eastcoastcal said:

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We have to be giving away more tickets here. AD Knowlton's reservation in this regard was devaluing the perceived value of a Cal football ticket,

Young alumni are a massively important demographic for a few reasons.

If the folks in the AD office didn't get it by the end of the presentation then there is no hope because this was absolutely one of the central points we tried to convey.

Suggested having a traditions seminar, having old yell leaders and knowledgeable alums come in and pass down their suggestions and expertise.

seems like nobody has the knowledge of what the actual contractual obligations are on Cal's end?

We also mentioned the commercialization/random jumbotron games as fairly unpopular. Not sure where that leaves Cal as I doubt the department would part with the (however meager) amounts of revenue that brings in but it was at least brought up.

Re: tailgating- Honestly I don't know how much the folks in the department understand the lack of tailgating options impacts fans.

it's just not a particularly creative or engaging group who are willing to press hard on Cal market advantages or try out-of-the-box ideas.

I think one of the problems is that there are barely any Cal grads (at least that we interacted with) in the department. .

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coachdeke said:

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Great stuff…The Greek system started staying home when students were made breathylize for alcohol and would be ticketed for underage drinking or public drunkenness. Believe or not the campus used federal grant money to do this. I asked Knowlton if they were still doing this and he was clueless.
4 years ago or so they restricted access to the stadium northbound on Piedmont av at Channing, forcing anyone using the stadium lot to go around campus and not allowing fraternities to sell parking-several hundred spaces.
These things need to be fixed asap!!!
There's grounds on campus; for example, South Field that could be set up for a tailgate experience or even parking.

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berkusc82 said:

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Truly appreciate your thorough work and insight here.

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harebear said:

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eastcoastcal - thank you for your work here. Is there any opportunity for you or other like-minded students to continue to have contacts within the department? I find that organizations are sometimes slow to want to try new things, but if there is a friendly but persistent push into a certain direction they will ultimately sometimes relent.

Having the insights of students is extremely valuable so i would wonder if there could be an ongoing group of student consultants of some kind for the department to interact with, bounce-ideas off of, etc. Some of the academic departments on campus do this with their peer advisors etc.

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89Bear said:

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eastcoastcal said:

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Hi everyone hope you had a great Big Game weekend! My furd friends have been pretty silent over the past 24 hours... must be some cell service issues over in Palo Alto

Seemed that enough folks wanted a little wrap-up update on the marketing/ticketing/gameday project that the club I'm a part of was contracted to do with Cal Athletics, so I figured I could summarize a bunch of stuff here.

This past week we presented our final deliverable to the folks in the department. My friend @lucasst33 was part of the group too (see how I'm slowly building a base of students on this site!? Soon all you alums will be sick of us...) and it was a great experience to interact with the ADs office and see how operations are run.

Here are a few facets of what we discovered:

Demographic Outreach:
There were three target demographics in particular that we wanted Cal FB to really go after that were being undertargeted- Bay Area youth, young alums, and east bay football fans (raiders).

For the youth in the bay area (namely elementary school, middle school, and pop warner football), the truth is that Cal doesn't do enough outreach in these areas. We have to be giving away more tickets here. AD Knowlton's reservation in this regard was devaluing the perceived value of a Cal football ticket, but let me tell you why this is misguided: These non-Cal-affiliated kids are not coming to games anyways. There is currently no attachment or reason why they would take the initiative to come to Cal games on their own free will. The only way to attract this demographic is frankly, free handouts. Realistically, given that we don't sell out on most given games, making ROI on concessions & merch purchased is better than letting the seats go unsold and this key demographic go untargeted. Additionally, as many posters can rationally surmise, getting kids to games means that there have to be accompanying adults, coaches, and teammates- no 7 year old kid is going to Memorial alone. As a result targeting a Pop Warner package or outreach to elementary/middle schools (permissible by NCAA regulations as it is below age threshold for recruiting violations) would bring a great benefit. Unfortunately the free tickets were generally a no-go for suggestions per our person of contact in the department.

Young alumni are a massively important demographic for a few reasons. Firstly, Cal alums are generally wealthy (as compared to national & regional median figures), there is a great volume of alumni (one of the largest active alumni bases in the country), and many of our alums, especially young ones, are heavily congregated in the bay area. Should be geographically feasible to get the folks from SF, Oakland, etc. to come to games. Pricing isn't the issue here- our packages are fairly affordable especially compared to other entertainment options in the Bay. Issue is a) outreach (virtually none done by AD) and b) lack of enticing tangential sweeteners. Outreach issue is that when we probed the marketing guys about their efforts to entice alums, specifically in SF, it turned out to be the case that effectively none was done: updating the price of the special young alumni package on calbears and making a brief announcement to the alumni chapter is not enough. In fact upon surveying young alums at the Oregon game festivities, many were unaware that such a package existed. Beyond outreach, a few changes/additions need to be made to the package: Recommend adding small discount on drinks at game; access to a young alumni pre-game beer garden; "party shuttles" from SF; offer to host club reunions and socials at Memorial. A few of these recs are somewhat capital-intensive, namely the shuttle, but the ROI is worth it- Cal has to develop an alumni donation pipeline and as several posters here have suggested, the donor base has very few younger alums. There is a serious risk of having a generational gap in donor enthusiasm. This is a great way to reestablish the pipeline.

