According to official releases and game stories, NIU is calling last night's game the first sellout since the 2003 Maryland game. Really?? How is that possible?

The attendance for that game was 28,018, back when Huskie Stadium (which had the EXACT same configuration) had an official capacity of 28,000. The problem with that stat is that it can't be correct. There have multiple other games since the Maryland game that drew crowds of 28,000+. So here are other games that apparently NOT considered sellouts by Athletics, but had larger crowds than the Maryland game.

10/18/2003 - 28,221 - apparently NOT a sellout
9/27/2013 - 28,218 - apparently NOT a sellout
9/11/2004 - 28,071 - apparently NOT a sellout

8/28/2013 - 28,018 - apparently our last sellout - the Maryland game

Also, Huskie Stadium capacity was magically reduced from 28,000 to 24,000 in 2007, although no one knows why. Yet that year, the home opener against SIU drew a crowd of 24,182. So that's not a sellout either?

Yet last night's game with announced attendance of 23,595 was a sellout even though it's 405 people short of published stadium capacity.

Someone in Athletics needs a remedial lesson in math.

I think they call it a "Sell out" based on tickets sold. And they announce attendance based on actual butts in the seats. So they sold whatever the number is for a sell out, but only 23k+ came into the stadium.

That's my guess.

Were they not able to count the high school bands and their retainers?

But I agree, we had 28k plus before, and I know from experience that we can fit 30 or 31k.

Maybe our new AD will review and will up the official capacity and give us something higher to shoot for. I hope so.

From the east side, the west side looked thinner than I expected.

This was despite Dog Fan's attendance.

(09-22-2013 09:16 AM)niuguy Wrote:  From the east side, the west side looked thinner than I expected.

This was despite Dog Fan's attendance.

There were ptobably some no shows and some of the Huskieland plan ticketholders in the corners of the West side went in on the east side.

They used to get more than 24,000 in the stadium by allowing more people into the east side than there are seats. The fire marshall eventually cracked down on that, hence the reduction to an official capacity of 24K.

(09-22-2013 09:16 AM)niuguy Wrote:  From the east side, the west side looked thinner than I expected.

This was despite Dog Fan's attendance.

In the HASF tent, I ate a delcious bratwurst with a mound of sauerkraut, all washed down with a beer. My wife kept giving me dirty looks, and the crowd around me thinned out. I think they moved to the East side. So sorry for the lighter crowd on the West side.

I got pretty beat up on the ride home. I think my wife hates me.

My guess is the fire marshall got smart when they realized that we had a capacity of 28k but we took down the endzone bleachers.

Allowed capacity was then reduced to 24k since 2007 when the bleachers were taken down to build the Yordon Center.

Looking at the stadium I have no doubt that we had 28k+ in actual people for those game as last night people were nowhere as packed in as in 2003 and 2004. An additional 405 people on Saturday would not have made it the packed house that is was 9 and 10 years ago.