Just curious now that the season is 3/4 finished......I know that Herd Season ticket sales this year were flat, but how is your home attendance for conference games in C-USA compare to home games against the MAC? (take out OOC games). It's probably not fair to judge your attendance of a .500 team this year vs. your best MAC teams of past years, but last year you were 6-6 so I guess it's a relatively comparable vs. this year. Did you see the big spike that many of your posters here predicted? I see you got around 22K for the S-Miss midweek game the other night.......
No matter what the answer is, I'm not knocking your attendance as it was always in the top 2 in the conference, but from the attendance numbers I have seen I'm not sure you are drawing any better in C-USA.......I suspect one thing that hurts is that so few C-USA teams bring any fans due to distance, (although in the MAC I think OU may have been the only team to bring lotsa fans to H-Ton), which was kind of predictable.
You certainly have had some exciting games in C-USA this year (UAB, SMU, Tulane, and S-Miss) in terms of being very close.
I have not looked up the numbers, but I do not expect to see that great of an increase (if any) in attendence this year. Granted, I hoped (and thought) that it would be different. Of course there are other dymanics that are playing into our attendence issues. The question that should be asked, I suppose, is whether or not our attendence is higher this year than it would be if we were still in the MAC? It is all speculative.
In other words, have we seen the increase in attendence we were hoping for? Not yet. Is that because the move to CUSA has not increase interest? Or if the interest has been increased, has that been negated by a decrease due to the past 2 1/2 years of mediocre football, increased travel costs, and having 2 games on weeknights? I don't know the answers to those questions.
What I do know is that we are getting some new people in the stands. This opinion is based upon sitting in the seats and talking to the fans. In the past 2 years I did not meet many 'new' fans, i.e. people who either had never been to a Marshall game, or those who had not been in over 5 years. This year in contrast, I am sitting in the same section (two rows closer to the field) and many of the people around me week to week are 'new' fans. A few of these new fans have commented about being in CUSA as one reason why they are now coming to the games.
To sum up no, without looking up the numbers I don't think our overall attendence has increased. We have gained some 'new' fans, but we have also lost quite a few due to our level of football the past few years, losing Pruett, increasing ticket prices, and increased travel costs for our fans. So for attendence it is a wash at this point and time, IMHO.
But on the other hand, we did get a check from CUSA for 100k for having a night game on Tuesday against Southern Miss. We have 5 bowls, so the chances of getting kept out of a bowl game with a good record (see past Miami and Toledo teams) has greatly diminished. Our t.v. package dollars have increased. It was a good move for Marshall regardless of how the attendence turns out this year. The increase in funding has allowed us to start making some needed improvements (new weight facility, indoor practice facility, etc). Let us start fielding the kind of teams we did from '97-'02 and we will see crowds that will far surpass those we had during those periods because we will get back some old fans, and hopefully retain some of the 'new'. I wish the MAC all the best, but I am very pleased with the decision we made. Hopefully I still feel that way in 5 years.
At 4-5 and with one home game(Saturday) remaining we are 1,400(1,398 to be exact) above last year's numbers. We have K State to thank for that one.We are averaging 27,330 fans with two of our home games being played on a weeknight. I don't think those numbers are that bad, about average :)
Thanks for the feedback and insights, Herdya.
Many a Herd poster around here made a pretty big deal outta how much better C-USA teams would travel to H-Ton and how your attendance would go up with an improved conference schedule. Actually, despite your attendance being flat, I would accept that the majority of your fans may very well prefer you C-USA schedule more than that of the MAC, but I never bought into the idea that C-USA teams (outside of perhaps ECU) would travel in any numbers to H-Ton. I think that's proven to be the case so far.
Also, Herdlers like to make "hay" with the attendance woes of a few MAC programs, and no argument that the vast majority of C-USA programs draw much better, but when the MAC has been on weeknight national TV the last couple of years, our attendance has been pretty comparable to what you drew to a big game with S-Miss last night. OU had 24K for Pitt and 21K for the Toledo game the other night, and although it's not this year Miami had crowds over 26K for both the Marshall and BG nationally televised midweek games back in 2003.
Anyway, thanks for your honest and candid response.
I believe the attendance is only slightly up, however something that is not is revenue.
According to a Big Green meeting tonight is was reported that last year in the MAC our TV revenue was a whopping 33k. This year in CUSA 1.2 million.
As far as attendance goes, if we can get back on track with winning the fans will show up, if not who knows. Overall conference wise attendence throughout CUSA is much much better than that of the MAC.
No argument on the revenue stream being improved for the Herd, although I still wonder about the cost side of the ledger (C-USA annual fees, travel, etc.) . I have to wonder if it ends up being pretty close to a "push" when all is said and done.
It's not really fair to "throw stones" at Marshal in terms of attendance, since most MAC schools also struggle, but a lot of posters have been hard on certain MAC schools that have had a number of "down" years, and no matter what you think about your fanbase, if you lose, you lose fans.
Marshall fans have enjoyed a great run, but going 6-6 last year and expecting a similar result this year will no doubt have some negative impact on attendance. If you guys were 7-1 going into S-Miss I betcha you would've had 30K plau for that game.
exCincy Kid1 Wrote:Thanks for the feedback and insights, Herdya.
Many a Herd poster around here made a pretty big deal outta how much better C-USA teams would travel to H-Ton and how your attendance would go up with an improved conference schedule. Actually, despite your attendance being flat, I would accept that the majority of your fans may very well prefer you C-USA schedule more than that of the MAC, but I never bought into the idea that C-USA teams (outside of perhaps ECU) would travel in any numbers to H-Ton. I think that's proven to be the case so far.
Also, Herdlers like to make "hay" with the attendance woes of a few MAC programs, and no argument that the vast majority of C-USA programs draw much better, but when the MAC has been on weeknight national TV the last couple of years, our attendance has been pretty comparable to what you drew to a big game with S-Miss last night. OU had 24K for Pitt and 21K for the Toledo game the other night, and although it's not this year Miami had crowds over 26K for both the Marshall and BG nationally televised midweek games back in 2003.
Anyway, thanks for your honest and candid response.
Southern Miss fan here. You do understand that week night TV games hurt the traveling crowd to a big extend? I have longed for a Marshall/USM match up for years. Had Hurricane Katrina not wiped out my old job I would have been in Huntington for the game, but without any "time off" built up on my new job that was not happening. But there are many fans that simply cannot travel during the week. The upside to week night games is the exposure, and the TV money makes up any lost in ticket sales. But the downside is, its harder to build a rivalary because the intenisty in the stadium is not the same. Had the game been on a Sat, I would say we would have taken at least 4,000 to Huntington. We take twice that to Memphis and UAB and even more to Tulane. Problem is the majority of CUSA marquee games that get on TV will be on weeknights. That could change with CBS's buy out of CSTV. I think that will reap us huge benefits. I also think that will help the MAC as well.
I completely understand, believe me...and we host a Tuesday game next week vs. BG and the long-range weather forecast is pretty crummy to boot.
But you also have to understand how much the Herdlers around here have been giving all the MAC posters grief these many years about no MAC fans go to Huntington, and predicted that hordes of C-USA fans would come. It's just too far to H-Ton to be practical.
I realize that S-Miss has great home fan support, as do many of the C-USA teams, so I meant no disrepect on that end.