Quote:Insult to injury: Most college teams now play their biggest rivals on Thanksgiving weekend, when many students have gone home.

Quote:How did Michigan do it? By forgetting why we love college football

Quote:If the people running college football see their universities as just a brand, and the athletic departments merely a business, they will turn off the very people who've been coming to their temples for decades. Athletic directors need to remember the people in the stands are not customers. They're believers. Break faith with your flock, and you will not get them back with fancier wine.

If you treat your fans like customers long enough, eventually they'll start behaving that way, reducing their irrational love for their team to a cool-headed, dollars-and-cents decision to buy tickets or not, with no more emotional investment than deciding whether to go to the movies or buy new tires.

Quote: If the TV whizzes can't figure out how to make a buck on football without ruining the experience for paying customers, those fans will figure it out for themselves, and stay home.

Quote:Survey after survey points the finger for lower attendance not at cell phone service or HDTV, but squarely at the decisions of athletic departments nationwide. Fans are fed up paying steakhouse prices for junk food opponents, while enduring endless promotions. The more college football indulges the TV audience, the more fans paying to sit in those seats feel like suckers.

Quote:This fall Michigan is in danger of breaking its string of 251 consecutive games with 100,000-plus paid attendance, which started in 1975. The college football world should take note.

(06-24-2014 11:16 AM)ECUPirated Wrote:  Interesting article I stumbled across from yesterday.

Michigan's Greed Alienates fans

Main points concern the decline in Michigan season ticket sales over the years by both students and regular season ticket holders and some of the reasons for the decline.

Ability to sit with friends
Too much advertising (inside the stadium) during football games
Cost of concessions
Ticket prices
TV timeouts
Media contracts in general
Game start time delays (because of undetermined TV schedule)
Game start time (because of TV and either its hot as hell or cold as hell at game time)
Cell phone service in the stadium
A bad economy not mentioned, but probably an underlying issue

Quote:Insult to injury: Most college teams now play their biggest rivals on Thanksgiving weekend, when many students have gone home.

Talks about how many universities are now hiring business CEOs instead of personnel with athletic backgrounds as ADs and how their mode of thinking is what is causing many of the issues we see today.

Quote:How did Michigan do it? By forgetting why we love college football

This makes a lot of sense.

Quote:If the people running college football see their universities as just a brand, and the athletic departments merely a business, they will turn off the very people who've been coming to their temples for decades. Athletic directors need to remember the people in the stands are not customers. They're believers. Break faith with your flock, and you will not get them back with fancier wine.

If you treat your fans like customers long enough, eventually they'll start behaving that way, reducing their irrational love for their team to a cool-headed, dollars-and-cents decision to buy tickets or not, with no more emotional investment than deciding whether to go to the movies or buy new tires.

Quote: If the TV whizzes can't figure out how to make a buck on football without ruining the experience for paying customers, those fans will figure it out for themselves, and stay home.

Quote:Survey after survey points the finger for lower attendance not at cell phone service or HDTV, but squarely at the decisions of athletic departments nationwide. Fans are fed up paying steakhouse prices for junk food opponents, while enduring endless promotions. The more college football indulges the TV audience, the more fans paying to sit in those seats feel like suckers.

Quote:This fall Michigan is in danger of breaking its string of 251 consecutive games with 100,000-plus paid attendance, which started in 1975. The college football world should take note.

The author, John Bacon, teaches at Michigan. He brings up some very interesting points. Makes you wonder what things will look like 10-20 years down the road.

(06-24-2014 07:39 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  The type of gameday experience you all are looking for can be found today. All the things you all say you want.
on the fcs level.

(06-25-2014 08:08 AM)IceJus10 Wrote:  I understand people trying to justify a slight dip in attendance and make it part of the larger scheme of things... I understand this, but what if it isn't? What if it has to do with something a tad more simple... like Michigan isn't all that great right now?? I mean they haven't won the Big Ten since 2004... basically a DECADE! Following that 2004 season, the team is 2-7 in Bowl games too... This 9-10 year span is not typical of Michigan history.... fans have traditionally had a lot to cheer about and well there has been a lot of disappointment over this decade that can hurt ticket sales as much or more than ads being read or tv adjusting start times etc. If Michigan has a breakout year and attendance doesn't tick up, then you worry!

(06-25-2014 08:21 AM)KnightLight Wrote:  

(06-25-2014 08:08 AM)IceJus10 Wrote:  I understand people trying to justify a slight dip in attendance and make it part of the larger scheme of things... I understand this, but what if it isn't? What if it has to do with something a tad more simple... like Michigan isn't all that great right now?? I mean they haven't won the Big Ten since 2004... basically a DECADE! Following that 2004 season, the team is 2-7 in Bowl games too... This 9-10 year span is not typical of Michigan history.... fans have traditionally had a lot to cheer about and well there has been a lot of disappointment over this decade that can hurt ticket sales as much or more than ads being read or tv adjusting start times etc. If Michigan has a breakout year and attendance doesn't tick up, then you worry!

Even the best program over the past 5-6 years, Alabama, they too are having major problems with trying to get students to attend games, let alone having them stay during games.

From link:

Alabama addresses student attendance at football games
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20130919/NEWS/130919643

While Alabama sold 99.9 percent of its tickets for home games last season, according to data provided by the Southeastern Conference, only 83 percent of tickets sold to the general student population were used.

A total of 18,683 student tickets of an allocated 109,900 went unused over the course of seven home games, and at least 5 percent of student tickets went unused in every game, topping out at 58 percent for the Western Carolina game.
--------------------------------

Bama changes student group tix policy to punish student groups following early exits by student section
http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/alabama-coach-nick-saban-voices-displeasure-with-fans-leaving-early-102413

Bama up by 11, early in the 4th Q


Another 2nd half photo of Bama Student Section



Photo of Bama Student Section mid-way thru 3rd Q of Georgia State Game

(06-25-2014 08:56 AM)Carolina Stang Wrote:  Fans aren't stupid, no matter what TV execs, conference commissioners and AD's might think. You put a crap product on the field, or schedule crap games against crap opponents that no one cares about, you are going to see huge decreases in student/fan attendance. Period.

More importantly -- You spit on historical rivalries, tear apart long-standing conference affiliations, and start paying your players to create some D4 type of "NFL-lite"? You are going to lose fans, period. Personally, I will not watch one down of "P5" football, should they break away. If I want to watch a pro game, I will watch the NFL. The reason I used to love college football is the tradition (which quite frankly has been thrown away), the rivalries (again, gone), and the student athletes that represent your school. The greed of the conference commissioners and TV execs has ruined college football, and I think many college football fans think the way that I do.

This is exactly right. I am shocked that you do not see more people saying this. I have family that are grads of SEC and ACC schools that feel this way. It is not just the smaller schools.
I know the Aggies love their new shiny home in the SEC, but the fact that the 2 biggest schools in Texas don't play each other anymore is all you need to know about greed ruining the game that I love. It really is a shame.

(06-25-2014 09:44 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  That's not the actual student section. That's the Greek section. The student section is in the corner. The Greek section has always come late and left early. The University is more or less okay with it because it is the Greek institutions that make vast donations.