What UW can do to fix the game day experience at Husky Stadium
Things UW/AD can fix on their own
- Schedule better teams. There should be at least one home game annually with a big name program. And no more scheduling FCS teams.
- Lower season ticket prices. The game day experience gets worse, ticket demand is down, yet season ticket prices aren’t dropping. UW needs to reward their best customers and encourage more season ticket holders by reducing prices. A 20% reduction would be a good start, especially with next year’s home schedule.
- Add way more entry/reentry staff at Husky Stadium, plus better crowd control leading up to them on the outside
- Bring back re-entry
- If you are selling beer in stadium, add beer men selling in the stands. Way too many people are getting up during game play to buy beer and it’s annoying. Plus people are holding/drinking beers rather than clap and cheer. A beverage cup holder at each seat may be a way to encourage people to set down their drinks more often.
- Calm down on the advertisements. Stop flashing ads on that LED “ad stripe” which horseshoes the field during actual game play. Use it instead to display school colors, etc.
- Too much noise and distractions on Jumbotron. The silly Jumbotron games and DJ Supper Slam are just too much. I’d rather hear the band play “Neck.”
Things UW/AD can fix with assistance from others
- Go back to as many 12:30 pm kickoffs as possible. It’s better for fans, better for traffic.
- Play no more than one night game at home each season
- No more Friday home games, except maybe the Apple Cup on Black Friday.
- TV timeouts are too frequent and too long in college football. Work with conference and TV partners and fix. NFL games are a better experience due to this.
- PAC-12 refs suck, and the conference needs to fix that. The replay reviews are too long, but I attribute that to the P12 doing a shit job of managing, cultivating, and properly equipping conference officials.
- More frequent light rail trains during games. Bring back bus shuttles to Federal Way that bypass the Rainier Valley snail rail portion of ST light rail.
Things UW/AD have no control over
- Horrible I-5 traffic in Seattle and on the way to Seattle. For example the perpetual Tacoma traffic shitshow has had a major negative impact on fans from the South Sound and Southwest Washington. Earlier kickoff times is one way to improve this.
- Outdoor mask & vax mandates are stupid, but it’s the fascist local health Nazis, not UW, who have control over these.
Please add to this list!
Comments
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Pea Patch
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Second getting rid of bright, flashing ads, and getting back to kickoffs at 12:30.
Give the band room to breathe and play music. The corny "blue thunder" thing at Seahawks game gets more of a chance to play than the UW band does.
Cut the PA commenting down by 90%.
I would also move the students back to midfield. -
Fire any and all ducks in the AD
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Win at football.
That’s it. -
The schools don’t control game times. Once they sold their souls to TV, that ship sailed..Purple_Pills said:If anyone from the UW Athletic Department lurks these boreds, here is some free advice to improve the game day experience:
Things UW/AD can fix on their own
- Schedule better teams. There should be at least one home game annually with a big name program. And no more scheduling FCS teams.
- Lower season ticket prices. The game day experience gets worse, ticket demand is down, yet season ticket prices aren’t dropping. UW needs to reward their best customers and encourage more season ticket holders by reducing prices. A 20% reduction would be a good start, especially with next year’s home schedule.
- Add way more entry/reentry staff at Husky Stadium, plus better crowd control leading up to them on the outside
- Bring back re-entry
- If you are selling beer in stadium, add beer men selling in the stands. Way too many people are getting up during game play to buy beer and it’s annoying. Plus people are holding/drinking beers rather than clap and cheer. A beverage cup holder at each seat may be a way to encourage people to set down their drinks more often.
- Calm down on the advertisements. Stop flashing ads on that LED “ad stripe” which horseshoes the field during actual game play. Use it instead to display school colors, etc.
- Too much noise and distractions on Jumbotron. The silly Jumbotron games and DJ Supper Slam are just too much. I’d rather hear the band play “Neck.”
Things UW/AD can fix with assistance from others
- Go back to as many 12:30 pm kickoffs as possible. It’s better for fans, better for traffic.
