Kin 5421 students and instructor Yuhei Inoue, Ph.D., with Minnesota United FC representatives, Joe Dettlaff, account executive; Sean Sittnick, senior director of ticket sales; Allie Emch, senior account executive; and James Horton, account executive.

Master’s students in KIN 5421 Sport Finance taught by assistant professor Yuhei Inoue,  Ph.D., presented their final project in front of Minnesota United FC marketing leaders. Founded in 2010, Minnesota United FC is the state’s new professional soccer organization.

Minnesota United FC faces challenges to determine ticket prices that will support their transition to Major League Soccer in 2017 and their move to a new stadium in 2018, while meeting the demands of the local market. Earlier this semester, Mr. Todd Abramson, the club’s CEO, delivered a guest lecture to Dr. Inoue’s students about these challenges facing his club in the coming seasons.

Applying classroom knowledge to this real-world problem within the sport industry, the students worked throughout the semester to develop recommendations for Minnesota United FC’s ticket prices for the 2016 and 2017 seasons.

For their final presentation, “Minnesota United FC – Ticketing Pricing Project,” students compared pricing structures of sport organizations nationwide by considering their home venues, fan bases, team performance, and local competition. Based on the benchmarking and review of academic research, the students presented their recommendations for the ticket prices in the next two seasons to Minnesota United FC’s representatives.

Mr. Sean Sittnick, the club’s Senior Director of Ticket Sales, and his colleagues provided feedback and selected the presentation that provided the most persuasive recommendations.