Econ 101

My first year at ND, I took a fun Econ course.  One of the few classes with more than 60-70 kids in it for my entire time at ND, it was a big survey course with 100+ in Debart.  It was also awesome.  No attendance, and the prof gave out a summary of the lesson before class.  Come in, grab a set of notes, sit for 10 minutes, take a ‘bathroom break’ and never return.  Cram, get an A, call it a day.

I sure hope Jack Swarbrick took that class, because we sure as hell know that Kevin White did not.

ND is facing the potential for its first non-sell-out game since 1973.  Why?  A bunch of factors, but in the end it’s simple economics – decreased demand and increased supply.

Demand is down for a bunch of reasons.  ND’s mediocre performance over 2 years?  Check.  Crappy economy and limited budgets? Check.  Of course, we can blame the first one on White since he hired Davieham and helped drive the program into the crapper.  We can’t really blame the 2nd on White, though it’d be great too – why’d you have to go out and buy a house you couldn’t afford Kevin???? And give out all those 0% loans to unqualified buyers as well?  And trade all those credit default swaps and short the market you #$&*(#&$(*&*(#?!?!?!?!?!?

I digress.  Anyway, demand is down.  Hopefully, the first part is being fixed by Weis this year (and I believe it is) and so demand will be pushed back up by that lever.  The second part?  Well, I hope it gets figured out and let’s leave it at that.

The flip side is true as well.  As White shifted to the 7-4-1 (which will, I kid you not, look like 7-2-3 by 2016) we got more home games.  Great, yay!  More money for us, more TV exposure, more control.  Great right?  Nope.  Why?  Why is this bad?  Primary reason:  brand erosion.  Look, I love ND football. I will never get enough of it.  But I freaking live halfway across the country.  If there are 15 home games, I can still only go to 1.  And I’m not going to leave my awesome couch and flat screen on a snowy day in November to see UCONN even if I’m just down the street.  I’d rather crack a beer and catch the action from the comfort of my own home.  There are a ton of reasons why people can’t/won’t go to games, and that means that adding more and more home games, at some point, no longer works.  Even for Notre Dame football, you can saturate the market.  Now if ND was playing some really intriguing matchups?  That’d help. If ND was winning Nat’l Championships?  That’d help too.  But right now, with what’s going on, it just don’t work.

And more importantly, regardless of those things, scarcity is a good thing.  The difficulty of getting an ND game ticket MAKES them more desirable.  It adds to the mystique.  It adds to that special feeling of snagging a ticket and getting into a game.  So hopefully all the levers get pulled and we get back to 1) Winning 2) Playing decent opponents 3) ACTUALLY playing home and homes and maxing out at 6 home games + 1 neutral and 4) the economy gets fixed.  Super tall order, but not at all unachievable.

Because that will ensure sell-outs. That will keep the Notre Dame mystique, the dream, and the economics that support it, alive and kicking.

Of course, ND will come up with a way to keep the sell-out streak going – they’ll sell tix to local charities for a penny or something – but if Swarbrick doesn’t fix some of what’s broken, they can only keep those charades up so long.