Fans may believe the Gophers home basketball nonconference schedule needs upgrading but don’t expect change in the foreseeable future. The schedule this year consists of exhibition games against Minnesota Duluth and Minnesota State Moorhead, with regular season nonconference games against Tennessee Tech, Stephen F. Austin, Utah Valley, Brown, Morgan State, St. Joseph’s, Northern Illinois and South Dakota State.
There’s not one exciting box office draw among the 10 teams. Ten years ago the Gophers nonconference home schedule at least included Marquette and Virginia. Thirty years ago Nebraska, Kansas State, Texas A&M, and Rutgers visited Williams Arena.
To maximize revenues, major college teams including Minnesota have put the nonconference home scheduling emphasis on home games with plain-Jane opponents. Jane comes to your place for a modest appearance fee and doesn’t expect a return game.
Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi told Sports Headliners that ticket revenue from men’s basketball home games ($20 million) represents about 20 percent of his total ticket revenue budget for this year. “I can’t afford too many games in a given year because financially I need to make the bottom line,” he said. “You make more money when you play at home than you do on the road.”
The other benefit with the scheduling philosophy used by major conference schools like the Gophers is they can fluff up their record by scheduling the Morgan States, Utah Valleys and Stephen F. Austins. Yet reality in Minnesota is fans pay some of the highest ticket prices in college basketball and watch a lot of low-appeal teams come to town. And the Gophers don’t generate much game day ticket sales activity for the nonconference games and last Saturday even had a buy one ticket ($35) and get another free.
Coach Tubby Smith has increased interest in the Gophers since coming here from Kentucky in 2007. But none of the nonconference games approach selling out while most or all of the Big Ten games have that potential this season. There’s a clear distinction in perceived value by the public including some season ticket holders who don’t use their tickets and leave a lot of seats open at November and December games.
The most that can be hoped for in today’s major college basketball environment is to have a couple of appealing opponents come to your town. Some other Big Ten programs did better than the Gophers this year.
Wisconsin booked a home nonconference schedule that included Arizona, Duke and Marquette. Indiana lined up Maryland, Pittsburgh and Kentucky. Illinois scheduled Utah and Vanderbilt. Northwestern played Stanford and Butler.
The Gophers were at Miami this year as part of the ACC-Big Ten rivalry. In a Thanksgiving weekend tournament in California the Gophers played Butler and Texas A&M. All three of those teams would be welcomed at Williams Arena by Gophers season ticket holders.
The Gophers schedule is more appealing in years when an ACC team plays here as part of the Big Ten-ACC challenge. The norm is alternate years for hosting an ACC team but Maturi said that’s not guaranteed. He also said next year’s nonconference schedule isn’t completed and so no comparisons can be made to the present one.
It won’t be dramatically different though, but one approach that could add some marquee value in the more distant future is that Maturi and Smith have talked about a “neutral” court game at perhaps Target Center or the Xcel Energy Center against a traditional college basketball power. Presumably it would be a made-for-TV matchup.