David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

U Trying on Ticket Sales Challenge

Posted on September 12, 2019 by David Shama

The University of Minnesota football team, off to an exciting 2-0 nonconference start after winning one game in the fourth quarter and another in two overtimes, will play its second home game of the season Saturday against Georgia Southern, a team from the Sun Belt Conference and an opponent with the least box office appeal on the seven-game schedule at TCF Bank Stadium.

The Gophers announced a crowd of 49,112 for their home opener August 29 against South Dakota State. The attendance count included thousands of free tickets distributed to U freshmen and 7,150 $10 tickets sold to the public in a 24-hour flash sale. U marketers have been working hard to attract customers not only for appearance and atmosphere at their 50,805 seat stadium, but also because football is the biggest revenue producer in the 23-sports program, and the school’s Athletic Department budget is an annual challenge.

Neither public season tickets nor student season tickets are providing as many guaranteed fans in the stands as the Gophers would like. According to information provided by the U this week after a request by Sports Headliners, the public season tickets total for 2019 is 21,689. Ironically, the total last year was 21,663. The student total is 2,777, a stark contrast to many prior years when the total was thousands of tickets more. Student sales aren’t a significant source of revenue, but it’s interesting that part of the rationale in building an on-campus stadium (opened in 2009) was the argument it would increase attendance by undergraduates.

The U reported 19,170 public season tickets are renewals from last year, meaning close to 90 percent of customers decided to purchase tickets again. The total of new public season tickets is 2,519.

Included in the new sales total is a U innovation this year, The Gopher Pass, which for $199.96 guarantees entry to all seven home dates—even if it’s a standing-room-only space because a game is otherwise sold out. Billed as the “most flexible ticket ever for Gopher football fans,” the U sold 673 of the all-mobile passes.

Marketers are using a strategy of affordability and flexibility in their attempts to attract fans. Public season tickets were promoted this year with prices starting at $35 per game. Mini Plans allowed fans to choose from multi-game ticket packages starting as low as $60. Those sales resulted in 3,310 tickets being sold.

When single game sales were announced in July, the entry price point promoted was $20. The flash sale implemented a week out from the August 29 opener provided even more aggressive single game sales pricing, and although nothing has been announced it could be the U will offer a $10 ticket for a Big Ten game this fall.

With more creativity on flexibility and pricing than ever before, the U is responding to a ticket selling challenge that has been going on for awhile. Football interest has declined since popular head coach Jerry Kill resigned during the 2015 season. The Gophers sold 27,885 public season tickets in 2015, a year when Kill quit after seven games because of health issues. The public season ticket totals in 2016 and 2017 were 22,785 and 22,131 respectively.

A winning team, of course, can bring customers to campus in greater numbers and with more efficiency than discounted tickets and varied marketing efforts. The last two seasons Minnesota’s Big Ten records have been 2-7 and 3-6. The Gophers, however, won two of their last three conference games in 2018 including taking Paul Bunyan’s Axe from Wisconsin. Dating back to 2018 Minnesota has won five of its last six games, with coach P.J. Fleck expected to have his best team in three seasons.

Gaining the public’s attention and attendance is a challenge in this overcrowded sports marketplace with professional sports franchises in baseball, basketball, football, hockey and soccer. There’s not enough time, interest or money to constantly fill every local venue for those teams, plus Gophers basketball and hockey. That’s why in an age of new and aggressive marketing the time-tested approach is still the best: “Just win, baby!”

Worth Noting

The 1904 Gophers, 13-0, are No. 127 on the list of college football’s 150 greatest teams of all-time, per a Tuesday story on ESPN.com. The 1941 Minnesota team, 8-0, is No. 141.

In an August 15 ESPN.com story the Gophers are ranked No. 27 among the 50 greatest college football programs ever, with St. John’s (Collegeville) No. 18.

Vikings coach Mike Zimmer on how rookie center Garrett Bradbury performed in his first regular season start against the Falcons last Sunday: “He had some ups and downs. They got him a few times backdoor and things like that. But I think for the first time out, it was a good experience for him. I think he’ll continue to get better. He had some really good plays, and then he had some plays that he needs to correct.”

Tim Knudsen, from Maple Lake High School, won his 100th career football game last week with his team’s 20-7 win over Rockford. His career record is now 100-105 in 21 seasons as the head football coach at St. Cloud Cathedral, St. Cloud Apollo and Maple Lake.

Twins rookie Luis Arraez had two hits last night in the team’s loss to Washington and extended his hitting streak to nine games. His longest streak this season is 12 games.

Patrick Klinger, the former Twins marketing executive, runs his own St. Paul-based marketing company and clients include KLN Family Brands of Perham, Minnesota. The third-generation family-owned business is run by former Gopher baseball player Charlie Nelson, who still holds the program’s all-time stolen base record. Two of KLN’s products, Wiley Wallaby Gourmet Licorice and Nutrisource Pet Foods, are official partners of the Yankees. KLN is also a large donor to the Pinky Swear Foundation, a Minneapolis-based non-profit that provides financial and emotional support to kids with cancer and their families.

