Before we dive deep into a rant that’s been brewing since I walked into Notre Dame Stadium this past Saturday, let’s get one thing straight right now: I do not blame this loss on a lack of home field advantage. In fact, I am in agreement with Jimmy G’s statement to that fact earlier this morning. However, I do not agree with him in that I simply need to get over it.
Bottom line, I absolutely do care about how many folks donning red and black we allowed to waltz into Notre Dame stadium and I’m mad as hell about it.
Yes, I did every bit of text formatting I could on “allowed” for good reason. Hell, if the blink tag was still a thing, it would be on there too. For all the bitching and moaning that we as Irish fans do here on HLS, the internet at large, or directly at the heavens to no one in particular, we completely failed as a fanbase at the one thing we can actually control: keeping opposing fans out.
Yes, Notre Dame ditched their once super-strict resale policy for a secondary market partnership, making resale kosher. I don’t care. I can understand tickets being resold here and there, but this hit such an inexcusable critical mass in the name of making a buck. Something like the below should never come out of an opposing coach’s mouth.
Kirby Smart was asked about his defense. He said something real quick and then said all this about the crowd. #NDInsider pic.twitter.com/bmkpLKvu7n
— Tyler James (@TJamesNDI) September 10, 2017
By the way, feel free to replace “SEC” with any school that has a true home field advantage. You know the ones. The stadiums that rock so hard announcers will lay out and pump in nothing but a few seconds of the home crowd losing their minds and, when they do try to talk, they and their production team struggle to keep their volume coming through clearly on your TV.
You know what every single one of those home crowds has in common? FANS OF THE HOME TEAM ACTUALLY OUTNUMBER THE VISITING FANS BY A HUGE MARGIN.
I cannot believe this is somehow a hard concept to grasp, but here we are. And the excuses for this…oh man, let’s just start going through these struggles in logic:
Notre Dame sucks and I refuse to go until they start winning/BK is fired/<insert some other dumb thing about the Irish potentially losing here>.
Don’t buy the ticket in the first place?
Seriously, no one is twisting your arm here. If you are upset with the current state of the program, and maaaaaaaan have the Irish given you some ammo to be mad as hell recently, then fine. Don’t buy a ticket.
I mean, what message are you sending if you resell your ticket? One of three things will happen: an Irish fan takes your seat, the opponent takes your seat, or no one takes your seat. The vacant seat is the least likely option here, but the one that actually sends the strongest message that you are mad as hell.
I can’t believe I’m about to type this, but the best way to try and guarantee a vacant seat is to not buy the damn ticket in the first place. Otherwise, you’ve paid Notre Dame some form of a donation to have the rights to buy your season tickets or to have a chance to buy a ticket through the alumni ticket lottery and then you actually buy the thing. You’ve literally lined ND’s pockets twice–potentially three times if you used the official ND ticket exchange.
Sure showed them who’s boss.
It’s not like this was some late-November game that has single tickets released for public sale (aka available without a donation of some kind). This massive resale came from our own alumni and season ticket holders who had to take multiple steps just to have the chance to get this ticket. If there is such a thing as a premeditated murder of home field advantage, this was it.
Season tickets/tickets in general are expensive, the prices for them went up this season, and now I’ve recouped or need to try and recoup my cost.
Of all excuses, this is the only one I’ll list that may actually make some kind of sense. And then I start to think “well, if they are so prohibitively expensive and you need to sell a game or two to keep it in the budget what the hell are you doing?!” or “wait, hold on, you couldn’t find an Irish fan willing to pay over face value?!” and I get mad as hell all over again.
Look, I’m actually with you on the ticket price increase rage. It’s part of the reason that I planned to not go to any Notre Dame games this year as to buying a house and having another kid on the way kinda kills the budget. This year, the cost increase was too much to justify going to any game that I was actually excited about. No worries, I’ll stay home and go next year.
A stoke of luck in my local alumni club lottery, plus a ton of travel points, were the only way I could realistically afford the journey this time around. Now, if I didn’t have the means to travel and still had those tickets land in my lap, I would’ve made sure that they were recirculated within my club or found their way into the hands of another Irish fan.
This might be the only thing I am actually old-school on when it comes to ND football. Yes, I know what the “smart business” decision is in terms of a bottom line, but I don’t see a ND tickets as some kind of stock that might help me turn a profit. There’s enough profiteering around college sports these days and at least my alma mater will throw it into new non-football related buildings for academics or student life. You know, kinda like the ones literally attached to the stadium!
So feel free to call me old-fashioned if I get a sleazy feeling in my gut if even a fleeting thought of reselling one of my tickets creeps into my head.
Honestly, this leads all basically to the next excuse…
Screw ND–they are trying to profit off of me, so I will profit off of them.
