(09-08-2015 07:51 AM)WKUApollo Wrote:  Honest question for MTSU fans and no, this isn't an attempt at typical WKU/MTSU rivalry hatred.

I'm really surprised at the 15,000 attendance for your home opener on a Saturday. We all struggle with attendance when we're playing a weak FCS opponent but if I'm not mistaken, even that 15,000 number is low for MTSU home openers. Did the weather or some local events affect attendance?

I'm sure the UT game hurt, since they were playing in Nashville at Nissan. Labor Day as well, but really no excuse. I saw on FB a comment that there are 45,000 MT alums in Rutherford County alone... yet only 15,000 go to games, and maybe 5,000 (out of 25,000 potentially attending students...) of those are students. It's silly, and I am always getting upset about our attendance because of some of these reasons.

(09-08-2015 07:57 AM)Ole Blue Wrote:  

(09-08-2015 07:51 AM)WKUApollo Wrote:  Honest question for MTSU fans and no, this isn't an attempt at typical WKU/MTSU rivalry hatred.

I'm really surprised at the 15,000 attendance for your home opener on a Saturday. We all struggle with attendance when we're playing a weak FCS opponent but if I'm not mistaken, even that 15,000 number is low for MTSU home openers. Did the weather or some local events affect attendance?

I'm sure the UT game hurt, since they were playing in Nashville at Nissan. Labor Day as well, but really no excuse. I saw on FB a comment that there are 45,000 MT alums in Rutherford County alone... yet only 15,000 go to games, and maybe 5,000 (out of 25,000 potentially attending students...) of those are students. It's silly, and I am always getting upset about our attendance because of some of these reasons.

For comparison I've heard almost 17,000 Rice alums in the greater houston area and 4,000 undergrads now. UH and A&M both had games in houston Saturday as well. I think our remaining home games with Army, WKU and LaTech will all be better draws than the opener, but it's easy to see why Rice doesn't draw if the team isn't winning.

(09-08-2015 07:57 AM)Ole Blue Wrote:  

(09-08-2015 07:51 AM)WKUApollo Wrote:  Honest question for MTSU fans and no, this isn't an attempt at typical WKU/MTSU rivalry hatred.

I'm really surprised at the 15,000 attendance for your home opener on a Saturday. We all struggle with attendance when we're playing a weak FCS opponent but if I'm not mistaken, even that 15,000 number is low for MTSU home openers. Did the weather or some local events affect attendance?

I'm sure the UT game hurt, since they were playing in Nashville at Nissan. Labor Day as well, but really no excuse. I saw on FB a comment that there are 45,000 MT alums in Rutherford County alone... yet only 15,000 go to games, and maybe 5,000 (out of 25,000 potentially attending students...) of those are students. It's silly, and I am always getting upset about our attendance because of some of these reasons.

The Walking Horse Celebration had it's Grand Championship on Saturday, it's a big deal for several people in the area, there were 15,000 in attendance , a lot of the fans that attend FB games were at this event.

Great atmosphere for the HERD game. It was awesome! Good juob USM and Tech - great numbers. I think USM will be vastly improved and make noise this fall. Tech seems very solid as usual.

The good news is that we play Alabama this week, which should at least give us some visibility among the casual football fans that are all too common in Middle Tennessee... Charlotte comes up next for Family Day which should be a success (sorry 49ers). Then it's Vandy, gonna be 30k+.

Murfreesboro, Rutherford County's population has exploded over the 3 decades. It went from 84,000 in 1980 to 290,000 today. I can easily see how it is a challenge to get the locals to embrace the university's athletic teams. The vast majority of your population were born and/or lived somewhere else and probably don't have that typical allegiance that one would find in "hometown" folks. Bowling Green, Warren County has a similar issue but not to the same degree...it's only grown by about 45% in the same time period.

(09-08-2015 08:19 AM)WKUApollo Wrote:  Murfreesboro, Rutherford County's population has exploded over the 3 decades. It went from 84,000 in 1980 to 290,000 today. I can easily see how it is a challenge to get the locals to embrace the university's athletic teams. The vast majority of your population were born and/or lived somewhere else and probably don't have that typical allegiance that one would find in "hometown" folks. Bowling Green, Warren County has a similar issue but not to the same degree...it's only grown by about 45% in the same time period.

