Any more word on that? I personally would love to see it.........

You'll see it within the next couple years. WKU is getting ready to start a major renovation to the Football Stadium and Complex, which if anything like the work done on Diddle, will have Smith Stadium looking very good. With WKU and I-A Football it is just a matter of when and not if.

This was in todays "Curious Journal"
<a href='http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050626/COLUMNISTS02/506260452/1002/SPORTS' target='_blank'>http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.d...452/1002/SPORTS</a><a href='http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050626/COLUMNISTS02/506260452/1002/SPORTS' target='_blank'>TO JUMP TO 1A OR NOT TO JUMP THAT IS THE QUESTION!</a>

Western is going I-A.

Let me repeat, Western is going I-A.

If football has to be a money maker, then Western would need to average 30,000 or play three body bag games a year to make money in either the Sun Belt or the MAC.

I-A football at Western will be hard on the budget.

Beyond adding 23 scholies (looking WKU's sports I'd suspect there will be a temptation to drop at least one men's sport to help with the Title IX impact), and upgrading the stadium, moving to I-A will be very expensive.

You will be able to add a coaching position so you will.

You will eventually upgrade salaries in football for the head and assistant positions 50% or more to keep pace.

You will need to double your recruiting budget because you will need to evaluate a lot more players.

Your travel expenses will increase because you will have larger traveling parties, will make longer trips, and for recruiting purposes some trips you would bus to now become flights.

The cost of filling out a home schedule will be much larger.

Over-rely on big check games and you kill off your fan base.

It's not as simple as people want to make it out to be.

At ASU we had to move to I-A because at the time I-A schools couldn't count I-A wins. We were losing long-term contracts with Memphis and Ole Miss that were vital to funding our program and creating our image in our market. The admin didn't make the financial upgrades and it ended up being costly.

That CJ article says WKU avgs. less than 9K fans at FB games. I'm not sure the "Field of Dreams" mentality is going to work here (as "If you build it, they will come.") Most folks expand because they are running out of room. Sounds like WKU has plenty of room without the renovation.

Something is SERIOUSLY wrong if WKU's FB is in the Top Ten, yet continues to draw less than 10K to their games. How is WKU addressing that problem? Are they betting on a new stadium drawing in a lot more fans?

Heck, you have an INTERSTATE running through BG which should make it quite easy to get to WKU. It's not like going on a camping trip (as Bob Knight called the annual Indiana pilgrimmage to Penn State), off the beaten path, in the middle of nowhere, the quintessential college town.

And more importantly, where are these fans going to come from? You've got the pro-football team in Nashville plus the college teams to the south and the "state" university reps (loosely defined) to the north. East and West? It seems that with schools like WKU and MSU, your fan base is your alum base. It's not like in Central PA, my stomping grounds, where many folks are Penn State fans, even if they didn't attend the university. I'm sure WKU as its share of non-alum fans, but it's not like the big dogs, and I bet it is localized to the greater BG metro-region. I'm not sure its enough to seriously raise the # of patrons going to a WKU FB game.

Granted WKU attendance is not where it should be. Typically is higher than the number given in the paper. Last year was bad because of weather. Worst of all, our Homecoming was pretty much rained out. We would have gottend 15K or so, and instead got like 3K or 4K. It wasn't just sprinkles either, it wsa flooding rain.

Last year was a bummer weather year.

I guess all the Florida teams lost games to hurricanes.

Arkansas State finished the year with two Thursday night games in November (bad enough) that were both in the rain.

I have seen others comment and believe it to be true as well that Western attendance is under reported. Can anyone give me a reason that this would be?

Never heard of an under-reporting scandal other than some allegations that schools do it in the I-AA playoffs to avoid paying the NCAA so much.

I know that when the tougher rules for reporting I-A attendance came in that fans on MANY sites were raising cain because crowds formerly reported as 18,000 suddenly became 14,000.

Over the years I've seen numerous newspaper articles about over-stated attendance. Among the highlights, Eastern Michigan announcing about double in football the actual numbers, Kansas football announcing right at double in football, South Florida football announcing close to triple (one game was announced at 5x the actual), and Arkansas State basketball announcing actual plus about half of no-shows.

I've never seen a documented case of under-reporting.

arkstfan Wrote:Never heard of an under-reporting scandal other than some allegations that schools do it in the I-AA playoffs to avoid paying the NCAA so much.

I know that when the tougher rules for reporting I-A attendance came in that fans on MANY sites were raising cain because crowds formerly reported as 18,000 suddenly became 14,000.

Over the years I've seen numerous newspaper articles about over-stated attendance. Among the highlights, Eastern Michigan announcing about double in football the actual numbers, Kansas football announcing right at double in football, South Florida football announcing close to triple (one game was announced at 5x the actual), and Arkansas State basketball announcing actual plus about half of no-shows.

I've never seen a documented case of under-reporting.

I think WKU has been guilty of under reporting during their home NCAA playoff games. I think we under report a lot of times, but that's just me.

Even if WKU's attendance has been underreported for WHATEVER reason, you're still going to need more fans to come in post-renovation. Someone's going to have to pay for upkeep of the facility. :)

I agree, I don't even think attendance is THAT undereported. Just consistently seems like more people in the stands. Didn't mean to say that we were already close to filling the place, attendance has to take a big jump no matter what happens, I just wondered if anyone could give me a reason for what appears to be happening,

I asked an assistant AD about that a few years ago. He grabbed me at halftime and told me he wanted me to guess the attendance and reminded me of the reported capacity of each deck. I guessed a percentage of capacity for each area and came up with my figure. He then showed me the computer printout with the real numbers. My count was about 20% heavy.

We then walked over to some empty bleachers and he sat down and asked me to sit down. Then he pointed out that sitting in bleachers we hadn't stayed within the allotted two spots that the numbers indicated as seats.

His point was that first the numbering for bleachers makes for very snug seating because the number of inches that makes a "seat" is actually less than the backside of the average person. A row that is designated as 25 seats isn't going to seat 25 unless everyone really wedges in. The natural inclination of most people is to not sit that close, especially to a stranger so the fans spread out just a bit to avoid that contact eating up more space.

A row designed to seat 25 feels full to those on the row when there are 20 people there. Looking across the field it will appear full with as few 17 or 18 because of spacing.

Now chairback seats are a different story. Your space is your space so fans don't build in extra space.

Just thought I would bump this, if we go 1A I think it will be in the Sunbelt, then maybe a move or non move.

I believe I-A in the Sunbelt will be our best route because of MTSU. If we're going to be successful in transitioning to I-A, we need an immediate rival that is close and will fill the stadiums. MTSU is it....... That can't be said about any teams in the current MAC.

We will also have 15 million dollars more after the renovation is started for further upgrades.

I'm not so sure playing Div1A football in the Sunbelt isn't a bad thing for 1-2 years.... WKU needs to get the football schedule thing down if they don't join the MAC...... EKU, Murray, and MTSU would help attendance dramatically if we could get them on an annual home-home schedule.....

Personally, I think Troy St and North Texas would be a great addition to the schedule.... I think WKU could average 13-14K without doing alot of marketing if they could nail down the scheduling and football conference affiliation.... if that means playing Sun Belt in football for a short time.... so be it.

The Gateway Conf will never generate huge crowds... IMO. Heck, playing a local Div1A school like UK/UL/Vandy on the road could be a great thing for home attendance.....

Last year, homecoming was rained out and if i recall the Toppers had a home game on Halloween or atleast when Trick or treat was executed.....

You won't go anywhere being new to 1-A and continuing to play two 1-AA oponents regularly into your 3rd year and beyond.