2019 Expectations

[Clickclack]

12 minutes ago, godanesgo99 said:

I called and was told I was $50 short and need to make another donation to get there.

Not sure I am going to. This is going back to my (and many others) major complaints with the athletic department. No communication at all. If they want to make it a $250 minimum to get SEFCU lot passes (when I had them 2 years ago at $100, and last year at $200) the F&cking tell us. Why make us wait until we get the tickets and passes then have us feel like cheapskates when we ask about it? Sorry sir, your donation amount this year was too small.

Anyone know how many total spots are in the SEFCU lot? 

Reminder: this is coming from me. The person that usually gets on people who claim they can't go to games because they have priced fans out of the game. I have always stated that the prices are fair. I'm not a complainer about the money.

While I appreciate what you are saying...here is the GDAC chart. I believe what they are saying on this chart is if you donation $500 you are guaranteed parking in SEFCU lot and I believe this has been that way for a while. Less then $500 puts you into a maybe territory, meaning the closer you are to $500 the bigger your chances are to get the parking. As your donation amount drops, there is a cut-off and appears to be at $250 this year. 

It's a discretionary thing based on number of people donating. The more give at the "guaranteed level" the less spots there are available for those under $500. 

 

So let's say there are 500 spots in that lot

400 peoples donated at $500 or more leaving 100 spots for the remaining.

Now let's say 100 peoples gave $400 

and another 100 gave $200....

The remaining parking spots will go to the 100 people that gave $400

As it's a moving target based on the donations coming in every day, it's probably hard to communicate where the floor is. 

 

Does any of this make sense? LOL

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by Clickclack

[Albany Weave]

I cant wait for the SEFCU lot to be half full for all of the games this year. I got bumped out of it as well this year after being in there for many years. So stupid to have the lot half empty and to piss off long time fans. For all of the games last year including homecoming and the first game, the SEFCU lot was at most 1/2 full. The athletic department is doing a great job of driving people away. Alienating the faculty and staff first, and now continuously alienating long time season ticket holders. I call bull$iena on increasing season ticket base. It is an arbitrary action I bet with no rhyme and reason. See the change of times in opening the lots last year, bringing in chairbacks from a couple of years ago, etc. The athletic department is making me reconsider my future season tickets.

[Clickclack]

8 minutes ago, Albany Weave said:

I cant wait for the SEFCU lot to be half full for all of the games this year. I got bumped out of it as well this year after being in there for many years. So stupid to have the lot half empty and to piss off long time fans. For all of the games last year including homecoming and the first game, the SEFCU lot was at most 1/2 full. The athletic department is doing a great job of driving people away. Alienating the faculty and staff first, and now continuously alienating long time season ticket holders. I call bull$iena on increasing season ticket base. It is an arbitrary action I bet with no rhyme and reason. See the change of times in opening the lots last year, bringing in chairbacks from a couple of years ago, etc. The athletic department is making me reconsider my future season tickets.

Fair, based on their track record I wouldn't put it past them. I'm just giving possible rationale for this change. If what you say is true and the lot is half filled while people are schlepping in from Dutch in February...well, then they are morons and have no one to blame if attendance continues to sink!

Edited August 29, 2019 by Clickclack

[sarge965]

Benson has got to go 

[Clickclack]

1 minute ago, sarge965 said:

Benson has got to go 

I don't disagree for other reasons, I'm just not quite ready to pick up the pitchfork on this issue. Athletics at a high level takes money...but if they are being dishonest here and driving patrons away due to draconian policies and arbitrary price hikes then they are only shooting themselves in the foot. 

[Eli]

IMO, after a certain number of seasons, as long as you donate *some* money on top of tickets, you should be automatically included in free SEFCU parking. Something like 10+ years of CONSECUTIVE 'service' (being a fan) = 1 spot as long as you donate the minimum $50 or $100. If you break that consecutive streak, you start from square one.

Us diehards spend enough as it is between season tickets, other donations and $20-30+ each game for food. For those of us who carpool with other fans, give us the option to 'donate' our spot for each sport to the next person in line.

Would show some appreciation for us loyalists who've been with the Athletic program since the mid 2000's, etc. or even before. 

Edited August 29, 2019 by Eli

[godanesgo99]

Where did that chart come from? Was it on the website? I have not seen it in any communications. 

I was under the impression that the spaces were handed out via GDAC point priority. This is why I asked how many spaces are in the lot. I am definitely in the top 500. I am not a big donor, but have been loyal, and was a corporate sponsor before my budget was cut (never got any GDAC points for the corporate sponsorship). 

It is going to be funny when the SEFCU lot is 3/4 empty at every game like last year. 

For the record: I only make it to 2-3 games a year at best, have trouble GIVING my prime seats away with SEFCU passes, and my purchase of tickets this year was more or less a donation. I was going to cancel them, but decided that it was worth it to retain the good seats for a future when they turn the ship around, and the SEFCU lot passes made it easy for me to show up to a game if I decided to go and watch them stink. 

With that in mind, I consider my donation $600! (($100+$50)x4))

Maybe if they wanted to raise some more money they could have made a phone call or sent an e-mail to the people that were just short saying: "hey: we had to set the level a little higher this year, but we still have some spaces available. If you donate another $50 or another $100 we could get you the better parking" or something like that. At least it would have been communication! I would have considered it.

