Anyone who has tuned in to a non-marquee matchup while the Miami Hurricanes are playing at home is greeted with the sight of a stadium full of large swaths of empty orange seats. The attendance problems at Sun Life Stadium are well known.
Oddly, this is the team's latest marketing push: "Go to fewer games!"
A full-page ad blaring the words ran in all of South Florida's daily newspapers this weekend. No, the ad does not go on to read, "Seriously guys, don't you have anything better to do? We're kind of worried about you, honestly. It's a fall Saturday in South Florida, and you're sitting in a concrete bowl in the middle of Miami Gardens. Go out and enjoy life or something. Listen to the game on the radio at the beach."
It's actually a marketing ploy designed to boost attendance at the Canes' home matchup against the UNC Tar Heels by tying those tickets to the FSU game.
"Not many teams would tell you to go to fewer games," is what the ad actually reads. "Most would try to push a full season package on you, even if that requires more money or more time than you possess."
It then goes on to push a "Two-Game Mini-Plan" for fans who don't want to shell out for a full slate of season tickets.
In fact, single-game tickets to the FSU matchup won't be available to the general public. The easiest way to ensure your attendance at the game is to buy the plan that includes tickets to the UNC game (a team the ad boasts are a "preseason top-25" team, but that's according to one ranking by one guy at The Sporting News).
The 'Canes home slate this year isn't exactly full of blockbusters, save for the FSU game. They'll host Florida A&M and Arkansas State in September, and the only other non-conference home game is against the Cincinnati Bearcats. Otherwise the only other teams coming to Sun Life are your regular lot of ACC Coastal Division also-rans. So by tying the tickets to the FSU game, the team is hoping to boost attendance at the UNC game. The hope, of course, being that the game turns out to be appetizing enough for ESPN to broadcast and those swaths of empty orange seats don't seem as prevalent.
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