Briefs

The University of Minnesota’s athletic department achieved its goal of out-earning itself with its second annual Black Friday ticket and merchandise sale.

The athletic department saw about 12,000 unique online visits and brought in just less than $50,000 for the four-day online sale from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. 

“We had very little, if anything, for customer service requests or complaints,” ticketing manager Brent Holck said. “The setup for our site was easy to navigate, and that showed with the huge success.”

The University of Minnesota is dedicating $7.2 million toward a Student Recreational Sports Field Complex located next to Siebert Field.

The University will fund the 90,000-square-foot facility using the same Student Capital Enhancement Fee that was used to fund the $59 million Recreation Center renovations.

The complex will be used primarily for intramural and club sports and also for general student use — similar to the University Field House.

The University of Minnesota athletic department is partnering with AudienceView Ticketing for the second year in a row to take advantage of the busiest shopping day in America. 

After tremendous sales last year, the department announced Monday it will host another online Black Friday ticket sale.

The Toronto-based AudienceView helped ticket sales for Gophers athletics increase by 2,500 percent last Black Friday, with revenue increasing by 1,600 percent compared to the standard sales day.

Indianapolis has quickly become the mecca of Big Ten football and basketball.

The conference’s Council of Presidents voted unanimously that the newly created Big Ten Football Championship game will be held at Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indianapolis from 2012 until 2015. The stadium had already been named as the host for the inaugural game in 2011.

The addition of Nebraska in 2011 set up the possibility of a championship game because the 12 teams have been split into two, six-team divisions.