To reiterate, in order to resell a ticket, a donation to the University and a payment to the University for the ticket need to be made. If you are willing to die on this hill, you’ve already been shot in the head. If you resold via the official ND ticket exchange, your corpse has been set on fire.
Allow me to put this another way since I already made the above point earlier: if you truly believe ND is money grabbing, how in the blue hell is reselling your ticket going to stop the practice you despise?
This reminds me of the “backlash” Jerry Jones received here in Dallas when he introduced Personal Seat Licenses (PSLs) for the right to purchase season tickets for the Dallas Cowboys in 2009 to coincide with their new stadium. Sports radio had all the hot takes about how this was just one step too far and removed the common fan from the game. By God, people just weren’t going to renew this time around.
PSLs still exist for the Cowboys. Financing is available. It’s almost like Jerry never got the message for some reason. Weird.
That sea of red sent a message to Swarbrick and the administration of ND. I hate the field turf. I hate the jumbotron. I hate the Crossroads. None of that creates a home field advantage.
Notre Dame fans go full hypocrite by becoming the same thing so many of them accused ND of being with the Crossroads project: complete sell-outs.
Message received. Collective ass shown. Rest of the nation can’t unsee nor do they want to. This is mana from the heavens for anyone outside the ND bubble.
There was another message received loud and clear. This one was delivered to the fans that did show the hell up, to the student section, to the players on the field, and potentially even to the recruits that were visiting: there’s a rather sizable group of alumni and season ticket holders that care more about dollar signs than supporting a team they supposedly care about.
By the way, that message doesn’t disappear when a new coach walks the sidelines, a new athletic director takes the helm, or even when ticket prices inevitably change again. We still remember the first Sea of Red and we won’t forget the second one.
You want to make a statement of protest? Stay home. Empty seats speak volumes.
You want Notre Dame Stadium to sound like this again? Show the hell up and keep the tickets in the family. Oh, and scream like hell while you’re in Rock’s House because winning alone won’t magically create decibels.
- Epilogue - January 3, 2022
- HLS Podcast Finale - January 2, 2022
- The Final Fiesta: Notre Dame vs Oklahoma State NCAA ’14 Sim - December 31, 2021
jdthom1
I’m with you on each of those reasons you laid out being BS, and I agree the recouping the cost argument is the strongest. But as to the point about profiting – why does there have to be some nefarious, vengeful or spiteful reason to want to make a profit? Of course ND is trying to make money off its AD. NCAA prohibitions on players’ earnings aside, there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s also nothing wrong with some folks cashing in who already have tickets and suddenly there’s an opportunity to turn a 1,000% profit. Maybe those folks had medical bills to pay, maybe they wanted to take their family on a nice vacation, maybe they lost their job and were behind on their mortgage. That’s their business and there’s nothing currently in place to keep them from doing that.
It’s ND’s responsibility to ensure home field advantage. That that many Georgia fans got in to a newly rennovated Notre Dame Stadium for a night game against a quality opponent was embarrassing, for sure. But playing games like this means some of them will turn into “vacation games.” As long as the secondary market is there, some college football fans are going to shell out thousands to make a road trip like that once a year for their team. The internet has taken ticket scalping to a new level and the venues have done nothing in 20 years to stop it. It’s the same if you want to go to a Pearl Jam concert or a show on Broadway. My idea, which I posted in a comment last week over on OFD, is to have the venues include a “deposit” in the purchase price, which is paid to the ticket holder when the ticket gets scanned. This could eliminate the secondary market. So for the USC game, if a ticket face price is $100, but “market value” (i.e., what it’s selling for on secondary market) is $200, a $100 deposit is paid by the purchaser. Then whoever uses the ticket would get that $100 deposit via a voucher when the ticket is scanned at the stadium. ND makes the same money, but reduces any incentive to sell on the secondary market. They would basically be charging you more for the ticket in the first place, but then turning around and paying you to use it. The venue would have to monitor the conditions and adjust the deposit periodically (it’s a far from perfect idea) all the way up until kickoff when they would just be trying to ensure a sellout. Sure this sounds like a lot of work but if the venues don’t do it, the secondary market will do it for them, and then you get Saturday. I’m sure season ticket holders who are trying to keep the tickets in their families, would be pretty upset about the deposit increasing their up front payment amount, but they’re the ones you want to stop selling their damn tickets anyway.
Sorry for the absurdly long comment but I’m upset about the game too and these secondary market conditions have made it all but impossible to get to a decent game. The current system is keeping out plenty of ND fans who would have been thrilled to be there and would have remarkably changed the noise level and environment. The hell of it is ND is not even the one profiting, its season ticket holders are.
Ryan Ritter
Well, ND has tried to block the secondary market before and failed. This year (and I was shocked to discover this), they basically have their own sanctioned ticket exchange. So it’s open season and that genie won’t be going back in the bottle.
