(10-30-2016 06:42 PM)pono Wrote:  it's really a no brainer for 85% (or whatever, I just randomly inserted that %) of the FBS schools to go back to what worked. play football on saturdays. consider shortening the season so games aren't played around or after thanksgiving (unless that's a final game tradition or bowl). take the tv delays out of games. take the big money control out of most games. this is a paper chase for all but the huge programs. none of the 85% are making money for their school. have a real 8 or 16 team playoff at the end. let, the huge programs play their december and january tv games, with replays and dozens of commercial breaks, in huge stadiums usually away from campuses. there will still be good money to primarily benefit the programs and conferences that play the extra games.

Agreed with the majority of what you say till you came to the bold part.

No post-season for the G5?

It's called cell phones, handful of P5 teams even at National Championship level, and students who would tackle a loose craft beer bottle even if a 50 yard line ticket was the second choice. The NCAA has made 90% of the D1 football programs tackling dummies. Why is March Madness so popular? Because 68 programs think they have a chance.

(10-30-2016 01:34 PM)UAZippers Wrote:  I feel the biggest problem countrywide is the focus on the absolute pinnacle of the league. The majority of fans now believe that if a team doesn't win a national championship, it is not worth putting in the effort to watch. Blame it on the media, or whatever else, but a conference championship and big regular season wins don't mean anything. This sets up 90% of the teams in division 1 for failure before the season even begins.

I agree that fans have gotten to the point of interest that if your team isn't playing for the national championship, just stay home and watch the game on tv. I happen to love college athletics, especially football. I've bought season tickets to South Alabama games since they started playing football in 2009 and have only missed one home game. I've been to at least a dozen of so away games.

(11-03-2016 11:05 AM)fastbuicks Wrote:  It's called cell phones, handful of P5 teams even at National Championship level, and students who would tackle a loose craft beer bottle even if a 50 yard line ticket was the second choice. The NCAA has made 90% of the D1 football programs tackling dummies. Why is March Madness so popular? Because 68 programs think they have a chance.

Exactly. And the idiots in college football and E$PN don't even realize they're a big cause of the attendance problem.

(11-03-2016 11:22 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(11-03-2016 11:05 AM)fastbuicks Wrote:  It's called cell phones, handful of P5 teams even at National Championship level, and students who would tackle a loose craft beer bottle even if a 50 yard line ticket was the second choice. The NCAA has made 90% of the D1 football programs tackling dummies. Why is March Madness so popular? Because 68 programs think they have a chance.

Exactly. And the idiots in college football and E$PN don't even realize they're a big cause of the attendance problem.

...because attendance is irrelevant to them. They would RATHER have you stay home and watch the games. It's all about eyeballs on their ads.

(10-30-2016 12:48 AM)pono Wrote:  Reasons:

4 hour games

Replay delays stopping the excitement every other big play

TV timeouts creating dead time throughout the game

decline in the sense of community in many places. people are less social (when not on media). it's harder to create cheers and rituals that bring folks together at games (notice that at places that have great fan participation traditions-i.e. Wisconsin, BYU, Florida St-you don't see a decline in attendance).

oh, and playing on Wednesday nights till 11 pm doesn't help either
TV saturation. Gameday is anticipated less when there's been football on tv all week.

Emphasis on the playoff overshadows everyone outside of 10-12 teams.

Glut of Bowl games means everyone who is 500 or better goes bowling. This eliminates the excitement of your 7-2 team fighting for a hard to get bowl berth.

oh, and playing on Wednesday night till 11 pm isn't helping either

I do think the fan participation piece is certainly part of it at Wisconsin. Although the student section certainly doesn't fill up for every game, although student tickets are officially sold out.

Wisconsin has some unique attributes that I think greatly help it's attendance.
- They are the only football program higher than the D3 level in the entire state so while an alum of a Toledo or Kent State in Ohio may not support Ohio State it is pretty likely that a alum of UW Green Bay or UW Milwaukee is a Badger football fan (if they are a Wisconsin native)

- Madison is a decently sized metro area of over half a million people, many of them with some sort of tie (whether alumni, employee or family of an employee, or family of alumni) to UW Madison

- On top of that Madison has no professional sports competing for the entertainment dollar like say a University of Minnesota or a UCLA

