longtimecoug]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. WSU needs to take seats away from students waaaaay before considering expanding the stadium. Why expand the stadium when you're essentially GIVING AWAY a quarter of it in the first place?

we need students at the game to get any crowd size at all, jamming them into crappy seats will decrease attendance and that would likely lead to a decrease in alumni returning to games over the long term.When I was in school that whole side was student seating, along with the band, so the fact is that a ton of seating has already been taken from students

 

[Cougsocal]

I believe WSU has the largest student section in the conference (percentage wise) and they are prime seats. Look at the other Pac12 stadiums seating charts. No one is giving 40 yard line seats to their students for practically nothing. Sell those seats for market value and move your students up into the corners like everyone else.

Yep, move the students to the end zone. That's the way to generate sell out numbers long term. In my lifetime, I've been to less than a handful of games that were true sellouts, not the creative accounting variety. All of those games were when the student section was bigger and better situated than it is now. The stadium was bigger too. In those days we had a great product to offer, and free access via TV was limited. Now we have flat screens, unlimited TV access, and a generation of kids who by and large are more interested in social media, than sport. There isn't much we can do to limit TV access right now. In time, Leach will sign draw players/squads like Mayes, Rypien, Bledsoe, Posse and Fields again, but the last thing we need to do is give any excuse for students not to attend. The athletic department needs to come up with a plan to make football a social media event, take advantage of tech to get more students hooked on Cougars sports.


Across college football attendance has been going down since 2008, Pac-12 attendance is down 14% since 2007. We need to recognize part of that has to do with fan base shrinkage, Alumni Bob isn't being replaced when he kicks the bucket, because "Precious Flower" Jimmy, is an on-line toady. Hell, our student body is predominantly female now, a new phenomenon, because ... "precious flower" also phoned in high school. As recently as 2007 WSU was 53% male, that number is now 48%. Not to sound overly sexist, but sports is a predominantly male interest, as evidenced by the dearth of female posters on this and other sports boards -- and the we have lost 5% of the our predominant based for the future in a decade.

 

[Fab5Coug]

we need students at the game to get any crowd size at all, jamming them into crappy seats will decrease attendance and that would likely lead to a decrease in alumni returning to games over the long term.When I was in school that whole side was student seating, along with the band, so the fact is that a ton of seating has already been taken from students

And that, right there, is why you don't expand the stadium.

You may as well add 10K seats and sell them all on groupon for half price.

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

I'd expect USC and Boise will sell out before the season starts. Oregon St possibly and will for sure if the Cougs stomp Boise. 4 wins in September and Colorado will be sold out (homecoming) and Stanford should sell out - Dads weekend. Montana St, not a chance with 4 more September games and on Labor Day. Nevada- win the first 3 games and it may sell out as well.

Time to expand the stadium.

We have a lot of sell-outs on this board.

 

[Fab5Coug]

we need students at the game to get any crowd size at all, jamming them into crappy seats will decrease attendance and that would likely lead to a decrease in alumni returning to games over the long term.When I was in school that whole side was student seating, along with the band, so the fact is that a ton of seating has already been taken from students

And if you're not willing to take away seats, at least give them seats that are more commensurate with the cost they are paying. What does a sports pass cost these days? Those exact seats on the other side of the stadium go for $150-$500 a pop.

Why spend a quarter of a billion dollars adding seats, when you could just shift the students and start collecting the revenue those 40 & 50 yard line seats should be generating?

You'd piss off probably 2-3 classes of students that got used to that seating. All future students wouldn't know the difference.

 

[95coug]

we need students at the game to get any crowd size at all, jamming them into crappy seats will decrease attendance and that would likely lead to a decrease in alumni returning to games over the long term.When I was in school that whole side was student seating, along with the band, so the fact is that a ton of seating has already been taken from students

I'm kind of town on this. I agree that we have to create fans from the student population, but at the same time recognize that the students are not using the seats they have. It's very rare that the student section is completely full anymore - the upper corner stays empty full-time. When I was in school, it was packed - even when we sucked. The West end zone was usually full too, and that was when there were 2-3x more seats there than there are now. The FOB shaved seats from the students, and they're still not using them all. I'd guess than on average, there are 1,500-2,000 fewer student seats filled now than there were in my years...and the student population is 30% higher. So really, why not take some seats if they're not going to use them anyway?

Of course, we wouldn't take from the top corner, we'd take from the 50 yard line, and push the students toward the end zone.

 

[CougPatrol]

Nevada- win the first 3 games and it may sell out as well.

Time to expand the stadium.

Nevada will not sell out.

 

[YakiCoug]

Nevada will not sell out.

Even with you and your perpetual 5-year-old twins?

 

[CPtheCoug]

I'm kind of town on this. I agree that we have to create fans from the student population, but at the same time recognize that the students are not using the seats they have. It's very rare that the student section is completely full anymore - the upper corner stays empty full-time. When I was in school, it was packed - even when we sucked. The West end zone was usually full too, and that was when there were 2-3x more seats there than there are now. The FOB shaved seats from the students, and they're still not using them all. I'd guess than on average, there are 1,500-2,000 fewer student seats filled now than there were in my years...and the student population is 30% higher. So really, why not take some seats if they're not going to use them anyway?

Of course, we wouldn't take from the top corner, we'd take from the 50 yard line, and push the students toward the end zone.

I think we can afford to take that 40-50 yard line section from the students. It's true, they never completely fill up their allocated seats anyway. To be fair though students do tend to smoosh themselves together into the best seats, those 40-50 yard line sections probably contain close to double the amount of students than the section was originally designed to accommodate.

 

[BiggsCoug]

120,000....go big(gs) or go the hell home...

120,000 is too big. 70,000 for sure.

 

[CougPatrol]

Even with you and your perpetual 5-year-old twins?

That's the game we're missing.

 

[Loyal Coug]

I'm kind of town on this. I agree that we have to create fans from the student population, but at the same time recognize that the students are not using the seats they have. It's very rare that the student section is completely full anymore - the upper corner stays empty full-time. When I was in school, it was packed - even when we sucked. The West end zone was usually full too, and that was when there were 2-3x more seats there than there are now. The FOB shaved seats from the students, and they're still not using them all. I'd guess than on average, there are 1,500-2,000 fewer student seats filled now than there were in my years...and the student population is 30% higher. So really, why not take some seats if they're not going to use them anyway?

Of course, we wouldn't take from the top corner, we'd take from the 50 yard line, and push the students toward the end zone.

Couple of thoughts here. First, we sell a ton of sports passes to students @ what, $200 a pop now? So we have to give them seats to accommodate that. Football and Basketball. Maybe that should be looked at. Have separate "ticket" purchases for both sports? We sell 10,000 sports passes vs how many available seats? More than that for FB, less for BB.

So maybe we sell student season tickets/passes relatively cheap, but count the numbers. If there aren't enough to fill their sections, we sell single game tickets. $15 for students, $? for non-students. Whatever. Give students first crack at them, then open it up. Pretty much how its done for the rest of the stadium.

And yes we need to finish the bowl and add ~5,000 seats. Cheap construction wise, the foundations are already in place. And sell those tickets at a reasonable price. The cheap seats always sell out - its the expensive ones that go unfilled. Sold or not.......

Pathetic that the stadium held 7,000 more fans 20 years ago and we often had sellouts or near sellouts, and we argue over whether to add seats to get back to our 20 year old capacity.