Exactly. It's a huge problem. It takes forever to gain any support among the vast majority of people here because many of them just do not care or already have some allegiances. The simple fact of the matter is we could be doing more to push for community involvement among those fans who are not involved yet, but we are not. I'm sure folks from BRZ get tired of listening to me gripe on and on about the issues in marketing and attendance but it needs to be said.

(09-08-2015 07:51 AM)WKUApollo Wrote:  Honest question for MTSU fans and no, this isn't an attempt at typical WKU/MTSU rivalry hatred.

I'm really surprised at the 15,000 attendance for your home opener on a Saturday. We all struggle with attendance when we're playing a weak FCS opponent but if I'm not mistaken, even that 15,000 number is low for MTSU home openers. Did the weather or some local events affect attendance?

Home openers usually one of the best draws but Saturdays on Labor weekend have always been a struggle. Add some of the other variables mentioned above and you get what you get.

Honestly, I put a lot of blame on the athletic department and especially the head coach.

We have a head coach who I respect as much as any coach I've ever encountered. Stock is an honorable person and does everything the right way, but he does nothing to sell the program in the community. He's very introverted in that way and knowing that we can't just open the gates and expect a sell out the head coach needs to be seen a little more in public, needs to be a little more accessible to the average fan. This isn't Ohio St where the head needs body guards around him 24/7.

And then the athletic dept while doing a lot of the good things to make the tailgating and pre-game better they focus too much on gimmicks that don't drive attendance. We are very much caught between being the small college town where people rally around the university's athletics and being too big with too many transplants that can identify with us. And when you have the aforementioned factors no one has yet figured out to maximize getting the community to fully invest in the program. And when you have a weekend like this past one your attendance is driven almost solely by the pure die hards. So, that's about the essence of our true blue fan base....about 16,000 -- to do better we're going to have to get the community to buy in more.

I didn't really consider how close Marshall is to Purdue.

Can't wait to be in the 30,000 club for once. :)

(09-08-2015 08:50 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(09-08-2015 07:51 AM)WKUApollo Wrote:  Honest question for MTSU fans and no, this isn't an attempt at typical WKU/MTSU rivalry hatred.

I'm really surprised at the 15,000 attendance for your home opener on a Saturday. We all struggle with attendance when we're playing a weak FCS opponent but if I'm not mistaken, even that 15,000 number is low for MTSU home openers. Did the weather or some local events affect attendance?

Home openers usually one of the best draws but Saturdays on Labor weekend have always been a struggle. Add some of the other variables mentioned above and you get what you get.

Honestly, I put a lot of blame on the athletic department and especially the head coach.

We have a head coach who I respect as much as any coach I've ever encountered. Stock is an honorable person and does everything the right way, but he does nothing to sell the program in the community. He's very introverted in that way and knowing that we can't just open the gates and expect a sell out the head coach needs to be seen a little more in public, needs to be a little more accessible to the average fan. This isn't Ohio St where the head needs body guards around him 24/7.

And then the athletic dept while doing a lot of the good things to make the tailgating and pre-game better they focus too much on gimmicks that don't drive attendance. We are very much caught between being the small college town where people rally around the university's athletics and being too big with too many transplants that can identify with us. And when you have the aforementioned factors no one has yet figured out to maximize getting the community to fully invest in the program. And when you have a weekend like this past one your attendance is driven almost solely by the pure die hards. So, that's about the essence of our true blue fan base....about 16,000 -- to do better we're going to have to get the community to buy in more.

This needs to be emailed to the Athletic Dept.

(09-08-2015 09:57 AM)Ole Blue Wrote:  

(09-08-2015 08:50 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(09-08-2015 07:51 AM)WKUApollo Wrote:  Honest question for MTSU fans and no, this isn't an attempt at typical WKU/MTSU rivalry hatred.

I'm really surprised at the 15,000 attendance for your home opener on a Saturday. We all struggle with attendance when we're playing a weak FCS opponent but if I'm not mistaken, even that 15,000 number is low for MTSU home openers. Did the weather or some local events affect attendance?