- Play no more than one night game at home each season
- No more Friday home games, except maybe the Apple Cup on Black Friday.
- TV timeouts are too frequent and too long in college football. Work with conference and TV partners and fix. NFL games are a better experience due to this.
- PAC-12 refs suck, and the conference needs to fix that. The replay reviews are too long, but I attribute that to the P12 doing a shit job of managing, cultivating, and properly equipping conference officials.
- More frequent light rail trains during games. Bring back bus shuttles to Federal Way that bypass the Rainier Valley snail rail portion of ST light rail.
Things UW/AD have no control over
- Horrible I-5 traffic in Seattle and on the way to Seattle. For example the perpetual Tacoma traffic shitshow has had a major negative impact on fans from the South Sound and Southwest Washington. Earlier kickoff times is one way to improve this.
- Outdoor mask & vax mandates are stupid, but it’s the fascist local health Nazis, not UW, who have control over these.
Please add to this list!
Also, make the shuttles free or $5 cash. Don’t make 73 year olds figure out how to buy shuttle tickets in advance and use their smart phone for shit. Including entry and concessions. -
Win
That solves over 2/3 of the problems
There are many other things that could improve... but that is the only one that truly matters. -
That’s why I put it into the second category. The P12 can easily fix this when their deal is up. The era of streaming is the future so I hope the P12 leads the way into this future rather than continue to sellout to an older model that is alienating the conference’s best fans or be a Johnny-come-lately in the latest fads, such as conference TV networks, and then do a shit job with them.MikeDamone said:
The schools don’t control game times. Once they sold their souls to TV, that ship sailed..Purple_Pills said:If anyone from the UW Athletic Department lurks these boreds, here is some free advice to improve the game day experience:
Things UW/AD can fix on their own
- Schedule better teams. There should be at least one home game annually with a big name program. And no more scheduling FCS teams.
- Lower season ticket prices. The game day experience gets worse, ticket demand is down, yet season ticket prices aren’t dropping. UW needs to reward their best customers and encourage more season ticket holders by reducing prices. A 20% reduction would be a good start, especially with next year’s home schedule.
- Add way more entry/reentry staff at Husky Stadium, plus better crowd control leading up to them on the outside
- Bring back re-entry
- If you are selling beer in stadium, add beer men selling in the stands. Way too many people are getting up during game play to buy beer and it’s annoying. Plus people are holding/drinking beers rather than clap and cheer. A beverage cup holder at each seat may be a way to encourage people to set down their drinks more often.
- Calm down on the advertisements. Stop flashing ads on that LED “ad stripe” which horseshoes the field during actual game play. Use it instead to display school colors, etc.
- Too much noise and distractions on Jumbotron. The silly Jumbotron games and DJ Supper Slam are just too much. I’d rather hear the band play “Neck.”
Things UW/AD can fix with assistance from others
- Go back to as many 12:30 pm kickoffs as possible. It’s better for fans, better for traffic.
- Play no more than one night game at home each season
- No more Friday home games, except maybe the Apple Cup on Black Friday.
- TV timeouts are too frequent and too long in college football. Work with conference and TV partners and fix. NFL games are a better experience due to this.
- PAC-12 refs suck, and the conference needs to fix that. The replay reviews are too long, but I attribute that to the P12 doing a shit job of managing, cultivating, and properly equipping conference officials.
- More frequent light rail trains during games. Bring back bus shuttles to Federal Way that bypass the Rainier Valley snail rail portion of ST light rail.
Things UW/AD have no control over
- Horrible I-5 traffic in Seattle and on the way to Seattle. For example the perpetual Tacoma traffic shitshow has had a major negative impact on fans from the South Sound and Southwest Washington. Earlier kickoff times is one way to improve this.
- Outdoor mask & vax mandates are stupid, but it’s the fascist local health Nazis, not UW, who have control over these.
Please add to this list!
