(03-05-2016 10:00 PM)uiniu57 Wrote:  

(03-05-2016 09:00 PM)thxjoenovak Wrote:  

(03-05-2016 08:07 PM)dekalb222 Wrote:  NIU averaged 1524 for MAC games last year. NIU averaged 2030 for MAC games this year.
Also, the first two home MAC games were played before students got back. They also lost some attendance with the Toledo game being moved from Saturday to Friday

I agree that looking at only MAC games for attendance purposes makes more sense. The "Little Sisters of the Poor" non-con schedule wasn't going to draw flies. Be interesting to see what SF cooks up for next season...and if Izzo throws MM a bone.

This is like last season when dekalb222 would dissect a loss enough to make it sound like a victory. That 2030 average was less than all but two of the crowds for MAC away games. Considering he's been predicting being a division contender prior to each of the last three years, did anyone think the average would decrease?
In reality, those numbers are nothing to boast about.
And no offense thxjoenovak, but why does it make sense to focus only the MAC games when every debate on football attendance centers around the quality of the opponents, either as non-conference foes or the better (Toledo) versus weaker (EMU) league teams; yet the standard changes for basketball?
Whether we average 1425 per home game -- or you want to spin it positively as 2030 -- it's still a far cry from being a major money loser. Remember the thread making fun of the ILL-ness for having only 6,212 for the Rutgers game, but hey, there were three crowds over 3,000. Those are three totals that would have been on the list of lowest attendance in many of the Evans Field House years.

I really hate to break this to you but you are not the only person in the world entitled to an opinion. Relax

(03-05-2016 03:41 PM)niuaccy1976 Wrote:  Average home attendance for 18 games is 1,463.

For comparison, the 2014-15 average was 1,251.

Up almost 17%.

(03-05-2016 10:32 PM)MaddDawgz02 Wrote:  I really hate to break this to you but you are not the only person in the world entitled to an opinion. Relax

Is this intended for me MaddDawgz02?
Because I never said or thought I was the only person entitled to an opinion. Just curious MD, what's the difference between my believing Monty should never have had his contract extended and believing that if he didn't have the easiest schedule in the history of NIU basketball, he doesn't get 20 wins and this program has not made sufficient progress as opposed to your anti-AAC stance, non-stop belief in a Big 12 TV network, bench Orris, etc. opinions. A significant number on here are unhappy with Rod Carey and the direction of football yet men's basketball has yet to achieve any resemblance of that success, but it's okay that bold predictions for the past two seasons have yet to come to pass.

Uni57, you must really be bummed that Frazier any day now will extend Monty's contract by two more years. Also, bball season tickets will go up next year and Nelson Suite passes will go up and NIU will play on tv more than this year.

And in basketball, much easier to improve the non-conference home slate going into next year. Add in a couple of the SIU/Bradley/ISU/UIC/Depaul/WIU/EIU crowd, maybe even look at some of the close Iowa schools, and people will come.

I think they will start to focus more on the OOC home games next year. Time to drum up the excitement. Bring back Northwestern, or bring in another good name close team like DePaul.

Luckily with basketball teams are more likley to travel to a lower name team like us. I don't see MSU but we can get a decent team here.

It is nowhere near that easy and our RPI this season has made it even more difficult Teams with higher RPIs are not going to want to come to the convo. To get home games with teams that have lower RPIs you have to pay tens of thousands of dollars. Factoring in that the MAC demands teams must have 15 or more home games, it make scheduling that much more difficult. Compounding that is the issue of needing to bring money into the athletic department through "buy games" against the big boys. This year's record means teams like Bradley, DePaul, Eastern Illinois, Western Illinois, Illinois state and southern Illinois won't come here. Scheduling is nowhere near as simple as a lot on this board think it is.