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professorbum Offline
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Post: #21
RE: football attendance story
(05-08-2019 07:42 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  
(05-07-2019 04:28 PM)professorbum Wrote:  For the life of me, I honestly don't know why conferences like the MAC or MWC don't beg schools like NDSU to join, given that they have a real fan following who actually attend games.

Because the conferences are not independent actors, they are agents of their current members. NDSU packing 20,000 in their dome and fielding a competitive team doesn't butter the bread of Miami of Ohio or Central Michigan. HAving the Bison come to town instead of EMU or Buffalo or NIU isn't going to make Miami-O students want to go to the stadium and watch the game.

You know what you call a college football fan at a MAC school? A Buckeye/Wolverines fan.

Maybe I shouldn't have used NDSU as my only example. They were my top example because the fans are hard-core and I think of Fargo as being in the midwest, and I've always thought of the MAC as a midwest conference (not just a Great Lakes conference). But you can throw in JMU into the conversation, or UNI. You can throw in the notion of Montana to the MWC (while kicking out San Jose State). There are football programs out there that would add instant energy and rabid fan bases to any G5 conference. I think G5 conferences are making a mistake to ignore those options.
05-08-2019 09:33 AM
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CliftonAve Offline
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Post: #22
RE: football attendance story
(05-08-2019 09:33 AM)professorbum Wrote:  
(05-08-2019 07:42 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  
(05-07-2019 04:28 PM)professorbum Wrote:  For the life of me, I honestly don't know why conferences like the MAC or MWC don't beg schools like NDSU to join, given that they have a real fan following who actually attend games.

Because the conferences are not independent actors, they are agents of their current members. NDSU packing 20,000 in their dome and fielding a competitive team doesn't butter the bread of Miami of Ohio or Central Michigan. HAving the Bison come to town instead of EMU or Buffalo or NIU isn't going to make Miami-O students want to go to the stadium and watch the game.

You know what you call a college football fan at a MAC school? A Buckeye/Wolverines fan.

Maybe I shouldn't have used NDSU as my only example. They were my top example because the fans are hard-core and I think of Fargo as being in the midwest, and I've always thought of the MAC as a midwest conference (not just a Great Lakes conference). But you can throw in JMU into the conversation, or UNI. You can throw in the notion of Montana to the MWC (while kicking out San Jose State). There are football programs out there that would add instant energy and rabid fan bases to any G5 conference. I think G5 conferences are making a mistake to ignore those options.

Fargo, North Dakota is 922 miles away from Oxford, Ohio (Miami University). Its even further away from Akron, BG, Ohio and Buffalo. NDSU is not going to put any additional butts in the seat at those schools.
05-08-2019 09:37 AM
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texoma Offline
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Post: #23
RE: football attendance story
(05-08-2019 08:17 AM)bullet Wrote:  
(05-08-2019 01:02 AM)Wedge Wrote:  
(05-07-2019 06:29 PM)ken d Wrote:  Essentially, the NCAA has no minimum standard they are willing to enforce

The point of having any dividing line at all between FBS and FCS is that every FBS football program should deploy some minimum level of resources to be FBS-level competitive. (I'd argue that the dividing line is unnecessary, and that each D-I football-playing school should be free to choose either FBS or FCS as long as all but one of their football games are against schools in their own subdivision, but I suppose that's another topic.)

The correct minimum standards are number of players on scholarship, having a full complement of paid coaches and staff, and spending some minimum amount of money on football each year. The NCAA shies away from enforcing those real markers of competitiveness. For some reason they landed on attendance instead, and maybe the lack of interest in enforcing an attendance requirement is related to the fact that everyone knows that it's not an important factor in whether a program is competing at an FBS level (whatever that is). Yes, paid ticket sales are a good source of revenue, but what makes a program sufficiently competitive is whether there is enough money being spent on football, not where that money comes from.