- They have a lenient student ticket policy (at least compared to what I have directly experienced at other schools). At Wisconsin you don't need a student ID to use a student ticket so if a student doesn't want to go to a game they can unload that ticket to a non-student. In my time in the student section at Wisconsin I can say some games such as the Saturday after Thanksgiving were as much as 60% non-students in the student section. At a lot of schools those tickets would just go unused

(11-03-2016 11:57 AM)axeme Wrote:  

(11-03-2016 11:22 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(11-03-2016 11:05 AM)fastbuicks Wrote:  It's called cell phones, handful of P5 teams even at National Championship level, and students who would tackle a loose craft beer bottle even if a 50 yard line ticket was the second choice. The NCAA has made 90% of the D1 football programs tackling dummies. Why is March Madness so popular? Because 68 programs think they have a chance.

Exactly. And the idiots in college football and E$PN don't even realize they're a big cause of the attendance problem.

...because attendance is irrelevant to them. They would RATHER have you stay home and watch the games. It's all about eyeballs on their ads.

For E$PN that's mostly true. Though it's still short-sighted even for them. If they act like only 10 schools matter, that isn't going to help ratings either.

(11-03-2016 11:06 AM)JoeJag Wrote:  I've bought season tickets to South Alabama games since they started playing football in 2009 and have only missed one home game. I've been to at least a dozen of so away games.

Very cool!

(11-03-2016 11:05 AM)fastbuicks Wrote:  It's called cell phones, handful of P5 teams even at National Championship level, and students who would tackle a loose craft beer bottle even if a 50 yard line ticket was the second choice. The NCAA has made 90% of the D1 football programs tackling dummies. Why is March Madness so popular? Because 68 programs think they have a chance.

Sure March Madness is widely popular, but the regular season is so diluted that many fans don't care until February or March.

College football attendance is in a 5 year decline. Most sports have declining attendance. Marshall had 40K for UL but only 25K for our other home games - to watch our worst team in decades.
Everyone is suffering at the gate. Hell, WMU should sell out every game for the great team they have.

OU's crowd last night looked to be around 13K or so. Watched Ga State and Ask St last night in the GA Dome. There may have been 3000 people there. Just sad. It is what it is.

(11-04-2016 08:42 AM)SVHerd Wrote:  College football attendance is in a 5 year decline. Most sports have declining attendance. Marshall had 40K for UL but only 25K for our other home games - to watch our worst team in decades.
Everyone is suffering at the gate. Hell, WMU should sell out every game for the great team they have.

OU's crowd last night looked to be around 13K or so. Watched Ga State and Ask St last night in the GA Dome. There may have been 3000 people there. Just sad. It is what it is.

Ohio is reporting an attendance of 17,113 for last night.

(11-04-2016 08:51 AM)BobcatEngineer Wrote:  

(11-04-2016 08:42 AM)SVHerd Wrote:  College football attendance is in a 5 year decline. Most sports have declining attendance. Marshall had 40K for UL but only 25K for our other home games - to watch our worst team in decades.
Everyone is suffering at the gate. Hell, WMU should sell out every game for the great team they have.

OU's crowd last night looked to be around 13K or so. Watched Ga State and Ask St last night in the GA Dome. There may have been 3000 people there. Just sad. It is what it is.

Ohio is reporting an attendance of 17,113 for last night.

Yea Ga State needs to get out of that place.. Its too big, and all red. Even good crowds look like Ford Field does for MAC title games.

(11-04-2016 12:48 PM)UofToledoFans Wrote:  

(11-04-2016 08:51 AM)BobcatEngineer Wrote:  

(11-04-2016 08:42 AM)SVHerd Wrote:  College football attendance is in a 5 year decline. Most sports have declining attendance. Marshall had 40K for UL but only 25K for our other home games - to watch our worst team in decades.
Everyone is suffering at the gate. Hell, WMU should sell out every game for the great team they have.

OU's crowd last night looked to be around 13K or so. Watched Ga State and Ask St last night in the GA Dome. There may have been 3000 people there. Just sad. It is what it is.

Ohio is reporting an attendance of 17,113 for last night.

Yea Ga State needs to get out of that place.. Its too big, and all red. Even good crowds look like Ford Field does for MAC title games.

They are getting out. They bought Turner Field for the Braves and are in the process of refurbishing it for Football. Problem is, it takes really successful marketing to attract Atlanta area fans to games. Georgia State just does not know how to do that yet.