I saw an article in the WSJ this past Thursday about the falling participation rates in child/teen organized sports. Since most do not have a WSJ account, I've found some recent articles that speak about it as well for info purposes. I put the WSJ story as the 3rd link.

http://tracking.si.com/2013/11/13/youth-...ion-drops/

http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/ex...ticipation

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10...ticipation

I have a number of concerns about the long term prospects of college athletics including: the "student athletes" ability (or lack of ability) to participate in college level studies, the level to which the programs at many D1 schools are run more like minor league teams loosely affiliated with a university as opposed to athletics teams sponsored by universities and the effects of money pouring into the athletics conferences to such an extent that a football coach is paid more money than the person in charge of the entire university and every facet it participates in (Chancellors and Presidents). I am very concerned because as you tally up the problem areas in college athletics, you will see that they are run like a hybrid entity. Academics are the number one reason to attend a university EXCEPT...when they get in the way of practice. Most D1 universities are non-profit entities beholden to their states EXCEPT when they are managing their revenue generating sports. Universities try their best to attract and retain the best young minds it can get its hands on EXCEPT when it comes to pursuing scholarship athletes for the revenue sports.

Yes, a lot of concerns that frankly are making me sour on college and pro sports as I get older. But the participation rate drops noted in the articles above have other damaging ramifications for college athletics from a different angle. The kids are becoming tired of it. This is VERY concerning because team sports are a great way for kids to learn valuable life lessons. Part of the reason the kids are burning out is due to the move to "professionalize" this sports with specialization and the travel teams. College sports are becoming ruined by losing their amateur status. Now it's happening further up stream at the source. This is bad. The football injuries are yet another twist on it too.

What are your thoughts on how this relates to college athletics. I think athletics will start to shrink over time, but not in the near term. Longer term, I predict them to look significantly different.

I wouldn't be so certain that the drop in youth sport participation will make a huge difference in the higher levels. So long as the stands are full and jocks get BMOC treatment there will always be enough players to found.

I think if you look into the reasons for the decline in youth sports I think you will find that they are demographically, sociologically, economically caused. I certainly don't believe "The kids are becoming tired of it."

There are a lot of things I'd like to know.

Has there been a population dip in that age group?
Has there been any significant number of local programs opting out of Pop Warner to join another association or go independent, is this a Pop Warner issue or sport issue.
What do the overall numbers look like in other sports? Are parents dropping sports or dropping football?

While participation may be down, but I'd be willing to bet that the number of recruits doesn't drop much if at all. What this is more a sign of is more specialization. The players who would eventually go on to play high school and college ball are for the most part playing football, all you are losing are the ones who are going on to play basketball, baseball, lacrosse, etc.

(02-02-2014 09:55 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  There are a lot of things I'd like to know.

Has there been a population dip in that age group?
Has there been any significant number of local programs opting out of Pop Warner to join another association or go independent, is this a Pop Warner issue or sport issue.
What do the overall numbers look like in other sports? Are parents dropping sports or dropping football?

There are a lot of issues forming a trend that runs counter to the sports boom.

1. Participation is down. Latch key kids in homes where both parents are working to make ends meet have difficulty making practice times and many parents discourage too many extracurricular activities because of time constraints. In the Upper Middle Class it is exactly the opposite. Soccer moms take their daughters to dance, cheer leading, piano, and soccer and the kids become an extension of the parental ego. In those households the dad takes the boys to wrestling, football, golf, baseball, or whatever the "travel sport" happens to be. Travel sports are an extension of class consciousness and a way to segregate the have children from the have not, or don't have enough kids. There are far more poor children, and kids facing two parents working overtime, than there are Upper Middle Class yuppie types. So sports participation is becoming counter culture.

2. Video and electronic media are taking over the free time that kids once gave to the neighborhood game of any seasonal sport. In fact children out of the sight of the parents or the school system is a situation that is frowned upon greatly in today's society.

3. Physical education in grade school no longer pushes team or contact sports like they did back in the day, and that is if PE is offered at all, or not substituted for another extracurricular activity as it is in may places. This too lends to an increase in insular rather than social children.

4. The 20 to 30 somethings are no shows at most athletic events whether that is college or professional. Sports audiences tend to be X'ers to Boomers with a sprinkling of generation Y. Perhaps this is due to lower wage years in many persons lives coinciding with high ticket prices, but in their personal lives many of the younger crowd prefer other activities than sports. If this trend continues in 20 years the stadiums that are being super-sized will be embarrassingly empty. I would like to think that perhaps after working one of those reward inhibiting corporate jobs they just don't want to be anywhere near the damn corporate logos plastered all over their alma maters, but I have a feeling they just aren't interested in glorifying the jock culture which is counter to most of what they think and feel.

