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How much money does Folsom & Boulder get from gamedays?

BuffaloChuck

Member
Anyone want to guess dollar-amounts for the money that changes hands in and around Folsom, its concessionaires, ticket sales, logo sales, all the cafés and hotel space for each game?

Boulder Chamber Of Commerce probably has soft numbers that hit the million-dollar mark. I suspect 'hard dollar' values would be less than half that, but $250,000? $500,000?

I was reading that Norman and OK-City project that $10-15 million are brought into locals during the Sooners' games. I usually halve those numbers automatically and start degrading them on specifics after that.

How much does Folsom claim is their average dollar-take for each person in a seat (excluding tix price alone)? $50 is pretty small. $100 is likely the better average.

While we're talking about coaching buy-outs and "it's too expensive", do some rough guesses and look what game-day revenue generations are like. $3 million gets absorbed pretty quickly.
 
Good questions. Hopefully someone can find the answers.

The dollars per spectator math is pretty easy. Let's say that we have lower attendance numbers next year based on fan dissatisfaction. Let's also say that part of that is a reduction in the number of season ticket holders, which means they lose the donations that come from those. Let's also say that a lot of promotions have to be done in order to put fannies in the seats. Together, let's say that it equates to 5,000 fewer people per game and each person was valued at $100 per game. That's $500,000 in lost revenue x 6 (plus probably some additional lost for the CSU Mile High game).

That right there is over $3 million dollars that pays for the Hawkins buyout before even considering what the program would stand to lose in reduced merchandise sales and reduced donations. And it also doesn't factor in that it's hard to get customers back once you've lost them, so a poorly attended 2010 would mean that 2011 would likely also be somewhat down even with a new coach (so another couple million lost there too).

P.S. If Bohn told us that he was going to need to add a $10 surcharge to non-student tickets next year in order to cover the buyout, I'm pretty sure no one would bat an eye. 40,000 x $10 = $400k x 6 = $2.4 MM.
 
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excluding tickets, $100??? NO way. Tailgaters bring their own. Maybe $10 a head, maybe.

A more interesting number would be what is CU's take vs. the companies who have the contracts for concessions. I'm sure that's where your going and the bottom line is the state doesn't make decisions based on how much revenue lost their may be to Joe Merchant on Pearl Street. They don't care and either do I.
 
buffaholic said:
excluding tickets, $100??? NO way. Tailgaters bring their own. Maybe $10 a head, maybe.
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I thought he meant ticket price + other stuff (parking, food, donation attached to season tix, merchandise) = $100 profit to CU per spectator. Except for the students, that seems about right to me.
 
buffaholic said:
excluding tickets, $100??? NO way. Tailgaters bring their own. Maybe $10 a head, maybe.
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I mean EVERYTHING. Consider the economic impact of it all - I mentioned "cafés" in there. Just think of the fewer and fewer travelers - those folks can spend $500 a trip, easily.

Where do tailgaters spend THEIR money? And what about those merchants getting less and less?

When I'm talking "economic impact" of a home-football game, you've already seen some rudimentary calculations that scream "$3 MILLION IS NUTHIN'".

How much do you spend on tailgating per game? $50? And everyone else out there?

All of that is given to some merchant. When you stop going, how are THEY impacted?

As said before, one question that begs to be asked, "How can CU Football afford NOT to have a good coach and staff?"
 
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The tailgate parking pass costs about $400/Yr. Add in the beer, food, condiments, plates, utensils, etc, and that's easily another $400/yr. just from our tailgate alone.
 
I know in many game-day cities, they have a local TV channel carrying a 'tailgate party' pre-game coverage, going over coach and team interviews from both sides, plus chatting with fans - the "man on the street" style except in parking lots. That's a LOT of albeit only-local TV time, but there are commercials galore from all of those merchants. The TV station benefits hugely from those, and the local merchants probably feel they get a fair return on their ad dollar.

Some of those fans will spend $1,000 per game on the tailgate event (hopefully a good portion of that is recouped from donations, friends' chipping in or the sense of 'great new friends they make' all the time.

Denver Chamber Of Commerce suggests that a $3-5 million game-day economic impact would be "tiny, miniscule" and twice as much would be a 'low estimate' for CU Football in Boulder and the region.

Then consider "10% lower crowds, 20% lower crowds" and therefore the dollar impact starts reaching hundreds of thousands, or the half-million or more level quickly. Do that for six games a season and consider the "it's too costly to replace a bad coach" argument.

Anyone see the Neinas YouTube video?
 
As far as a lot of Denver Metro businesses are concerned, it's really a 7 game annual home slate with the CSU game played at Mile High.
 
The problem is, all this rhetoric by itself won't compell the powers that be to do anything until they actually look out and see it happen. That's my gut feeling. Until Bohn and Distifano look out at Folsom on a Saturday afternoon and see 20,000 in the stands. Until enrollment figures actually start to drop.

That's the double-edge sword of being a top ranked party school and being close to skiing. Rich east coast kids and Californians will still want to come here.

Until then, they'll just keep seeing how long they can milk us suckers. They're the Monforts of college sports.....
 
BuffaloChuck said:
How much money does Folsom & Boulder get from gamedays?
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Well.....let's see.....take the 17 fans that show up to the game and times it by the regular ticket price of $2.75 per ticket and an old gum ball......

Your school makes $96.75 every saturday :smile2:
 
Kameltosis said:
Well.....let's see.....take the 17 fans that show up to the game and times it by the regular ticket price of $2.75 per ticket and an old gum ball......

Your school makes $96.75 every saturday :smile2:
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Corn puts up all of 20 against Baylor and comes here talking trash. F*** Off! You still have Watson calling your plays!:smile2:
 
Kameltosis said:
Well.....let's see.....take the 17 fans that show up to the game and times it by the regular ticket price of $2.75 per ticket and an old gum ball......

Your school makes $96.75 every saturday :smile2:
Click to expand...

LOL, that's really funny all things considered.

Seriously, the Boulder Chamber of Commerce should have the numbers regarding the economic impact that a Buff game has on the local economy.

They have a pretty good web site with links to the Boulder Economic Council and, the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

http://www.boulderchamber.com/

Someone who lives in the Boulder area could make a phone call or stop in and visit them. I bet they would fall all over themselves to provide that kind of information. Could be interesting to find out what information they have.
 
Kameltosis said:
Well.....let's see.....take the 17 fans that show up to the game and times it by the regular ticket price of $2.75 per ticket and an old gum ball......

Your school makes $96.75 every saturday :smile2:
Click to expand...

So 17 x $2.75 = $96.75?

You're either one helluva gumball salesman or a complete dumbass.
 
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