BC still a cheap ticket and other links

BC is still one of the least expensive BCS game day experiences. As you can see, the list is filled with ACC teams. I am sure some of you might want to know more about the list's methodology (did parking and donations factor in? student seats?), but it shows BC still offers value. In my opinion we don't market the value enough given how expensive other sporting events are in the Boston area.

BC has an offer to Florida QB Sean White, but I don't expect him to be the our second QB.


Sailors Molly Clarke and Kelly Roy earned ICSA All-Academic honors.

Good seats still available

BC heard you. While not everyone complained to the school about Gene, enough fans withheld donations and didn't buy tickets for this upcoming year, that BC got the message. Financial support of the program and ticket sales were significant factors in this change. If you did withhold your money (whether through donations or tickets) because of Gene, now is the time to give. Don't wait for the new AD or for someone to fire Spaz. Removing Gene is enough of a message that the Department is changing. BC needs your financial support and our teams need your fan support. Administrators and coaches come and go, but the players remain BC students and future Boston College alumni. Respect them. Support them. And even if Spaz leads us through another lousy season, you know hope is just around the corner. 

BC deserves your money because they just gave you want you've wanted. Supporting BC this fall won't be an endorsement of Spaz. He's done. It would be support of the school's recent actions and its new direction.

Interpreting BC's ticket sales push

BC launched a "Father's Day Kickoff Sale" Wednesday. Like other recent efforts, I applaud the push by the Ticket Department, but worry that BC's aggressive marketing is a sign of a bigger problem. I know that football ticket sales are down again. There is always a decline in years in which BC doesn't play Notre Dame. But the trending is worse than previous non-Irish seasons. Then there are the season ticket renewal anecdotes.

The scenario goes something like this. BC Season Ticket holder let his/her tickets lapse. After ignoring email reminders, they get a personal call from the ticket office mentioning they can still have their seat(s). In most cases the calls are ineffective and the ticket holder declines to renew. [IF YOU HAVE A SIMILAR EXPERIENCE PLEASE SHARE IT IN THE COMMENTS.]

Now comes the Father's Day sale. Considering the season is two months away, I think it is too early to start major discounting. What does that signal to your most loyal customer base? Like any situation with slack demand, BC has to be careful how much they devalue their own product. BC put this sale in a limited window, but I have a funny feeling we will see more sales as the season approaches.

If you ask Gene why sales are lagging, he will tell you the economy, television and secondary market reselling have contributed to the decline. Those are factors. So is the gameday experience and the product on the field. I wish I had a simple solution but I don't. My fear with the front loaded home slate and the low expectations, we could see our lowest attendance figures since the early days of TOB.

Because there is no simple solution, I think BC is stuck dumping tickets at low prices. It may offset things a bit. In the long run, I hope all the factors are recognized and BC does a better job rebuilding the game day experience. Winning is the best sales driver but so are relationships and expectations. BC needs to rebuild relationships with their most loyal fans. And BC needs to coach Spaz into being a better face of the program. If those things don't change, BC will be giving tickets away soon.

BC turns to young alums to help ticket sales

Disclaimer: BC doesn't release ticket sales data and trends publicly, so the information I am passing on is second hand for what it is worth.

Ticket Sales for the 2011 Football season are looking terrible. It doesn't take an investigative journalist or a numbers cruncher to tell you that. The empty seats at Conte and Alumni have been issues for years and things are only getting worse. There are multiple factors in play here and not all are unique to BC. With spring football wrapped up, the marketing and ticketing department are in the midst of their football ticket push. With a terrible home slate, they are wisely turning to Young Alumni to help fill the void. This is smart yet risky.

BC pushed this Young Alumni package via Facebook today. They are defining young alums as those who graduated within the last 10 years. Those Superfans can get a season ticket package for $150 and they get to sit next to the current students. That's the smart part. Hit the people with the time to attend games, give them cheap seats that you can't sell and help them make the student section louder. This is the Superfan generation so they are inclined to enjoy the BC football experience.

As I mentioned, this concept does have risk. If the Young Alums gobble up these discounts, it will only mask the real issues. BC's problem is that the older Boston area alums and non alum fans are not buying tickets like they did ten years ago. Is it the schedule, the ability to watch at home, the boring brand of football, the lingering bitterness over donor based seating, or the lack of true tailgating? I would say a little bit of everything. I've hammered the tailgating, schedule and Spaz issues to death, so that leaves us with Marketing. The Young Alumni Campaign proves that BC is willing to reach a specific audience with a specific promotion. Why not start hitting up other groups who may be interested in buying BC tickets but haven't in the past? Target BC parents! Target out of touch alumni in the Boston area! Hit the Boston sports fans who have never given BC a try! This season is going to be a disaster for ticket sales so you might as well try anything. Getting these forgotten or ambivalent sports fans into Alumni is the key.