But anyway you cut it if the trends continue the sports bubble will definitely burst. A little supply side thinking would be in order in most athletic departments. They truly need to grow the interest and audience among the young. The way to do that is to offer game day daycare and cheap seats for 20 to 30 somethings to get them enculturated to attending. Each Athletic Department needs to set aside about 30,000 tickets for this demographic and intentionally market them cheaply while TV interest in the games is still high. Otherwise the great team sport culture is going to die out in a few decades.

Between spring baseball and fall baseball. We just don't have time for other sports. With that said. I would allow my oldest son to play football anyway.

There is a lot of extrapolation going on. I don't think it is time to sound the death knell for college sports just yet.

I don't have any numbers but it is my understanding that Pop Warner is expensive and very time consuming, including a lot of travel. I also believe kids are playing other sports - soccer, lax, etc. that are not as well organized so may not be included in those numbers. Colleges will follow the money.

My daughters are cheerleaders. It starts in July and ends in December. Every weekend (Saturday and Sunday) is taken over by games.

Finally, while I do not promote it this way, many parents and coaches feel like they need to run the events and coach to NFL standards and fail miserably.

I am interested in participation and teamwork. It is nice to win. It is nice to have nice things. I am not building a new stadium for you or fundraising for you on that level.

I see this drop in participation rates to be a problem in several ways.

1) Less kids going into the team sports may impact the supply of new recruits to feed the college athletics teams. Now, it's possible that what we're seeing is more of a consolidation and that those kids who had zero chance of ever making it on a scholarship to play college athletics are the only ones dropping out while the cream remains. This is to be determined.

2) With reduced participation in team sports, I would expect the number of fans for the various college and pro sports to wane in the coming years. This is what I think is the more serious issue for college sports moving forward. Football is my favorite sport to follow because I used to play it. I also have an interest in watching track and field on TV (when it makes it onto TV that is) because I participated in that sport. Baseball, hockey and basketball don't hold my interest nearly as much because I never played on any organized teams. IMHO, it's hard to be a dedicated fan (one who will pay money for sporting events) if you can't imagine yourself scoring the winning touchdown, making the buzzer beating jumper to win the game or hitting the walk off grand slam in the bottom of the 9th.

If I recall correctly, I believe fantasy football has eclipsed the interest in the actual FB games. I think that's sad if my recollection is correct. I think much of that stems from the fact that people are glued to their multimedia devices more so than the sports themselves.

As a parent, I can relate to what others have written regarding the costs for kids to play organized sports today plus the mentality of specialization in one sport. Both kids and parents are getting burned out. Parents because it is a financial drain on their resources plus it takes time away from the family when a parent has to run a kid to their travel team games/practices. Kids burn out due to the high time commitment that didn't used to exist for earlier generations. I've talked to parents whose kids are practicing 6 days a week, 2-3 hours/day for basketball as middle schoolers. That's bullsh!t. But these arguments are more appropriate for a more political discussion. However, they also contribute to the explanation for why I believe our sports culture is slowly dying.

There is a day of judgement on the horizon in my opinion. This golden age of college athletics being worth unholy amounts of money cannot go on forever. Low participation, pay-for-play, federal changes in student loan dollars for the wider university will all sap a lot of cash out of this business in the coming years. It's a bubble if there has ever been one.

(02-02-2014 09:35 AM)ULdave Wrote:  I wouldn't be so certain that the drop in youth sport participation will make a huge difference in the higher levels. So long as the stands are full and jocks get BMOC treatment there will always be enough players to found.

I think if you look into the reasons for the decline in youth sports I think you will find that they are demographically, sociologically, economically caused. I certainly don't believe "The kids are becoming tired of it."

The youth football leagues in Louisville are not Pop Warner, but they are still all doing well. You should be more concern that the soccer moms are destroying all sports.

I think participation is down because parents burn their kids out too early - we start kids in peewee football or swimming at age 6, pressure them so that 6th grade football is what freshman football was back in the day (mid 80s).

And these 9-10 year olds in these programs get pressured to train and work like they're college athletes - like these middle school age program coaches want to think they're running an olympic training facility.

(02-02-2014 09:26 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-02-2014 09:55 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  There are a lot of things I'd like to know.

Has there been a population dip in that age group?
Has there been any significant number of local programs opting out of Pop Warner to join another association or go independent, is this a Pop Warner issue or sport issue.
What do the overall numbers look like in other sports? Are parents dropping sports or dropping football?

