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TN VOLS fans coming to UCLA/Colorado game

Re: the RVs...
Growing up in Northern California, I went to quite a few Oregon games where we or friends RV'd in those really nice ones... pop-out rooms, TVs, so on. It seemed to work at Oregon because they have a big number of alumni in both Northern California and Seattle area, for whom renting an RV and making a long weekend of it fits pretty well.

For CU, it seems like fans either-

1) live in Denver Metro, and therefore day tripping the games makes sense, although later games (and stadium wide beer sales) make it less fun. Certainly some Denver metro fans spend the night.

2) live in Boulder County, so you just go home.

3) live in the Bay Area/East Coast/Texas or some other popular CU Alumni landing spot, and if you come to a game you fly.

Put more simply, our alumni seem (to me) to live within 2 hours or otherwise are a flight a way. We just don't have some big following in places that are the sweet spot for RVing... like a 4-6 hour drive. Not so say we couldn't have a few.

Going to the ASU game this weekend with a friend whose daughter is junior at CU now. He went to Oregon and did the RV thing to Eugene a few times.... He would have loved to do the RV this weekend.

For saturday games against non-FCS opponents, even when we sell 40-45k tickets, I aways feel like there's early and pretty robust tailgating around campus?
 
Gary Indiana said:
Yeah, because they’ve just been waiting up in the hills with their bags of money, holding out for the moment an RV lot was built for them.

Get real. You’ve made up an imaginary group of super donor/fans that is in no way based in reality.
Click to expand...

No they aren't a whole class of super donors but as mentioned before a lot of these RVs cost more than a typical house. It doesn't take a lot of them to add up to some worthwhile dollars.

If they are willing to spend $400,000+ on the RV plus all the accessories in addition to their tickets then it won't bother them to spend an extra $1000 or even $2000 a season to have a place to park it overnight for games. Get 50 of them and you start having enough money to make it worth doing.
 
You could just stay at the St Julien for a couple of nights for the same hassle and cost of bringing an RV in.
 
HighlandsBuff said:
Re: the RVs...
Growing up in Northern California, I went to quite a few Oregon games where we or friends RV'd in those really nice ones... pop-out rooms, TVs, so on. It seemed to work at Oregon because they have a big number of alumni in both Northern California and Seattle area, for whom renting an RV and making a long weekend of it fits pretty well.

For CU, it seems like fans either-

1) live in Denver Metro, and therefore day tripping the games makes sense, although later games (and stadium wide beer sales) make it less fun. Certainly some Denver metro fans spend the night.

2) live in Boulder County, so you just go home.

3) live in the Bay Area/East Coast/Texas or some other popular CU Alumni landing spot, and if you come to a game you fly.

Put more simply, our alumni seem (to me) to live within 2 hours or otherwise are a flight a way. We just don't have some big following in places that are the sweet spot for RVing... like a 4-6 hour drive. Not so say we couldn't have a few.

Going to the ASU game this weekend with a friend whose daughter is junior at CU now. He went to Oregon and did the RV thing to Eugene a few times.... He would have loved to do the RV this weekend.

For saturday games against non-FCS opponents, even when we sell 40-45k tickets, I aways feel like there's early and pretty robust tailgating around campus?
Click to expand...
Most people would agree with you. RVers are a different breed.

I have mapped out the concept of having a retirement home and a RV as one of two options. Why?

1) Spend the fall touring our amazing western US, with a single Saturday committed to football. Plus a single trip east for non-conference play
2) We would plan to spend winters and summers in the Colorado mountains, but in the spring during "mud season", we could venture to other parts of the U.S.

What is our alternative plan? Having a second home in a resort location, and renting it out in winter and summer, which is prime renting season. Our visits would be "shoulder season" for vacationers, but absolutely perfect revenue optimization for tourists in exotic locations such as Hawaii or the Caribbean/Central America. My math says we would make money on this investment, rather than it being an annual drag, provided we can make the purchase in the first place.

This is not meant to be a humble brag. I know my life is more than okay. I'm not at Pahi's level year in, year out, but hey! I can aspire to middle class consistently another time.

