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Does U Need to End Thursday Games?

Posted on August 26, 2016August 26, 2016 by David Shama

The opinion here is the Gophers need to fix their problem of opening their home football schedule on Thursday nights.

Next Thursday evening the Gophers play Oregon State at TCF Bank Stadium while less than two miles away the Vikings host the Rams in the second football game ever in the $1.1 billion U.S. Bank Stadium. While it’s only an NFL exhibition game, your average Minnesota elementary school sports fan knows the Vikings are much more popular than the Gophers.

And it’s not just the Vikings the Gophers will compete against for attention next Thursday evening. The Twins will play the White Sox downtown that night—just a long walk from U.S. Bank Stadium. The St. Paul Saints also have a home game, and Canterbury Park hosts its usual Thursday night racing. High school football teams also begin their seasons. The topper among attractions next Thursday is the eighth day of the Minnesota State Fair. Attendance for the day and evening combined might be a number approaching half the population of St. Paul.

“Nobody will be at home that night,” a friend and Gophers football season ticket holder said to me this week.

My friend will be at the Gophers game but others who might normally attend or watch on TV won’t. U athletic department officials will likely announce a crowd of 40,000 to 45,000 in 50,800 seat TCF Bank Stadium. Could it be a record low attendance in the stadium that opened in 2009? The smallest announced crowd to watch a game at the Bank is 41,062 for the Purdue game in 2012.

The last three years the Gophers have also opened their seasons at home on Thursday evenings. The last two years the Vikings played on those dates but their games were on the road—providing TV competition but not entertaining football fans a couple of miles from the U campus.

With a promising Gophers team and playing a potential national championship team, Minnesota drew a TCF Bank Stadium record crowd of 54,147 for its opener last year against TCU. This year the Gophers are down a reported 10 to 20 percent in non-student season ticket sales. There is a public wait-and-see attitude about new coach Tracy Claeys and the team. It’s a similar situation to 2013 when the Gophers were coming off a 2-6 season and drew an announced attendance of 44,217 for a game against UNLV. The Vikings played that same night in the Metrodome.

The Gophers are scheduled to play future Thursday night games at home in late August of 2017, 2018 and 2019. The Vikings will also be playing on all of those Thursday evenings.

How do we know?

The NFL mandates all teams must play their fourth games of the exhibition season on a Thursday, 10 days prior to the beginning of the regular season. Those Thursdays usually come in late August, or this year September 1. The league schedules each franchise’s first three preseason games. Teams are told who they will play and where for the first three games. The fourth game and opponent are determined by each franchise. Teams play two home preseason games and two on the road. If the Vikings have been told by the NFL that two of their first three games are on the road, they will schedule the fourth game at home—up against the Gophers.

The Vikings aren’t changing their scheduling. The Twins, with 81 home dates each year, may also be playing at Target Field on future Thursday nights. The Saints, Canterbury Park and high school football are lesser entertainment rivals for the Gophers at the box office and provide no TV competition.

The Gophers and State Fair authorities made an agreement before TCF Bank Stadium opened, which resulted in all these Thursday night games. The agreement runs through June 30, 2022, and it states that any Gophers home game prior to Labor Day will be played on a Thursday evening. A U spokesman said he isn’t aware of any discussion to change the agreement.

The reason for the agreement is that during the State Fair drivers can park their cars for free on the University’s Minneapolis campus and ride free buses to the fairgrounds in nearby Falcon Heights. The Gophers usually play their home schedule on Saturdays but because of larger fair-going crowds on the weekends, U officials agreed to switch their games to Thursday evenings to better accommodate fair customers.

The existing agreement inconveniences fewer fair-goers but it’s not a winning policy for the Gophers. Fans have to fight rush-hour traffic to attend Thursday night games. Next Thursday those who choose light-rail will likely find cars jammed to the max with everyday commuters, plus Gophers, Vikings, Twins and Saints fans. Fans at home have to make viewing choices between the Vikings and Twins games that start about 7 p.m. and the Gophers game at 8 p.m. Then, too, fans and companies with season tickets and suites for both the Vikings and Gophers face an obvious conflict with the two teams playing at the same time.