There are a lot of issues forming a trend that runs counter to the sports boom.

1. Participation is down. Latch key kids in homes where both parents are working to make ends meet have difficulty making practice times and many parents discourage too many extracurricular activities because of time constraints. In the Upper Middle Class it is exactly the opposite. Soccer moms take their daughters to dance, cheer leading, piano, and soccer and the kids become an extension of the parental ego. In those households the dad takes the boys to wrestling, football, golf, baseball, or whatever the "travel sport" happens to be. Travel sports are an extension of class consciousness and a way to segregate the have children from the have not, or don't have enough kids. There are far more poor children, and kids facing two parents working overtime, than there are Upper Middle Class yuppie types. So sports participation is becoming counter culture.

2. Video and electronic media are taking over the free time that kids once gave to the neighborhood game of any seasonal sport. In fact children out of the sight of the parents or the school system is a situation that is frowned upon greatly in today's society.

3. Physical education in grade school no longer pushes team or contact sports like they did back in the day, and that is if PE is offered at all, or not substituted for another extracurricular activity as it is in may places. This too lends to an increase in insular rather than social children.

4. The 20 to 30 somethings are no shows at most athletic events whether that is college or professional. Sports audiences tend to be X'ers to Boomers with a sprinkling of generation Y. Perhaps this is due to lower wage years in many persons lives coinciding with high ticket prices, but in their personal lives many of the younger crowd prefer other activities than sports. If this trend continues in 20 years the stadiums that are being super-sized will be embarrassingly empty. I would like to think that perhaps after working one of those reward inhibiting corporate jobs they just don't want to be anywhere near the damn corporate logos plastered all over their alma maters, but I have a feeling they just aren't interested in glorifying the jock culture which is counter to most of what they think and feel.

But anyway you cut it if the trends continue the sports bubble will definitely burst. A little supply side thinking would be in order in most athletic departments. They truly need to grow the interest and audience among the young. The way to do that is to offer game day daycare and cheap seats for 20 to 30 somethings to get them enculturated to attending. Each Athletic Department needs to set aside about 30,000 tickets for this demographic and intentionally market them cheaply while TV interest in the games is still high. Otherwise the great team sport culture is going to die out in a few decades.

A lot of good points in there...

1) Travel sports are not only too expensive for anyone below the upper middle class, but they are a gigantic time suck for parents. The combination limits travel sports to families that are affluent and also have one or both parents who are either obsessed or very indulgent. Farther "downstream", the issue is that for many of these sports, only the kids that have been in travel sports or the equivalent are good enough to play high school varsity and, even more so, to get looked at for college scholarships. The pool of athletes available for colleges for these sports is going to shrink as more kids get discouraged out of the sports at earlier ages.

2) Parents not wanting kids unsupervised also contributes. When I was growing up we were always out of the house and among other things we played basketball, baseball, football, etc. Because kids don't do that today, and because of the lack of sports/PE in schools, there are countless kids signing up for recreational sports who have never played the sport before at all, whereas when we were kids, we had already been playing these sports on the playground for years before we ever played in organized kiddie leagues.

3) "cheap seats for 20 to 30 somethings" -- Cal has young-alumni tickets for football and hoops that are sold at huge discounts, and I'm sure other schools do as well, and they sell well, but do the schools do a good enough job keeping those people around later on when they have families and have to buy full-price tickets for their entire family? Family areas are a good idea (I've seen a couple of baseball parks that have family areas), but schools would really need to bite the bullet and take out a lot of seats in football stadiums and basketball arenas to do that for those sports.

(02-03-2014 02:10 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-02-2014 09:26 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-02-2014 09:55 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  There are a lot of things I'd like to know.

Has there been a population dip in that age group?
Has there been any significant number of local programs opting out of Pop Warner to join another association or go independent, is this a Pop Warner issue or sport issue.
What do the overall numbers look like in other sports? Are parents dropping sports or dropping football?

There are a lot of issues forming a trend that runs counter to the sports boom.

1. Participation is down. Latch key kids in homes where both parents are working to make ends meet have difficulty making practice times and many parents discourage too many extracurricular activities because of time constraints. In the Upper Middle Class it is exactly the opposite. Soccer moms take their daughters to dance, cheer leading, piano, and soccer and the kids become an extension of the parental ego. In those households the dad takes the boys to wrestling, football, golf, baseball, or whatever the "travel sport" happens to be. Travel sports are an extension of class consciousness and a way to segregate the have children from the have not, or don't have enough kids. There are far more poor children, and kids facing two parents working overtime, than there are Upper Middle Class yuppie types. So sports participation is becoming counter culture.

