Are ISU fans at their wits end when it comes to supporting Iowa State?

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nb06

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How are ethanol facilities, chemical facilities, railroads working extra during harvest? Facilities that process grain are 247 operations year round, using grain stored and shipped year round.

Farmers, people they hire to help with harvest and some people at co-ops and mechanics are working extra, or more import Working Saturdays. This is still not a huge number. It has an impact, but so do construction, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and distribution workers that work on Saturday in Iowa and every other region.
Understand your point here but it’s not like we are 5,000 seats short of a sellout. I think someone said we are 475 seats short?? Easily conceivable that 500 people are busy with harvest. Can think of 15-16 from my small town, including myself.
 

PGCyclone

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If you have the capital to throw in the right places then I agree. That's not everyone's reality.
That’s wages. Nothing to do with capital. On a macro level it has caught up. Not universally unfortunately but that is the way it always is
 

BWRhasnoAC

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That’s wages. Nothing to do with capital. On a macro level it has caught up. Not universally unfortunately but that is the way it always is
Somewhat but cost of living is pretty insane. If you're a single income buying a home is really difficult. Rent is sky high, no return.

If you're married, have a job that pays well with benefits and some money saved to give you buying power then it's great. Anyone that isn't there yet it's a struggle.
 
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NWICY

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I guess it’s maybe just me but I hate when the CyHawk is in Ames. We haven’t won it at home lately and it’s stressful with a lot of the stuff that goes on. Glass bottles chucked over the stadium wall, Hawk fan in row behind us puking all over, guys not waiting for a kybo to open up and whipping it out to pee in front of little girls, etc. One year our dog sitter texted us about pickup time needing to change cause her boyfriend was at the game and she had to go bail him out of jail.
Was he a hawk fan?
 

CycloneSpinning

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It’s not just ISU, it’s everyone asking for money.

We love to go to games and have cheap seats at top of stadium. Also park for free on campus. Not sure since we are old how long we can do that. Also pay into Cyclone Club.

Get junk asking us to give to ISU in our will. Yeah whatever pittance is left will go to the five sons. I would like to just contribute to university as a whole in some way similar to Cyclone Club so should investigate that. We did help four sons get five ISU degrees.

On Monday, we had 17 pieces of mail. One was the water bill, the other 16 were various causes asking for money. We have only ever given money to one of the junk mail causes, a memorial gift to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.

Somehow CF makes you feel like a bad fan if you are not paying for a suite, parking, NIL, premium CF, only eat We Will pizza and beer, and don’t have the Athletic Department as the sole beneficiary in your will. Add in the endless charitable causes that fill a full paper recycling bag of crap every day and it is somewhat overwhelming.
This is a byproduct of rapid inflation. Not only are the things we need more expensive, but everyone around us thinks they need more money too. It does get overwhelming for sure…
 
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NWICY

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Some current numbers for everyone:

Cyclone Club donors-6,000
We Will donors-4,500

I'm guessing that's a lot of the same folks. I think you're correct in that these folks largely can't continue to do it on their own (we're already seeing some regression on our end numbers wise) and we will need new donors to stay competitive especially as the SEC and Big Ten siphon more of the dollars. But totally understand it's a personal decision, just wanted to provide some info.
Well I'm having we will pizza and a Ames Lager for supper. Yeah they day ran late oh well. These donors don't even get counted, but I hope both products are doing well for you. How are the in stadium pizza sales doing?
 
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CycloneSpinning

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On a tight budget along wtih a freshmen at UW and a junior in high school, and side-hustle obligations make it challenging to get to games. As much as I'd love to get tickets and attend as many games as possible, it just doesn't fit. Yet.

Edit: I try not to be the guy that complains about teacher salaries, but... teacher salaries.
It can definitely be tough when you see people demanding/expecting more than 50% increases (looking at you dockworkers and others…), while you got 3% increases or so the last few years. And I know some people say you should just find a different job, but when you like what you do, like who you work with, etc…you kind of want to make it work despite the money.
 

