(12-28-2023 09:39 AM)jmu007 Wrote:  

(12-28-2023 09:34 AM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  JMU has to walk the line. They capped season tickets last year. It would be bad form to cap season tickets and raise the price too. That is artificial supply and demand.

If prices go up, then season tickets shouldn’t be capped. It’s not like JMU is going to sell 25,009 season tickets next year. Raise the rates a little, remove the cap, then price single games dynamically to max revenue. The home schedule sucks next year so there may not be as much demand and certainly not if Chesney doesn’t deliver the wins as the season progresses.

I think they should convert the midfield portion of the Godwin side to season tickets. If students want those seats they can purchase them through a reduce price "student season ticket." My buddy did this at VA Tech for years to ensure he had tickets vs depending on their lottery system. Pretty confident those would sell quickly as a better midfield alternative to the 400's.

JMU has to allocate a certain amount of tickets to general admission. We had this discussion last year and many said I was nuts in saying JMU would cap season tickets. They need a certain amount of general admission. Plenty of fans cannot make it to every game and some only want to go to a single game or two and have reasons for them. That's not even including the general admission for away fans, family of players, family of students, recruits, etc.
Crappy schedule or not, demand for 2024 is going to be even greater than last season. We had an even better record this year than last. The fan base is growing and people want to see JMU. Plus all restrictions are off and excitement will be there for a potential SBC championship and the CFP.
Season tickets will sell out yet again and in record time, even if the price increases.

(12-28-2023 09:34 AM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  JMU has to walk the line. They capped season tickets last year. It would be bad form to cap season tickets and raise the price too. That is artificial supply and demand.

If prices go up, then season tickets shouldn’t be capped. It’s not like JMU is going to sell 25,009 season tickets next year. Raise the rates a little, remove the cap, then price single games dynamically to max revenue. The home schedule sucks next year so there may not be as much demand and certainly not if Chesney doesn’t deliver the wins as the season progresses.

There's a fine line regarding increasing seat and parking prices for the average fan/donor. I saw it with VCU, trying to get every dollar they could out of fans and donors. They priced many long time supporters and recent graduates out and at the same time the quality of services decreased and the product on the court fell off. (not IF but WHEN) Instead of paying around $150 per game for a good seat (including donation, ticket and parking) I can now pay less than $25 for a good seat on the open market.

Raising revenue is limited with fans/supporters so to increase the real money, that comes from corporate supporters/sponsors outside the regional market. Some of it comes from revenue sharing from men's basketball success in the tournament. Price increases for the loyal fans is easy, going out and soliciting new donations/support/partnerships takes a lot of hard work.

(12-27-2023 08:21 PM)POTUS#4 Wrote:  

(12-27-2023 07:33 PM)JMU83 Wrote:  

(12-27-2023 12:54 PM)JMaddy Wrote:  

(12-24-2023 02:25 PM)Deez Nuts Wrote:  I got a Duke Club renewal letter last week. No giving chart included, and the website giving levels remain unchanged. I tend to think the giving levels will remain the same (although I think an increase probably is warranted).

Ticket prices... take a guess. I'd be surprised if they don't go up. I also think they'll change a little bit. I don't think the Priority/Public 1-2-3 thing worked exactly like they thought it would but that's just me speculating. I think a 5-8% increase can be expected.

The minimum donations for F, G/Deck, P/C9 all need to go up by $500 and for D lot make it $750, C4 make it $500 and Convo $350. C10/D2 can go to just $100 for the cheapskate option, but damn if we want big boy football we need to pay our share.

That 'extra' roughly $600k (probably less once you take out those that don't need to increase to meet that minimum) would go a long way toward making football coaches salaries more competitive.

The Grace, Mason and Warsaw decks should also probably be $5-10 paid parking per game as well. That could add another $75-100k to the bottom line over the course of a season.

If we want nice things we can't be cheap about it.

I agree with all you've stated. Add a larger increase for Homecoming/Parents Weekend as well. JMU should be charging what the market will pay.