2. Video and electronic media are taking over the free time that kids once gave to the neighborhood game of any seasonal sport. In fact children out of the sight of the parents or the school system is a situation that is frowned upon greatly in today's society.

3. Physical education in grade school no longer pushes team or contact sports like they did back in the day, and that is if PE is offered at all, or not substituted for another extracurricular activity as it is in may places. This too lends to an increase in insular rather than social children.

4. The 20 to 30 somethings are no shows at most athletic events whether that is college or professional. Sports audiences tend to be X'ers to Boomers with a sprinkling of generation Y. Perhaps this is due to lower wage years in many persons lives coinciding with high ticket prices, but in their personal lives many of the younger crowd prefer other activities than sports. If this trend continues in 20 years the stadiums that are being super-sized will be embarrassingly empty. I would like to think that perhaps after working one of those reward inhibiting corporate jobs they just don't want to be anywhere near the damn corporate logos plastered all over their alma maters, but I have a feeling they just aren't interested in glorifying the jock culture which is counter to most of what they think and feel.

But anyway you cut it if the trends continue the sports bubble will definitely burst. A little supply side thinking would be in order in most athletic departments. They truly need to grow the interest and audience among the young. The way to do that is to offer game day daycare and cheap seats for 20 to 30 somethings to get them enculturated to attending. Each Athletic Department needs to set aside about 30,000 tickets for this demographic and intentionally market them cheaply while TV interest in the games is still high. Otherwise the great team sport culture is going to die out in a few decades.

A lot of good points in there...

1) Travel sports are not only too expensive for anyone below the upper middle class, but they are a gigantic time suck for parents. The combination limits travel sports to families that are affluent and also have one or both parents who are either obsessed or very indulgent. Farther "downstream", the issue is that for many of these sports, only the kids that have been in travel sports or the equivalent are good enough to play high school varsity and, even more so, to get looked at for college scholarships. The pool of athletes available for colleges for these sports is going to shrink as more kids get discouraged out of the sports at earlier ages.

2) Parents not wanting kids unsupervised also contributes. When I was growing up we were always out of the house and among other things we played basketball, baseball, football, etc. Because kids don't do that today, and because of the lack of sports/PE in schools, there are countless kids signing up for recreational sports who have never played the sport before at all, whereas when we were kids, we had already been playing these sports on the playground for years before we ever played in organized kiddie leagues.

3) "cheap seats for 20 to 30 somethings" -- Cal has young-alumni tickets for football and hoops that are sold at huge discounts, and I'm sure other schools do as well, and they sell well, but do the schools do a good enough job keeping those people around later on when they have families and have to buy full-price tickets for their entire family? Family areas are a good idea (I've seen a couple of baseball parks that have family areas), but schools would really need to bite the bullet and take out a lot of seats in football stadiums and basketball arenas to do that for those sports.

A game day daycare or recreational activity for slightly older children can be offered at secure sites adjacent or within easy walking distance of the stadium. You wouldn't necessarily have to take out seats to accomplish something that would facilitate the attendance of young parents.

(02-03-2014 03:03 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-03-2014 02:10 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-02-2014 09:26 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-02-2014 09:55 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  There are a lot of things I'd like to know.

Has there been a population dip in that age group?
Has there been any significant number of local programs opting out of Pop Warner to join another association or go independent, is this a Pop Warner issue or sport issue.
What do the overall numbers look like in other sports? Are parents dropping sports or dropping football?

There are a lot of issues forming a trend that runs counter to the sports boom.

1. Participation is down. Latch key kids in homes where both parents are working to make ends meet have difficulty making practice times and many parents discourage too many extracurricular activities because of time constraints. In the Upper Middle Class it is exactly the opposite. Soccer moms take their daughters to dance, cheer leading, piano, and soccer and the kids become an extension of the parental ego. In those households the dad takes the boys to wrestling, football, golf, baseball, or whatever the "travel sport" happens to be. Travel sports are an extension of class consciousness and a way to segregate the have children from the have not, or don't have enough kids. There are far more poor children, and kids facing two parents working overtime, than there are Upper Middle Class yuppie types. So sports participation is becoming counter culture.

2. Video and electronic media are taking over the free time that kids once gave to the neighborhood game of any seasonal sport. In fact children out of the sight of the parents or the school system is a situation that is frowned upon greatly in today's society.

3. Physical education in grade school no longer pushes team or contact sports like they did back in the day, and that is if PE is offered at all, or not substituted for another extracurricular activity as it is in may places. This too lends to an increase in insular rather than social children.

