2023 OOC Games - You get what you pay (or don't pay for)

[Goldendawg]

Just printed our 2023 season tickets, ticket costs:
Memphis - $35 (competitive game at times)
Bowling Green - $30
East Tn State - $25

How in the world does MSU make any $ on these games? Also will draw mediocre "crowds" and there is sometimes a question of is it even worth the cost of a trip to Starkville to play these type teams. I know long term scheduling is tough and future SEC scheduling a ? due to adding TX and OK, but couldn't we play a couple of teams with more of a pulse? Our family of 50 plus years of season tickets would gladly pay more to play better OOC games. JMO. Hail State!

[CaptainObvious]

I guess it depends on if you would prefer competitive P5 OOC games that you have a 50/50 chance in, or 75% guaranteed wins. A program like MSU with an overall historical losing record in football who only has an SEC winning record against Vanderbilt, has to take this games. If you like winning and you love MSU, you will attend these home games like they are against Texas or Oklahoma, more than like guaranteed losses. Your choice. Stay home or support your Bulldogs. How many empty seats do you see at Notre Dame when they play Navy?

[Goldendawg]

I guess it depends on if you would prefer competitive P5 OOC games that you have a 50/50 chance in, or 75% guaranteed wins. A program like MSU with an overall historical losing record in football who only has an SEC winning record against Vanderbilt, has to take this games. If you like winning and you love MSU, you will attend these home games like they are against Texas or Oklahoma, more than like guaranteed losses. Your choice. Stay home or support your Bulldogs. How many empty seats do you see at Notre Dame when they play Navy?

We have gone to all home games and a few road/bowl games for decades, but a lot don't and won't. The stadium is half empty by early 3rd quarter in most of the games. I'm not talking about picking up ND, USCw, Clemson, etc, but someone we should beat that is better than these type teams and brings more interest in the contest. Do we make $ selling $25 to $35 tickets to a 2/3 full house at the beginning of the game?

[Maroonthirteen]

First, State already doesn't sell all its inventory. Raise prices anymore, the place will be very empty. But to answer your question, State athletics made $22 million profit in 2021. State makes plenty of money.

As for who we play. I get the FCS opponents being uninteresting but Memphis and bowling green are good match ups. State should always mix in Memphis Tulane or USM with the sec schedule. State sorely needs to market to desoto county/Memphis.

However I think the stadium being 3/4 full and empty at half has more to do with tv and peoples entertainment options than the opponent on the field.

[Dawgology]

These are the games in which I will purchase cheap tickets and a couple gridiron passes from some awesome person on this board.

[viverlibre]

As our conference schedule is so brutal, I'd rather play the weakest opponent OOC conference possible and have a 95% chance of winning than play Oklahoma State and have a 50/50 chance of wining (although it would likely be a much better game).

[Homedawg]

We have gone to all home games and a few road/bowl games for decades, but a lot don't and won't. The stadium is half empty by early 3rd quarter in most of the games. I'm not talking about picking up ND, USCw, Clemson, etc, but someone we should beat that is better than these type teams and brings more interest in the contest. Do we make $ selling $25 to $35 tickets to a 2/3 full house at the beginning of the game?

Someone we should beat? We lost to Memphis last year.... season tickets is where the money is.... and yes ours are down this year.

[PGHBulldogBG]

I don?t mind playing these teams at home, but it drives me crazy playing non power 5 teams on the road with the exception of USM. We should never be playing Troy, South Alabama, Memphis, UAB etc on the road. That is a recipe for disaster. I like mixing in teams like Kansas State, NC State, Texas Tech middle of the road power 5 teams. Not a top power 5 team though like Ok State who is usually 2nd or 3rd in their conference behind OU and Baylor. I like playing the Arizona teams although I hope they don?t sneak up and beat us at their place real late at night.

[Goldendawg]

Someone we should beat? We lost to Memphis last year.... season tickets is where the money is.... and yes ours are down this year.

I mentioned Memphis as competitive at times in my first post and I know we make $ yearly from sports. Am wondering if these type games at ticket prices from $25 to $35 add much to the bottom line.

[confucius say]

Someone we should beat? We lost to Memphis last year.... season tickets is where the money is.... and yes ours are down this year.

Any idea if rest of league is down? Just wondering how we compare.