I can understand why folks think JMU ought to operate more like a pro sports operation - no free parking in the decks, charge what the market will bear, etc., but I think JMU has tried to embrace the "sports are the front porch to the university" thing that we kept hollering about when the administration seemed reluctant to move up to FBS. I'm sure they don't want to make it prohibitively expensive for the average alum/parent/casual fan to sit on the front porch.

There's a balance there somewhere. Charge the big spenders for the suites and stadium-side parking, etc. but hopefully leave some affordable access for the less devoted as well.

Which it should, but there are 16 varsity sports at JMU to be the front porch not just football.

Incentivize alums and fans who are not diehards to attend one football game a year (maybe the FCS buy game since it will always be the most affordable) and then come back for soccer, lacrosse, basketball, softball, etc...

Could easily add tailgating to weekend baseball and softball games with the lot at Memorial and the same for Soccer and Lacrosse at Sentara.

(12-28-2023 01:08 PM)Dukes_Royals Wrote:  

(12-27-2023 08:21 PM)POTUS#4 Wrote:  

(12-27-2023 07:33 PM)JMU83 Wrote:  

(12-27-2023 12:54 PM)JMaddy Wrote:  

(12-24-2023 02:25 PM)Deez Nuts Wrote:  I got a Duke Club renewal letter last week. No giving chart included, and the website giving levels remain unchanged. I tend to think the giving levels will remain the same (although I think an increase probably is warranted).

Ticket prices... take a guess. I'd be surprised if they don't go up. I also think they'll change a little bit. I don't think the Priority/Public 1-2-3 thing worked exactly like they thought it would but that's just me speculating. I think a 5-8% increase can be expected.

The minimum donations for F, G/Deck, P/C9 all need to go up by $500 and for D lot make it $750, C4 make it $500 and Convo $350. C10/D2 can go to just $100 for the cheapskate option, but damn if we want big boy football we need to pay our share.

That 'extra' roughly $600k (probably less once you take out those that don't need to increase to meet that minimum) would go a long way toward making football coaches salaries more competitive.

The Grace, Mason and Warsaw decks should also probably be $5-10 paid parking per game as well. That could add another $75-100k to the bottom line over the course of a season.

If we want nice things we can't be cheap about it.

I agree with all you've stated. Add a larger increase for Homecoming/Parents Weekend as well. JMU should be charging what the market will pay.

I can understand why folks think JMU ought to operate more like a pro sports operation - no free parking in the decks, charge what the market will bear, etc., but I think JMU has tried to embrace the "sports are the front porch to the university" thing that we kept hollering about when the administration seemed reluctant to move up to FBS. I'm sure they don't want to make it prohibitively expensive for the average alum/parent/casual fan to sit on the front porch.

There's a balance there somewhere. Charge the big spenders for the suites and stadium-side parking, etc. but hopefully leave some affordable access for the less devoted as well.

Which it should, but there are 16 varsity sports at JMU to be the front porch not just football.

Incentivize alums and fans who are not diehards to attend one football game a year (maybe the FCS buy game since it will always be the most affordable) and then come back for soccer, lacrosse, basketball, softball, etc...

Could easily add tailgating to weekend baseball and softball games with the lot at Memorial and the same for Soccer and Lacrosse at Sentara.

This guy gets it.

I like the idea of adding more of the tailgate culture to the other sports beyond just football. Soccer makes the most sense, but baseball/softball too. Its a shame there's no bars near either of those stadiums that people could walk to the game afterwards and have the local alumni association 'host' pre-game HHs.

(12-28-2023 01:28 PM)JMaddy Wrote:  I like the idea of adding more of the tailgate culture to the other sports beyond just football. Soccer makes the most sense, but baseball/softball too. Its a shame there's no bars near either of those stadiums that people could walk to the game afterwards and have the local alumni association 'host' pre-game HHs.

Vitos has nice cold beer. Jalapeno probably does too

Softball parents and others already do some serious tailgating in the lots at Memorial.

(12-28-2023 09:34 AM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  JMU has to walk the line. They capped season tickets last year. It would be bad form to cap season tickets and raise the price too. That is artificial supply and demand.