Klinger said via email he will again host Pinky Swear Day on September 21 at Yankee Stadium. Over 200 pediatric cancer patients, their families, donors, supporters and Yankees fans will occupy three party suites at the stadium for the Yankees game against the Blue Jays. Guests will enjoy food and beverages along with visits from former Yankees and gifts from KLN, the team and Pinky Swear Foundation.

“It’s my favorite day of the year,” Klinger wrote in his email. “To treat kids dealing with cancer and their families to a day at the ballpark is pretty special. The Yankees do an exceptional job making sure it’s a memorable day for all involved.”

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Kirk Cousins Gets Run Help He Needs

Posted on September 10, 2019September 10, 2019 by David Shama

With a $84 million contract Kirk Cousins is among the best compensated players in the NFL, but his on field performance during eight seasons says he deserves a middle of the pack ranking among pro quarterbacks. The Vikings learned that last year when their pass-heavy offense was part of the story why the team came up with a disappointing 8-7-1 record and missed the playoffs after almost qualifying for the Super Bowl the season prior with Case Keenum as quarterback.

Cousins, in his first season with the Vikings last fall, struggled against teams with winning records as he had done with the Redskins. Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer and general manager Rick Spielman vowed during the offseason to make the offense more balanced between the run and pass.

In the team’s first regular season game on Sunday, a 28-12 win over the Falcons, the plan was implemented more extremely than anyone anticipated. Cousins attempted a career low 10 passes and completed eight. “Never had a game like this,” Cousins said on KFAN Radio’s postgame show. “First time for me, but I would take every one like this. That’s just fine by me.”

The offensive line was impressive and running back Dalvin Cook was elusive, gaining 111 yards as part of the team rushing total of 172 (98 yards passing). “…Dalvin is special. When he gets the ball in his hands he can really go, and I think our offensive coaches did a great job scheming some of the runs they had today,” Zimmer said on the radio show.

Cousins even ran six times, including a quarterback sneak for a touchdown. The Vikings frequently used two and sometimes three tight ends as part of their commitment to the run and taking pressure off their quarterback who should be better in his second season in Minneapolis because he has more familiarity with his receivers.

It helps, too, having the opposing defense guessing how the Vikings will line up with their personnel and whether the pass or run is coming. “Once you have a running team, the (opposing) defensive line becomes less aggressive,” former Vikings defensive lineman Bob Lurtsema told Sports Headliners.

Cousins, who fumbled twice in the game to increase his total to 42 fumbles dating back to 2015, can’t carry a team but his skills and experience are solid enough to give the Vikings a passing game that complements the run. The Vikings won’t have the success against every opponent like they did with the Falcons, but expect them to stay committed to at least something like a 50-50 run-pass ratio.

Speaking of a quarterback who can carry a franchise, the Vikings are at Green Bay next Sunday. Aaron Rodgers is a Houdini who is particularly adept at performing late game magic. With the Packers 1-0 after a road win in Chicago, they play five of their next six games at home. The Vikings have three of their next five away from Minneapolis.

Minnesota Wild & More

The Wild opens training camp Friday, plays its first preseason game September 17, and the regular season opener is October 3. Team owner Craig Leipold is upbeat, despite his club missing the playoffs last spring for the first time in seven years. “I am more excited about this year coming up than I have been in a number of years,” he told Sports Headliners.

The roster won’t be dramatically different but Leipold expects the leadership from newly hired general manager Bill Guerin to be impactful. Guerin comes from a winning background as an NHL player and front office decision maker. Already Leipold sees how his players relate differently to Guerin than they did to former GM Paul Fenton. “These guys listen to Billy,” Leipold said.

Leipold, who has owned the franchise since 2008, made it clear during a telephone interview that the word rebuilding is not one he will use to label his team. “Do we think we need to get better? Yes. Are we going to chop the tree down and replant it? The answer is absolutely no.”

Providing Leipold with confidence about the roster’s personnel was the feedback he received this summer while interviewing general manager candidates. “We think we have really good pieces (on the roster), and particularly after going through the process that we just did and asking all of our candidates to grade our players. Yeah, you could say, well, they wanted to grade them high, but if we thought they missed the target, then that wasn’t going to help them. Virtually every candidate who came in said that, hey, we’re a playoff team.”

Leipold acknowledged the frustration of fans with last season’s team, and that the absence from the playoffs has an “affect” on season tickets for 2019-2020. That affect can also impact single game sales.

“We’re down a little bit (season tickets) from where we have historically been, but we’re still in a position that probably 20 or 25 other (NHL) teams would love to be in,” Leipold said. “….This year will be more of a challenge (for selling tickets). We hope to get off to a good start, and if we do we’re gonna be fine.”

Leipold didn’t say how many season tickets the club sold last year but was asked if the total this fall could be 12,000. “We will be well north of 12,000,” he said. “Oh, yeah. Way north of 12,000.”

