Rec Sports
Women’s sports gets it right: field trips woo the next generation
A light breeze blew across Dinkytown on an unseasonably warm fall day as school bus after school bus pulled up alongside Mariucci Arena at the University of Minnesota. Waves of elementary school-aged children clambered off, met by maroon-clad Gopher athletic department staffers who escorted them to the proper arena entrance.
Once inside, early arrivals chanted, “Here we go Gophers, here we go!” as the women’s hockey team — which usually plays next door at much smaller Ridder Arena — skated through early warmups. Kids, parents and chaperones were still filing in and finding their seats as the game with Bemidji State began, and the shrieking of excited little voices never let up throughout the Gophers’ 6-2 victory. Hundreds of kids waved homemade signs, saluting the Gophs and their favorite players.
That was the scene last month at Minnesota’s Field Trip Day, a promotion that’s becoming especially popular among college and pro teams around the state. The name and cost vary depending on who’s putting it on. But essentially, it’s a way to get kids into your venue to watch your team for little or no money, building your fan base from the ground up.
Related: Women’s sports bars are on a winning streak
That day, the Gophers distributed 4,050 free tickets among 36 groups for the noon start, boosting the total crowd to 5,218 — by far the largest of the season. Ridder Arena seats 3,400. A similar promotion last year (televised as part of the annual Hockey Day Minnesota festival) saw a standing-room-only crowd of 3,700 pack Ridder.
Tom McGinnis, the deputy athletics director who oversees Gopher men’s and women’s hockey, said the department scheduled this year’s Field Trip Day with an eye on moving it to Mariucci if ticket demand warranted. Once kids’ tickets passed a 2,500 threshold, McGinnis said, the historic switch was on. The women hadn’t played at 10,257-capacity Mariucci, home of the men’s team, since 2002.
“It was great,” said Minnesota Coach Brad Frost. “We did it last year at Ridder, and it was wonderful. It sounded louder this year in part because there were a couple of thousand more screaming kids.
“The energy was electric. They’re counting down the clock at the end of periods. And when we score, they’re blowing the roof off the place. It was really, really neat.”
Field Trip Day isn’t unique to the U or the state of Minnesota. The Lynx, like most WNBA teams, hold an annual Camp Day matinee that usually attracts one of the largest crowds of the season; last summer’s against Phoenix drew 16,421.
Minnesota State women’s hockey, in partnership with the Mankato Independent School District, held its first ISD Elementary School Day in early October, drawing a program record 2,193 to the Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center for a Friday afternoon game with St. Thomas. More than 1,800 third, fourth and fifth graders and their teachers claimed free tickets. And every kid got a voucher for a free youth ticket for a future game with one paid adult ticket.
Western Collegiate Hockey Association Commissioner Michelle McAteer, who was there, called it “an electric atmosphere” that gave her goosebumps.
A former WCHA player herself at Minnesota Duluth (she was part of three NCAA championship teams under Coach Shannon Miller from 2001-03), McAteer felt especially thrilled for the Mavericks players, who rarely experience that kind of fan support. Mavs women’s hockey averaged 344 spectators per game last season, the fewest among Minnesota’ six Division 1 teams. In November, the Mavs offered plenty of incentive for fans to come back, sweeping the second-ranked Gophers for the first time since 2006.
Now St. Thomas, in the new Anderson Arena on campus, plans to hold Field Trip Days for women’s basketball Dec. 3 vs. Northern Arizona, and women’s hockey Feb. 6 vs. the Gophers. Tickets aren’t free but they’re cheap ($5). Here’s a link to sign up.
Women’s sports gets it right
This is one of the many things women’s sports gets right, and men’s sports often overlook. It’s not all about ticket revenue. It’s getting your product in front of kids who might not otherwise see it. If they like it and connect with your players (postgame autograph sessions help immensely), they’ll bug their parents to take them again. And when they get old enough, they’ll buy tickets on their own. That’s how you build a fan base. The Lynx mastered this even before the championship years. So did Gopher women’s hockey.
“Our main fan base is young girls, their parents and their teams,” Frost said. “A lot of our Minnesota kids in particular have grown up coming to games. That’s a huge thing for us.”
Current Gophers Allie Franco of Oakdale and Ava Lindsay of Minnetonka remember coming to Ridder Arena when their youth teams purchased group tickets, falling in love with hockey and the Gophs. Now they’re part of a program ranked No. 2 in the country that seeks its eighth national championship.
Related: Want championships, Minnesota? Check out women’s sports
“I loved coming to watch the Gophers,” said Lindsay, a junior forward and one of the nation’s top ten scorers. “It was my favorite thing. Now to be one of the players is really cool, having kids look up to you and come watch you.”
Franco, a senior forward, said the Field Trip Day crowd was “ten times louder” than last season. At one point, she looked into the stands and noticed one of her little cousins holding up a sign for her. “Knowing that there are so many more kids, so many people there for you and your teammates, makes you have so much more energy and play even better for each other,” she said.
Lindsay just wished the Gophers offered a Field Trip Day when she was that age. “I think it would be pretty fun to miss school and come watch a hockey game,” she said.