There’s no doubt the Gophers could maximize revenues from ticket sales, concessions, parking and perhaps other sources if they were playing Oregon State on Friday night or Saturday afternoon next week.

It’s highly unusual for the NCAA to allow teams to start their seasons before the primary kickoff to college football which begins on Thursdays and continues into the weekend—so the Gophers probably can’t look at Wednesdays in the years ahead. Switching to a Friday night goes up against high school football but out of scheduling necessity the Gophers did that with success at the Metrodome.

Friday night or Saturday openers for the Gophers at TCF Bank Stadium in future years make sense. If U officials tell fair officials they need relief from the competition of Thursday nights it would be a smart move. Fair-goers can find their way to Falcon Heights without free parking on the U campus—even on a Saturday. It’s a safe bet the fair would survive and continue to set record annual attendance.

It should be documented, too, that Gophers fans park free at the State Fair and ride free buses to U football games after Labor Day. That’s been beneficial for fans and the U athletic department.

Worth Noting

When entering TCF Bank Stadium next Thursday fans will be screened with a hand-held metal detector. This is a new security procedure for Gophers games and a best practice at other venues drawing large crowds. The hand-held device was used for Vikings games at TCF Bank Stadium the past two seasons.

Fans can ask new athletic director Mark Coyle about scheduling and other topics at the State Fair. He will be at the fair’s University of Minnesota Building at 3:30 p.m. next Tuesday. The building is located at the corner of Dan Patch and Underwood.

The Lynx, with the WNBA’s second-best record at 21-4, resume play tonight after the long Olympics break. The Lynx had four players on the gold medal winning U.S. team, and those additional minutes of travel, practices and games in Brazil are a concern. Lynx owner Glen Taylor said coach Cheryl Reeve has monitored WNBA game minutes for Seimone Augustus, Sylvia Fowles, Maya Moore, and Lindsay Whalen.

Time management for the Lynx’s four Olympians this season has been a priority. “She (Reeve) has come down like eight minutes a game (per player),” Taylor said.

Taylor, who also owns the Timberwolves, has spoken this summer to 40-year-old future Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett. Will Garnett retire or return for another season with the Wolves? “I have no new news,” Taylor said. “He hasn’t indicated to me if he’s made a decision or not.”

Comments Welcome

Kepler Top Rookie of Year Candidate

Posted on August 3, 2016August 3, 2016 by David Shama

With a three home run game on Monday night, and another last evening, the Twins Max Kepler is now a favorite to win the American League Rookie of the Year Award.

Despite joining the Twins after the season started and for awhile not being a regular, Kepler has hit 15 home runs this year, including seven in his last 15 games. His home run total leads all American League rookies, and a baseball authority predicted yesterday he could finish the season with 25 homers.

Kepler is averaging a home run every 13.6 at bats. When former Senators and Twins great Harmon Killebrew played his first full season in the majors in 1959 he homered every 13 at bats.

Kepler’s home run totals have probably surprised everyone. In six minor league seasons through 2015 he homered every 46.8 times at the plate. His minor league batting average was .281.

Max Kepler (photo courtesy of Minnesota Twins).

“He’s got that kind of bat that he’s going to hit for average and show a little power,” former Twins executive Jim Rantz told Sports Headliners back in April.

Turns out Kepler is showing more than a “little power” with his line drives that are going over the fence and positioning him to possibly become the sixth Twins player to win the American League Rookie of the Year Award. The 6-4, 207-pound Twins right fielder is impressive at bat with a leveraged swing and exceptional plate discipline. He is hitting .259 with 46 RBI in 205 at bats with the Twins.

“We all thought that he was probably going to be a line drive type hitter that was going to put a lot of doubles up,” Rantz told Sports Headliners yesterday. “It’s a beautiful swing that he puts on the ball…(and) if he gets elevation, it’s going to go because when he hits a ball it carries.”

The German-born Kepler comes from an athletic family. His parents were ballet dancers. As a youngster Kepler played not only baseball but other sports including soccer, swimming, skiing and tennis. Mark Rozycki and Mary Kepler may also have raised the next AL Rookie of the Year.