Well they do have standards (think its 90% of the 85 scholarship limit). They require 16 NCAA sports (its 14 for other Division I members) and a certain number of scholarships for all athletes (think its 200). Attendance and stadium size were the first standards. When they lacked the stomach to enforce that and the various ways to finagle attendance (17,000 at that point), they added the scholarship and sports requirements and a 15,000 paid attendance requirement. They have not enforced the 15,000 paid.

The 15,000 paid is easy to get around. I know a school that sometimes sell blocks of tickets (1,000-3000 for maybe $3 each) that are then given away by the donor.
05-08-2019 10:29 AM
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zoocrew Offline
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Post: #24
RE: football attendance story
(05-08-2019 08:21 AM)bullet Wrote:  Temple had one year in the 90s when they drew 17,000 fans....for the ENTIRE season....in the BIG EAST!

A few years back they averaged over 40k (helped by a Penn St. game). The last 3 years have averaged 27-28k. If anybody was a basket case it was Temple, but they have found their way back.

On the verge of an On Campus stadium too...is this real life?
05-08-2019 11:15 AM
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Post: #25
RE: football attendance story
Ben Roethlisberger
05-08-2019 11:15 AM
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georgia_tech_swagger Offline
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Post: #26
RE: football attendance story
While I love watching Midweek MACtion, it's worth mentioning that those games destroy attendance numbers. While it may not be as big of a hit to the FunBelt to play midweek games in November (hey, it's cold but it's not inclement in November usually), come November in Ohio the weather can be full on fog out or snow or who knows.
05-08-2019 11:32 AM
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Wedge Offline
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Post: #27
RE: football attendance story
(05-08-2019 11:32 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  While I love watching Midweek MACtion, it's worth mentioning that those games destroy attendance numbers. While it may not be as big of a hit to the FunBelt to play midweek games in November (hey, it's cold but it's not inclement in November usually), come November in Ohio the weather can be full on fog out or snow or who knows.

Right. TV is the only reason to play college football games on weeknights.

For that matter, most schools didn't even play on Saturday night until TV outlets started televising pretty much every game. As recently as 20 years ago, many college football teams, including power conference teams, didn't have stadium lights because they played all of their home games on Saturday afternoon. Teams with no stadium lights often had one game time for September home games, and then an earlier game time later in the fall because there's less daylight in the second half of the season.
05-08-2019 11:50 AM
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Captain Bearcat Offline
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Post: #28
RE: football attendance story
(05-08-2019 11:50 AM)Wedge Wrote:  
(05-08-2019 11:32 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  While I love watching Midweek MACtion, it's worth mentioning that those games destroy attendance numbers. While it may not be as big of a hit to the FunBelt to play midweek games in November (hey, it's cold but it's not inclement in November usually), come November in Ohio the weather can be full on fog out or snow or who knows.

Right. TV is the only reason to play college football games on weeknights.

For that matter, most schools didn't even play on Saturday night until TV outlets started televising pretty much every game. As recently as 20 years ago, many college football teams, including power conference teams, didn't have stadium lights because they played all of their home games on Saturday afternoon. Teams with no stadium lights often had one game time for September home games, and then an earlier game time later in the fall because there's less daylight in the second half of the season.

Cincinnati has always played on Saturday nights because it's the best time for a game at our stadium.

The stadium is in a pit in the center of campus, surrounded by buildings that are 30-50 feet above the stadium. Even in early November the daytime air is hot and heavy, and the crowd noise dies away in the still and humid air.

