Mini Plans

[BoilerBonz]

No, I'm not referring to MB's plans for Purdue football; that's the "Master" Plan.

I'm referring to the football ticket packages that I just received a mailing about from Purdue.

For $98, the 2-Game Prime Plan provides Prime seating to either VT or Nebraska (you pick) plus Prime-seating for one other game of your choice.

Season tickets in this same Prime-seating section (roughly b/t the 30s) costs $224 + $250 mandatory JPC donation per ticket (i.e., the MB seat license fee to cover paying competitive salaries to football coaches)+ membership in JPC at a minimum of $200. So 2 season tickets in Prime seating cost a JPC member a minimum of $1,148, or $82 per ticket.

So now that Purdue has driven so many JPC season-ticket holders out of these Prime seats with the ridiculous seat license fee, Purdue is selling those tickets to the general public for far less. Only $392 buys 2 Prime seats to Nebraska + IU, for example, and VT + UI, or $49 per ticket. That leaves $756 (versus what the season-ticket holding JPC member paid) to buy a pair to ISU, BGSU and Minnesota (i.e., $126 per ticket, which is what the JPC member is effectively paying for those games).

Of course, JPC members are free to take advantage of this sweet deal, along with VT and Nebraska fans (although the latter have probably purchased all the Prime tickets for that game, already), but loyal JPC members have already paid considerably more for worse tickets. I.e., 2 "Sideline" season tickets cost a minimum of $848 (2 X $224 + 2 X $100 mandatory JPC seat license fee + $200 membership in JPC), or about $61 per ticket.

Chalk this up as yet another under: "reasons not to join JPC or buy season football tickets." I just hope the football team gives us some reasons, this year, to buy season tickets, again, in 2016, because the PU Athletic Department is sure doing its best to make us think of doing otherwise.

 

[rbaggie]

doesn't seem fair, but trying to get butts in seat

 

[nat100]

License fees are common among the bigger programs. You can't bitch about Burke being small time then complain about this.

 

[BoilerBonz]

The point is, the seat license fees aren't working because we have nothing relevant in common with the "bigger" programs that charge them. The seat license fees are driving Purdue fans out the best seats, or the stadium altogether, and then MB does what? He sells at a huge discount what he can't gouge JPC members for! Sure, that may help put butts in seats this fall, especially Nebraska butts, but it incentivizes JPC members not to renew in 2016. So it's more of the same old problem -- short-term thinking with no consideration of the long-term effects.

 

[nat100]

The point is, the seat license fees aren't working because we have nothing relevant in common with the "bigger" programs that charge them. The seat license fees are driving Purdue fans out the best seats, or the stadium altogether, and then MB does what? He sells at a huge discount what he can't gouge JPC members for! Sure, that may help put butts in seats this fall, especially Nebraska butts, but it incentivizes JPC members not to renew in 2016. So it's more of the same old problem -- short-term thinking with no consideration of the long-term effects.

Licenses aren't working because there is a terrible product on the field. If this team were capable of sniffing a bowl, it wouldn't be an issue

 

[BoilerBonz]

"Licenses aren't working because there is a terrible product on the field. If this team were capable of sniffing a bowl, it wouldn't be an issue"

... other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

 

[nat100]

... other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Poor sarcasm all you got?

 

[SIBoiler2]

Poor sarcasm all you got?

Poor sarcasm is often better than no sarcasm at all!!!

 

[nat100]

Poor sarcasm is often better than no sarcasm at all!!!

It's The position of last resort. When other arguments fail, sarcasm it is

 

[BoilerBonz]

Actually, it was excellent sarcasm, but I'm not surprised you don't see that given your ridiculous response from before:
"Licenses aren't working because there is a terrible product on the field. If this team were capable of sniffing a bowl, it wouldn't be an issue."

No kidding, Sherlock. And that's the whole point, the product on the field does stink! Ergo, the seat license fees are a huge "issue" for Purdue, in terms of driving away season-ticket holders in the Prime sections, alienating fans, and failing to raise the intended funds. Of course the fees wouldn't be an "issue" IF we had a reasonably successful football program! That's why good programs tend to have them and bad programs don't.

And don't confuse the cause-and-effect. A seat license fee doesn't make a bad program good.

Sticking with a seat license fee on a demoralized and disgusted fan base not only fails to achieve the intended result, it has the opposite effect, it makes things worse! Hence, we're discounting some of the best seats in R-A to Nebraska fans while the few PU fans remaining pay more for lesser seats!

 

[nat100]

Actually, it was excellent sarcasm, but I'm not surprised you don't see that given your ridiculous response from before:
"Licenses aren't working because there is a terrible product on the field. If this team were capable of sniffing a bowl, it wouldn't be an issue."