NWICY

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Thanks for the feedback! We are somewhat limited by our in stadium info as Iowa State’s corporate partner Learfield charges us $50,000 for the info we are able to share in the stadium (I.e. the signage on the scoreboard) and the pizza in the stadium. So any increased exposure costs US dollars that we want to allocate to players as Learfield controls the stadium advertising.
Wow, that's not being much of a partner.
 

Gunnerclone

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Somewhat but cost of living is pretty insane. If you're a single income buying a home is really difficult. Rent is sky high, no return.

If you're married, have a job that pays well with benefits and some money saved to give you buying power then it's great. Anyone that isn't there yet it's a struggle.

Feel like this has been the case since the early 2000’s.
 

2speedy1

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How are ethanol facilities, chemical facilities, railroads working extra during harvest? Facilities that process grain are 247 operations year round, using grain stored and shipped year round.

Farmers, people they hire to help with harvest and some people at co-ops and mechanics are working extra, or more import Working Saturdays. This is still not a huge number. It has an impact, but so do construction, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and distribution workers that work on Saturday in Iowa and every other region.
There is a huge inflow/outflow of ag products during certain times, like harvest.

As someone who spent decades working in or around the above facilities I guarantee they have a large increase in activity during harvest.

Not every farm has the capacity to store all the incoming grain and has to go to the above facilities, and all those facilities take all types of other workers and businesses to operate. Right now is one of the busiest times for grain shipments on railroads etc.

There is a lot of Iowa that everything still revolves around Ag. Everything.

You are right everything has an impact, some more than others, some are constant some hit highs during certain months like sept/oct. Some are starting to wind down at the same time. But saying the ag industry has little impact on game attendance in sept/oct at a place like ISU is just not correct.

It looks like we have about 150 tickets left to sell for a sell out. Are you saying there are not 150 ag workers not able to go to this game? My guess on a weekend like this there are a few thousand give or take that cant go because of ag work. That is not a huge impact, but it very well can be the difference in a sellout vs not.
 
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CycloneSpinning

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People always think the economy is bad in the moment.

It’s impossible to have every metric good since there are a lot good things (GDP growth and low unemployment) that drive bad things (inflation).

GDP numbers are good. Interest rates are dropping. Stocks and retirement funds at all time highs. Unemployment almost down to 4% while labor participation rate is up over 63%. We are on our way to 20 consecutive months where wage growth has beat inflation. Manufacturing construction investment at an all-time high.

It’s not perfect because it cant be. But looking at all the metrics, it’s really damn good. There are individual people and businesses that care about some metrics more than others. But broadly painting the economy as bad is simply false.
Sometimes metrics don’t tell the whole story though. If you look in the Silicon Valley area, there are a lot of expensive cars on the road. People working in/for the big tech companies are killing it. Just working for one of those big names for a few years sets people on a path to wealth. Meanwhile, you talk to people with “regular” jobs and they tell you how inflation is killing them (high rent, other costs)…and then theft too. I honestly thought that it must have been overblown…but San Francisco (aside from Fisherman’s Wharf area) is nothing like it was 15 years ago. It’s truly awful. We have some of that here too (though not as bad). Some are doing well…others are definitely feeling it…
 
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clonedude

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In today's overall environment, and taking everything into consideration, I think it's extremely shortsighted and somewhat ignorant for anyone to question or wonder why any athletic event isn't selling out.

There are multitudes of reasons, and most have been brought up in these various threads. In addition to all of those... do NOT discount the fact that people are generally just getting sick and tired and becoming disinterested with everything going on right now in college athletics overall. All the powers that be are seemingly doing anything and everything possible to destroy the college game and experience.

Who is really interested in seeing Washington play Rutgers for just one example? I mean... it's only a 2,900 mile road trip! Who gives a f**k about that?

Or.. how about all the transferring? Don't dare to start giving a s**t or developing an admiration for any of the players on your favorite team... there is a decent chance they won't be back the following year... and might now play for 2, 3, or even 4 different teams in their career. Because now getting a free college education AND $200,000 a year might not be enough for a kid to stay at your favorite school. Someone else might offer them $500,000 the following year if they have a good season.