I understand the reality of the situation and there’s no real solution to kill the secondary market. In fact, I wouldn’t want that to happen because I have been able to get into ND games thanks to it.
What shocks me is just how many people coughed up their tickets once they saw the dollar signs and then later down the road will complain that the stadium just isn’t loud enough. Those folks can’t have it both ways.
jdthom1
There is a solution to kill the secondary market and that’s to start charging more up front and eliminate the need for one. The “deposit” idea is just a way to soften the blow since ND apparently isn’t really interested in making more profit off ticket sales, but in getting fans in seats. I do realize this wouldn’t kill it completely since there’s always last minute changes in circumstances but it would substantially limit it, not having people buying tickets weeks in advance except through ND.
Also if there’s a concern to prioritize faculty, employees and alumni, why not require ID like they do for students? That might mean fewer get sold, but it could hold prices down for those folks. Don’t want to go through the trouble of getting ID? Want to retain right to sell or transfer? Wait until public sale and pay more $. Requiring the “deposit” with the original ticket purchase still grants ND some control in who it sells to.
ed
make the ticket goer show up w/ the credit card of the purchaser to scan at the gate like they do for the final four games ie. flash seats.
Blammm
As long as the lottery (and the associated minimum contribution to the University) remain, the Administration should require lottery winners to present ID on a football weekend to get their ticket at a will call or to enter the stadium (either/or).
They make the student section present an ID (which makes it more difficult to sell student tickets). Students are far less likely to try to profit off of a game IMO. Why not treat general admission fans the same way?
Ryan Ritter
While it sounds good in theory, that would be a logistical nightmare. Plus, you still want to be able to transfer ownership of tickets without having to jump through ridiculous hoops.
I have a monogram lottery application, so my friends know I have a high win rate, but being in Texas travel doesn’t make a lot of sense for every game. I’ve happy applied on their behalf and sent over tickets at face value if I won them. A crazy ID check would kill that.
Blammm
Part of the problem is alums putting in for more than they need in order to make sure that they can go to one weekend. While you personally might only resell to alums, I’m sure that there are ND alums who sold their tickers (or even resold your secondary market tickets) to their Georgia alum coworkers, family, friends, etc.
And the Monogram tickets are some of the worst in the stadium if your name is not Haley Scott DeMaria. I went to three games in a row (both home and away) when Monogram Club put me in the last two rows in a designated Monogram Club section. I’m not going to buy directly from ND if that’s what they’re delivering. Would rather watch on a TV and actually see what’s going on.
Ryan Ritter
There absolutely are and the stadium was evidence of that. In the end, our fans need to make the decision to defend home field. I’d wager UGA fans aren’t going to be as willing to part with their tickets when the script is filled soon.
Blammm
The “down in front” crowd isn’t concerned about “defending home field”. They want an experience with (or even worse, for) their friends and family, regardless of whether they can help give ND an on-field advantage.
Rob Snyder
But there is a group right here in town that could be monitored more closely. Faculty and staff don’t have to pay the extra building fund costs. In that way they are like students, so why not have to present their ND id?The Georgia tickets didn’t make it to the general public, they had to be bought by “insiders”. Low cost of entry for these folks, who shouldn’t be selling out their employer. Their tickets are a privilege, not a right, and should be administered as such.
justin koehler
I couldn’t agree more. I miss the days of Holtz when the fans cared and were loud. I am a proud subway alum from New York that has been asked to keep it down or to sit down in that stadium more than I can count. I’m not surprised there was another sea of red. Oklahoma in 2013 was no prize either. I see more spirited crowds when I see the Irish play at the meadowlands or soldier field. It’s a joke and I don’t see it ending anytime soon .
ecall
For one thing ND gave Georgia 8,000 tickets, way too many in my opinion. I guess that was the price of enticing Georgia to venture north of the Mason-Dixon line. I was sitting in the north end zone and we stood the entire game, except for timeouts. I didn’t hear anyone demanding that everyone sit down.
Blammm
IIRC, at least prior to the renovations, north end zone was reserved for athletics associated tickets (i.e., complimentary tickets for player families and student athletes and Monogram club tickets). They weren’t the offenders. In addition to the NCAA compliance issues associated with resale of comped tickets, Grandma is not going to give up the opportunity to see her grandson play.
In my post, I was talking more about the people in the sideline sections (excluding the student section).
Bill Broderick
“Seriously, no one is twisting your arm here. If you are upset with the current state of the program, and maaaaaaaan have the Irish given you some ammo to be mad as hell recently, then fine. Don’t buy a ticket.”
That’s what has happened. True Irish fans aren’t buying tickets. They’re being bought by people interested in reselling them for profit, without concern for the color of the shirt the purchaser will wear to the game. And from there, they’re being bought by those that are interested in seeing their team play, the opposing team’s fans.
