I was thinking about Steve's questions about the Gophers' hockey profits
while driving home last night.  He questioned Carol's estimate of "over
$1 million".  I think it's a reasonable one.
 
First of all, the Gophers had 22 home games (3 playoff, 1 vs. U. of Calgary,
for you game-counters out there).  Attendance ranged from 6248 (against
Calgary) to 7778 (against Duluth) (they say it's 7594 capac, so I guess
that includes some standees).  Tickets range from $5.50 (Student Season
tickets) to $12 (almost all single-game tickets).  I believe $.50 of this
is a surcharge to finance the construction of the new arena, but let's
make some estimates:
	Assuming 7,000 people per game for 22 games (154,000) at $10 per
	ticket (maybe a slight overestimate) gives $1.54 million.
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Recall, also, that one of those games was standing room only at Met Center
(about 15000) and that the North Stars guaranteed the U at least 3 times
its normal take.  (I seem to recall reading somewhere that Minn. made over
$100,000 on that game.)
 
Then there's concessions, souvenirs, and parking (up AGAIN this year to $4
a pop, but don't get me started...)
 
TV and radio money might be slightly better in the Mpls-StP market than other
college hockey cities.  It's about the 14th largest media market in the
country.  According to my program, 31 games were carried on TV this year.
(Although I seem to recall that coverage of one of the St. Cloud State
away games was snowed out!  That doesn't count coverage of 4 WCHA
playoff games.)  (This also in part explains why people around here were
so irate that they couldn't see the NC$$ playoff games on TV - like we'd
really drive 12 hours each way to go see one game anyway, but I guess I'd
better not let myself get started on that one, either!)
 
In summary, then, it seems to me to be quite reasonable for Gopher hockey
to have made $1 million last year, as they probably had about $1.5 million
in ticket sales, made over $100,000 just from the Wisconsin game at the Met
Center, and had about 3/4 of their games on local TV in a relatively large
(for college hockey) metropolitan area.
 
I guess now we can see why Doug Woog had a Graduate assistant this year
work on a study of "The Economic Impact of Hockey in Minnesota"!
 
Pam Sweeney
Go Gophers!!!