Home openers usually one of the best draws but Saturdays on Labor weekend have always been a struggle. Add some of the other variables mentioned above and you get what you get.

Honestly, I put a lot of blame on the athletic department and especially the head coach.

We have a head coach who I respect as much as any coach I've ever encountered. Stock is an honorable person and does everything the right way, but he does nothing to sell the program in the community. He's very introverted in that way and knowing that we can't just open the gates and expect a sell out the head coach needs to be seen a little more in public, needs to be a little more accessible to the average fan. This isn't Ohio St where the head needs body guards around him 24/7.

And then the athletic dept while doing a lot of the good things to make the tailgating and pre-game better they focus too much on gimmicks that don't drive attendance. We are very much caught between being the small college town where people rally around the university's athletics and being too big with too many transplants that can identify with us. And when you have the aforementioned factors no one has yet figured out to maximize getting the community to fully invest in the program. And when you have a weekend like this past one your attendance is driven almost solely by the pure die hards. So, that's about the essence of our true blue fan base....about 16,000 -- to do better we're going to have to get the community to buy in more.

This needs to be emailed to the Athletic Dept.

I've written on this before. Op-Eds in the DNJ and on blueraiderzone.com. Dr. McPhee and Massaro are aware and have read them.

(09-08-2015 10:08 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(09-08-2015 09:57 AM)Ole Blue Wrote:  

(09-08-2015 08:50 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  

(09-08-2015 07:51 AM)WKUApollo Wrote:  Honest question for MTSU fans and no, this isn't an attempt at typical WKU/MTSU rivalry hatred.

I'm really surprised at the 15,000 attendance for your home opener on a Saturday. We all struggle with attendance when we're playing a weak FCS opponent but if I'm not mistaken, even that 15,000 number is low for MTSU home openers. Did the weather or some local events affect attendance?

Home openers usually one of the best draws but Saturdays on Labor weekend have always been a struggle. Add some of the other variables mentioned above and you get what you get.

Honestly, I put a lot of blame on the athletic department and especially the head coach.

We have a head coach who I respect as much as any coach I've ever encountered. Stock is an honorable person and does everything the right way, but he does nothing to sell the program in the community. He's very introverted in that way and knowing that we can't just open the gates and expect a sell out the head coach needs to be seen a little more in public, needs to be a little more accessible to the average fan. This isn't Ohio St where the head needs body guards around him 24/7.

And then the athletic dept while doing a lot of the good things to make the tailgating and pre-game better they focus too much on gimmicks that don't drive attendance. We are very much caught between being the small college town where people rally around the university's athletics and being too big with too many transplants that can identify with us. And when you have the aforementioned factors no one has yet figured out to maximize getting the community to fully invest in the program. And when you have a weekend like this past one your attendance is driven almost solely by the pure die hards. So, that's about the essence of our true blue fan base....about 16,000 -- to do better we're going to have to get the community to buy in more.

This needs to be emailed to the Athletic Dept.

I've written on this before. Op-Eds in the DNJ and on blueraiderzone.com. Dr. McPhee and Massaro are aware and have read them.

I feel there must be SOMETHING we can do. I have emailed Massaro myself many times and no change. Ugh.

(09-08-2015 08:52 AM)shiftyeagle Wrote:  I didn't really consider how close Marshall is to Purdue.

5 Hour drive. Reasonable but not next door, either.

(09-08-2015 08:54 AM)FAUAEPi Wrote:  Can't wait to be in the 30,000 club for once. :)

Agreed,

For ONCE FAU will help CUSA attendance figures. All bets off after that.

Any idea when USM visits either FIU or FAU? (I'm kinda nearby.)

I'm hopeful with the schedule we have at home that we can average above 25K this year. FIU may be a tough sell for some but if we can come back to Ruston in two weeks with a winning record, it would be a good game to attend.

UAB - 0 :-(

La Tech and USM need to promote their game. It's not a far drive for those local fans.

If this conference could stabilize membership for a few years, attendance would improve for everyone.

(09-08-2015 01:50 PM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  UAB - 0 :-(

I think you had more, but your stadium is too big. It made the crowd look smaller.

Just joking...UAB will be back soon. Hats off to the Blazers for fighting the good fight! I am very pleased to continue to have you in the conference.