The point is, RVers are not exclusively meth heads and rednecks. I could never afford 90% of the RV rigs that get parked at Tiger Run RV Resort in Breckedridge. And yet, they push full occupancy winter, fall, and summer.
 
HighlandsBuff said:
Put more simply, our alumni seem (to me) to live within 2 hours or otherwise are a flight a way.
Click to expand...
This is spot on. I might amend it to "within 3 hours," but it's pretty accurate.

Draw a circle on a map that indicates a 3 hour drive to Boulder.

Now increase the size of that circle until you add another serious population center, let alone another population center with a large number of CU alumni.

My instinct is that your circle has to get to Phoenix or Dallas (honestly not sure which is closer) before you satisfy both "major population center" and "meaningful number of alumni."

And both of those cities are too ****ing far to drive for a "weekend trip to go to the game."

No, if you're an alumni and don't live within a 3 hour drive of Boulder, the odds are really high that if you go to the game, you're flying.
 
HighlandsBuff said:
Re: the RVs...
Growing up in Northern California, I went to quite a few Oregon games where we or friends RV'd in those really nice ones... pop-out rooms, TVs, so on. It seemed to work at Oregon because they have a big number of alumni in both Northern California and Seattle area, for whom renting an RV and making a long weekend of it fits pretty well.

For CU, it seems like fans either-

1) live in Denver Metro, and therefore day tripping the games makes sense, although later games (and stadium wide beer sales) make it less fun. Certainly some Denver metro fans spend the night.

2) live in Boulder County, so you just go home.

3) live in the Bay Area/East Coast/Texas or some other popular CU Alumni landing spot, and if you come to a game you fly.

Put more simply, our alumni seem (to me) to live within 2 hours or otherwise are a flight a way. We just don't have some big following in places that are the sweet spot for RVing... like a 4-6 hour drive. Not so say we couldn't have a few.

Going to the ASU game this weekend with a friend whose daughter is junior at CU now. He went to Oregon and did the RV thing to Eugene a few times.... He would have loved to do the RV this weekend.

For saturday games against non-FCS opponents, even when we sell 40-45k tickets, I aways feel like there's early and pretty robust tailgating around campus?
Click to expand...
I am perhaps the single exception but if you gave me a place to park an rv I would gladly come up there Friday and leave Sunday am. Sometimes with the family and sometimes with the fellas. And I live within two hours.

A morning without having to rush up ther is way better and two hours is a long drive home if you stop drinking at 9 and leave around 10:30 or 11pm. I get sober and sleepy
 
The thing that gets missed in all this is that we don't need to be talking about thousands of RVs to make this worthwhile.

Even if it is 50 or 100 we are talking about a group of people willing to pay for the privilege. Take a single parking lot or small area and turn it into an additional $100,000 in revenue or maybe double that for a season.

Sure it isn't millions but for an athletic department struggling to maintain non-revenue sports that kind of money is significant. That covers the travel budget for the golf team or the tennis team. It provides the seed money for coaches and/or equipment for another sport.

Add that these people do have money. Make their experience better and they are more liable to open the checkbook and make that bigger donation.

We arent' aTm or UT, we are a school were six figure revenue streams mean something. So we don't have 1,000 of them like some SEC schools. We maximize what we do have.
 
I’d be willing to bet I could get even non-CU fans to come to at least one or two games a year if they could bring their camper in on Friday and leave on Sunday. An excuse to drink for 3 days and watch colllege football and coeds without having to drive there or home on gameday or worry about paying for a hotel? Most Coloradans who have campers have them ready for use in the fall for hunting anyway, or can just keep it ready from summer camping if they aren’t hunters. Why not get a couple extra weekend uses out of it before you winterize?
 
Do you know how many people take RVs to the Bronco games, who live in the Denver metro area? My neighbor takes his RV to every home Bronco game, and we live in Littleton. There are a ton more just like him. My guess is that you'd get quite a few people to bring RVs to a CU game from Denver, although the party probably wouldn't start 2-3 days prior to kickoff.
 
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USC
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ASU
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Oregon
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UCLA
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Utah

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Penn State
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New Mexico
 
Gary Indiana said:
Yeah, because they’ve just been waiting up in the hills with their bags of money, holding out for the moment an RV lot was built for them.