[viverlibre]

I don?t mind playing these teams at home, but it drives me crazy playing non power 5 teams on the road with the exception of USM. We should never be playing Troy, South Alabama, Memphis, UAB etc on the road. That is a recipe for disaster. I like mixing in teams like Kansas State, NC State, Texas Tech middle of the road power 5 teams. Not a top power 5 team though like Ok State who is usually 2nd or 3rd in their conference behind OU and Baylor. I like playing the Arizona teams although I hope they don?t sneak up and beat us at their place real late at night.

Concur, we should never play a lower level team at their home stadium, including USM.

[Johnson85]

Just printed our 2023 season tickets, ticket costs:
Memphis - $35 (competitive game at times)
Bowling Green - $30
East Tn State - $25

How in the world does MSU make any $ on these games? Also will draw mediocre "crowds" and there is sometimes a question of is it even worth the cost of a trip to Starkville to play these type teams. I know long term scheduling is tough and future SEC scheduling a ? due to adding TX and OK, but couldn't we play a couple of teams with more of a pulse? Our family of 50 plus years of season tickets would gladly pay more to play better OOC games. JMO. Hail State!

We have one of the toughest schedules in the country, year in and year out, and this year it will be what, top 5 SOS? Are you really upset that there might be four of five teams with harder schedules than us?

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Concur, we should never play a lower level team at their home stadium, including USM.

We should never play USM at Hattiesburg in any sport.

[Coach34]

Its all about the money

Playing TooLame, the Nasty Bunch, UAB, etc costs a million or more now at the very least. Mid P5's like us dont want to play another game they may lose which hurts their bottom line. Why would Indiana play Home and Home with us when they can get some doorknob to play their 2 years in a row?

[Todd4State]

We have one of the toughest schedules in the country, year in and year out, and this year it will be what, top 5 SOS? Are you really upset that there might be four of five teams with harder schedules than us?

I was about to say our schedule was ranked like one of if not the toughest in the country. That's life in the SEC.

Some of our fans want to see these teams like Clemson and Ohio State or whoever. But if you look at our schedule we're playing the two teams that played for the National Championship last year.

We play people like NC State and that didn't really draw much better than La Tech.

Being in the SEC I don't see the point in playing a killer OOC schedule. I would rather play 9 SEC games and drop the mandatory P5 game. I always disliked the fact that the SEC told us how to schedule because Georgia, Florida, and Clemson want to play Georgia Tech, Clemson, and Florida State in their rivalry games. I'll be honest I would rather watch us play USM, Memphis, Tulane, or UAB than Arizona. I may be in the minority on that but USM and Memphis are mini-rivals depending on whether you are a MSU fan in the north or Jackson/south Mississippi. Tulane is an old SEC rival- some of those games we have played against them have been pretty memorable. I'm pretty bummed we're not playing them in 2023. UAB has a lot of MSU connections from alumni who go to medical or grad school there to former MSU coaches like Polk, Shoop, Watson Brown, etc. who coached there.

I wish our FCS opponent was always either Jackson State, Alcorn, or Mississippi Valley. When we played JSU or Alcorn those games were always a little more fun than our typical game against Stephen F Austin.

I could care less about the other 1-2 OOC games as long as it is a winnable game for us.

[PGHBulldogBG]

Not a non conference situation but I really don?t like the way SEC scheduling can be done. We are now playing UGA for the 3rd time since 2017 while Ole Miss has not had to play them once. Basically, we have been getting them almost every other year. I feel like Ole Miss should have to play them 3 times now before we have to play them again

[Jack Lambert]

When you are getting 40 million plus a year from the SEC you can sell seats cheap.

[Offshore Dawg]

When you are getting 40 million plus a year from the SEC you can sell seats cheap.

This is the bottom line folks !!!!

[Todd4State]

When you are getting 40 million plus a year from the SEC you can sell seats cheap.

It is past time for MSU to adopt Wal Mart economics of cheaper prices to get more net buyers with football.

[Johnson85]

It is past time for MSU to adopt Wal Mart economics of cheaper prices to get more net buyers with football.

The problem is we have a lot of people that are paying a lot of money for tickets. Hard to offer cheap tickets without giving up revenue from the people that are paying the current price.

[TheLostDawg]

I mentioned Memphis as competitive at times in my first post and I know we make $ yearly from sports. Am wondering if these type games at ticket prices from $25 to $35 add much to the bottom line.

You have to add the donation in there if you really want to know how much the tickets worth.
When Texas OU comes in the schedule will change. We're either going to need the easy games or be able to afford playing another power 5. We'll see if ACC, BIG 12, pac12 figures things out. May have the upper hand and be a lot better than most power 5 teams pretty soon.