The unofficial online home for fans of the Western Michigan University Broncos. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

(09-01-2023 10:08 AM)RunningGame Wrote:  

(09-01-2023 07:28 AM)moe24 Wrote:  

(08-31-2023 06:55 PM)RunningGame Wrote:  Crowd is great for FCS on Labor Day Thursday. Students pretty full. Grandstand a little light.

It wasn't all that long ago that the home opener (do they still call it CommUniverCity Night?) was a guaranteed sellout no matter who the opponent was and no matter how good or bad the previous season had been. Now we're calling half-full on a Thursday night great.

It's all about expectations. Given the easy parking, light crowd at Roadhouse, general trend towards smartphone uber alles, and the date, I came in expecting a ghost town. It was a ghost town at the end of the BMB pregame, but tons of students filed in.

That's fair. I too was expecting worse than it was. My big thing is the self-inflicted problems like stupid scheduling, the terrible rebrand, understaffed media relations office, etc.

(09-01-2023 07:46 AM)moe24 Wrote:  

(09-01-2023 07:39 AM)wmubroncopilot Wrote:  To be fair, it was only a "sellout" because they gave away tickets to basically every business in town.

If the goal is butts in seats that's not something you would stop doing. Instead of diminishing those old sell outs you're instead highlighting how most of the problems we see today are self-inflicted.

I'm not trying to diminish, just adding context. A lot has changed as others said. I'm not sure what they're doing these days in terms of CommU giveaways.

Mirroring a trend for most state schools, I think our student enrollment is now dipped under 15K. Back in the Darnell/Cubit years, it was over 25K.

That's a huge, and sad, gap, and has to at least partially explain some attendance shrinkage when your student and subsequent alumni pool drops like that, though the proliferation of being able to watch any game, any time, remotely is still probably the biggest driver.

(09-01-2023 12:02 PM)Motown Bronco Wrote:  Mirroring a trend for most state schools, I think our student enrollment is now dipped under 15K. Back in the Darnell/Cubit years, it was over 25K.

That's a huge, and sad, gap, and has to at least partially explain some attendance shrinkage when your student and subsequent alumni pool drops like that, though the proliferation of being able to watch any game, any time, remotely is still probably the biggest driver.

Wow. It is down to 13k. I didn't realize it was that drastic. When I started in 2008 it was 25k+ as you said.

Obviously this is a much bigger problem than just athletics but I'm actually kind of impressed at our student turnouts for football and hockey given that drop.

(09-01-2023 01:30 PM)wmubroncopilot Wrote:  

(09-01-2023 12:02 PM)Motown Bronco Wrote:  Mirroring a trend for most state schools, I think our student enrollment is now dipped under 15K. Back in the Darnell/Cubit years, it was over 25K.

That's a huge, and sad, gap, and has to at least partially explain some attendance shrinkage when your student and subsequent alumni pool drops like that, though the proliferation of being able to watch any game, any time, remotely is still probably the biggest driver.

Wow. It is down to 13k. I didn't realize it was that drastic. When I started in 2008 it was 25k+ as you said.

Obviously this is a much bigger problem than just athletics but I'm actually kind of impressed at our student turnouts for football and hockey given that drop.

We are down for sure but I think you’re counting just undergrads. Last fall semester had 17.8k total students (14.3k undergrad). This fall has not been reported yet.

(08-31-2023 06:04 PM)ColinApocalypse Wrote:  Out of the 3 QBs in contention, Salopek is the last one I expected to get the start.

THIS!!

I didn't even WANT him to start! Last year, Bourguet showed that he had the superior arm talent. Salopek looks likes he is shot-putting the ball for it to go 25 yards. I could only imagine that Salopek's receivers would be losing faith after he nearly got King killed last night!!