Get real. You’ve made up an imaginary group of super donor/fans that is in no way based in reality.
Click to expand...
Conversely, you’ve discounted a group of potentially valuable donors/fans because you don’t think they exist when there is evidence to support the fact that they do.
 
Not Sure said:
Check the post directly above mine.
Click to expand...
The one that shows a few pictures of some RVs at non-CU events? I struggle to see the connection.

Honestly, build a parking lot where RVs can be parked. That’d be great and I’m sure some will take advantage of it. But don’t expect it to be anything remotely close to how SEC programs do it or having anyone come up 2-3 days prior to the game.
 
TSchekler said:
The one that shows a few pictures of some RVs at non-CU events? I struggle to see the connection.

Honestly, build a parking lot where RVs can be parked. That’d be great and I’m sure some will take advantage of it. But don’t expect it to be anything remotely close to how SEC programs do it or having anyone come up 2-3 days prior to the game.
Click to expand...
Our fans have jobs.
 
J.R. Ewing said:
Yes, but I'll be staying in a suite at the St Julien.
Click to expand...
Go to a Packers game and then it will be obvious you can do both. Everyone brings their campers up there since a ton of their fans travel from Milwaukee, Madison and Chicago and then they all stay at the local hotels/casinos or stay in the parking lots. It is a ton of fun.
 
Buffnik said:
Some of the things this trip report points out is exactly what we've been talking about in other threads:

1 - CU has some innate things going for it that are elite with the beauty of the campus, the beautiful setting, the great town and the Ralphie tradition.
2 - The stadium is configured great for sight lines (and, while not mentioned, noise level for a mid-sized stadium).
3 - Our tailgating scene is below par, but the move that was made with Franklin Field was a huge improvement. Particularly with doing the Ole Miss system of having a group that does setup and catering gear for the tents. Need the lots across the creek to come up and to develop an RV lot as part of our scene that could start partying a day or two before the game.
4 - Our amenities are lacking in terms of concessions, team stores, etc.

The game day experience could be the best in the country if RG can pull off what he has planned. So much to build upon that no one else has.
Click to expand...


I thought the stadium was great! Tons of character. I love the buildings in the North end zone with people watching from the roof. I also like how the field house is attached to it and keeps some of the old days involved.

Tailgating you do have a long ways to go, but I love the spot on the practice field. My kids would love playing football for hours before the game. Tennessee just started an organized tailgate area 7-8 years ago. It makes it easier but ours isn't very big. Our campus is landlocked by the river so we have no where to expand, thus people are tailgating on any little piece of grass or parking lot they can find. It was a Friday game, so I understand that. I'm sure Saturday's are better.
 
TSchekler said:
The one that shows a few pictures of some RVs at non-CU events? I struggle to see the connection.

Honestly, build a parking lot where RVs can be parked. That’d be great and I’m sure some will take advantage of it. But don’t expect it to be anything remotely close to how SEC programs do it or having anyone come up 2-3 days prior to the game.
Click to expand...
I don’t think we are that far off, actually. Yes, build an RV lot. Have hookups. Don’t build a huge one until you know you have the demand for it. Start at maybe 25-30 pads and see how it works. The point being we aren’t doing anything right now.

Nobody ever claimed we would generate SEC level support. I’m not sure where that non-sequitur came from.
 
I have tailgated in an RV before - It's actually a pain in the ass. It is great once set up, but fighting the traffic in and out, just isn't worth it. Unless? You can get there either a day early or at the crack of dawn - then stay the night and leave the next morning. It is truly a 3 day event minimum just getting it ready and un-ready.
 
TSchekler said:
The one that shows a few pictures of some RVs at non-CU events? I struggle to see the connection.

Honestly, build a parking lot where RVs can be parked. That’d be great and I’m sure some will take advantage of it. But don’t expect it to be anything remotely close to how SEC programs do it or having anyone come up 2-3 days prior to the game.
Click to expand...
Get a real Lacrosse stadium built and you can expand the current RV parking by the law building to include Kittridge Field. No "building" required. Just change the current RV parking rules to allow them to come in the day prior and leave the day after. It would be awesome for RVers.
 
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