Iowa fan satisfaction up in women’s basketball, men’s wrestling, but drops in football, men’s basketball

IOWA CITY — Iowa Hawkeye fan satisfaction increased last year in women’s basketball and men’s wrestling, but decreased in football and men’s basketball, according to survey results obtained by The Gazette via a public records request.

Iowa Athletics emailed the surveys to ticket-buying fans in 2022-23 after each respective season. The results generated a "net promoter score“ between plus-100 and minus-100 based on how likely someone is to recommend Iowa tickets to a friend.

The Iowa women’s basketball “net promoter score” increased from 90 to 93 — hardly a surprise after the team’s best postseason finish in program history. The men’s wrestling score increased from 81 to 82.

Men’s basketball, on the other hand, dropped from 39 to 27. Football dropped from 70.6 to 35.1 in the last two end-of-season surveys.

While football and men’s basketball satisfaction saw significant declines, the department’s presentations of the results still considered the scores to be “healthy.” Scores below zero would be in the “needs improvement” zone.

Alcohol sales earn positive reviews

The second year of alcohol sales at Kinnick Stadium and Carver-Hawkeye Arena did not seem to bother many fans.

Only 4 percent of football fans said alcohol sales made them less likely to attend games at Kinnick. An even smaller percentage of fans at Carver-Hawkeye Arena said they were less likely to attend games — 2 percent of men’s basketball fans, and 1 percent of women’s basketball and men’s wrestling fans.

Each survey included an agree/disagree prompt with whether beer and wine sales “had a positive impact on the overall game day experience.” Here is the breakdown by sport:

Football: 37 percent agree (either strongly or somewhat), 42 percent neither agree nor disagree and 22 percent disagree

Women’s basketball: 23 percent agree, 65 percent neither agree nor disagree, 12 percent disagree

Men’s basketball: 35 percent agree, 51 percent neither agree nor disagree, 14 percent disagree

Men’s wrestling: 32 percent agree, 51 percent neither agree nor disagree, 17 percent disagree

Carver Cone lines, Kinnick cellular connectivity draw ire

Fans were not thrilled with how long it took to get a Carver Cone in 2022-23.

On a scale of one to five, the lines for the beloved soft serve ice cream received a satisfaction score of 2.34. It was an improvement from the year before, but still lower than any other aspect of the basketball/wrestling fan experience.

At Kinnick, the three categories with the lowest fan satisfaction all involved the lack of cellular connectivity, whether it be for voice calls, text messaging or social media apps.

Kinnick’s prices and wait times for alcohol also drew significant ire from fans in the survey with satisfaction scores of 2.62 and 2.82.

  Buy Photo

Frustrations aside, fans keep buying football tickets

The decrease in football fan satisfaction coincided with a season in which Iowa had one of the worst offenses in college football. Whether it be chants from certain parts of the stadium or social media comments, fan frustration with the offense was evident.

However, fans still have flocked to buy football tickets this year. Season ticket numbers are up this year. Five of Iowa’s seven home games sold out in the first two days of single-game ticket sales to the general public.

While transfer portal additions such as Cade McNamara, Erick All, Kaleb Brown and others have undoubtedly generated fan excitement, some off-the-field factors may be at play.

The top three factors on the postseason football survey for choosing to attend a game were “opportunity to socialize,” “overall stadium atmosphere” and “traditions.”

Only 19 percent said Iowa’s football record had a “significant” impact on whether to attend home football games.

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com