[2006alum]

Food for thought...

1) There is currently a wait list for shady side seats
2) The price increases simply bring the cost for the shady side seats up to the average for sideline seats in the rest of the conference (sunny side seats are still below the average)
3) The product on the field has decidedly been above average for the past decade
4) The average household income for the Bay Area is significantly higher than it is in any other PAC-12 locale

If BurgXXIII's prediction is right and shady side seats go unsold next year then the AD will have to answer for that. My money (no pun intended) is on them continuing to sell out.

I still don't see how charging larger and larger donations fills seats. It just rewards people with more disposable income, and above a certain threshold those people may have lots of competing demands on their time and can throw money to hedge that they *might* want to go to some Stanford football games. This is largely similar to how courtside seats at tennis matches go un-used because the corporate sponsors don't care about attending most of the matches; they want to preserve options to entertain clients when it's Federer v. Nadal final.

And let's be honest: if Stanford really wanted to increase attendance, they'd base seat selection for next year's season tickets on your attendance the prior year and whether all your tickets were scanned. That's how Six Man used to work when we were good and over-filled: the more Oregon State and UC Davis games you went to, the higher likelihood you got a spot at the Arizona and UCLA games. That approach gets people to attend the Rice-in-the-rain games and rewards the true diehards who will come out rain or shine. But that system doesn't reward venture capitalists with limited time and commitment to Stanford Football but who will pay $1000 per seat to preserve the option to entertain friends or business colleagues.

I simply don't believe this isn't about filling seats; it's about making money.

[2006alum]

Food for thought...

1) There is currently a wait list for shady side seats
2) The price increases simply bring the cost for the shady side seats up to the average for sideline seats in the rest of the conference (sunny side seats are still below the average)
3) The product on the field has decidedly been above average for the past decade
4) The average household income for the Bay Area is significantly higher than it is in any other PAC-12 locale

If BurgXXIII's prediction is right and shady side seats go unsold next year then the AD will have to answer for that. My money (no pun intended) is on them continuing to sell out.

I still don't see how charging larger and larger donations fills seats. It just rewards people with more disposable income, and above a certain threshold those people may have lots of competing demands on their time and can throw money to hedge that they *might* want to go to some Stanford football games. This is largely similar to how courtside seats at tennis matches go un-used because the corporate sponsors don't care about attending most of the matches; they want to preserve options to entertain clients when it's Federer v. Nadal final.

And let's be honest: if Stanford really wanted to increase attendance, they'd base seat selection for next year's season tickets on your attendance the prior year and whether all your tickets were scanned. That's how Six Man used to work when we were good and over-filled: the more Oregon State and UC Davis games you went to, the higher likelihood you got a spot at the Arizona and UCLA games. That approach gets people to attend the Rice-in-the-rain games and rewards the true diehards who will come out rain or shine. But that system doesn't reward venture capitalists with limited time and commitment to Stanford Football but who will pay $1000 per seat to preserve the option to entertain friends or business colleagues.

I simply don't believe this isn't about filling seats; it's about making money.