I'm a tinge rusty on my contract law but if I remember right, you can't just simply compel other teams to show up in Ames or else.People don't want to hear it but you're right. Raise current tickets prices off the type of games we already get or...
Could piss off the coaches and make schedules harder. Mandate more fan attractive schedules to sell tickets. Get an 11th p4 game for football in late September and fill your basketball noncon with more home/homes p4s. Go from $30 single game tickets for games like SEMO and Bowling Green to $70 vs random decent p4 school. Could also get rid of the basketball buy games that sell tickets for like $10 and swap for a decent p4 team and get $50.
They could also require separate cyclone club donation amounts for season tickets for football and basketball to really piss people off.
The fans have done enough. It's up to JP and his marketing/fundraising staff to get creative and get more corporate dollars. The answer can't always be having the fans that are already putting money down dig deeper.