You may be angry, but the current University stewards don’t care. They didn’t see red on Saturday. They saw green, the color of the money they’ll make when they raise ticket prices for premium games in future years, and sell them to the general public.
We can now hold Shamrock series games in the house that Rock built. It is a neutral site.
JEH
Put a better product on the field and we will stop selling our tickets.
Ron Raffignone
That’s bull. You follow your team no matter what and don’t sell out.
TERRY
“If you truly believe ND is money grabbing, how in the blue hell (nice phrase) is reselling your ticket going to stop the practice you despise?”
Good question.
Answer – NOTHING is going to stop ND’s money grabbing – that’s what they do and they’re damn good at it.
Chris
I’m an ND fan from Atlanta that was at the game.(Along with the rest of Atlanta) I know someone from Georgia that was able to call the ticket office over the summer and buy 4 lower level season tickets for $1500 each. I’m not exactly sure how this is possible but he surely made his money back with the UGA and USC games. It was embarrassing to see all of the red & black in the stadium.
irish11
What a load of crap. Give me a break. What institution is more about taking the money and running than Notre Dame? We (fans) don’t give a damn about a $600 million stadium with a mediocre product in it. I don’t blame anybody at all for getting rid of their worthless tickets to a game we we are probably going to lose (which we did) for 5 or 6 hundo and up. Good for the Georgia fans who got a chance to see a game at Notre Dame Stadium. Who cares? Remember, last year was possibly the worst Notre Dame team of all time. Same with the Nebraska game a while back, we were coming off a year where we replaced the greatest coach of the modern era with an idiot and lost five or six games as a result. The people who should be ashamed are the people that accept mediocrity. Kelly sucks, he will not win a championship, he has won less big games than you can count on one hand in eight years. Put a winning product, a real ND team, on the field and you will see the stadium packed for games like this. it’s not on the fans, who have been loyal as hell during a couple decades of bullshit football. It’s on the administration. yeah, I’m sure the people that sold their tickets are really bummed out that they didn’t get to see a borderline top 25 team run 10 or 11 three and outs in a row. ???
Ryan Ritter
You’ve literally just described fair-weather fandom and more or less proven my point.
Ron Raffignone
I agree with you and Irish11 you don’t deserve to have irish is your name
jbmnd93
That Michigan game was my first game as a Freshman. I remember distinctly the student section giving a flying F about the refs and Michigan begging for merciful quiet. When they were stopped on third we felt like part of the team and I like to think the team felt like part of us. The stadium was intimate back then. The students controlled the crowd back then. Today, not so much. It’s all soundtracks and fat-rumped alumni. (I’m not that fat yet). Bonus track: Ted Leo–well none alt-rock musician today–was a fellow freshman that year. He led the entire freshman section by leading cheers from the back row. I remember the cheerleaders begging off their cheers when Ted got control of the freshman class section that season. We fought like hell to cheer for our team. We were rewarded with the Miami game. I’d pay extra to see the stadium be like that again some day.
brian
a couple points… as i was watching the game saturday night with some friends, we were talking about our experiences at ND games and how the ushers kill any enjoyment of trying to root on the team… each of us had several experiences of such. secondly, why didnt those ushers rush around and tell all the uga fans to sit down and stop being so loud so the irish fans sitting on their paper asses could very quietly actually sit on their asses? notre dame will never have the true atmosphere of a home field when you have the combination of ticket prices, gungho ushers and folks selling their tickets to the highest bidder.
the real question is why would i spend the money and drive three hours to be scolded and threatened with being removed from the premises for standing during the games when i can stay home and be loud about the irish with my friends?
Irish74
ND is a national school by their choice so many fans are from across the nation unlike the SEC schools or any conference school. Thus, all SEC home games are attended by the home audience. In the case of ND, I live in Louisiana and can attend one game per year. Historically, I had to apply for 3-4 games in hopes of getting one game. This year I bought tickets for 3 games and I planned to pick the one I would attend and give the other game to friends or fans. I fully expected ND to win and if they would have this whole aurgument would be a minor anoyance as those fans would have traveled to see their team lose. I sold my tix to this game and chose to go to USC, You could argue I should have only bought USC tickets, but at the time I didn’t know what circumstances may arise so I bought 3 games. I may be disappointed that so many Georgia fans showed up but I was way more disappointed when ND chose to have home games in who knows where across the country basically telling its students and local support that we want to be a national team. I would love to see what would happen if an SEC team had one of their home games in a neutral site in Indiana. Get off your high horse and and come back to reality, This is nothing more than the outcome of the decisions that ND took trying to be independent and a national team. I will always pull for them but will sell my tix again if the same circumstances arise.