(02-13-2020 01:41 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(02-13-2020 01:24 PM)TXHuskieJA26 Wrote:  

(02-13-2020 01:04 PM)bikechuck Wrote:  

(02-13-2020 12:49 PM)TXHuskieJA26 Wrote:  I don't think this makes as little sense as many of you seem to. We all know that attendance in Dekalb has not been good in recent years. The athletic dept has done things to try and improve that experience. The Yard, adding alcohol sales into the stadium, etc... It hasn't mattered. So when you are doing things that aren't working, you have to try something else. As has been mentioned, the 5k "die hard" fans are not going to sustain this program. They need to bring in new fans. So with a new coach and a young (and hopefully exciting) team, playing a game against a name brand opponent somewhere closer to the city as a way to potentially draw people who wouldn't normally go to a game is not a bad idea. Then the hope would be that those people would enjoy the experience and decide to make attending games in Dekalb a regular, or at least more frequent, occurance. So I'm sorry that so many of you are so upset and offended by this change, but if you are the "die hard" fans and supporters that you claim then I have a simple question for you. What is more important: your one game in Dekalb vs. one game in SeatGeek (which if you got on board could be a fun experience) OR a chance (successful or not is to be seen) to grow the fanbase and therefore sustain the program that you love for the future so that many others can have the same lifelong memories of Huskie football that you have enjoyed??

I don't mind them trying something new and I don't mind an occasional game in Chicago. However, this location and this venue makes no sense to me. If you are going to play an occasional game in the Chicago area pick a great venue in the city , make it a September game on a Saturday afternoon and stay with that venue and try your best to make it the first or second weekend in September year-in and year-out. I hope that I am mistaken but their approach seems more impulsive than strategic.

The strategy is to play in or as close to Chicago as possible in a place that A) Doesn't break the bank and B) won't look and sound like a ghost town during the game because it seats 65k and therefore is 3/4 empty. If you watched the opening game of the XFL last weekend the venue makes a lot of sense. The DC team plays at Audi Field, which is an extremely similar soccer venue that also seats 20K. With 17k in that stadium the atmosphere was electric and you could tell that the offenses were having a hard time hearing their play calls. That's what you want out of a game experience, not a half empty venue where you can hear a pin drop out on the field. If NIU fans get on board and show up this could be an excellent "home field" advantage for a big game.

The time of year for the game simply came down to the opponent, BYU is the best chance of drawing attention.

We have nobody in the athletic department who will even admit that the E$PN deal is a problem for NIU fans who actually go to the games (or use to, now). They have their heads in the sand. If games in Soldier Field or Sox park (whatever that is now) made no difference in adding fans, how is this going to?

I was thinking how we have systematically seen a decline in AD's ever since early 2000s, each AD has been worse than the previous. Unfortunately, word is out on the fraud Frazier is before he was able to leave NIU and suck someone's else wallet. We are stuck with him because nobody is evaluating his job performance. I use the term "job" lightly, if you call what he is doing a job