If prices go up, then season tickets shouldn’t be capped. It’s not like JMU is going to sell 25,009 season tickets next year. Raise the rates a little, remove the cap, then price single games dynamically to max revenue. The home schedule sucks next year so there may not be as much demand and certainly not if Chesney doesn’t deliver the wins as the season progresses.

I was told that limiting the season tickets (as well as the seating) was the way to maximize extraction of market value from the product and generating hype and desperation for access to the privileged commodity.

(12-28-2023 12:25 PM)RamDawg Wrote:  

(12-28-2023 09:34 AM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  JMU has to walk the line. They capped season tickets last year. It would be bad form to cap season tickets and raise the price too. That is artificial supply and demand.

If prices go up, then season tickets shouldn’t be capped. It’s not like JMU is going to sell 25,009 season tickets next year. Raise the rates a little, remove the cap, then price single games dynamically to max revenue. The home schedule sucks next year so there may not be as much demand and certainly not if Chesney doesn’t deliver the wins as the season progresses.

There's a fine line regarding increasing seat and parking prices for the average fan/donor. I saw it with VCU, trying to get every dollar they could out of fans and donors. They priced many long time supporters and recent graduates out and at the same time the quality of services decreased and the product on the court fell off. (not IF but WHEN) Instead of paying around $150 per game for a good seat (including donation, ticket and parking) I can now pay less than $25 for a good seat on the open market.

Raising revenue is limited with fans/supporters so to increase the real money, that comes from corporate supporters/sponsors outside the regional market. Some of it comes from revenue sharing from men's basketball success in the tournament. Price increases for the loyal fans is easy, going out and soliciting new donations/support/partnerships takes a lot of hard work.

Clearly you haven't looked at one of JMUs athletics budgets before. Approximately $60M budget in FY23 (July 1,2022-June 30, 2023...hasn't be released yet but thats about where it should be).

~ $45M comes from student fees
~ $10M comes from ticket sales and donations
~ $1.5M comes from media and conference distributions
~ $1.5M comes from licensing and sponsorships

I think alumni/ fan revenue stream is the biggest opportunity at the moment with the potential to add 15k seats to the stadium, and the growth of the Duke Club, and increased ticket sales for the basketball programs. We are relatively capped due to our conference on what we can get that way, and we can't exactly increase the sticker price for licensing and sponsorships/ad rights without proving more eyes in the stadium/ on TV.

We can milk those other revenue streams elsewhere, but we as alumni fans need to demonstrate our dedication and support to the programs (this is directed more so at the fans who watch and cheer on the dukes, but don't do anything to help move the program forward like make even a small participatory donation to the DC or MC, but complain that we aren't doing enough).

(12-30-2023 04:47 PM)JMUDuke4Ever Wrote:  

(12-28-2023 12:25 PM)RamDawg Wrote:  

(12-28-2023 09:34 AM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  JMU has to walk the line. They capped season tickets last year. It would be bad form to cap season tickets and raise the price too. That is artificial supply and demand.

If prices go up, then season tickets shouldn’t be capped. It’s not like JMU is going to sell 25,009 season tickets next year. Raise the rates a little, remove the cap, then price single games dynamically to max revenue. The home schedule sucks next year so there may not be as much demand and certainly not if Chesney doesn’t deliver the wins as the season progresses.

There's a fine line regarding increasing seat and parking prices for the average fan/donor. I saw it with VCU, trying to get every dollar they could out of fans and donors. They priced many long time supporters and recent graduates out and at the same time the quality of services decreased and the product on the court fell off. (not IF but WHEN) Instead of paying around $150 per game for a good seat (including donation, ticket and parking) I can now pay less than $25 for a good seat on the open market.

Raising revenue is limited with fans/supporters so to increase the real money, that comes from corporate supporters/sponsors outside the regional market. Some of it comes from revenue sharing from men's basketball success in the tournament. Price increases for the loyal fans is easy, going out and soliciting new donations/support/partnerships takes a lot of hard work.

Clearly you haven't looked at one of JMUs athletics budgets before. Approximately $60M budget in FY23 (July 1,2022-June 30, 2023...hasn't be released yet but thats about where it should be).

