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Ask Lester what he thinks of mid week games. He'll likely tell you its one of the best recruiting tools for mid major talent. Parents, family and friends get to watch. I think we are all hung up on attendance but what mid major fills the stands every week? Boise? East Carolina,Georgia Southern, App State, and Houston do when they have great teams. No so much lately. San Diego St plays to 30,000 empty seats most games. Army and Navy have tickets every week unless they are playing each other. Temple often plays to a ghost town. Mid Majors draw when they a team winning 80-85% of their games. Even P5 attendance is down. MSU begs students to show up. ASU just revamped their student section to make it look like it's packed!

(03-09-2018 03:08 PM)BuickBronco Wrote:  Ask Lester what he thinks of mid week games. He'll likely tell you its one of the best recruiting tools for mid major talent. Parents, family and friends get to watch. I think we are all hung up on attendance but what mid major fills the stands every week? Boise? East Carolina,Georgia Southern, App State, and Houston do when they have great teams. No so much lately. San Diego St plays to 30,000 empty seats most games. Army and Navy have tickets every week unless they are playing each other. Temple often plays to a ghost town. Mid Majors draw when they a team winning 80-85% of their games. Even P5 attendance is down. MSU begs students to show up. ASU just revamped their student section to make it look like it's packed!

I suppose, but is it worth it?

(03-09-2018 03:08 PM)BuickBronco Wrote:  Ask Lester what he thinks of mid week games. He'll likely tell you its one of the best recruiting tools for mid major talent. Parents, family and friends get to watch. I think we are all hung up on attendance but what mid major fills the stands every week? Boise? East Carolina,Georgia Southern, App State, and Houston do when they have great teams. No so much lately. San Diego St plays to 30,000 empty seats most games. Army and Navy have tickets every week unless they are playing each other. Temple often plays to a ghost town. Mid Majors draw when they a team winning 80-85% of their games. Even P5 attendance is down. MSU begs students to show up. ASU just revamped their student section to make it look like it's packed!

I agree. I like one or two MAC games a week, but let's be honest: Most MAC teams play in mostly-empty stadiums on Saturdays anyways. Games like that Indiana St sellout are usually the exception on Saturdays for MAC teams, not the norm.

And yes: WMU and Toledo have seen their best recruiting classes in school history during the Era of MACtion.

(I wasn't a diehard WMU fan back during the Indiana St game (although I'm sure I was in attendance) but couple reasons why that game saw the attendance it did: We had played in the MAC Championship game the year before, apparently had played decent vs Wisconsin in Game 1, and then beat Iowa in Game 2. That's what puts butts in the seats: Good teams and big names)

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That's what puts butts in the seats: Good teams and big names)
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Yep, I'd say it's about 50/50

I don't think anyone would disagree that winning and attendance are highly correlated.

The two relevant interesting topics are:

1. Has the Internet/social media age negatively impacted sports attendance across the board outside of the bandwagon powerhouses.
2. Do the 'pros' of Tuesday and Wednesday MACtion outweigh the 'cons.'

The concern over November's all-midweek, all-the-time schedule goes beyond just Saturday traditionalism. Even putting aside empty stands* and the perception of being a JV league playing on a Tuesday night opposite Seinfeld reruns, those sudden shifts in schedules jack up players' routines. Our 2016 team got through it, thankfully, but we looked lost at Kent State during the first half of that first November Tuesday MACtion night game (competing with POTUS results).

* - Yes, MAC attendance isn't much better on November Saturday afternoons anyhow, but they are better.

(03-11-2018 03:38 PM)Motown Bronco Wrote:  2. Do the 'pros' of Tuesday and Wednesday MACtion outweigh the 'cons.'

That's a good question, it really hurts attendance but on the flip side ESPN shells out money to the MAC schools(not sure how much and what we use it for) and supposedly it's a great recruiting tool.

Got to have an adverse effect on the kids playing in front of 3000 people on a weeknight even if on TV.

MACtion was created for 2 reasons: (1) $$$ and (2) $$$ in the name of exposure. Sucks for most of the fans. Would have to imagine it sucks for the students and the athletes. If it's all going to ESPN3, play the games of Saturday and the people who are interested will find and consume the content.

(03-11-2018 03:59 PM)MajorHoople Wrote:  Got to have an adverse effect on the kids playing in front of 3000 people on a weeknight even if on TV.

We get way more than 3000 but still, we were only able to get 11,000 for the CMU game this year, Maction just kills attendance. Imagine if that game was on a saturday, would've seen 20k+

(03-11-2018 04:05 PM)Wheres_Waldo? Wrote:  MACtion was created for 2 reasons: (1) $$$ and (2) $$$ in the name of exposure. Sucks for most of the fans. Would have to imagine it sucks for the students and the athletes. If it's all going to ESPN3, play the games of Saturday and the people who are interested will find and consume the content.

Even if most people come across Kent St vs Buffalo on a Wednesday night maction game on TV, they are very unlikely to watch it anyway, I don't understand the whole "exposure" side of it unless it's two good teams playing in front of a near sellout crowd, if anything it's bad bad bad exposure, usually the seats are empty. Not really even sure why ESPN wants to broadcast these games.

MACtion was created to help midweek business in the Las Vegas sports bet industry. And it worked.

...and help ESPN with programming to fill time slots for its multiple networks.

Regardless of the purpose we need to get out

(03-11-2018 03:38 PM)Motown Bronco Wrote:  1. Has the Internet/social media age negatively impacted sports attendance across the board outside of the bandwagon powerhouses.

Yes, and not just college football, not even just sports attendance.

(03-11-2018 03:38 PM)Motown Bronco Wrote:  2. Do the 'pros' of Tuesday and Wednesday MACtion outweigh the 'cons.'

Hard to tell. Recruiting, exposure, and money from ESPN is up. Attendance is down. But as stated, attendance can be pretty ****** on a Saturday too, to put it mildly. (I always viewed it like this: opening night, Homecoming, and CMU are always great crowds. Any other home game.................unfortunate attendance)

I think the big problem I have with the deal is that it's just way too long and too many games. I don't have a problem with 2 or 3 each week, (I actually love watching football during the week, and I do know people who watch weeknight MAC games because it's football. Football is Yuge in this country, doesn't matter what level, and for a lot of football fans, football on just Saturday and Sunday isn't enough) but almost all the games? Ridiculous, and I don't believe that that's how it started.

I hope the Powers That Be can sit down, have a discussion about this, and decide if it's not good for the Conference, back out of it. But as a whole it hasn't been hurting the schools: In addition to the revenue from ESPN, WMU and UT have just seen their best recruiting classes in school history. I think some of that has to do with the exposure, instead of 'who the **** is this school' no one hears about ever because the game's played on a Saturday in the shadow of the Power 5.

(03-11-2018 04:05 PM)Fthechips Wrote:  

(03-11-2018 03:59 PM)MajorHoople Wrote:  Got to have an adverse effect on the kids playing in front of 3000 people on a weeknight even if on TV.

We get way more than 3000 but still, we were only able to get 11,000 for the CMU game this year, Maction just kills attendance. Imagine if that game was on a saturday, would've seen 20k+

Some years, sure, but my guess with a struggling WMU and not-much-better CMU this year, it'd have been more like 15K. I usually don't buy the 'it breaks tradition to not play on Saturday' argument, but I will say this: the rivalries the MAC has should be played on a Saturday. Play those games Saturday afternoon early in the season, beautiful weather in September/October/whatever-month-that-first-conference-game-is, both MAC teams still in contention, then you'll get that 20K+. (Look at the WMU/CMU game in 2016 and 2011).