“No telling how this is going to finish if he keeps going like he’s going,” Rantz said.“He’s liable to hit 25 before it’s over (the season).”

Worth Noting

Vikings owners and brothers Mark and Zygi Wilf didn’t attend yesterday’s groundbreaking event for a new privately funded practice facility and team headquarters in Eagan because their father is ill, a source told Sports Headliners. Leonard Wilf, Mark and Zygi’s cousin and another Vikings owner, represented the Wilf family.

General manager Rick Spielman, speaking at the event, predicted the new complex will be the most “unique and best” of its kind in the NFL. The 40-acre Vikings campus will have offices, a 100-yard indoor practice building and four outdoor fields including a 6,000 seat stadium that is likely to host premiere high school games.

While there’s been no announcement, it seems likely the Vikings eventually will move their preseason training camp from Mankato to Eagan. The new complex will be known as the Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center and TCO Stadium. It is scheduled to open in March of 2018.

Steve Poppen, the Vikings chief financial officer, said Eagan was “clearly” the best of three sites considered. Eagan mayor Mike Maguire said before the Vikings’ headquarters was built in Eden Prairie, the Eagan site had been promoted by a St. Paul developer in the 1970s.

Twins’ right-hander Tommy Milone, who this week was assigned to the bullpen, pitched five-plus innings in four of his last five starts after not achieving that in any of his first six starts this season. Milone hasn’t walked a batter in his last two starts.

Rob Antony, the Twins assistant general manager who could be a finalist to succeed Terry Ryan as the franchise’s baseball boss, started out in the media relations department. So, too, did Twins president Dave St. Peter and director of travel Mike Herman. The organization has long been known for its loyalty to employees and for promoting from within.

The Gophers open preseason football practice Friday. Saturday’s 10 a.m. practice at the Gibson Nagurski Football Complex is open to the public.

Former Gophers coach Glen Mason compared Minnesota senior quarterback Mitch Leidner to a 10-handicap golfer last week while doing analysis on the Big Ten Network. Mason said a 10-handicapper is inconsistent and Leidner needs to more like a five-handicapper.

Gophers coach Tracy Claeys told reporters at last week’s Big Ten media days in Chicago it will be important for he and new offensive coordinator Jay Johnston to give Leidner assignments that he is comfortable with during August practices.

A lot of college football programs, including the Gophers, are discounting tickets to boost sales. Big Ten rival Purdue has single game tickets starting at $5.

The U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team, with four Lynx players and Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve on the staff, has its first game in Rio de Janeiro Sunday. The U.S. team, favored to win gold, plays its opening game against Senegal starting at 10 a.m. CDT.

Vashti Cunningham, the 18-year-old daughter of former Vikings quarterback Randall Cunningham, isn’t expected to win the high jump in Rio but could surprise, and the Nevada native has already put Olympic coaches on notice she is a special talent.

Hamline has hired ex-Gophers women’s tennis star Julia Courter as its new head men’s and women’s tennis coach. The Pipers now have four former Gophers as head coaches with the others being Becky Bauer Egan (volleyball), Natalie Darwitz (women’s hockey) and Cory Laylin (men’s hockey).

Comments Welcome

Vikes Get Strong 2017 Super Bowl ‘Vote’

Posted on July 21, 2016July 21, 2016 by David Shama

Next winter Bob Lurtsema could wear a hat with this message: “I told you so.”

The former Vikings defensive lineman from the 1970s thinks his old team has better than a 50 percent chance of playing in the 2017 Super Bowl. “I really sincerely believe, that they’re going to win 11, 12 (games),” Lurtsema told Sports Headliners. “They have a great opportunity—legitimate opportunity for the Super Bowl.”

Lurtsema, who played on Vikings Super Bowl teams during the 1970s, is close to the organization. He attends practices not open to the media, and he talks with players and coaches.

Lurtsema’s past predictions have been impressive. Prior to the 2014 season he forecast an 8-8 record. The Vikings finished 7-9. Before last season, when talk was the Vikings wouldn’t make the playoffs, Lurtsema predicted a 10-6 record and participation in the postseason. The Vikings finished 11-5 during the regular season, won their first division championship since 2009 and hosted a home playoff game against the Seahawks, losing 10-9.