If they do sellout, they should be willing to take a haircut to demand set kickoff times and game times that best accommodate home fans. If every P12 team only does one 7pm kickoff, that is still 12 weeks of 7pm games the conference can offer. Plus some P12 teams, such as the Arizona schools may want to voluntarily play more night games.
With Seattle traffic and weather, it is time to pull the plug on most night games at Husky Stadium.
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Not for me. I could watch them win at home on TV. They still need to dramatically improve the game day experience at Husky Stadium. They are real close to losing me as a season ticket holder.fivehundredmileDAWG said:Win
That solves over 2/3 of the problems
There are many other things that could improve... but that is the only one that truly matters.
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TLDR
Fucking win. -
Night games are not going away.... so you may as well just give up your tix.Purple_Pills said:
Not for me. I could watch them win at home on TV. They still need to dramatically improve the game day experience at Husky Stadium. They are real close to losing me as a season ticket holder.fivehundredmileDAWG said:Win
That solves over 2/3 of the problems
There are many other things that could improve... but that is the only one that truly matters.
Your list of demands is a bit comical at this point...
No disrespect intended, but it is a bit funny. Without wins none of the other 'fan experience' extras matter. -
Get rid of any sing along trash. Do the spelling of HUSKIES after every score. We all know how to do it and it's already ours. Take the seats in the corners of the upper deck that never sell and give them away to kids in under privileged areas of Seattle/Tacoma. Grass roots your fan base. This isn't hard.
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Even in 2016 the crowd was late to arrive and 15k people were missing after halftime until mid-3rd quarter.LawDawg1 said:TLDR
Fucking win.
The stadium does not have a college gameday feel. Too sterile and corporate. Turn off the shitty top-40 music between possessions and let the band play and that solves half of it, IMO. -
No, they really do matter. UW is doing a shit job off of the field too, and it should be fixed. Great, winning programs should be great across the board. Let’s fucking fix everything broken!fivehundredmileDAWG said:
Night games are not going away.... so you may as well just give up your tix.Purple_Pills said:
Not for me. I could watch them win at home on TV. They still need to dramatically improve the game day experience at Husky Stadium. They are real close to losing me as a season ticket holder.fivehundredmileDAWG said:Win
That solves over 2/3 of the problems
There are many other things that could improve... but that is the only one that truly matters.
Your list of demands is a bit comical at this point...
No disrespect intended, but it is a bit funny. Without wins none of the other 'fan experience' extras matter.
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Win. Next question.
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Lower the price. Raise it once the stadium is full every game and there’s a waiting list for season tickets again. Idiots.
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2016-2018 Say hi in terms of winning and stands will be full
Must drop cost of season tickets. You can go onto 2ndary market and get same better tickets for a quarter of the cost.
They did get traction with 50% off concessions up to hour b4 kick. Make it up to 30 minutes and add merchandise into equation. -
Reducing concessions is a good idea that I've been behind the entire time ... but needs to be closer to kickoff than an hour ... 30 minutes makes sense
They need to streamline the process for getting into the stadium ... the vax situation makes the situation ugly ... but ultimately they don't have enough entrances or enough ticket scanners to get people through. Add to it the number of technologically unsavvy people and it's a bottleneck. I can get into Kraken games in less than 2 minutes ... it took me well over 10 minutes last night.
Light rail and everything is great except it's ugly getting out of the full trains with everybody cattled in he same direction (another huge bottleneck) ... simply put the infrastructure doesn't really support the volume. Then you add to it the crush of people getting on after a game and it's just a disaster ... and that doesn't factor in the light rail breaking down after the game
Besides the in-game presentation, there needs to be a return to embracing tailgating ... the beauty of college football is that you get to spend the entire day with your friends and family. Make tailgating easier ... not more difficult or more expensive.
Yes, football is the golden goose ... but that doesn't mean we have to bleed every single dollar out of every single fan. Have some give and take. -
Not lose to Montana
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Get rid of the fucking DJ, move the student section back hire a fucking winning coach
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I would love to be a fly on the wall when Cohen meets with these national “gameday experience consultation” firms and they tell her what sells in today’s PAC-12.