But when it gets dark and cool, the noise echoes off the surrounding buildings and it ROCKS. It's louder than any stadium I've been at (including Notre Dame and Ohio State). Perfect environment for a game.
05-08-2019 02:07 PM
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DavidSt Offline
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Post: #29
RE: football attendance story
Several ACC schools cooked their books. Miami Florida seemed to have less than half of the stadium for football on tv. I do think they would be actually around 25,000 average if the stadium looks like they did on tv. Schools like UCF, USF, Memphis, Houston, Navy, Army, ECU, Boise State, Colorado State, Air Force, NDSU, Fresno State, San Diego State, UTSA, ODU, Marshall, App. State, Troy, WMU and Georgia Southern all seem to have close to sold out stadiums while being on tv. Temple went from having nobody to getting like P5 type of fans for some games. MAC as a whole is suffering the worst. Except for Toledo and WMU who do seem to do well no matter when they play since they win. AAC's attendance suffers because of Tulsa and Tulane do not have the fan support. UConn. are not in a P5 conference because they also have the lack of fan support.
05-08-2019 03:13 PM
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IWokeUpLikeThis Offline
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Post: #30
RE: football attendance story
(05-08-2019 02:07 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  
(05-08-2019 11:50 AM)Wedge Wrote:  
(05-08-2019 11:32 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  While I love watching Midweek MACtion, it's worth mentioning that those games destroy attendance numbers. While it may not be as big of a hit to the FunBelt to play midweek games in November (hey, it's cold but it's not inclement in November usually), come November in Ohio the weather can be full on fog out or snow or who knows.

Right. TV is the only reason to play college football games on weeknights.

For that matter, most schools didn't even play on Saturday night until TV outlets started televising pretty much every game. As recently as 20 years ago, many college football teams, including power conference teams, didn't have stadium lights because they played all of their home games on Saturday afternoon. Teams with no stadium lights often had one game time for September home games, and then an earlier game time later in the fall because there's less daylight in the second half of the season.

Cincinnati has always played on Saturday nights because it's the best time for a game at our stadium.

The stadium is in a pit in the center of campus, surrounded by buildings that are 30-50 feet above the stadium. Even in early November the daytime air is hot and heavy, and the crowd noise dies away in the still and humid air.

But when it gets dark and cool, the noise echoes off the surrounding buildings and it ROCKS. It's louder than any stadium I've been at (including Notre Dame and Ohio State). Perfect environment for a game.

The Cincy day game I went to was so hot, I spent the first half in the air conditioned building next door with the food court and bookstore. Nippert was so close, I sat down eating and watched the game via the scoreboard which could be seen clearly through the windowwalls.
05-08-2019 03:51 PM
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Fighting Muskie Offline
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Post: #31
RE: football attendance story
Weeknight MACtion is absolutely killing the MAC fan bases. They need to go a system where each team hosts one, and only one weeknight game (Black Friday excluded).

ESPN could do this with the MAC and SBC, both leagues it has contracts with, like this and have 22 games throughout October and November. That's plenty of content to have 2 games each Tuesday and Wednesday the past 2 months of the season for 2 of ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU.

If I'm FSN1 or CBSSN I ink a similar deal with C-USA, which would provide 14 games for the network.

Keep the rest of the content on Saturdays at reasonable times for the time zone and local climate and on a streaming service.
05-08-2019 04:31 PM
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CliftonAve Offline
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Post: #32
RE: football attendance story
(05-08-2019 03:51 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  
(05-08-2019 02:07 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  
(05-08-2019 11:50 AM)Wedge Wrote:  
(05-08-2019 11:32 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  While I love watching Midweek MACtion, it's worth mentioning that those games destroy attendance numbers. While it may not be as big of a hit to the FunBelt to play midweek games in November (hey, it's cold but it's not inclement in November usually), come November in Ohio the weather can be full on fog out or snow or who knows.

Right. TV is the only reason to play college football games on weeknights.

For that matter, most schools didn't even play on Saturday night until TV outlets started televising pretty much every game. As recently as 20 years ago, many college football teams, including power conference teams, didn't have stadium lights because they played all of their home games on Saturday afternoon. Teams with no stadium lights often had one game time for September home games, and then an earlier game time later in the fall because there's less daylight in the second half of the season.

Cincinnati has always played on Saturday nights because it's the best time for a game at our stadium.

The stadium is in a pit in the center of campus, surrounded by buildings that are 30-50 feet above the stadium. Even in early November the daytime air is hot and heavy, and the crowd noise dies away in the still and humid air.