No kidding, Sherlock. And that's the whole point, the product on the field does stink! Ergo, the seat license fees are a huge "issue" for Purdue, in terms of driving away season-ticket holders in the Prime sections, alienating fans, and failing to raise the intended funds. Of course the fees wouldn't be an "issue" IF we had a reasonably successful football program! That's why good programs tend to have them and bad programs don't.

And don't confuse the cause-and-effect. A seat license fee doesn't make a bad program good.

Sticking with a seat license fee on a demoralized and disgusted fan base not only fails to achieve the intended result, it has the opposite effect, it makes things worse! Hence, we're discounting some of the best seats in R-A to Nebraska fans while the few PU fans remaining pay more for lesser seats!

You accuse Burke of short term thinking while basing your opinion on current results. I merely stated your entire viewpoint is full of contradictions and you have yet to disprove me.

You continue to dance around the fact that you think this is a small time move without realizing it is the reality of college football. You're either dodging that point or so entrenched in a pricing structure from 20 years ago you are blind.

 

[BoilerBonz]

Alienating your core JPC fan base and driving so many of them from R-A is not a "short-term" result. It will have negative ramifications for years to come, and continuing with the same flawed seat license fee will, in and of itself, do nothing to make things better, except for Nebraska fans.

Seat license fees are a logical reality in college football for successful programs, or up and coming programs, where tickets are in demand, enough, to justify the fee. I.e., the success of such fees is conditional on the program's situation. Purdue's program is not in a place where these fees will accomplish their intended goal as evidenced by the fact that our AD is discounting our Prime seats to visitors because he overpriced them, relative to any concept of market value, to Purdue's core JPC fan base. So now he gets neither of the two things he wanted: Purdue fans in the seats, nor the extra revenue he intended for them to pay relative to the discounted prices Nebraska fans will be paying.

Now tell me how driving the core JPC members out of our Prime seats is good for Purdue football, long or short-term?

 

[New Pal Boiler]

Do IU or Illinois charge $82 per seat for their seats between the 30 yard lines? Not a rhetorical question, I really would like to know the answer.

If not, we shouldn't be either. Those are our comp programs at this point in time.

 

[nat100]

Alienating your core JPC fan base and driving so many of them from R-A is not a "short-term" result. It will have negative ramifications for years to come, and continuing with the same flawed seat license fee will, in and of itself, do nothing to make things better, except for Nebraska fans.

Seat license fees are a logical reality in college football for successful programs, or up and coming programs, where tickets are in demand, enough, to justify the fee. I.e., the success of such fees is conditional on the program's situation. Purdue's program is not in a place where these fees will accomplish their intended goal as evidenced by the fact that our AD is discounting our Prime seats to visitors because he overpriced them, relative to any concept of market value, to Purdue's core JPC fan base. So now he gets neither of the two things he wanted: Purdue fans in the seats, nor the extra revenue he intended for them to pay relative to the discounted prices Nebraska fans will be paying.

Now tell me how driving the core JPC members out of our Prime seats is good for Purdue football, long or short-term?

I've understood what you are saying all along, just find the contradiction in complaints interesting

Also, jpc members will be back. The seats won't be lost to them forever as the ticket office will always give them preference.

 

[BoilerBonz]

I've understood what you are saying all along, just find the contradiction in complaints interesting

Also, jpc members will be back. The seats won't be lost to them forever as the ticket office will always give them preference.

Well, I hope you're right, but I know a lot of JPC members who have discovered the pleasures of playing golf, instead, in the Indiana fall foliage.

 

[nat100]

Well, I hope you're right, but I know a lot of JPC members who have discovered the pleasures of playing golf, instead, in the Indiana fall foliage.

So have I, well ne Ohio foliage until winter starts in october

 

[SIBoiler2]

I'd venture he's lost most of that fanbase forever barring a Rose Bowl run. If you live very far from WL and have a life breaking a string of years of having season tix may let you realize how good life can be in the fall without spending every weekend on the road when you can watch the Boilers live every week on TV without the hassle of the drive and expense. I'd be in for 2-4 games a year if they were worth traveling to but this year will DVR the games and decide after I see the scores if I'm going to watch or delete. Too many Saturdays the past few years full of hope to only wonder why I sat there and watched the whole thing after it was over. I hate to mow but would rather sit on a mower all afternoon than watch the most recent product on the field. I contend the future fanbase has been irreparably lost by charging for student tix and alienating the current JPC base. If you don't hook students on fun Saturdays in RA where will your future JPC membership come from?