Hello to All!
My name is Dan Bartlett and I am brand new to this site, but very familiar with Syracuse. I have been a life long fan and resident and I began working in the ticket sales office back in August.
I had heard of this website and I began checking it out a lot more often just to see what you guys would say about uniforms, schedules, offers, etc. I am here today as a new member of the site and looking for some help.
We have had a great response thus far with the on sale of Football packages but I want to expand that horizon. I come to you today looking for any kind of feedback or suggestions that you all have because I want to cater to you.
I really look forward to speaking with any and all of you. We can chat on here or even drop me an email at drbartle @ syr . edu (I spaced it out it didn't look right when I posted originally) - I'm always available for 'Cuse fans!!
If you need anything from me or just want to talk Syracuse sports shoot me an email. Take care for now Orange fans.
Let me start by saying I think it is great you are reaching out to the fanbase.
Some general comments:
On Uniforms...
At this point, I just want uniforms that feature the color orange. Go ahead, use duct tape all over the place, throw in some black, some camo shading and some spatters of blood. Just have some orange so there is a chance I can tell which team to root for.
On Scheduling...
I would like to see a good out of conference team on the home schedule every season. I am fine with playing an FCS school once a year as well.
Regarding conference play, I realize you can't control this but in case you were wondering, I am in favor of any change that will reduce the length of time between appearances at the Dome for conference opponents. That means I would like to see a 9 game conference schedule and changes to conference scheduling so you don't have to play all the schools in your division every year.
Food options in the Dome are horrible, but I don't care because I tailgate beforehand. But from my travels to other college venues, the Dome should add food options featuring prominent local foods. There should be Dino BBQ available, salt potatoes, coneys, spiedies, chicken riggies, half moons, etc.
It would be good to get more open space...why haven't you built an extension on the West side of the Dome to add big concourses on the lower and upper levels? The space and technology exist to do it. More bathrooms, more food choices, a place to walk bored children (maybe even a playroom for them), a sit down restaurant or two, a food court, tables and chairs, maybe a bar...there are lots of things that could be added.
On Tickets...
Everyone knows this is a huge mess. You charge season ticket holders full price for tickets and then constantly sell tickets for next to nothing close to gameday, when you desperately want to increase the number of tickets sold. That is a horrible business model...you are setting yourself up to discourage people from buying season tickets.
You do have (last I knew) two level of season tickets, the 'food stamp' cheapies in the end zone and the rest. I have no problem with the food stamps but you need to go further and have 4 or 5 sets of prices for season tickets. The gap between food stamps and the rest is too large; you are leaving money on the table by encouraging people to buy food stamp tickets or just to wait it out each game and buy the Groupon tickets at $10 per. And doing something like this might address the huge issue of all the silver in the areas between the goal lines and the the 30 yard lines on both sides of the stadium.
The most important thing right now is to get people in the Dome, to get it filled regularly. Price to make this happen. Give sizable discounts to people less than 30 years old. Give sizable discounts to seniors. Give sizable discounts to soldiers (market the hell out of Fort Drum). Market SU football as being family friendly (which it is) in all major cities in upstate NY, especially in Western NY, where families have to be appalled at the disgraceful behavior of fans at Bills games. Make SU games really family friendly by discounting ticket prices accordingly.
You have to give season ticket holders reasons to buy season tickets. I buy real season tickets every year and sit in my seats but a lot of my friends get in as cheaply as possible and sit right next to me. They think I am crazy to pay full price and to pay a licensing fee as well and they are right. This involves pricing incentives to be sure but there should be more.
Free access to the Cuse All Access web site, free parking at the not so great parking lots (say Skytop), a free download of the year in review video, a free subscription to the SU athletics magazine, an opportunity to attend a recruiting briefing on or near LOI Day, an opportunity to attend what used to be called the Ernie Davis scrimmage in the preseason, (they would have to pay to attend but they couldn't attend without being season ticket holders), maybe an opportunity to attend a BBQ with the players and coaches after the spring game (again they would have to pay but would need to be a season ticket holder to have access).
People aren't stupid. If you want them to change their behavior, give them some incentive to do so.
Miscellaneous...
Out of town scores are not being provided or updated well. With the new scoreboards, the method of delivery is there. No excuse to not do a better job on this.
You are not using the scoreboards well to provide statistics for the game. No reason live statistics can't be out there, visible to all, at least 33% of the time. Loop through a couple of screens worth to display all relevant stats. If you were to do this (and show out of town scores on them), people would actually look at the ribbon scoreboards more as they would be showing helpful/interesting information instead of a rotation of badly done boring ads no where cares about. I understand the need for ads...just saying when you show ads 95% of the time, you are actually acting to discourage fans from looking at them.
Again, props to you for reaching out. These problems have been around for many years and the university has done little to nothing to address them. If anything, they have made some of the problems worse. I hope you can drive some of the fundamental changes that need to be made to improve things.