~ $45M comes from student fees
~ $10M comes from ticket sales and donations
~ $1.5M comes from media and conference distributions
~ $1.5M comes from licensing and sponsorships

I think alumni/ fan revenue stream is the biggest opportunity at the moment with the potential to add 15k seats to the stadium, and the growth of the Duke Club, and increased ticket sales for the basketball programs. We are relatively capped due to our conference on what we can get that way, and we can't exactly increase the sticker price for licensing and sponsorships/ad rights without proving more eyes in the stadium/ on TV.

We can milk those other revenue streams elsewhere, but we as alumni fans need to demonstrate our dedication and support to the programs (this is directed more so at the fans who watch and cheer on the dukes, but don't do anything to help move the program forward like make even a small participatory donation to the DC or MC, but complain that we aren't doing enough).

As you mention, more eyeballs will leads to better sponsorships and licensing revenue.

Let's take men's basketball for example: Averaging right around 4,400 in the stadium and maybe another 2-3k watching on ESPN+ (though we will never know the actual amount there) is lets say 7k watching each game at home. That is then roughly 100k for the entire season.

Hard to attract regional/national sponsors with those numbers. But you increase that 50% (or better yet 100%) and new sponsors will start reaching out.

(12-30-2023 02:08 PM)94computerguy Wrote:  

(12-28-2023 09:34 AM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  JMU has to walk the line. They capped season tickets last year. It would be bad form to cap season tickets and raise the price too. That is artificial supply and demand.

If prices go up, then season tickets shouldn’t be capped. It’s not like JMU is going to sell 25,009 season tickets next year. Raise the rates a little, remove the cap, then price single games dynamically to max revenue. The home schedule sucks next year so there may not be as much demand and certainly not if Chesney doesn’t deliver the wins as the season progresses.

I was told that limiting the season tickets (as well as the seating) was the way to maximize extraction of market value from the product and generating hype and desperation for access to the privileged commodity.

It it less about access and more about demand. With limited local demand and plenty of Alumni 2+ hours away who can't or don't want to make 6 games, you need to provide a route for people to buy 1 or 2 games individually.

I noticed this year that a significant number of people joined the Duke Club after season tickets "sold out" for the ability to buy single game tickets early.

(12-30-2023 04:58 PM)Dukes_Royals Wrote:  

(12-30-2023 02:08 PM)94computerguy Wrote:  

(12-28-2023 09:34 AM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  JMU has to walk the line. They capped season tickets last year. It would be bad form to cap season tickets and raise the price too. That is artificial supply and demand.

If prices go up, then season tickets shouldn’t be capped. It’s not like JMU is going to sell 25,009 season tickets next year. Raise the rates a little, remove the cap, then price single games dynamically to max revenue. The home schedule sucks next year so there may not be as much demand and certainly not if Chesney doesn’t deliver the wins as the season progresses.

I was told that limiting the season tickets (as well as the seating) was the way to maximize extraction of market value from the product and generating hype and desperation for access to the privileged commodity.

It it less about access and more about demand. With limited local demand and plenty of Alumni 2+ hours away who can't or don't want to make 6 games, you need to provide a route for people to buy 1 or 2 games individually.

I noticed this year that a significant number of people joined the Duke Club after season tickets "sold out" for the ability to buy single game tickets early.

Yes. I was being sarcastic.

The team needs to keep winning. Which it's doing, so that's good. If they can maintain the success they're having in football and men's basketball, better OOC opportunities will come, and viewership will go up.

Of course, if you work at it, anyone can find things to be discouraged about.

(12-28-2023 07:26 AM)jmu007 Wrote:  Awful lot of people on here in a hurry to spend other people’s money.

Yeah, lets have a massive increase in ticket prices and donation levels. And while you’re at it you need to make a big donation to the MC.

(12-30-2023 04:55 PM)Dukes_Royals Wrote:  

(12-30-2023 04:47 PM)JMUDuke4Ever Wrote:  

(12-28-2023 12:25 PM)RamDawg Wrote:  

(12-28-2023 09:34 AM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  JMU has to walk the line. They capped season tickets last year. It would be bad form to cap season tickets and raise the price too. That is artificial supply and demand.

