Remember that column we wrote last month about the University of South Carolina’s incredible vanishing student section?
Looks like someone was paying attention …
According to The Garnet Report, “new initiatives have been put into place by the University of South Carolina’s Athletics Department to answer the ongoing conversation of the student section and overall enjoyment at USC football games.”
In other words the school is looking for ways to keep student “butts in seats” at Williams-Brice Stadium beyond halftime … which has been when the Gamecocks’ “homefield advantage” heads for the exits of late.
Specifically, the school says it is improving its shuttle service to and from games, reducing the price of bottled water in the fourth quarter (to $1), speeding up concession purchases for students who use school-issued debit cards and – perhaps most importantly – assigning loyalty points to students who stay through the end of the football game.
“After the alma mater is over, as students are leaving they will be given a ticket that will be worth loyalty points,” USC marketing director Josh Waters told The Garnet Report. “On the Monday and Tuesday following the game, our marketing staff will be on Greene Street in front of Russell House from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. scanning those tickets and transferring a certain amount of loyalty points onto the students’ CarolinaCards.”
The changes will go into effect for this weekend’s home game against Kentucky – when the No. 12/13 Gamecocks (3-1, 1-1 SEC) put the nation’s third-longest home winning streak on the line.
18 comments
I think the defensive secondary has already figured out how to keep the fans in the seat. Just look at their performance during the second half of the last two games.
HA! nice wigs …
what defensive secondary? Fire Lorenzo Ward yesterday…he should never have been hired.
Pretty pathetic they have to bribe them to stay.
The school administrators need to review their history, the pols of Rome knew that you had to give away the bread and circuses for next to nothing if they were going to stay in power.
Of course, inflation doesn’t help either…and they haven’t figured out a way to roll USC tickets into gov’t backed student loans yet…so there’s that.
Here is a thought, if the students do not want to stay, move a portion of the student section to the upper deck and sell the lower section tickets to fans who will pay to sit closer to the field. They will stay for the whole game.
Or just take away a chunk of the student section. If they are not sufficiently interested in the game to stay for the entire thing, maybe they just don’t need to go.
How about cut the game time down to less than three hours? Most anyone gets bored with ten minute intervals with only one minute of actual play.
This, combined with IPTAY cost increases every year, fuel costs increasing every year, the fact that the distance from Charleston to Clemson increased in distance every year and the advent of HDTV and the birth of two sons…..is why TBG usually can be found Saturday afternoons in his livingroom with a cold beer and a warm bathroom 20 feet away…Now it’s a 4 hour game that should be 3 hours…instead of a 15 to 30 hour ordeal.
This, combined with our adult kids showing up at the tailgate 30 minutes before gametime despite our tailgate being ready hours earlier, same kids not assisting with the fold-up/pack-up after the game, six season ticket costs that go up every year, and Saturdays that become another workday during football season, is why we gave it up 4 years ago.
No gnats in my wine or drink, no sweaty polo shirts by 10:00 a.m, having a chair roomy enough for me to move around in, and the food is either hot or cold, depending on choice.
Oh, and no visiting fans directly in front of my seat that I want to “bitch slap” before halftime.
Here is an idea. Start by giving the students the best seats in the house!! Then, make sure that all students who wish to attend actually get a ticket.
No doubt. At 20k a year where 91% have student loans and only 51% graduate…let them see the big screen TV, give them more seats, and drive them to the games. They are paying the bills, not the season ticket holders.
But if you leave early, you can still get a booth at a bar in 5-Points. If you stay, you’re standing in line outside waiting to get in. Students are at games for the social aspect, not for the actual game.
Students?!? There are students at USC? Damn! All this time I though it was a real estate company……..
lulz..loyalty points.
Seems like Sakerlina had no problems with student attendance during their many decades of football suckituge.
TBG, for one, suggests a return to football suckituge as the solution to this issue.
One of the great things about having our seats on the 45 of the East stands was that we were a part of the Student and Faculty section. Now, there are too many drunk alumni and not enough drunk professors and students. The East stands NEED TO BE FOR THE SCHOOL, the way my dad designed it.
So they want students to stay in the stands the whole game. LOL…. Well, they need to start making it “COOL” to stay. Duke makes it “cool” for Cameroon Indoor. The kicker is that most bars and restaurants will be spitting nails if the students don’t come to party. This is all about “security awareness”. We wonder what the drunk driving metrics are for football season. It would seem that the school is trying to be proactive. How many fine tailgaters in luxury RV’s and “pep tents” want drunk whackos wandering the exterior stadium “plaza”. This is ALL about money……….