(02-16-2012 05:25 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  LOL I think oyu got that backwards son.. The reason attendance is better in the CUSA cities is because college football is the only game in town... Really on a Saturday in Hattiesburg what else is there to do?

Now the Bulls are competing against the Bills, the Sabers, two other NCAA Division 1 (hoops) colleges....

How exactly does two other basketball schools affect football attendance? And what else is there to do in Athens that there isn't in Hattiesburg? What about Oxford? DeKalb?

C-USA schools have better attendance and any spinning of it is sour grapes or a refusal of reality. Deal with it.

(02-21-2012 12:37 AM)OZoner Wrote:  

(02-16-2012 05:25 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  LOL I think oyu got that backwards son.. The reason attendance is better in the CUSA cities is because college football is the only game in town... Really on a Saturday in Hattiesburg what else is there to do?

Now the Bulls are competing against the Bills, the Sabers, two other NCAA Division 1 (hoops) colleges....

How exactly does two other basketball schools affect football attendance? And what else is there to do in Athens that there isn't in Hattiesburg? What about Oxford? DeKalb?

C-USA schools have better attendance and any spinning of it is sour grapes or a refusal of reality. Deal with it.

1) Two other basketball schools are two other sets of loyalties among the community. Not only among students but people who live in the area. Canisius is *4* miles from UB's campus

2) Funny you bring up OU which typically has better attendance than the other MAC schools, in fact right around the levels of several CUSA teams..

You're making my point for me. In Athens there is nothing to do besides OU, and they do well..

DeKalb is pretty dang close to Chicago land and Oxford is not too far from Cincinnati..

Would UB be drawing 50K if the Bills left? no, but I suspend they would pick up at least 10K more.. In hoops season they would pick up others if the Griffs and Purps were not a factor..

(02-21-2012 12:37 AM)OZoner Wrote:  

(02-16-2012 05:25 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  LOL I think oyu got that backwards son.. The reason attendance is better in the CUSA cities is because college football is the only game in town... Really on a Saturday in Hattiesburg what else is there to do?

Now the Bulls are competing against the Bills, the Sabers, two other NCAA Division 1 (hoops) colleges....

How exactly does two other basketball schools affect football attendance? And what else is there to do in Athens that there isn't in Hattiesburg? What about Oxford? DeKalb?

C-USA schools have better attendance and any spinning of it is sour grapes or a refusal of reality. Deal with it.

He has a point when comparing Buffalo to Hattiesburg because there is a lot more to do in general outside of sports in a city like Buffalo but your point is correct when comparing Hattiesburg to Oxford, Athens, and Dekalb in terms of things to do. The difference is that Southern Miss almost always has a good team and the play competition that the general public can get sort of excited about. And I believe NIU does fairly well with attendance in general, especially when they are winning like USM. I think the early season losses to Kansas, etc. probably affected their attendance this year but when they are having a good season, I think (could be wrong) that they have lately had the best attendance in the MAC and that says a lot considering this is a basketball state and really it doesn't seem like people care much about any sports teams outside of the Bears, Bulls, White Sox, and Cubs. I know that people always say and assume that Chicago is Notre Dame's market but even with that it doesn't seem like there's much interest from the general public for Notre Dame, Depaul, Northwestern...U of I probably draws the most interest but it isn't anything like Ohio State or Michigan in the state of Ohio. College isn't important here like it is in Hattiesburg.

I guess I got on a bit of a tangent but my point is that I don't think NIU does bad when they are winning considering the circumstances. I don't know much about the state of Mississippi but I do know about the football teams and I'd say there isn't much difference in strength between Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Southern Miss. Now look at the state of Ohio and the difference between Ohio State and the 72000 other Division 1 teams in the state. That's probably a decent portion of the difference (that beheamoth in Columbus).

Lots of stuff to do and more importantly being close to where your students actually come from can effect a lot of attendance. Kent has a substantial student population that lives on campus but you would be surprised at how many leave for the weekend.

Ozoner is correct. You can have a very good debate on the relative strengths of C-USA and the MAC when it comes to performance on the field, but when it comes to attendance, C-USA is much, much better than the MAC, no matter how you slice it. Now, with Memphis leaving, they lose their #1 hoops attendance leader (and no one else is even close to Memphis over there or here for that matter), and they are losing some very good football attendance programs like UCF and Houston to a lesser degree. So, they are dropping down closer to the MAC and Sunbelt, but our best home attendance programs in football would still be middle of the pack in C-USA.