The last couple paragraphs were a bit long so I'll try and make the east bay football demographic explanation short, it's fairly easy to understand anyways: Raiders left somewhat of a market void. There are hundreds of thousands of raiders fans who now have no weekend football tailgating/in-stadium experience. These are fans known for their passion and rabid fanaticism. Getting them to games is instrumental in making Memorial more rowdy and exciting. Great news: there are already organized groups of Raiders fans that collectively tailgate, go to games, watch party, etc. You don't have to do individual market outreach here, you can literally reach out to a section leader, tell the leader that Cal is going to designate a section of Memorial for Raiders fans for an upcoming game, free tickets to everyone in your fan group, wear black and silver. I mean we can even sweeten it by getting Desean or Marshawn or Garbers to show up for a quarter. Point being is these are fans who love football, don't have the weekend gameday experience anymore, live in close proximity, are already organized into several fan groups, and are electric supporters.

Stadium Zones
Will briefly skim over this since it's not that substantive and involves more high-level factors but Q/QQ need to sell better and most of the suggestions for club level seating are more on the experience side rather than price threshold. Consider looking into a general access ticketing model instead of assigned seating.

Competitor Analysis
DId a lot of competitor analysis, mostly on Pac-12 teams. It's fairly involved and I don't know if anyone here is that interested in it but we explored a lot of what Oregon, UW, UCLA, Furd, USC, and a couple out-of-conference programs do right and wrong. It's long so happy to explain if anyone wants but I'll skip it for now.

Survey
We did surveys throughout the week leading up to the Oregon game and during the Oregon game. This is where we really hammered the recommendations made on this site as well as responses garnered in our survey to the folks in the department.

Firstly, YES we absolutely hammered the importance of maintaining traditions. If the folks in the AD office didn't get it by the end of the presentation then there is no hope because this was absolutely one of the central points we tried to convey. Explained the importance of the band, how statistically per our survey data, nothing even comes close to being as popular as the band and traditions are for most alums.

I will make a side note here- we also brought up the idea of the sound system issues and piped-in stuff... I think it is a sore topic of discussion because we were told to deemphasize it and that many of the ppl in the department were a little sick of hearing about it and they understood people were unhappy. Take that as you will.

Suggested having a traditions seminar, having old yell leaders and knowledgeable alums come in and pass down their suggestions and expertise.

Food was another big survey response- lines for concessions are being looked at by the actual catering folks. Food options are another story: This is maybe one frustration I had with the AD people, seems like nobody has the knowledge of what the actual contractual obligations are on Cal's end? Are food trucks permitted on premeses? Is contractual exclusivity in play? Can Maxwell field be exempted? Still no answers from AD. Wish I could tell you if there could be more/better options but a concrete improvement could be doing what Cal baseball did for a game last spring- have a local Berkeley restaurant cater for a game. This could be a club-level perk or a Maxwell field tailgate perk.

Gameday
Gotta get Greeks to the game. Too many frat/sorority kids staying at the houses. Suggested halftime activities like flag football or other competitions between the organizations to both encourage them to come early as well as get more greek life kids to show up. Another suggestion made on here was to get shuttles (would be very short drives) to get kids who don't want to walk to the stadium after drinking.

More interactive stations (selfie stations for students to post on social media) and games for kids were suggested.

Giveaways, especially t-shirts, seem to be very popular.

We also mentioned the commercialization/random jumbotron games as fairly unpopular. Not sure where that leaves Cal as I doubt the department would part with the (however meager) amounts of revenue that brings in but it was at least brought up.

Re: tailgating- Honestly I don't know how much the folks in the department understand the lack of tailgating options impacts fans. The belief seemed to be that Maxwell was enough and that due to on-campus options being restricted by the university, no further exploration was warranted. Our team really did try and convey the importance of fostering tailgating culture as part of a proper power-5 program.

We wrapped up with a short term and long term vision for the program and synthesized our findings and recommendations.

Overall Thoughts
I think I've mentioned this before but to be honest, I and the rest of the team at points expressed how underwhelming some of the contacts in the department are. Seriously, not to be disrespectful at all, it's just not a particularly creative or engaging group who are willing to press hard on Cal market advantages or try out-of-the-box ideas. At the end of our presentation we had a part where we talked about how Cal actually has some really great things going and how if properly capitalized on, could really push Cal upwards: Wealthy and large alumni base, great corporate connections, beautiful stadium & setting, fantastic weather, market void left by raiders/warriors to SF/A's looking to Vegas/Stanford non competitive and not popular, etc. I think one of the problems is that there are barely any Cal grads (at least that we interacted with) in the department. A lot of them don't know what it's like to be a student here, what the traditions are, what the culture and aesthetic is like in Berkeley- and as a result are very dull and unimaginative in their work. Just my 2 cents.