If prices go up, then season tickets shouldn’t be capped. It’s not like JMU is going to sell 25,009 season tickets next year. Raise the rates a little, remove the cap, then price single games dynamically to max revenue. The home schedule sucks next year so there may not be as much demand and certainly not if Chesney doesn’t deliver the wins as the season progresses.

There's a fine line regarding increasing seat and parking prices for the average fan/donor. I saw it with VCU, trying to get every dollar they could out of fans and donors. They priced many long time supporters and recent graduates out and at the same time the quality of services decreased and the product on the court fell off. (not IF but WHEN) Instead of paying around $150 per game for a good seat (including donation, ticket and parking) I can now pay less than $25 for a good seat on the open market.

Raising revenue is limited with fans/supporters so to increase the real money, that comes from corporate supporters/sponsors outside the regional market. Some of it comes from revenue sharing from men's basketball success in the tournament. Price increases for the loyal fans is easy, going out and soliciting new donations/support/partnerships takes a lot of hard work.

Clearly you haven't looked at one of JMUs athletics budgets before. Approximately $60M budget in FY23 (July 1,2022-June 30, 2023...hasn't be released yet but thats about where it should be).

~ $45M comes from student fees
~ $10M comes from ticket sales and donations
~ $1.5M comes from media and conference distributions
~ $1.5M comes from licensing and sponsorships

I think alumni/ fan revenue stream is the biggest opportunity at the moment with the potential to add 15k seats to the stadium, and the growth of the Duke Club, and increased ticket sales for the basketball programs. We are relatively capped due to our conference on what we can get that way, and we can't exactly increase the sticker price for licensing and sponsorships/ad rights without proving more eyes in the stadium/ on TV.

We can milk those other revenue streams elsewhere, but we as alumni fans need to demonstrate our dedication and support to the programs (this is directed more so at the fans who watch and cheer on the dukes, but don't do anything to help move the program forward like make even a small participatory donation to the DC or MC, but complain that we aren't doing enough).

As you mention, more eyeballs will leads to better sponsorships and licensing revenue.

Let's take men's basketball for example: Averaging right around 4,400 in the stadium and maybe another 2-3k watching on ESPN+ (though we will never know the actual amount there) is lets say 7k watching each game at home. That is then roughly 100k for the entire season.

Hard to attract regional/national sponsors with those numbers. But you increase that 50% (or better yet 100%) and new sponsors will start reaching out.

So YES, we need the fair-weather fans to get off the front porch, and get in the house. Just like I've been saying.

(12-30-2023 06:14 PM)BDKJMU Wrote:  

(12-28-2023 07:26 AM)jmu007 Wrote:  Awful lot of people on here in a hurry to spend other people’s money.

Yeah, lets have a massive increase in ticket prices and donation levels. And while you’re at it you need to make a big donation to the MC.

Why don't we allow JMU to do what JMU has done well for a very long time? They have a good grip on the market. I'll say what seems to be the catch all on this board, "in JMU I trust".

Basketball season ticket information for 24-25 has come out. No change in upper bowl prices and $5-15 increase for lower bowl seats for men's tickets. For women's Club goes up $5 and concourse terrace and lower reserved now cost the same.

No change in the seating categories either, after last year they added seat specific sections in the upper bowl instead of all GA.

Interesting note on the men's graphic, is both student sections now say GA and student section compared to just student section last year.

The student section can easily be managed by allowing students in 15 minutes before the general public via a separate entrance line.

When school is in session, the students get there first and take all the close seats. When school is out for the holiday, average Joe can get a front row GA seat behind the basket when the arena is mostly empty

Speaking of season tickets for basketball next season, any idea on out of conference opponents?

(02-17-2024 06:58 PM)Polish Hammer Wrote:  Speaking of season tickets for basketball next season, any idea on out of conference opponents?

Pretty sure most of our home and home contracts are over. So should be a host of new opponents. Good or bad no idea?