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by godanesgo99

[Clickclack]

52 minutes ago, godanesgo99 said:

Where did that chart come from? Was it on the website? I have not seen it in any communications. 

I was under the impression that the spaces were handed out via GDAC point priority. This is why I asked how many spaces are in the lot. I am definitely in the top 500. I am not a big donor, but have been loyal, and was a corporate sponsor before my budget was cut (never got any GDAC points for the corporate sponsorship). 

It is going to be funny when the SEFCU lot is 3/4 empty at every game like last year. 

For the record: I only make it to 2-3 games a year at best, have trouble GIVING my prime seats away with SEFCU passes, and my purchase of tickets this year was more or less a donation. I was going to cancel them, but decided that it was worth it to retain the good seats for a future when they turn the ship around, and the SEFCU lot passes made it easy for me to show up to a game if I decided to go and watch them stink. 

With that in mind, I consider my donation $600! (($100+$50)x4))

Maybe if they wanted to raise some more money they could have made a phone call or sent an e-mail to the people that were just short saying: "hey: we had to set the level a little higher this year, but we still have some spaces available. If you donate another $50 or another $100 we could get you the better parking" or something like that. At least it would have been communication! I would have considered it.

 

That chart has been on the GDAC site for years...

 

http://www.ualbanysports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=15800&ATCLID=210990787#Benefits

 

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by Clickclack

[UAalum72]

On Google Maps, looks like SEFCU lot has about 250 spaces, much of the first row reserved for school, league or department officials

[godanesgo99]

I'll stop complaining. I was more just frustrated at the moment, that there was no updated communication on it anywhere that I have seen recently. Thank you Click for sharing the link. Communication is the number 1 complaint about the Athletic Department today. This one just got me going.  

I am never one to be cheap or complain about costs. If you look at my post history you can see dozens of posts where I yell at people being cheap or calling UA Athletics too expensive. I feel the opposite way. I wish I could give more, and I probably would if there was a small amount of additional communication. 

[alum73]

3 hours ago, godanesgo99 said:

I called and was told I was $50 short and need to make another donation to get there.

Not sure I am going to. This is going back to my (and many others) major complaints with the athletic department. No communication at all. If they want to make it a $250 minimum to get SEFCU lot passes (when I had them 2 years ago at $100, and last year at $200) then F&cking tell us. Why make us wait until we get the tickets and passes then have us feel like cheapskates when we ask about it? Sorry sir, your donation amount this year was too small.

Anyone know how many total spots are in the SEFCU lot? 

Reminder: this is coming from me. The person that usually gets on people who claim they can't go to games because they have priced fans out of the game. I have always stated that the prices are fair. I'm not a complainer about the money.

Although the exact $ amount wasn't listed, it was in the * footnote in the GDAC publication I got in the mail.

[Clickclack]

35 minutes ago, alum73 said:

Although the exact $ amount wasn't listed, it was in the * footnote in the GDAC publication I got in the mail.

I did not catch that...

[Dane96]

Sigh.  I am not a benson fan but y’all need to quit griping.  This happens on every d1 campus I’ve been on. I used to be a season ticket holder at bc.  My friends father used to pay our “fee” so we could have a Shea field pass to tailgate with.  One year we didn’t get it.  Mind you, this guy was a major executive for cbs sports. He played at Stanford.  The Stanford-bc football series was due to him. And his daughter was the captain of bc volleyball.

So we asked his dad, what’s up with the pass...why are we in the terrible parking garage.  Answer: apparently the 10,000 dollar donation from the previous season was not enough to get us the pass.  He was never told the donation amount required (not was anyone told) and it was a straight gamble.  

Same thing happened to friends at UConn when they were in FCS.  

It sucks, and it is standard.  It’s a way to drive people to donate more if they really care about the lot closest to the stadium.   

[jimbo]

Let me just say that SEFCU is nice, but Dutch is just fine too...a little extra exercise does us good.

[Albany Weave]

8 minutes ago, Dane96 said:

Sigh.  I am not a benson fan but y’all need to quit griping.  This happens on every d1 campus I’ve been on. I used to be a season ticket holder at bc.  My friends father used to pay our “fee” so we could have a Shea field pass to tailgate with.  One year we didn’t get it.  Mind you, this guy was a major executive for cbs sports. He played at Stanford.  The Stanford-bc football series was due to him. And his daughter was the captain of bc volleyball.

So we asked his dad, what’s up with the pass...why are we in the terrible parking garage.  Answer: apparently the 10,000 dollar donation from the previous season was not enough to get us the pass.  He was never told the donation amount required (not was anyone told) and it was a straight gamble.  

Same thing happened to friends at UConn when they were in FCS.  

It sucks, and it is standard.  It’s a way to drive people to donate more if they really care about the lot closest to the stadium.   

Treating and taking advantage of your loyal customers is bad for business. If you are creating an environment that shows no loyalty or consideration to your customer, you will lose fans. College sports attendance as a whole has been decreasing over the past 10 years. You should be trying to get more people to attend, not less.