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.

Good points raised - see this in many other colleges - even at the FCS level for teams like Delaware.

I realize that this is the sort of thing that is ripe for people to make fun of old fogey "In our time, we walked uphill both ways through the snow....and we liked it" stories - but there's a lot of truth to this. While they may be factors in attendance drops, you can't simply blame HDTVs and smartphones for all declines in attendance. What differentiated college sports from pro sports is definitely in danger of being lost, and if people don't figure that out soon (particularly the penny-wise-and-pound-foolish trend of trying to squeeze every cent out of students) they're going to cause big issues at many schools.

Of course, TV executives couldn't possibly care less, and the ADs whose poor decisions lead to lessened engagement in future generations will be long retired by the time the ramifications of those decisions manifest themselves in a big way. Until then, they'll just blame their "customers".

i have been saying this for a while.

providing a gameday for your fans/alumni/students to go to is something a school does for the benefit of those people not for themselves. somewhere along the line the schools lost that line of thinking, went towards a pro sports business model and despite being a michigan fan I am glad that they are getting kicked in the ass for making this decision.

(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.

That's why Delany said in a recent, he would not build a 100k stadium today, I guess he figuring home game attendance will go down at most stadiums, with the TV and technology changes, and PR fallout

I'm a season ticket holder and I rarely go.

Parking sucks, unless you pay a small fortune. If I don't I get too stressed trying to just get my ass to the stadium.

Prices are high. Prices for season tickets are silly and they have a system that essentially extorts money from you. Buy or lose them.

The majority of the games suck. This is a major problem. Nobody is interested in playing an FCS team.

Games are more fun to alot of people when on tv at home with friends. A lot of the time they won't replay certain things so you are left unsure of what just happened on the field. At home you see a lot more.

All up, watching from home is no loss and it's cheaper to boot.

If people cannot afford to attend until they reach middle age chances are they've found something else to do by then.

I think the crazy uniform trend doesn't help either. While AState has done some tweaks if you had suddenly transported me from 1981 to 2013 and plopped me down at a game I would have easily figured out AState was playing even though I would have wondered why there was a wolf logo on the field and where the new buildings and stands came from.

Part of the college game experience is taking your kid to be part of the experience you were taken to.


Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

Well, it's just like the NFL. If you have a lot of money, you can go to games. That's one thing I'm thankful of, I can still go to games without paying an arm and a leg, although our home OOC schedule has been incredibly bad for the past decade, and the best conference game is on a weeknight.

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.

(06-24-2014 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.

You keep preaching that, but the sustainability is suspect. I'd rather go to a minor league baseball game...sooo much better than college football these days on any level.

And things are hurting at the FCS level. To the poster who mentioned Delaware, you nailed it. With the changing landscape and realignment, Delaware's conference surroundings is jarring. And it can't just be on Delaware's fans to show up...the other school has to, too. That's on CAA, to an extent, and its politics, as it is on institutions that have since come and gone from that collective. It's the same for Michigan. If I was a Michigan fan, and schools like Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota aren't on the same schedule, to be replaced by Rutgers, Maryland, Penn State, and Indiana every year...bull. I don't care if it looks like an easy path to a bowl game...that isn't quality. Just like the CAA...you can't expect Elon to fill in for the losses of ODU and UMass.

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 08:08 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/20.../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...rly-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

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.

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.

Overcapacity is going to be a huge problem for colleges. The nfl model of 60-70,000 capacity is much more feasible. I think when you have emptier stadiums, the tv ratings will also take a hit since the whole vibe of the game will be off. Greed is the problem since everybody wants more money to be paid and spent. I think a lot of the assumptions or studies colleges run will prove to have false data with eventually the bubble popping.

(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/20.../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...rly-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

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.

(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.

Not sure why my previous post went wrong, but I agree with Carolina Stang. this is what I posted to reply to it:

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 agree with Carolina as well. Watering down the product chasing after tv markets only hurts you in the long run. I've been saying that for a while.

(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.

You obviously didn't read the articles...but the Univ of Alabama is not fine with it...as they even changed the seating policy for large groups (i.e. Greeks) because of their non-support and/or leaving so early.

No more UT vs A&M football games is a shame, and I am not even of a fan of either school.
No more Michigan vs. Notre Dame (b/c of ACC alliance)
No more Maryland vs. Duke/UNC/ACC basketball games really stinks.
No more WVU vs. Pitt - backyard brawl anyone?
No more Louisville vs. Cincy - keg of nails anyone?
No more KU vs Mizzou - Border War anyone?

I guess Cuse and G'Town are still going to play OOC, but that was the Big East at its best.

Instead we have Rutgers vs Illinois (really??), Nebraska vs. Northwestern, Maryland vs Iowa, WVU vs. Iowa St., Utah vs. Wash St, Louisville vs. Wake Forest. I am sorry, but NONE of these schools have anything in common with their conference opponent, except that they are in the same conference, and purely for $$$ reasons.

The problem with realignment, whether it is the B1G or the ACC or even the AAC, is that you cannot force rivalries - they have to grow ORGANICALLY over many, many years, sometimes even decades.