(11-14-2014 11:42 PM)uiniu57 Wrote: (11-14-2014 05:07 PM)armour248 Wrote: The fact of the matter is that if you put NIU in the B12 tomorrow, season tickets would go from 3500 to 15000 within a week.
How is this a fact? Should the world's biggest IF (NIU was in the B12 tomorrow) occur, where would all of these would-be season ticket holders come from to quadruple our numbers? First and foremost we barely had over 15000 for the Kent State game and 20122 for Homecoming, so you can guarantee all those people are suddenly going to buy season tickets? Come on, the numbers would go up....if they doubled, that would be great. You assuming anything above that is not supported by any of our present or even recent past attendance. We hosted Kansas and had over 18,000, so all of those folks minus 3800 are suddently going to buy season tickets? Again, not saying the attendance wouldn't be better, just saying the number of season ticket holders jumping that much is unrealistic.
It's a chicken and egg scenario, but I think if you got an invite to the Big 12, coinciding with stadium upgrades, there would definitely be a massive bump in season tickets.
Now, my reasons for saying that are because of this:
1. It's a bit apples & oranges, but almost all MLB teams got a big attendance bump with a new stadium. Even just the novelty was good enough to push attendance way up, at least for a year.
2. If you couple a real big-time stadium with a real big-time conference, that might be enough to get the latent, apathetic NIU fans that we know are there, to actually jump in on things. A slate of home games vs Oklahoma, West Virginia, Kansas, Kansas St, Baylor, and TCU would certainly get people excited over what they've come to expect from NIU.
3. Thousands of NIU fans were in Miami for the Orange Bowl. True, most didn't purchase tickets through the university, but there were thousands of people there who dropped everything and went with 4 weeks notice. Little anecdotal things like that and the crowd at HS for the Bowling Green game in 2002 (a long time ago, I know) says to me that deep down, NIU alums
want to give a s*^t and be big time.
Now, working against that, is:
1. Despite my cloud 9 forecast of "if you build it, they will come" is we're talking about the NIU fanbase, whom I wouldn't give a squirt of piss for, honestly. As my parents (NIU alums from the 60s) say: "NIU: Where the only tradition is apathy."
2. All of that movin' on up would involve a
huge jump in the cost of going to NIU games. The product would be sexier, but you'd be paying for it.
3. There's no guarantee that NIU could handle that jump in quality. If NIU became an Iowa St-type bottom feeder instead of a TCU upwardly mobile program, then all of that excitement would die off really quickly. Give NIU fans a reason
not to go and they always seem to take it.
Well, this post sure rambles a hundred different directions and I may have disproved my own premise with the last paragraph. I think, in my heart of hearts, that NIU alums want to give a crap, but they almost have to be presented with a no-lose scenario in order to go all-in. Pretty tough, but a worthy goal.