4. The 20 to 30 somethings are no shows at most athletic events whether that is college or professional. Sports audiences tend to be X'ers to Boomers with a sprinkling of generation Y. Perhaps this is due to lower wage years in many persons lives coinciding with high ticket prices, but in their personal lives many of the younger crowd prefer other activities than sports. If this trend continues in 20 years the stadiums that are being super-sized will be embarrassingly empty. I would like to think that perhaps after working one of those reward inhibiting corporate jobs they just don't want to be anywhere near the damn corporate logos plastered all over their alma maters, but I have a feeling they just aren't interested in glorifying the jock culture which is counter to most of what they think and feel.

But anyway you cut it if the trends continue the sports bubble will definitely burst. A little supply side thinking would be in order in most athletic departments. They truly need to grow the interest and audience among the young. The way to do that is to offer game day daycare and cheap seats for 20 to 30 somethings to get them enculturated to attending. Each Athletic Department needs to set aside about 30,000 tickets for this demographic and intentionally market them cheaply while TV interest in the games is still high. Otherwise the great team sport culture is going to die out in a few decades.

A lot of good points in there...

1) Travel sports are not only too expensive for anyone below the upper middle class, but they are a gigantic time suck for parents. The combination limits travel sports to families that are affluent and also have one or both parents who are either obsessed or very indulgent. Farther "downstream", the issue is that for many of these sports, only the kids that have been in travel sports or the equivalent are good enough to play high school varsity and, even more so, to get looked at for college scholarships. The pool of athletes available for colleges for these sports is going to shrink as more kids get discouraged out of the sports at earlier ages.

2) Parents not wanting kids unsupervised also contributes. When I was growing up we were always out of the house and among other things we played basketball, baseball, football, etc. Because kids don't do that today, and because of the lack of sports/PE in schools, there are countless kids signing up for recreational sports who have never played the sport before at all, whereas when we were kids, we had already been playing these sports on the playground for years before we ever played in organized kiddie leagues.

3) "cheap seats for 20 to 30 somethings" -- Cal has young-alumni tickets for football and hoops that are sold at huge discounts, and I'm sure other schools do as well, and they sell well, but do the schools do a good enough job keeping those people around later on when they have families and have to buy full-price tickets for their entire family? Family areas are a good idea (I've seen a couple of baseball parks that have family areas), but schools would really need to bite the bullet and take out a lot of seats in football stadiums and basketball arenas to do that for those sports.

A game day daycare or recreational activity for slightly older children can be offered at secure sites adjacent or within easy walking distance of the stadium. You wouldn't necessarily have to take out seats to accomplish something that would facilitate the attendance of young parents.

Day care for younger kids would work well, but for slightly older kids, not so much unless the activity provided is very entertaining. Speaking from experience with my kids, they don't like to be dropped off at what amounts to day care for tweens, it has to be something they enjoy and not just a holding tank while their parents are doing something else for a few hours.

(02-03-2014 05:10 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-03-2014 03:03 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-03-2014 02:10 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-02-2014 09:26 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-02-2014 09:55 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  There are a lot of things I'd like to know.

Has there been a population dip in that age group?
Has there been any significant number of local programs opting out of Pop Warner to join another association or go independent, is this a Pop Warner issue or sport issue.
What do the overall numbers look like in other sports? Are parents dropping sports or dropping football?

There are a lot of issues forming a trend that runs counter to the sports boom.

1. Participation is down. Latch key kids in homes where both parents are working to make ends meet have difficulty making practice times and many parents discourage too many extracurricular activities because of time constraints. In the Upper Middle Class it is exactly the opposite. Soccer moms take their daughters to dance, cheer leading, piano, and soccer and the kids become an extension of the parental ego. In those households the dad takes the boys to wrestling, football, golf, baseball, or whatever the "travel sport" happens to be. Travel sports are an extension of class consciousness and a way to segregate the have children from the have not, or don't have enough kids. There are far more poor children, and kids facing two parents working overtime, than there are Upper Middle Class yuppie types. So sports participation is becoming counter culture.

2. Video and electronic media are taking over the free time that kids once gave to the neighborhood game of any seasonal sport. In fact children out of the sight of the parents or the school system is a situation that is frowned upon greatly in today's society.

3. Physical education in grade school no longer pushes team or contact sports like they did back in the day, and that is if PE is offered at all, or not substituted for another extracurricular activity as it is in may places. This too lends to an increase in insular rather than social children.