But when it gets dark and cool, the noise echoes off the surrounding buildings and it ROCKS. It's louder than any stadium I've been at (including Notre Dame and Ohio State). Perfect environment for a game.

The Cincy day game I went to was so hot, I spent the first half in the air conditioned building next door with the food court and bookstore. Nippert was so close, I sat down eating and watched the game via the scoreboard which could be seen clearly through the windowwalls.

Purdue 2013? That was one of the hottest games ever. 12pm kickoff, we had people passing out in my section.

The Bearcats rolled The Boilermakers 42-7 that day.
05-08-2019 05:11 PM
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quo vadis Offline
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Post: #33
RE: football attendance story
(05-08-2019 04:31 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Weeknight MACtion is absolutely killing the MAC fan bases. They need to go a system where each team hosts one, and only one weeknight game (Black Friday excluded).

The MAC games are move valuable to ESPN as mid-week games. If the MAC insists on playing them on the weekend, then ESPN will pay less for them, maybe not even want them.

It's a tradeoff. 07-coffee3
05-09-2019 07:30 AM
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Post: #34
RE: football attendance story
(05-08-2019 08:18 AM)bullet Wrote:  
(05-07-2019 10:45 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  
(05-07-2019 09:22 PM)professorbum Wrote:  
(05-07-2019 06:58 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  
(05-07-2019 04:28 PM)professorbum Wrote:  Another news story on sham attendance figures. For the life of me, I honestly don't know why conferences like the MAC or MWC don't beg schools like NDSU to join, given that they have a real fan following who actually attend games. You need actual fans to generate excitement. Someday the conferences will realize this, but it will be too late to save G5 football. Schools like NDSU will not want to join a G5 version of Big East Football-in-its-final-death-throes.

https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/nati...-divisions


How would adding NDSU help attendance at Miami-O? You might get some traveling from the Dakotas, but not a great number. And NDSU isn't going to make a Miami-O game more attractive for a local.

Add in the bloated travel costs to Fargo, not a solution.

Respectfully, your comment exemplifies the lack of vision I'm talking about. Nothing is going to immediately fix the attendance at Miami if they have 4,000 people at a game. But I'm talking about making the MAC a better conference by adding teams who give a $hit. You know, teams with actual fans. Having teams with a fan base, which then intensifies rilvaries, makes it more interesting for casual fans and more likely that outsiders will pay attention to the conference. But you're counting the nickels and dimes of travel. Meanwhile, Miami is buying 10,000 tickets a game. But hey, at least they can bus their team to another empty stadium in Ypsilanti.

Nonsense no one in the Mac is going to be excited about playing North Dakota State on a Wednesday night and no fans are going to travel

Miami has been historically strong, but they have been awful for most of the last 10 years. The MAC is also playing weeknight games.

Would say too may. And all of the MAC games in November are week nights, no Saturdays.
05-09-2019 11:40 AM
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No Bull Offline
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Post: #35
RE: football attendance story
I love college football... But the Redhawks struggle to put a good team on the field year in and year out...so on a cold Wednesday night in Ohio it will be hard for them to get fans out to the stadium...besides... Redhawk fans can watch the games inside their warm houses on ESPN. I can't really blame them.
(This post was last modified: 05-09-2019 11:53 AM by No Bull.)
05-09-2019 11:53 AM
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Post: #36
RE: football attendance story
(05-09-2019 07:30 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(05-08-2019 04:31 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Weeknight MACtion is absolutely killing the MAC fan bases. They need to go a system where each team hosts one, and only one weeknight game (Black Friday excluded).

The MAC games are move valuable to ESPN as mid-week games. If the MAC insists on playing them on the weekend, then ESPN will pay less for them, maybe not even want them.

It's a tradeoff. 07-coffee3

Its a terrible deal for the MAC and it's killing their programs. ESPN has them playing every single game in November on Tuesday or Wednesday and then turns around a farms the weakest match ups to CBSSN, collecting a profit in the process.