And finally... how about this new P2 system where basically only 2 conferences really matter. Now the B1G and SEC want to be guaranteed that they will each get 4 teams in the college playoff? Good riddance as far as I'm concerned.

I'll cheer on ISU forever... but it's hard to fork out more and more of your hard earned money for a team that virtually has no chance in this new system... losing their greatest rivalry games in order to travel nearly across the entire country... the game experience itself is getting worse... there is no real attachment to any of the players because they might be here 1 or 2 years at best... etc, etc, etc.

So for anyone to sit and ponder why games might not be selling out just have not been paying attention at all and need to wake up. Part of me hopes that college athletics suffers from all of this, and change is forced to happen... but that doesn't appear to be happening anytime soon. They continue to roll in the money... at least for now.
 

CycloneSpinning

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There is a huge inflow/outflow of ag products during certain times, like harvest.

As someone who spent decades working in or around the above facilities I guarantee they have a large increase in activity during harvest.

Not every farm has the capacity to store all the incoming grain and has to go to the above facilities, and all those facilities take all types of other workers and businesses to operate. Right now is one of the busiest times for grain shipments on railroads etc.

There is a lot of Iowa that everything still revolves around Ag. Everything.

You are right everything has an impact, some more than others, some are constant some hit highs during certain months like sept/oct. Some are starting to wind down at the same time. But saying the ag industry has little impact on game attendance in sept/oct at a place like ISU is just not correct.

It looks like we have about 150 tickets left to sell for a sell out. Are you saying there are not 150 ag workers not able to go to this game? My guess on a weekend like this there are a few thousand give or take that cant go because of ag work. That is not a huge impact, but it very well can be the difference in a sellout vs not.
My dad was in the ag industry his whole career (but not a farmer). Definitely agree with this. Planting and harvesting season are definitely not a Monday-Friday endeavor.
 

awd4cy

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Economy LOL. People think that if gas isn't $1/gal we are in tough economic times and they can't afford things. LOL
It’s evidenced by the state fair for example. Record attendance, yet vendor sales were down from what I had heard. People are starting to feel it. Groceries, daycare bills, electricity, water, house payment etc, take priority over spending $2,000 a year to go to football games with the spouse and kids.
 

clonedude

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It’s evidenced by the state fair for example. Record attendance, yet vendor sales were down from what I had heard. People are starting to feel it. Groceries, daycare bills, electricity, water, etc, take priority over spending $2,000 a year to go to football games with the spouse and kids.
It's just reality for most... but some don't understand that it seems. "Why aren't we selling games out!!!!". Well... because honestly... it's VERY expensive for most people... and the product is getting worse and worse every year with realignment, and all the greed.
 

CascadeClone

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If you have the capital to throw in the right places then I agree. That's not everyone's reality.
You are confusing wages with income. Wages has nothing to do with investments or capital. Theres no cap gains, dividends, interest, etc in wages. Just pay for work.

Real wages HAVE outpaced inflation.

People just feel and remember the bad much more than the good. Its like loss aversion.
 

awd4cy

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You are confusing wages with income. Wages has nothing to do with investments or capital. Theres no cap gains, dividends, interest, etc in wages. Just pay for work.

Real wages HAVE outpaced inflation.

People just feel and remember the bad much more than the good. Its like loss aversion.
I didn’t realize there were companies giving 30% plus raises back in 2022 and 2023. Guess I should have been working at those places.
 

Cyched

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You are confusing wages with income. Wages has nothing to do with investments or capital. Theres no cap gains, dividends, interest, etc in wages. Just pay for work.

Real wages HAVE outpaced inflation.

People just feel and remember the bad much more than the good. Its like loss aversion.

2022 was rough when things peaked, but it’s been about 1.5+ years of wages outpacing prices.

Sentiment is a real thing, so it will probably have to continue for a while to make people feel “over” it, but the metrics have improved.

Picture1_b96c18.png
 

BWRhasnoAC

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Feel like this has been the case since the early 2000’s.
Since I was in high school. That's kind of what Millennials have been shouting to the heavens for decades now. I'm not trying to doom and gloom but it gets old hearing how great everything is when it's just not the case for a lot of hard working people.
 
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