Thoughts on Frazier? Specifically Football Attendance
We've entered the 4th year of the Sean Frazier era at NIU now. What does everyone think? After talking with quite a few different people, I've been scratching my head trying to figure out why we've struggled so much with attendance after winning so many games and having such dominance the last decade in football.
The branding of NIU has been great under SF. New facilities, new equipment, new uniforms, better scheduling, etc...
So why aren't fans coming? Here are our attendance averages going back to 2002 along with AD at the time, head coach and record:
2002: 20,953 - Groth, Novak, 8-4
2003: 23,575 - Phillips, Novak, 10-2
2004: 27,052 - Phillips, Novak, 9-3
2005: 22,174 - Phillips, Novak, 7-5
2006: 20,770 - Phillips Novak, 7-6
2007: 17,863 - Phillips, Novak, 2-10
2008: 18,188 - Compher, Kill, 6-7
2009: 14,889 - Compher, Kill, 7-6
2010: 17,760 - Compher, Kill, 11-3
2011: 15,559 - Compher, Doeren, 11-3
2012: 13,170 - Compher, Doeren, 12-2
2013: 20,669 - Frazier, Carey, 12-2
2014: 13,563 - Frazier, Carey, 11-3
2015: 13,941 - Frazier, Carey, 8-6
So basically, we are down about 50% in attendance the last 2 years from where we were 03-05. The question is why? We only eclipsed the 20k mark once since Phillips left once and we can thank Jordan Lynch solely for that, yet even with Lynch and the Orange Bowl appearance we still were lagging behind from the 03-05 years.
Is it the ESPN3 deal? Now fans have an option to stay home and watch on their couch instead of going to Dekalb?
Or was Phillips just that much better when it came to garnering support from students, alumni and the community?
From the surface level, it seems like Compher and Frazier have been catering more to the select wealthy donors rather than attacking the younger alumni who just graduated. I think that's a big piece we are missing. For example, a know a lot of my buddies went to the Ohio State game. However, Frazier made it a requirement to donate a minimum of $250 just to be able to buy tickets for the game from NIU. So what did these 10 NIU fans do, and much more im sure? Bought tickets off Stubhub rather than from NIU. I was in school during the Phillips years and it seemed like the student body, community, alumni were just wayyyy more into and involved. Tickets were basically free it seemed like, they just wanted people in the stadium. Homecoming was always packed. Now with even more success of late, less people go which is just mind boggling.
I personally think Frazier should take the Phillips approach and cut tickets prices down to the bare minimum to get fans back in the stadium. They can make up for that with concession sales, etc once they are inside. Then we can raise ticket prices once we start selling out again and the demand and following is back. Very similar technique to what the Blackhawks did during their rough years
Thoughts?
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