Despite a decline in attendance at Ryan Field in Evanston last year, Wildcat sports officials say football season-ticket sales are up dramatically for this year.
Crain’s Chicago Business quotes officials as saying season-ticket sales are up 58 percent for Northwestern University’s games, even though prices are also up by $2 to $3.50 a ticket.
Average attendance was down 8 percent last year to 33,442 — which leaves a lot of unsold seats in the 47,130-seat stadium.
But that was still up 38 percent from 2009 levels.
Officials are crediting the school’s “Chicago’s Big Ten Team” ad campaign and success on the field for the ticket sales improvement.
The increase is attributable to the schedule
Nebraska will bring a ton of fans and their most rabid fans historically have purchased season tickets to the cheapest, closest conference teams to ensure a spot in the stadium on gameday. Iowa State and Kansas State probably had almost as many Nebraska season ticket holders as they did home fan season ticket holders in years they played Nebraska. I would not be too quick to attribute this to marketing just yet.