Overall a great experience though. Enjoyed getting to learn how an athletics department works and had a blast working on the project. I hope this was somewhat informative and the post leaves out a ton of more granular suggestions and recs we gave- I promise our deliverable was far more encompassing and impactful than what I just summarized.

Have a great end to your weekend and Go Bears!

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What an impressive group you are!!! Thank you for your work!

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HoopDreams said:

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sounds like your group did an amazing and valuable job

and thanks for the report

will they give you any updates what suggestions are implemented?

(by the way, there were 3 food trucks at the Big Game. not sure if that was from your suggestions)

would love to hear about your research of what other schools do!

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CalBearPete said:

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Lots of thoughtful ideas; bring on more. The AD should hire all of you.

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Calcheermom said:

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Thank you for all of your hard work. Very impressed! Would love to hear more about what other schools are doing and/or how they contend with similar challenges.

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northendbear said:

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I don't know whether to thank you for your efforts, insight, and summary here or to pour myself a double Balvenie.

I think I will do both.

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HoopDreams said:

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lucasst33 said:

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Such a great and rewarding experience working with @eastcoastcal on this project. What a win this past weekend, hopefully this momentum carries over into next season! Go Bears!

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and lucas thanks for your involvement in this project. great to see students get involved in Cal sports marketing.

have you interviewed/discussed with students what would get them to attend games too?

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SBGold said:

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Great insights, TY

I for one would be interested in the competitor analysis piece

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drizzlybear said:

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Thanks for your work on this important project and posting your summary. Do you have any insights into how the incredible crowd for Big Game came to be? It seems that everyone in this site, even the mods and donors, are all perplexed as to how it happened. Such a mystery! Any thoughts?

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coachdeke said:

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Great stuff…The Greek system started staying home when students were made breathylize for alcohol and would be ticketed for underage drinking or public drunkenness. Believe or not the campus used federal grant money to do this. I asked Knowlton if they were still doing this and he was clueless.
4 years ago or so they restricted access to the stadium northbound on Piedmont av at Channing, forcing anyone using the stadium lot to go around campus and not allowing fraternities to sell parking-several hundred spaces.
These things need to be fixed asap!!!
There's grounds on campus; for example, South Field that could be set up for a tailgate experience or even parking.

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BeachedBear said:

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eastcoastcal said:

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We have to be giving away more tickets here. AD Knowlton's reservation in this regard was devaluing the perceived value of a Cal football ticket,

Young alumni are a massively important demographic for a few reasons.

If the folks in the AD office didn't get it by the end of the presentation then there is no hope because this was absolutely one of the central points we tried to convey.

Suggested having a traditions seminar, having old yell leaders and knowledgeable alums come in and pass down their suggestions and expertise.

seems like nobody has the knowledge of what the actual contractual obligations are on Cal's end?

We also mentioned the commercialization/random jumbotron games as fairly unpopular. Not sure where that leaves Cal as I doubt the department would part with the (however meager) amounts of revenue that brings in but it was at least brought up.

Re: tailgating- Honestly I don't know how much the folks in the department understand the lack of tailgating options impacts fans.

it's just not a particularly creative or engaging group who are willing to press hard on Cal market advantages or try out-of-the-box ideas.

I think one of the problems is that there are barely any Cal grads (at least that we interacted with) in the department. .

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Thanks for this. I've isolated and bolded the pithiest sections that haven't changed much in waaaay too long.

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jsherr said:

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Thanks you for your report. Great work. Highlights what we all know, we are clueless when it comes to the basics stuff. The feeling I get, which you also highlighted, is they somehow think they are doing a good job. Oye.

I think they honored, Flo, at Big Game. She is in charge of the stadium for the past 20 years. Honoring here was not what I was thinking. Total disconnect with what is happening, what should be happening and what athletics thinks of themselves.

We were at the donor tailgate before the game on Maxwell Field, Stood in line to get a beer and the guy says that the free beer is gone but you can purchase. Oh my.

That said, glad we have the axe. Go Bears!

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senorbeta said:

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coachdeke said:

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Great stuff…The Greek system started staying home when students were made breathylize for alcohol and would be ticketed for underage drinking or public drunkenness. Believe or not the campus used federal grant money to do this. I asked Knowlton if they were still doing this and he was clueless.
4 years ago or so they restricted access to the stadium northbound on Piedmont av at Channing, forcing anyone using the stadium lot to go around campus and not allowing fraternities to sell parking-several hundred spaces.
These things need to be fixed asap!!!
There's grounds on campus; for example, South Field that could be set up for a tailgate experience or even parking.

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These are all excellent ideas that should/could be executed immediately!

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