Here are a few thoughts on turnout saturday...
1. Students... I read somewhere that the allotted 30 or so busses were sold out leaving WMU campus for the game... 30 busses? Really... thats all WMU could muster up the coin for to get students to the game? Im curious as to how many students would have gone... if there were more available transportation.
2. I think the University really put the call out to the Detroit area for turnout... and kind of turned their backs on the fans that come out in kalamazoo on a weekly basis... I would have liked to see more ticket and transportation packages for those living in and around the kalamazoo area. I didn't see anything regarding a ticket/hotel combination... that might have been nice.
3. It was Illinois and MSU had a home game in East Lansing... I think if MSU is on the road... you get quite a few more people who are riding that MSU/WMU fence...
4. Game was too early in the day... I think if you want to get a decent turnout on a saturday, two hours away from your home stadium... you should atleast shoot for a game time of around 5pm.... then you get the out of towners who want to make the trip, and stay in a hotel that night... without having to hit the road at like 8am. Not to mention... for those traveling to the game... it might have been nice to be able to check into your hotel before going to the game....
5. I think that based on what I saw (on ESPN+)... the crowd was decidedly WMU... i would say that if I was an UI fan... id be worried about the traveling support. Its not like the game was a plane ride away.
Next years MSU game at Ford Field will be HUGE... i would bet money they sell out the 50,000 available...
I'm targeting that MSU game next year for one of my road trips. I'm betting that they sell the place out. Now, if only I can talk my brother (MSU alum) to join me on a road trip.
UI had horrible turnout. Maybe a couple thousand fans is all.
The game was not really advertised in Detroit at all. Couple of road signs near the stadium, that's about it. Local radio or TV? I never saw anything. The WMU Athletic Department relied on word of mouth, internet forums like this one and the those interested enough to check the WMUBroncos.com site to see where WMU games were this season to get out the word. Not sure if that was the best approach.
This is always a problem in Detroit. This town is Tigers Baseball, Redwings Hockey and UM football. Ok, if MSU plays downtown they'll probably put a good sized crowd in Ford Field MOST of the time. But the rest of the athletic programs are simply not covered in the local media that well-there is no following from the YEARS of coverage needed to establish a following.
And one more thing-WMU does not have a championship tradition to build a following around. Lets be frank about that. Our last championship was in 1988! We've had some good years, played in the odd bowl game on occasion, but that's simply not enough to attract a regular following at a center located 2 hours from Kalamazoo.
How many years for example has UM NOT been in a bowl game seen on national TV? Or even MSU?? Almost every year those programs are in nationally televised games and bowl contests that Joe Sixpack watches. That's the sort of exposure that makes your average fan say, "Hey, UM/MSU is playing down at Ford Field this weekend. Lets pick up 3-4 tickets and make a day of it in downtown Detroit!"
The bottom line is WMU needs more national exposure and more exposure in respectable bowl contests. Do that and you'll begin to attract a bigger follwing.
One final comment. We have a MAJOR attraction in Tim Hiller and he's coming back next season. Jamarko may be gone, but if Hiller can put up numbers in 2009 like this year he'll be nationally rated. Now that sort of thing makes for good advertisement and a good draw.
I hope and expect WMU's athletic department has thought about how they're going to market Tim Hiller to attract a greater following at WMU. They need some savvy marketting people working on that right now.
Dip, you're an ex marketting person, tell me if I'm wrong about that.
The big issue is did they lose money? WMU has very shallow pockets, and last year (as I recall from a GC article, unless I'm thinking of the wrong game) the home attendance for the final game was very low after the Iowa win. I'm glad they tried it, but hope they didn't lose their shirts either.
According to Bronco AD we had to sell 13-14,000 tickets to cover costs. We did just about that amount.
Attendance may not have been what we wanted yesterday. However, given the weather, what kind of turnout would we have expected at Waldo?
BP-
Not sure about the westside of the state, but I heard commercials for the game multiple times a day for the last month on 97.1 The Ticket.
GRPunk Wrote:Attendance may not have been what we wanted yesterday. However, given the weather, what kind of turnout would we have expected at Waldo?
My guess is the crowd would've been higher than for any MAC opponent (except CMU), but not a sellout. 25K, tops.
I saw the ads on TV for the game. They were lame, but I saw them. They used still shots instead of video and just weren't all that good.
I'll bet a CMU-WMU game at Ford Field would do okay. I saw the Eastern-WMU game at Ford Field a couple of years ago and attendance was a little better than yesterday's game because Eastern had more fans in attendance than Illinois did.
In the parking structure before the game, an Illinois fan was bragging about how fast his team was and that Illinois "travels well." I saw some speed, but I didn't see a huge crowd in orange and blue. It was pretty pathetic.
BroncoPhilly Wrote:This is always a problem in Detroit. This town is Tigers Baseball, Redwings Hockey and UM football. Ok, if MSU plays downtown they'll probably put a good sized crowd in Ford Field MOST of the time. But the rest of the athletic programs are simply not covered in the local media that well-there is no following from the YEARS of coverage needed to establish a following.