The Front Office Sports newsletter of September 6 reported this: “More than 38 million Americans, or 15% of the U.S. population, are planning to bet on NFL games this season, according to the American Gaming Association.”

Glen Taylor, the 78-year-old billionaire whose companies include the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx, likes to garden at his Mankato home. “…It’s just different from my other job, so I just need some of that time,” he told Sports Headliners.

Taylor has flower and vegetable gardens, plus fruit trees on the grounds of his property. He and his wife Becky do late summer canning. “I love the food that comes out of a garden,” he said.

The Saturday announcement of Michael Pineda’s 60-day suspension for a violation of MLB’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment program is among the most upsetting news the Twins could experience as they try to win the Central Division and qualify for the postseason. He was closing the season impressively, and his recent productivity has been more efficient than Jose Berrios, considered the staff ace earlier in the year.

Pineda pitched six innings, allowed just one run and stuck out a season high 10 batters in Friday night’s game against the Indians. He now has 13 quality starts, second best in his career to 19 in 2011, his rookie season. He made a recent argument out of whether he or Jake Odorizzi is the staff’s No. 1 starter.

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Hail the Gophers for Improbable Win

Posted on September 8, 2019September 8, 2019 by David Shama

Long-suffering Golden Gophers football fans should be dancing in Dinkytown this afternoon while singing the Minnesota Rouser over and over again.

Skeptics of coach P.J. Fleck and the program?

They might consider spending the day shopping for an “oar.”

Minnesota earned an un-Gopher like win at Fresno State early Sunday morning, 38-35 in two overtimes. A program in search of consistency and quality wins for decades can thump its chest after “Rowing the Boat” to an improbable victory against the Bulldogs.

This was the kind of game many past Gopher teams would have found too difficult to put in the win column. Minnesota traumatized itself with fumbles and the most inopportune penalties imaginable. The most knucklehead of egregious errors came late in the second quarter with the Gophers cruising at 14-3. The defense had stopped the Bulldogs on three downs but a personal foul on a Minnesota player far removed from the outcome of the last play gave the football back to Fresno State.

The Bulldogs and the home crowd were resuscitated by the development, and by halftime the Minnesota lead was down to 14-10. The Gophers could have been ahead 21-3 at the half if a first quarter drive near the Fresno red zone hadn’t ended with a Mohamed Ibrahim fumble.

With third quarter momentum, the Bulldogs put up 11 points and Minnesota was down 21-14 entering the final period. The Gophers continued to make mistakes that minimized their likelihood to win in the fourth quarter including with a muffed catch on a punt that led to Bulldog points. The Gophers didn’t even get everything right in overtime, but they found ways to overcome including a last minute fourth quarter touchdown pass from quarterback Tanner Morgan to Chris Autman-Bell. (Both the throw and catch will make the 2019 season highlight film.)

In the second overtime true freshman Michael Lantz kicked a pressure 37-yard field goal to send Minnesota ahead 38-35, but the Bulldogs had one more chance either tie or to win the game. Minnesota safety Antoine Winfield Jr. had other ideas and he wrote his name into program history by making an end zone interception to say goodnight to the Bulldogs. Because he had saved a Gopher win with a last play interception a year ago against Fresno in Minneapolis, the folks in Bulldogs country won’t be forgetting his name either.

Everyone here able to spell déjà vu?

Fresno State was picked this summer by the Mountain West Conference media to win the league’s West Division. The Bulldogs’ record last season was 12-2, including that loss to Minnesota. Fresno had opened this season with a close loss at USC in front of a jacked up, huge crowd in the remodeled Coliseum. Coach Jeff Tedford has quickly revived the Fresno program after having success for years at California, a program filled with heartbreak that Gopher fans know too well.

Gone are the days that any college football observer should dismiss an opponent because they don’t play in the Big Ten or other Power Five Conferences. Yesterday Army took Michigan into overtime before losing in the “Big House.” Kansas coach Les Miles, who some misguided Minnesota fans wanted for the Gopher job before Fleck was hired in 2017, lost to Coastal Carolina.

The Bulldogs are a good team, led by an exceptional coach. Last night they didn’t screw up like Minnesota and could have won the game. But the Gophers (who have been among the least penalized teams nationally dating back to Fleck’s first season, and seldom have fumbling woes) had the resolve and the playmakers to overcome and win for the fifth time in their last six games.

Those victories have not come against chumps. Late last year Minnesota downed Purdue, lost to Big Ten West Division champ Northwestern, defeated Wisconsin on the road, and won a bowl game against Georgia Tech. In the 2019 season opener, the Gophers broke a 21-21 fourth quarter tie to defeat South Dakota State, one of the best FCS teams in the nation.

Two games, two wins this year. Far from the prettiest victories but wins just the same. It’s been a trek in late summer that lesser Gopher teams of the past would have failed at and “drowned.” The 2019 group has so far continued the impressive close to last year.

The “boat” is not sinking.

The sale of “oars” should be rising.

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