4. The 20 to 30 somethings are no shows at most athletic events whether that is college or professional. Sports audiences tend to be X'ers to Boomers with a sprinkling of generation Y. Perhaps this is due to lower wage years in many persons lives coinciding with high ticket prices, but in their personal lives many of the younger crowd prefer other activities than sports. If this trend continues in 20 years the stadiums that are being super-sized will be embarrassingly empty. I would like to think that perhaps after working one of those reward inhibiting corporate jobs they just don't want to be anywhere near the damn corporate logos plastered all over their alma maters, but I have a feeling they just aren't interested in glorifying the jock culture which is counter to most of what they think and feel.

But anyway you cut it if the trends continue the sports bubble will definitely burst. A little supply side thinking would be in order in most athletic departments. They truly need to grow the interest and audience among the young. The way to do that is to offer game day daycare and cheap seats for 20 to 30 somethings to get them enculturated to attending. Each Athletic Department needs to set aside about 30,000 tickets for this demographic and intentionally market them cheaply while TV interest in the games is still high. Otherwise the great team sport culture is going to die out in a few decades.

A lot of good points in there...

1) Travel sports are not only too expensive for anyone below the upper middle class, but they are a gigantic time suck for parents. The combination limits travel sports to families that are affluent and also have one or both parents who are either obsessed or very indulgent. Farther "downstream", the issue is that for many of these sports, only the kids that have been in travel sports or the equivalent are good enough to play high school varsity and, even more so, to get looked at for college scholarships. The pool of athletes available for colleges for these sports is going to shrink as more kids get discouraged out of the sports at earlier ages.

2) Parents not wanting kids unsupervised also contributes. When I was growing up we were always out of the house and among other things we played basketball, baseball, football, etc. Because kids don't do that today, and because of the lack of sports/PE in schools, there are countless kids signing up for recreational sports who have never played the sport before at all, whereas when we were kids, we had already been playing these sports on the playground for years before we ever played in organized kiddie leagues.

3) "cheap seats for 20 to 30 somethings" -- Cal has young-alumni tickets for football and hoops that are sold at huge discounts, and I'm sure other schools do as well, and they sell well, but do the schools do a good enough job keeping those people around later on when they have families and have to buy full-price tickets for their entire family? Family areas are a good idea (I've seen a couple of baseball parks that have family areas), but schools would really need to bite the bullet and take out a lot of seats in football stadiums and basketball arenas to do that for those sports.

A game day daycare or recreational activity for slightly older children can be offered at secure sites adjacent or within easy walking distance of the stadium. You wouldn't necessarily have to take out seats to accomplish something that would facilitate the attendance of young parents.

Day care for younger kids would work well, but for slightly older kids, not so much unless the activity provided is very entertaining. Speaking from experience with my kids, they don't like to be dropped off at what amounts to day care for tweens, it has to be something they enjoy and not just a holding tank while their parents are doing something else for a few hours.

Roger that. I would think some kind of instructional activity with sports. The training events could be designed to cover a variety of skills with accompanying play that would run for three hours with each home game having a different set of skill sets covered. For instance it would be a great time for a mini basketball camp to be taught to the tweens, or volleyball, or even soccer at the indoor facilities. Anyway you get the idea, participatory, controllable, but different and social in nature.

(02-02-2014 09:26 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-02-2014 09:55 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

4. The 20 to 30 somethings are no shows at most athletic events whether that is college or professional. Sports audiences tend to be X'ers to Boomers with a sprinkling of generation Y. Perhaps this is due to lower wage years in many persons lives coinciding with high ticket prices, but in their personal lives many of the younger crowd prefer other activities than sports. If this trend continues in 20 years the stadiums that are being super-sized will be embarrassingly empty. I would like to think that perhaps after working one of those reward inhibiting corporate jobs they just don't want to be anywhere near the damn corporate logos plastered all over their alma maters, but I have a feeling they just aren't interested in glorifying the jock culture which is counter to most of what they think and feel.

But anyway you cut it if the trends continue the sports bubble will definitely burst. A little supply side thinking would be in order in most athletic departments. They truly need to grow the interest and audience among the young. The way to do that is to offer game day daycare and cheap seats for 20 to 30 somethings to get them enculturated to attending. Each Athletic Department needs to set aside about 30,000 tickets for this demographic and intentionally market them cheaply while TV interest in the games is still high. Otherwise the great team sport culture is going to die out in a few decades.