Almost any conversation with Lurtsema about the Vikings starts with his admiration for head coach Mike Zimmer who he likens to Bud Grant, the legendary coach who led the Purple to four Super Bowls. “I can’t say enough good things about coach Zimmer, because he has so much Bud in him,” Lurtsema said. “If a player makes a mental mistake, he’ll cut him. He’ll give a second chance, but you make mental mistakes, you’re gone.”

Lurtsema believes coaching is about “65 percent” of the formula for success in the NFL. He not only likes Zimmer but also the staff of assistants that includes three former head NFL coaches.

When the Vikings open training camp later this month, Zimmer and most of his assistants will be preparing for their third season with Minnesota. Their experience working with each other and the players is part of why Lurtsema is so optimistic about the Vikings. “The coaches have enough history on the players to know their strengths and weaknesses,” he said.

Lurtsema said there is “no reason” why the Vikings won’t win the NFC North for a second consecutive season. He believes the Packers are Minnesota’s main rival for the title, dismissing the likelihood of a championship from the two other teams in the division, the Bears and Lions.

Worth Noting

Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater will draw focus from fans during training camp and in early season games. Entering his third NFL season, Bridgewater boosters believe he is among the NFL’s most underrated quarterbacks. Count Lurtsema as an admirer. “Teddy has all the talent in the world,” Lurtsema said.

Tickets for the Vikings’ first-ever regular season game in U.S. Bank Stadium on September 18 range in price today from $270 to $2,600 on Stubhub.com.

The Vikings play the Packers in that game, and then play the Pack starting at noon December 24 (Christmas Eve) in Green Bay’s outdoor stadium. From a weather perspective that kind of scheduling is a head-scratcher but the TV ratings for the holiday game figure to be extraordinary.

As of Monday, approximately 700 of the original 49,700 seat licenses in U.S. Bank Stadium for Vikings season tickets were available.

Radio play-by-play announcer Paul Allen will call his 300th Vikings game when Minnesota plays the Lions November 6 in Minneapolis. Allen became the voice of the Vikings in 2002.

The Big Ten Network will televise the news conferences from Chicago next Monday and Tuesday of all 14 Big Ten Conference football coaches. Gophers coach Tracy Claeys will be among seven coaches making comments and answering questions about his team between noon and 2 p.m. CDT Monday.

Rick Pizzo and former Gophers head coach Glen Mason will be in the BTN studio offering analysis of the news conferences.

Minnesota native Tyus Jones reinforced his fan-friendly image last week in Las Vegas when he signed autographs in the arena concourse following an NBA summer league game. The Timberwolves point guard made a statement with his play, too, being named the Samsung NBA Summer League MVP.

A guess is the Lynx will play its games at Xcel Energy Center next year while Target Center is renovated. The WNBA franchise has scheduled a news conference this afternoon at Xcel but hasn’t announced the topic. The Gophers’ Williams Arena isn’t air conditioned and Mariucci Arena is a hockey-first building.

The Western Collegiate Hockey Association will announce its new women’s commissioner to the media this afternoon at the league’s Edina office. The WCHA, an eight team league that includes the Gophers, has won a record 16 national championships in 17 years since its inception in 1999. During that span the WCHA has six Patty Kazmaier Award winners, 86 All-Americans and numerous Olympic and international team participants.

Connor Nord, the former St. Thomas two-time All-MIAC basketball player who played professionally in Germany last season, left for Las Vegas Tuesday with the Minnesota Heat 17 and under AAU team he is coaching. Nord has decided to end his basketball playing career and pursue coaching, including assisting Guy Kalland at Carleton. Nord told Sports Headliners he will live in Eden Prairie with his parents and commute to Northfield for his new job at Carleton.

Former Gopher Cory Laylin is the head coach of USA Hockey’s Under 17 team that will compete in the Five Nations Cup tournament. The Hamline men’s head coach will lead USA in a round robin tournament in Frisco, Texas from August 9-13. Other tournament teams are the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia and Switzerland.

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