The Perfect Storm Of Low Ticket Sales

Normally, there are a ton of updates about how well season tickets are selling for Purdue. Just last season the Boilers sold more season tickets by Mid-May than it did for all of 2012. There have been absolutely no updates this year. Instead, there have been all kinds of gimmicks to sell tickets. In early July you could be tickets to all 7 home games for less than $80, as the price was equal to the high temperature on July 4. Even Miami, who notoriously has low attendance at Joe Robbie/Pro Player/Dolphin(s)/LandShark/SunLife Stadium, charges as little as $99 for the season. since $99 might get you the occasional single-game ticket at some of the bigger name programs in college football, that's sad.

Despite those perks, Purdue is no doubt struggling to sell tickets for this year, and that is because of a perfect storm of reasons:

Purdue is coming off of the worst season in the 128 year history of the program:

When there is a question if last year was the worst year for a Big Ten team ever, then that is a detriment, especially when there were some actual high expectations. I know Indiana is used to years like last year, but and even they don't lower themselves to the gimmicks we did.

No major rivals at home for the first time in 63 years:

The Big Ten addition of Rutgers and Maryland, plus the re-alignment of Purdue and Indiana into separate divisions, means that there was some gerrymandering of the Big Ten schedule. For the first time in a century Purdue will go to Bloomington in consecutive football seasons. It also means that this is the first year in which Purdue does not host either Notre Dame or Indiana in over 50 years. The two in-state rivals have both been on Purdue's schedule since 1946, when the Boilers lost 49-6 at Notre Dame and 34-20 at home to Indiana. Purdue went to both Indiana and Notre Dame in 1951, but since then the schools have alternated where Purdue has hosted the Hoosiers in even-numbered years and the Fighting Irish in odd-numbered years. This year, IU was supposed to come to West Lafayette, but to balance things Purdue inexplicably gets Iowa at home in back-to-back years and goes to Bloomington in consecutive years.

The Irish are off the schedule entirely until 2020, but with no IU at home this there is no true rival at all (as if we can consider the worst BCS-conference team of all time a rival).

No "major" programs at all at home:

Of Purdue's seven home opponents, only Michigan State and Wisconsin are even close to a national power, and even then, they are more regional powers than national powers. The Spartans could be the defending national champions had the refs not screwed them over in South Bend last year. Wisconsin is excellent, but never seems to be able to break into that elite echelon. Both schools travel well, but not on the level of a Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, or Nebraska.

No marquee non-conference opponents:

In years where the Boilers don't host Notre Dame we try to get a team where we're at least going to give them a return visit, so normally it means a semi-decent BCS-conference level team. This year we have the Directional Trifecta of Western Michigan, Central Michigan, and Southern Illinois. That's the pupu platter off non-conference games and it should be three wins for even a marginally competent Big Ten team. Considering we have had Oregon, Arizona, Wake Forest, and Syracuse as semi-recent home opponents, this year is very weak. Next year we get Virginia Tech, but this year...ugh.