Possible changes for the future

Krupica said the main change that needs to be made for the future is the athletic department needs to be more prepared from a marketing standpoint. In order to achieve this, however, he said NIU needs to know that it will be participating in the postseason earlier than it did this year.

“Hopefully we’re in a little bit better position that we’ll know we’re playing a bowl game,” Krupica said. “Our fans will then be conditioned to going to a game and to be able to float out there are some pre-sale opportunities where people can lock into tickets regardless where we go. And then in early November we lay out five options.”

Krupica and Compher see this as one of the key ways of selling more of the required allotted tickets when accepting an invitation to a bowl game. By achieving this, the pair hopes the university will no longer have to use a majority of the payout to purchase the allotted tickets.

“Maybe someday you’re not worried about defraying, but maximizing your payout,” Krupica said. “I think that’s when you start getting at the point bringing five, six, 7,000 people to a game.”

In order do to this, however, Compher said a mind set has to be created at NIU where fans expect the Huskies to go to a bowl game. This may only be the case, however, if NIU can produce better regular season records in the future. Williams said he believes there will be a reduction in bowl games in the future, as games are now struggling to find sponsors.

“I am concerned about bowls in general. There may be too many of them. There may not be enough sponsors,” Williams said. “When you are in that situation the payouts may be smaller for the non-large bowls.”

While Williams did not see any specific changes that needed to be made in the future, he did say that each bowl game presents its own challenges. He believes NIU needs to enhance its mechanisms that handle these bowls.

“There is not going to be a one frame fit all,” Williams said. “You’re going to have to have a mechanism that has the basic structure, the right thing to look at, but also flexible enough, informed enough, experienced enough to handle that Shreveport and Detroit are not the same, San Diego or Toronto are not the same and the demands and what they ask of us will be different.”


Continue reading this story by clicking on part nine.

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