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Whatever they think she wants to hear, than laugh after the check clears at the idea anyone in the Pac-12/West Coast can sell as a product the equal of typewriters today.MelloDawg said:I would love to be a fly on the wall when Cohen meets with these national “gameday experience consultation” firms and they tell her what sells in today’s PAC-12.
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It’s hard to get a great atmosphere when you lose your opening home game to an FCS school. Winning solves everything. When UW starts winning consistently, the energy will be back.
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The number one issue is lack of a clarity in advance regarding the kickoff time… this means that no one can plan in advance regarding their logistics
This has literally killed the out of town and season ticket sales
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the problems are, the real problem is the dumb as fuck athletic department / the biggest can’t find my ass with either hand group of ass hat clowns that I have ever seen
They could starve to death at a banquet, and unfortunately they are in charge of the athletic department product offerings -
I was the first one to complain about the cost of years ago. It is criminally expensive to go to a Husky football gameTequilla said:Reducing concessions is a good idea that I've been behind the entire time ... but needs to be closer to kickoff than an hour ... 30 minutes makes sense
They need to streamline the process for getting into the stadium ... the vax situation makes the situation ugly ... but ultimately they don't have enough entrances or enough ticket scanners to get people through. Add to it the number of technologically unsavvy people and it's a bottleneck. I can get into Kraken games in less than 2 minutes ... it took me well over 10 minutes last night.
Light rail and everything is great except it's ugly getting out of the full trains with everybody cattled in he same direction (another huge bottleneck) ... simply put the infrastructure doesn't really support the volume. Then you add to it the crush of people getting on after a game and it's just a disaster ... and that doesn't factor in the light rail breaking down after the game
Besides the in-game presentation, there needs to be a return to embracing tailgating ... the beauty of college football is that you get to spend the entire day with your friends and family. Make tailgating easier ... not more difficult or more expensive.
Yes, football is the golden goose ... but that doesn't mean we have to bleed every single dollar out of every single fan. Have some give and take.
Look at the old videos of the crowd. Joe six pack having a great time on Montlake. Now it’s all sales guys -
This.godawgst said:2016-2018 Say hi in terms of winning and stands will be full
Must drop cost of season tickets. You can go onto 2ndary market and get same better tickets for a quarter of the cost.
They did get traction with 50% off concessions up to hour b4 kick. Make it up to 30 minutes and add merchandise into equation.
It has been a slow decline and returning will be a climb. Winning is necessary but insufficient. You go to the game to feel the beating pulse of rabid fandom. Something bigger. 72000 pairs of screaming lungs and stomping feet. The shared glory of a sack taking the opposing quarterback to the turf. You have to have get the people there and immerse them.
There's more than one way to skin a coug, but that is the experience you have to be engineering. -
Buzz word in CFB (and in all sports in general) has been about engaging the fan (make it easy anyone under 40) and giving them a experience that they want to come back and have again.Mad_Son said:
This.godawgst said:2016-2018 Say hi in terms of winning and stands will be full
Must drop cost of season tickets. You can go onto 2ndary market and get same better tickets for a quarter of the cost.
They did get traction with 50% off concessions up to hour b4 kick. Make it up to 30 minutes and add merchandise into equation.
It has been a slow decline and returning will be a climb. Winning is necessary but insufficient. You go to the game to feel the beating pulse of rabid fandom. Something bigger. 72000 pairs of screaming lungs and stomping feet. The shared glory of a sack taking the opposing quarterback to the turf. You have to have get the people there and immerse them.
There's more than one way to skin a coug, but that is the experience you have to be engineering.
for dinosaurs like myself (50 and over) winning cures and is above all else, but that's not the ticket for the 2 generations below that. Their cell phones give them instant engagement and enjoyment. If that's not happening at the game, they will go do something else that does.