I can speak to the 20-30 something crowd since I am in it. Corporate involvement is definitely involved here. Our entire lives have been bombarded by advertising, so it is rare that we view or attend a public event that is not packaged as a giant advertisement. That's fine, but we are not paying a premium in order to be among the ones being targeted. Cities around the country have amazing turnouts for music, food, beer, arts, and about every other festival you can imagine. Why? Because they are usually free, and you just pay for what you want. Walk around any tourist area where some establishments charge a cover while others are free, or visit the towns of rural America and look at a flea market that is charging admission compared to free admission and see who is doing better business.

Here is what would work for our age group... make game day about a full experience and atmosphere. Keep selling the suites and premium seats to those in older generations who have the money and are willing to spend it on tickets. For the rest of the upper level and bleacher seats, create a festival atmosphere around the stadium so that people my age with young kids can go in and out as we please as just one of the many available experiences. For most people, especially those with a wife or husband who don't care much about football with a toddler or two in tow, one quarter of football is about the limit. It is just not worth the cost and hassle to blow at least half a day to sit in bad seats. However, if you can hop in the stadium for 15-30 minutes but then spend the rest of the time outside the stadium tasting different foods out of food trucks, browsing through local artist tents, stopping by a pop up bar for a drink or two and catch the other games going on, let the kids play on the huge inflatables, catch a local band playing on a side stage, etc., a ton of people my age would show up. Plaster corporate logos all over the place; just don't charge a cover. My generation sees ticket prices to athletic events where you still have to buy your own food and drink as a cover, whether that is wrong or right. If you want to blame someone, blame the corporate type boomers sitting in those suites who trained us to be this way. We don't want things for free; we are willing to pay for what we want with the understanding that the corporate sponsors are looking down on the crowd and just see dollar signs atop our heads. Again, that is fine; we just don't thing we should have to pay for that designation.

(02-04-2014 02:04 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  

(02-02-2014 09:26 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-02-2014 09:55 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

4. The 20 to 30 somethings are no shows at most athletic events whether that is college or professional. Sports audiences tend to be X'ers to Boomers with a sprinkling of generation Y. Perhaps this is due to lower wage years in many persons lives coinciding with high ticket prices, but in their personal lives many of the younger crowd prefer other activities than sports. If this trend continues in 20 years the stadiums that are being super-sized will be embarrassingly empty. I would like to think that perhaps after working one of those reward inhibiting corporate jobs they just don't want to be anywhere near the damn corporate logos plastered all over their alma maters, but I have a feeling they just aren't interested in glorifying the jock culture which is counter to most of what they think and feel.

But anyway you cut it if the trends continue the sports bubble will definitely burst. A little supply side thinking would be in order in most athletic departments. They truly need to grow the interest and audience among the young. The way to do that is to offer game day daycare and cheap seats for 20 to 30 somethings to get them enculturated to attending. Each Athletic Department needs to set aside about 30,000 tickets for this demographic and intentionally market them cheaply while TV interest in the games is still high. Otherwise the great team sport culture is going to die out in a few decades.

I can speak to the 20-30 something crowd since I am in it. Corporate involvement is definitely involved here. Our entire lives have been bombarded by advertising, so it is rare that we view or attend a public event that is not packaged as a giant advertisement. That's fine, but we are not paying a premium in order to be among the ones being targeted. Cities around the country have amazing turnouts for music, food, beer, arts, and about every other festival you can imagine. Why? Because they are usually free, and you just pay for what you want. Walk around any tourist area where some establishments charge a cover while others are free, or visit the towns of rural America and look at a flea market that is charging admission compared to free admission and see who is doing better business.

Here is what would work for our age group... make game day about a full experience and atmosphere. Keep selling the suites and premium seats to those in older generations who have the money and are willing to spend it on tickets. For the rest of the upper level and bleacher seats, create a festival atmosphere around the stadium so that people my age with young kids can go in and out as we please as just one of the many available experiences. For most people, especially those with a wife or husband who don't care much about football with a toddler or two in tow, one quarter of football is about the limit. It is just not worth the cost and hassle to blow at least half a day to sit in bad seats. However, if you can hop in the stadium for 15-30 minutes but then spend the rest of the time outside the stadium tasting different foods out of food trucks, browsing through local artist tents, stopping by a pop up bar for a drink or two and catch the other games going on, let the kids play on the huge inflatables, catch a local band playing on a side stage, etc., a ton of people my age would show up. Plaster corporate logos all over the place; just don't charge a cover. My generation sees ticket prices to athletic events where you still have to buy your own food and drink as a cover, whether that is wrong or right. If you want to blame someone, blame the corporate type boomers sitting in those suites who trained us to be this way. We don't want things for free; we are willing to pay for what we want with the understanding that the corporate sponsors are looking down on the crowd and just see dollar signs atop our heads. Again, that is fine; we just don't thing we should have to pay for that designation.