(02-21-2012 11:09 AM)exCincy Kid Wrote:  Ozoner is correct. You can have a very good debate on the relative strengths of C-USA and the MAC when it comes to performance on the field, but when it comes to attendance, C-USA is much, much better than the MAC, no matter how you slice it. Now, with Memphis leaving, they lose their #1 hoops attendance leader (and no one else is even close to Memphis over there or here for that matter), and they are losing some very good football attendance programs like UCF and Houston to a lesser degree. So, they are dropping down closer to the MAC and Sunbelt, but our best home attendance programs in football would still be middle of the pack in C-USA.

Middle of the pack = average in CUSA.

In other words a MAC schools in a similar type of community as most CUSA schools draw like most CUSA schools... No we don't have an ECU in the conference but Southern Miss?

A ranked CUSA team that drew *gasp* 28400 per game... A whopping 6K more than Toledo un ranked team with no Conference or division championship.

Also bear in mind week night or not the weather up north hurts the MAC late in the season..

That's not trying to 'slice' anything its just a fact.

Many of the schools that *really* struggle are in or very near professional sports markets (as in occupy the same metro area).

(02-21-2012 12:52 AM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  DeKalb is pretty dang close to Chicago land and Oxford is not too far from Cincinnati..

OU is pretty close to Columbus which has professional football and pro hockey as well.

(02-21-2012 11:54 AM)H2Oville Rocket Wrote:  

(02-21-2012 12:52 AM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  DeKalb is pretty dang close to Chicago land and Oxford is not too far from Cincinnati..

OU is pretty close to Columbus which has professional football and pro hockey as well.

While OU is pretty close to professional football you're 1.5 hours out from Columbus.. That is a hike, three hours of your day just dirving there and back.

1 hour 25 mins on US 33E

UB is as far from City Hall in Buffalo as Rich Stadium is. Someone living in the center of the city has a 15 minute drive to either venue.

To get as far from UB as OU is from Athens you have to go beyond Rochester New York.

Heck, UB is almost out of the country! Do I need to have a passport?

(02-21-2012 12:45 PM)GFlash68 Wrote:  Heck, UB is almost out of the country! Do I need to have a passport?

HOneslty we don't want Kent fans having passports... if were lucky they will not be able to get back in

(02-21-2012 07:59 AM)Sultan of Euphonistan Wrote:  Lots of stuff to do and more importantly being close to where your students actually come from can effect a lot of attendance. Kent has a substantial student population that lives on campus but you would be surprised at how many leave for the weekend.

NIU's called a suitcase school as it's so close to Chicagoland that more leave for the weekend than is typical of many other schools. Also, DeKalb isn't very big so fans/alumni live in Chicago or the burbs and most of the fans are closer to Chicago where there's more to do than they are to DeKalb.

Also, Chicago is very much a pro sports town - early football season you're competing with both Cubs and Sox (though Cubs are out of it by then), then also the Bears for the whole season, not to mention the Blackhawks. Whatever attention there is on college football starts with TSISB, even though they aren't an Illinois school, and then U of I and Northwestern.

So there are a lot of reasons for us not to draw as well as some of us might expect, but it's still been disappointing and we should be closer to the levels of most CUSA schools. We were in 2003-04 at least and we've had good teams lately, so I assume the economy is driving much of it.

(02-12-2012 01:01 PM)Mr. Peanut Wrote:  The MAC is to CUSA as CUSA is to the BE and the BE is to the SEC

CUSA gets zero coverage in these parts so it is largely an irrelevant entity outside its own markets. Same can be said of MAC i'm sure...

(02-21-2012 07:13 PM)owen Wrote:  

(02-12-2012 01:01 PM)Mr. Peanut Wrote:  The MAC is to CUSA as CUSA is to the BE and the BE is to the SEC

CUSA gets zero coverage in these parts so it is largely an irrelevant entity outside its own markets. Same can be said of MAC i'm sure...

Totally but a big difference is that we mostly don't go saying we are as relevant as say the BE because that would be obviously wrong. Many CUSA fans fool themselves with those fantasies.