Food for thought....
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/col...tml#page=1
Where have the student fans gone?
If he weren't set to break Nebraska's all-time receiving record this season, Kenny Bell knows exactly how he'd be enjoying college football games this fall.
And it wouldn't be at the stadium.
"It's way easier to sit on your couch in your underwear and sit on Twitter," Bell said. "Then when there's a commercial, play a game of Halo, then go back to the game. There's no question."
Purdue defensive end Ryan Russell tried to remember the last time he watched any sporting event without checking social media. He finally came to the conclusion that it must have been before he signed up for Twitter.
Explaining why he thinks students wouldn't attend games, he said: "Why would I go when I can get it on my phone or my iPad?"
In Champaign, Illinois coach Tim Beckman envisions himself leading the team onto the field at Memorial Stadium with rowdy students in the stands. Yet entering his third season, he's not sure what the turnout will be.
"In the two years I've been here," Beckman said, "it's something definitely that I'd like to get better."
Across the Big Ten, football programs are watching the number of students in their student sections dwindle. The success of the team matters, of course, but it's happening to perennial powerhouses and bottom-feeders alike. This isn't so much a drop in school spirit as it is an increase in accessibility to it.
For a number of reasons, certain students no longer feel as compelled to cram into the bleachers on game days.
At Michigan, the Wolverines have seen average student attendance drop by 1,834 since the 2011 season. Student ticket sales have declined by 1,766 since 2010.
Part of that regression is rooted in revolt. Before last season, and without consulting the school's central student government, Michigan athletics scrapped its longtime seniority-based seating arrangement — with freshman seated in the end zone and seniors closer to the 50-yard line — and opted for general admission. The change was made to give students incentive to show up early.
Feeling underappreciated and unable to sit with their friends, some students simply chose to watch the game elsewhere.
When visiting teams ran through the tunnel at Michigan Stadium last season, identifying where students sit was a problem.
"I didn't even know if they had a student section," Nebraska's Bell said.
The Wolverines, after working with the student government, altered their policy for this season.
Students will be time-stamped as they enter the stadium; the earlier they show up and the more games they attend, the better seat location they'll receive going forward.
"This is pretty unique," said Hunter Lochman, Michigan's chief marketing officer. "It was a nice partnership ... to really get the student voice and to work together."
In early June, Division I marketing executives came together at the convention for the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators to figure out how to attract students to football games. Schools traded tricks to help promote their cause in open discussions that covered every aspect of game day.
As a result, Illinois offered a 125-minute "special" in which individual tickets went on sale for $10. It sold more than 14,000 tickets. But selling tickets to students remains a problem.
In the last four years, student ticket sales have dropped from 7,475 in 2010 to 3,622 last season.
"It's W's," Beckman said. "I'm not silly."
Surely that's part of it, and the Illini haven't had a winning season since 2011. Yet the culture around college football has changed since then too. It's no longer about solely the product on the field.
When schools began to notice their student attendance declining, it was assumed that a reluctance to upgrade stadium technology was partly to blame; by not having Wi-Fi in stadiums, and therefore not providing access to social media, fans were opting to stay away from the games.
Yet when schools such as Michigan and Illinois surveyed students to find out what they'd most like to see change at games, access to the Internet was either near the middle or bottom of the list.
What students want — and what schools are trying to create — is a can't-miss atmosphere.
"We're trying to create something they can't get by going to a bar and turning on a TV," said Brad Swanson, director of marketing at Illinois. "That's what we have to do to separate ourselves."
That has become the challenge for most schools suffering from declining attendance. At Illinois, the athletic department is working from the outside in. Swanson said in the coming year the school will carve out an area in its prime parking lot, which now is reserved for donors to the university, for students to tailgate. The hope is that bringing the pregame atmosphere closer to the stadium will translate into more fans going into the stadium.
"One thing that's never really existed at Illinois is a dedicated student area for tailgating," Swanson said. "We're trying to create that for them."
It's a similar concept to the "Fitzerland" area Northwestern set up across from Ryan Field, although the situation in Evanston is a bit different from Champaign.
Students don't have to worry about buying tickets for Wildcats games. Instead they can just show up on game day, show their student ID and enter. Northwestern declined to provide student attendance numbers.
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The case of the missing college football fans-Tribune
Not gonna happen.