2+ home games/year on frigid Midwestern weeknights is too much to ask of the fan bases. There's a reason that the Big Ten has had a no Primetime in November policy with its media partners.
05-09-2019 07:02 PM
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Post: #37
RE: football attendance story
(05-09-2019 11:40 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  
(05-08-2019 08:18 AM)bullet Wrote:  
(05-07-2019 10:45 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  
(05-07-2019 09:22 PM)professorbum Wrote:  
(05-07-2019 06:58 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  How would adding NDSU help attendance at Miami-O? You might get some traveling from the Dakotas, but not a great number. And NDSU isn't going to make a Miami-O game more attractive for a local.

Add in the bloated travel costs to Fargo, not a solution.

Respectfully, your comment exemplifies the lack of vision I'm talking about. Nothing is going to immediately fix the attendance at Miami if they have 4,000 people at a game. But I'm talking about making the MAC a better conference by adding teams who give a $hit. You know, teams with actual fans. Having teams with a fan base, which then intensifies rilvaries, makes it more interesting for casual fans and more likely that outsiders will pay attention to the conference. But you're counting the nickels and dimes of travel. Meanwhile, Miami is buying 10,000 tickets a game. But hey, at least they can bus their team to another empty stadium in Ypsilanti.

Nonsense no one in the Mac is going to be excited about playing North Dakota State on a Wednesday night and no fans are going to travel

Miami has been historically strong, but they have been awful for most of the last 10 years. The MAC is also playing weeknight games.

Would say too may. And all of the MAC games in November are week nights, no Saturdays.

They should limit it to one home game per team.

With nothing on Saturdays in November, they never get mentioned on the Saturday broadcasts. That is a HUGE strategic error for them.
05-09-2019 08:11 PM
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quo vadis Offline
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Post: #38
RE: football attendance story
(05-09-2019 07:02 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  
(05-09-2019 07:30 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
(05-08-2019 04:31 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Weeknight MACtion is absolutely killing the MAC fan bases. They need to go a system where each team hosts one, and only one weeknight game (Black Friday excluded).

The MAC games are move valuable to ESPN as mid-week games. If the MAC insists on playing them on the weekend, then ESPN will pay less for them, maybe not even want them.

It's a tradeoff. 07-coffee3

Its a terrible deal for the MAC and it's killing their programs. ESPN has them playing every single game in November on Tuesday or Wednesday and then turns around a farms the weakest match ups to CBSSN, collecting a profit in the process.

2+ home games/year on frigid Midwestern weeknights is too much to ask of the fan bases. There's a reason that the Big Ten has had a no Primetime in November policy with its media partners.

If it is a terrible deal they won't renew the contract.
05-09-2019 11:38 PM
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Post: #39
RE: football attendance story
(05-08-2019 08:21 AM)bullet Wrote:  Temple had one year in the 90s when they drew 17,000 fans....for the ENTIRE season....in the BIG EAST!

A few years back they averaged over 40k (helped by a Penn St. game). The last 3 years have averaged 27-28k. If anybody was a basket case it was Temple, but they have found their way back.

Temple attendance:

2008: 15,582
2018: 28,470

2nd largest increase over that time behind Mississippi State.
05-10-2019 01:25 AM
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Post: #40
RE: football attendance story
(05-10-2019 01:25 AM)JHG722 Wrote:  
(05-08-2019 08:21 AM)bullet Wrote:  Temple had one year in the 90s when they drew 17,000 fans....for the ENTIRE season....in the BIG EAST!

A few years back they averaged over 40k (helped by a Penn St. game). The last 3 years have averaged 27-28k. If anybody was a basket case it was Temple, but they have found their way back.

Temple attendance:

2008: 15,582
2018: 28,470

2nd largest increase over that time behind Mississippi State.

1997 9,129
1996 6,416

Not sure which year they were just over 4,000 (17,000 in 4 games), but it was sometime between 92 and 95.
05-10-2019 02:15 PM
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