If the Young Alums buy into the packages it will help BC short term and give the stadium an energy boost. But as I said, that only masks the problem. As other Boston area sports options better understand their potential customer base and ways to grow their market, BC is still churning through BC grads to save the day. We need to think bigger and market differently. Maybe some of the young alumni in BC marketing can use their influence to get BC to think beyond those who already bleed maroon and gold.

Nevada sells their tickets and other links

Our Bowl game is technically a neutral site affair, but it will feel like a Nevada home game. The Wolf Pack fans sold out their original allotment of 11,000 seats and have sold an additional 4,000 tickets. I don't have an official count from BC but I can assure you we are well behind that pace. This is as expected though since Reno to San Francisco is an easy drive and this is Nevada's first drivable bowl game. Plus they are coming off the Boise win. I don't think the atmosphere will make a big difference. The silver lining though is we can continue to tell Bowls that although we don't sell a lot of tickets directly, we generate interest locally and among opposing fans.

Here is a story from a few days ago on John Cahill one of our walkons receiving serious playing time.

Although he didn't win many individual national awards, Luke Kuechly was named to the Walter Camp team.

This Maryland blog has a good early take on our basketball team. I can't wait for the game against the Terps on Sunday. We've shown we can beat some quality teams, but this game will show if we can be competitive within the upper half of the ACC.

Marketing gimmicks can't save BC's attendance issues

When I saw this morning that USF was the latest college football team to enlist help from Groupon, I thought it was time to discuss BC's annual struggle to sell out all our home games. (Note: BC has been using Groupon for a few weeks.)

Despite Groupon and giving away multiple tickets to season ticket holders, it is very unlikely that BC will sell out the Weber State game or Kent State game. This isn't very surprising but given that Weber State will be Herzlich's return, it is very disappointing. More disappointing is that we have Notre Dame, Clemson and Virginia Tech on the home schedule this year. In the past, demand for those games would be enough to lift sales for the entire season.

The soft ticket sales are not all BC or its fans fault. There remains a softness nationwide due to the economy. You can even get Red Sox tickets at face value, which was unheard of five years ago. I also think game fatigue has set in too. BC used to play five or six home games a year. The diehards love the idea of an extra game and an extra tailgate. But for the casual fans, it doesn't mean much.

Despite all the built in excuses for the empty seats, there are two obvious mistakes that BC should avoid going forward.


1. Never schedule a home game Labor Day weekend. As long as BC starts classes after Labor Day, having a home game is a mistake. Students are drifting in and the campus and school are not in their regular routines. Plus it is the last weekend of the summer for many fans. They don't want to be sitting in Alumni watching a cupcake game. They want to be at the beach. Add in Boston's PGA event and you have a drag on demand. I know BC doesn't want to start the season on the road every year, but the trade off is a buzz-killing home opener.

2. Always put the FCS game on Parent's Weekend. This used to be one of BC's smartest moves. They would squeeze in a cupcake game on a weekend where you have 10,000+ extra ticket buyers. However, they've gotten away from it the past few years as they had to reshuffle schedules due to coaching changes and Hofstra dropping football. That resulted in Virginia Tech being a home game this year (and likely a night game). A VT night game would be a major draw anytime. It is a wasted opportunity. Plus I think most parents would rather have a day game and go out to dinner with their kids on Saturday night.

I didn't even touch on donor-based seating, or tailgating or style of play. Those remain issues where BC has less flexibility. What they can control is marketing and scheduling and right now they are making obvious mistakes and in turn creating a lot of empty seats.

Reading too much into the tickets video and other links

Since it won't allow me to embed, go to the BC website to check out the new video promoting ticket sales (I'll wait). Are you back? Good. The video is well done and pretty typical. It features Harris and Castonzo and teases Herzy's return at the very end. Did you notice who was missing? Our returning, starting QB. I am probably reading too much into it, but it is very surprising to ignore your QB in a highlight video...especially when he is returning. In my mind this is just another sign that the QB depth chart is wide open and we may not see Shinskie starting by the time we play an ACC opponent.

The ACC might not sell the most tickets or travel well, but as a conference we drive ratings. Check out this article. It makes me think that even in a down economy the ACC has real bargaining power with the latest round of TV talks.

These are the reasons HD is excited about the new football season.

Brady Heslip will visit Oregon this weekend.

The Pac 10 and the Big XII are considering some sort of TV alliance that would pool their market power and potentially form a network. Where is the ACC when all of this is going on?

Donahue's staff has interest in prep schooler Aaron Cosby.

BC is hoping to hit the St. Xavier (Kentucky) pipeline again with Daylen Hall.