BBB this post should be sent to Athletic Directors everywhere. Back in the 80's I suggested to the Auburn Athletic Department that they should package all Fall events around the football ticket sales so that families could plan a weekend, and not just a three hour event. The response was blank stares and a chuckle followed by we don't do things that way.

The reason for my suggestion was the dropping of top names for concerts, particularly in the Fall. My point was that we had a Fall rodeo for charity, a Fall arts and crafts festival, and usually a Fall major concert and attendance at all of the above events weren't what those in charge would have liked. But each event was left to its own devices to advertise and promote their project. My point was that if they were scheduled in concert with a football weekend then families buying tickets could see the brochure, or purchase concert or rodeo tickets along with their football tickets and make plans in advance to attend. I knew a lot of families that would have gone to the Rodeo, or Arts & Crafts if they had even known the events were taking place. Saturday morning was the traditional rodeo time anyway and most of our games are at night especially in the early Fall. You could have held the Arts and Crafts fair on a Saturday around a day game. And almost all concerts were on Friday night a time when most RV fans and tailgaters have nothing to do anyway.

I was shocked by the ignorance and lack of vision, but since have discovered that if any idea sounds like more work for a state employee then apathy and lethargy are a standard operating procedure.

But now fear would make them listen. They know their attendance is flagging and that younger people aren't attending.

You're right, JR... that idea you pitched to Auburn makes too much sense to actually happen. By the way, this is not an original idea. The Red River Rivalry is so hugely successful because it takes place (or used to) at the same venue as the Texas State Fair. Nashville has some really good artists, but the historic area where they have galleries is underutilized. So, the plan is to stimulate growth in an arts district that is directly attached to the south side of the new convention center, which is connected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, which is connected to the Bridgestone Arena and Ryman Auditorium as well as the Symphony and the football stadium across a pedestrian bridge over the river... you get the point. In the midst of all of that, we always have food trucks ranging from fried chicken to Japanese street food, and there is always at least one band playing on a pop up street stage any time the Predators, Titans, or other major sporting event is taking place. This is how CMA Fest has been such a success; almost all of it is free access, but a ton of money is being spent on food, drinks, transportation, hotels, and premium access to those events for those that place such a value on them.

If Auburn would have listened to you, the entire town would be crawling with not only consumers, but producers. High quality artists, chefs, and musicians would flood your streets because of the access to so many people who choose to spend their free time socializing and sharing the experiences that they are having. It takes about 15 minutes for word to get out about that chef that has awesome doughnuts or the artist that has really cool photos or paintings of local landmarks. Such a setup is one of the best ways to encourage local people to shop local.

(02-04-2014 03:32 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  You're right, JR... that idea you pitched to Auburn makes too much sense to actually happen. By the way, this is not an original idea. The Red River Rivalry is so hugely successful because it takes place (or used to) at the same venue as the Texas State Fair. Nashville has some really good artists, but the historic area where they have galleries is underutilized. So, the plan is to stimulate growth in an arts district that is directly attached to the south side of the new convention center, which is connected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, which is connected to the Bridgestone Arena and Ryman Auditorium as well as the Symphony and the football stadium across a pedestrian bridge over the river... you get the point. In the midst of all of that, we always have food trucks ranging from fried chicken to Japanese street food, and there is always at least one band playing on a pop up street stage any time the Predators, Titans, or other major sporting event is taking place. This is how CMA Fest has been such a success; almost all of it is free access, but a ton of money is being spent on food, drinks, transportation, hotels, and premium access to those events for those that place such a value on them.

If Auburn would have listened to you, the entire town would be crawling with not only consumers, but producers. High quality artists, chefs, and musicians would flood your streets because of the access to so many people who choose to spend their free time socializing and sharing the experiences that they are having. It takes about 15 minutes for word to get out about that chef that has awesome doughnuts or the artist that has really cool photos or paintings of local landmarks. Such a setup is one of the best ways to encourage local people to shop local.

Kudos to Nashville, but then that city has a lot of creative left brained people finding new ways to do things. You would think a University town could be more creative. I had in mind the Texas State Fair way back at the time I made the suggestion. The idea should always be to optimize the experiences of the public. A festival atmosphere can be the best of social and familial experiences. And there is plenty there for generations of families to do. It would be well taken advantage of just by those making day trips, and you will still have those who can afford it making a long weekend out of it as well. Synergy has always been the ticket to multiple successes. I still think you ought to send your 20 to 30 something assessment to the AD's.