Demographics and the UW's decision to admit as many as possible out of state/country students for the additional revenue has now come back to bite them in the ass from a attendance standpoint as well. -
Michigan went 2-4 last year. The gameday experience this year against UW was the best atmosphere I’ve ever been a part of. 108,000 people who were there before kickoff were there throughout the game, and stayed until the end.
A few observations:
Tons of crowd shots. Instead of playing ten Beacon Plumbing ads during the commercial breaks it was fun music and lots of crowd shots.
Coordination on the Jumbotron with the opponent. Everyone loved watching highlights from old UW/UM game. And hey look who they honored during the game - Philip Brabbs that kicked the game winner against us back in 2001 or whatever.
Coordination with the music. No dumb 13 second snips between plays from this crowd favorite or that one, never to be heard again during the game. Instead of playing ads, they played music when the crowd could get into it more.
I don’t think there was a single ad on display in the entire stadium. Did not feel like some kind of sytylixzed NFL wannabe experience. No idea how much revenue they get from the various ads but it ruins the experience.
Thetailgating was awesome. They tailgate on the golf course across the street from the stadium. Trucks, trailers, tables, chairs, people, etc. somehow the golf course survives just fine. Very friendly to tailgates and much better than asphalt. Maybe open the area between the stadium and Drumheller?
Win. Win big. And win in a way that is exciting. Attacking defense. 21st century offense. Highlight your players and playmakers. Be media friendly. Promote your program. Be accessible. -
Winning you can argue all the other stuff all you want but if you win people will want to go watch a good team. The 3 NY6 bowl years under Petersen it was pretty wild.
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Ditto on Michigan game day atmosphere and experience. Difference between UW and theirs is not Varsity/JV more like Varsity/C Squad. Comparing two isn't like saying apples/oranges, it's like saying apples/single raisin.Alpo said:Michigan went 2-4 last year. The gameday experience this year against UW was the best atmosphere I’ve ever been a part of. 108,000 people who were there before kickoff were there throughout the game, and stayed until the end.
A few observations:
Tons of crowd shots. Instead of playing ten Beacon Plumbing ads during the commercial breaks it was fun music and lots of crowd shots.
Coordination on the Jumbotron with the opponent. Everyone loved watching highlights from old UW/UM game. And hey look who they honored during the game - Philip Brabbs that kicked the game winner against us back in 2001 or whatever.
Coordination with the music. No dumb 13 second snips between plays from this crowd favorite or that one, never to be heard again during the game. Instead of playing ads, they played music when the crowd could get into it more.
I don’t think there was a single ad on display in the entire stadium. Did not feel like some kind of sytylixzed NFL wannabe experience. No idea how much revenue they get from the various ads but it ruins the experience.
The tailgating was awesome. They tailgate on the golf course across the street from the stadium. Trucks, trailers, tables, chairs, people, etc. somehow the golf course survives just fine. Very friendly to tailgates and much better than asphalt. Maybe open the area between the stadium and Drumheller?
Win. Win big. And win in a way that is exciting. Attacking defense. 21st century offense. Highlight your players and playmakers. Be media friendly. Promote your program. Be accessible.
Don't know (and highly doubt) it's like that for every game, but an hour b4 kick-off stadium was half full which equals 55,000. ONLY because WSU brought 20k, and Oregon 10-15 did we even have that attendance for any game this year.
Michigan did not run an ad the entire game. It is about Michigan Football from start to finish period end of story. As I understand it, b/c of the revenue UM gets from ticket sales, donations, etc they made determination they could afford to not run ads and keep their traditions.
To UW AD credit they have essentially tried to copy what they saw back at Michigan (Wolverines should send us a invoice for visual consulting services they provided) but it's going to take several seasons and alot more fan friendly pricing in both ticket prices and parking, merch, concessions along with Winning to get UW back to having a full stadium and a ticket that is desired amongst the general public.
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LOWER THE FUCKING PRICES