This is an interesting story regarding Mike McLaughlin's decision to sign with Baltimore. Although they didn't draft him, they recruited him hard. Let's hope it proves to be a good fit.

Where to begin with attendance?

photos courtesy of Andrew K


Editor's Preface: First let me state that I am not a season ticket holder. I haven’t been one since I was a student. If you transported my current life and situation to Boston, I would probably be a season ticket holder but wouldn’t attend all the games because of the kids.


BC has a real attendance problem and I am not sure if there is a simple explanation or a simple solution. First let’s recognize that the economy is a major issue everywhere. College teams all across the country are falling well short of sellouts. Just look at TCU. They are a Top 10 private school with a nice history in a major metropolitan area and cannot fill their small stadium. I also think the growing and improving TV options dampens ticket demand? 10 years ago, the BC-CMU game wouldn’t have been on TV. If you wanted to see it, you would have to go to Alumni. Now there is ESPN U to cover the game. But even with the economy, the lackluster schedule, the weather issues, Halloween, a better TV experience, and all the other excuses that contribute to the attendance issues, there are two major factors that BC must address this offseason. Those issues are:

1. The fans that no longer attend games due to donor-based seating
2. The fans that no longer attend due to the diminished tailgating experience


Donor-based seating. BC hasn’t released stats around donor-based seating and its impact on sales. I’ve heard varied reports on the effect from as few as 500 tickets that were not renewed in some capacity to as many as 3,000 tickets that were not transferred in some capacity. Regardless of the true total, BC needs to spend some time this offseason and reach out to the people who gave up their tickets. Even if it is only 10 people, those are 10 people that BC could still use. At one point the previous ticket holders cared enough about BC football to have season tickets. We can get them back. We are still producing good football and have likable guys. It is an easier sell to say sorry and we want you back to a previous ticket holder than getting Boston-area fans to experience BC sports for the first time. You need as many season ticket holders as possible so that there is consistent demand regardless of the opponent. The shrunken season ticket holder base leaves more to the general public and allows more fans to pick and choose which games they will buy and attend.

Game day experience. BC has done a lot in things to make Saturdays more fun. There is the Eagle Walk. There are things for kids. There is are new bookstore and places to eat and shop. But the recurring comment I hear is that the tailgating policies are so restrictive and enforced with such cold and uncompromising zeal that it is a turn off to new and old fans. I am sure BC has good reasons for what they are doing and how they enforce policies, but they need to work on execution. And they need to spend offseason time reaching out to tailgaters. Listen to their complaints and explain why things are the way they are. Emails and letters are great communication tools to the masses but tone and touch can get lost in the delivery. Getting all the tailgaters on campus during the offseason in a "thank you" environment will help. It may also lead to some new ideas and solutions to tailgating policies.

I am disappointed that BC doesn't fill Alumni for any and all opponents. I don't think it makes a difference in the results on the field, but I do think the kids deserve a full stadium and I do think getting more people passionate about BC football is a good thing for the university. When there are so many factors, you need to start with one and work on it and for the Athletic Department it is not about commercials or promotions or any other gimmick. This offseason should be about thanking their current and former loyal customers and asking "how can we do it better."

Ticket trouble and other links

Did anyone else notice the following ad on bceagles.com?

Amazingly the Wake game and Florida State are not sold out. To make things even more bleak, Wake is on Parents' Weekend. In the past Parents' Weekend has been such a slamdunk sellout that we usually played DIAA teams. What's the issue? My guess is that the economy is major factor. Parents and alumni are less likely to travel back to Boston when cutting their personal expenses. I also think the usual buzzkills of donor-based seating and tailgating restrictions are a factor. But some of this is due to the offseason issues and the Spaz hire. I know it is early and Spaz will certainly have time to change this but I think it is clear that there is not much excitement around BC football right now.

After getting bounced from ABC/ESPN broadcast team, Doug Flutie has resurfaced as part of Versus' UFL coverage.

TOB and Matt Ryan still keep in touch.

The soccer team beat Hartford 2-1.

One of the minds behind Courtney Cox's new show Cougar Town is BC guy Kevin Biegel. I don't know him but he was part of my graduating class. Congrats to him. (Guess who is going to be getting a spec script with an Atlanta mailing address!)

BC using custom marketing to sell tickets

We bemoan many of BC's marketing efforts, but you have to give them credit for this campaign. (Fill in your information and see what happens. I promise, it is harmless and not some internet scam.)

I don't know how many more tickets this will sell. The good news is that it will get attention. The phone message also plays up the option of customized ticket packages.

Marketing aside, I think the economy, low expectations and the lack of Notre Dame or Clemson on the schedule are going to be tough to overcome.