This is what a lot boils down to. For instance, Detroit has been a blue-collar sports town for a century, and has always had a large barrier built against relatively new/smaller teams to make an impact in the area's psyche. It's the 4 pro teams plus UM, and that's all the Motor City's gonna talk about - end of story. It's like they wear this as a badge of honor around here. If you ain't "big time", you're ignored.
Maybe that's why comparable schools in CUSA, WAC, etc, have larger attendances and area cities have more local consideration for upstarts. ECU gets home attendance figures of 40K+. Furthermore, in Mobile, Ala, the locals go all out in hosting and attending the GMAC bowl, despite neither team being from a BCS conference nor from the state of Alabama.
Meanwhile, the Midwest - MAC country - is more rigid and declares undying devotion to what's been "comfortable" since WWI. MAC success, nicely hidden for decades before cable TV and the Internet, would be a threat to that long-standing stability. That mentality even soaks into many actual MAC graduates who pay little attention to their MAC alma mater, almost showing that apathy with pride when returning home to Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, etc.
I'm sure there are other factors. But it could be a part of it.
If you're looking for validation in the Detroit media you can forget it. I've been living over here for 30 years now and the one constant theme is how they ignore everything west of a line running north from Ann Arbor.
When it comes to sports it's Red Wings/Pistons/Tigers/Lions/UM Football/UM Basketball and probably in that order as far as coverage. MSU has started to get more press recently, but they're the last in the door and the first out when things turn south on them. WMU/CMU/EMU?? Forget it.
Even in our Championship season in 1988 coverage was piss poor. Sure, we got the occasional story buried beneath three pages of the UM football game but that's about it.
It's not going to change because that is what Detroit is. A blue collar sports town focussed on their few Pro sports teams and UM football and basketball.
Much of what you are saying is true, but lets not forget the incredible support that Detroit gives to the Motor City Bowl. It has taken a while but they are now one of the top attended non-BCS bowls out there.
Next year, WMU has an opportunity to MAKE the Detroit media talk about the school and the MAC. We have to hope that the RichRod rebuilding project takes much longer than he expected.
Open at scUM and win. Then, take out MSU at FF and win at Indiana. Impossible? No. Difficult? Very. But stranger things have happened.
I know that we will have some real challenges on defense next year. But hey, the opportunity is there for the taking. You can't win if you don't play and they are on the schedule. Beating scUM would probably make the sports editor's heads explode at the Freep and News but it would be fun to watch the meltdown.
We can play your game this year Illinois 45 SCum 20. WMU 23 Illinois 17.
Beating UM and/or MSU next year would be loads of fun, but if you're thinking that would change our coverage in the Detroit media you're deluding yourself. They'd call it a fluke, a once in a lifetime upset of a rebuilding UM squad and reloading MSU squad.
How did beating MSU twice in consecutive seasons help CMU in their coverage? Not a bit. It was labelled as an upset by a determined CMU team. Much was written about George Perles and his deficiencies rather than the strength of the CMU coaching staff.
Like I said, you'll be much happier if you give up the desire to receive validation in the Detroit media. I stopped expecting any fairness or balance out of them long ago. We need to be happy with what Western is, not what it is not. And it's just never going to receive the major coverage in the Detroit Metro media. Never has, never will. Get over it.
Oh, I don't delude myself that the Detroit media will change their stripes. I know how they would play the story. HOWEVER, they would look rather silly if my improbable scenario played out, as it would mean that the Broncos would be 5-0 in their last five games vs. the B10 against 5 different B10 teams. Kind of hard to spin that as sheer luck or having been done against a team that is in a down cycle. I'm sure that they would try to make it seem such but thinking people that knew the facts would understand.
It's fun to play the "what if" game and speculate. The Motown media is very provincial and that has a lot of history behind it. But I'd love to see the facade start to crumble of B10 superiority up and down the line. This year, there are a few cracks and the best one is scUM losing to the #5 team in the MAC West.
They are calling the attendance 12,500???? I was at the game and I would have thought there was at least 20,000 there?
Motown Bronco Wrote:ECU gets home attendance figures of 40K+.
If ever you make the trip to Raleigh, drive an hour east to Greenville, NC. You wouldn't believe how much the town is behind the school. Most every local major business has a "Pete" the Pirate statue in front of it, the local taco bells & aaron rental centers have switched their facade/canopy colors to purple and pink.
The big thing ECU has going for it is the fact that there is nothing to do in Greenville, the Townies have adopted it as "their" football team, and make up about a quarter of the audience. And UNC-CH, NCSU, Duke and Wake Forest traditionally stink in football. Especially Duke (who draws EMU #'s) and Wake Forest (traditionally, though they're improved this season) which are the major universities.
In basketball, it's a different story as many students and locals have a favorite team (often Duke or UNC-CH) they've followed for years. The big 4 are huge in basketball, and ECU can't come close to competing.
ECU has a lot of pull in football, not so much in basketball.
goldsworth Wrote:They are calling the attendance 12,500???? I was at the game and I would have thought there was at least 20,000 there?
Based on how it looked on TV I would have thought 12,500 to be quite high. Every shot they showed of the stands both the end zones and the side lines were absolutely empty. The fan support was a total embarrassment. The Detroit alumni wanted WMU to find a way to get them more involved and those same alums respond by not even showing up.