We all know the challenges of midweek maction.

One of those challenges is how tough its perceived for fans to be able to travel to a college town on Tuesday/Wednesday night to watch their team play with most MAC schools drawing some football support statewide.

One way to solve this might be to move the MAC midweek games to NFL venues. Imagine playing a late November game at Ball State in Indianapolis instead of Muncie. That is a totally different type of road trip. The local population base in Indianapolis could more than fill it up, though realistically there is a chance to get more than 30,000 for these games.

The exception would be rivalry games. CMU/WMU. BG/Toledo. Those need to stay on campus and stay on Saturdays. Something like NIU @ CMU could be moved to Detroit though.

The NFL mactions games can be worked into season packages of both the MAC schools and the participating NFL stadium.

Even 30K in an NFL stadium looks pretty empty - just think of some of the less-attended MAC Championships in Detroit. And at the end of the day it's a weeknight, there's a certain number of people who just can't/won't attend because they won't get home until after 11 with work/school the next day.

(04-15-2018 01:18 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  Even 30K in an NFL stadium looks pretty empty - just think of some of the less-attended MAC Championships in Detroit. And at the end of the day it's a weeknight, there's a certain number of people who just can't/won't attend because they won't get home until after 11 with work/school the next day.

I think off campus sites are worth considering around the Thanksgiving holiday, when students aren't around on some of our bucolic campuses. Bowling Green once played Buffalo in Columbus Crew Stadium with this in mind.

NFL stadiums have a lot of seats to fill, though. If Bowling Green were to try this again, I'm more intrigued by the stadium in Canton. Whether a game like that would work really comes down to whether the community supports it, though.

The stupid is strong in this thread..... then I realized who started it.

If the MAC were wanting to think outside the box I would recommend doing a MACtion weekend. Have all 12 teams meet at the same location Thanksgiving weekend. Have it take place in a vacation area like St Pete's and play in either an NFL stadium or MLB stadium. Make it 2 games a day all 3 days with all session passes. It would give the MAC press for doing something out of the box. It would also let us get out of the cold and enjoy some fun MACtion.

(04-15-2018 03:38 PM)Schadenfreude Wrote:  

(04-15-2018 01:18 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  Even 30K in an NFL stadium looks pretty empty - just think of some of the less-attended MAC Championships in Detroit. And at the end of the day it's a weeknight, there's a certain number of people who just can't/won't attend because they won't get home until after 11 with work/school the next day.

I think off campus sites are worth considering around the Thanksgiving holiday, when students aren't around on some of our bucolic campuses. Bowling Green once played Buffalo in Columbus Crew Stadium with this in mind.

NFL stadiums have a lot of seats to fill, though. If Bowling Green were to try this again, I'm more intrigued by the stadium in Canton. Whether a game like that would work really comes down to whether the community supported it, though.

Canton is small market though which defeats the purpose.

Soccer stadiums you are right might be a better way to approach it then going straight to an NFL venue. Indy and Detroit though have the indoor stadiums.

(04-15-2018 08:50 PM)ilovegymnast Wrote:  If the MAC were wanting to think outside the box I would recommend doing a MACtion weekend. Have all 12 teams meet at the same location Thanksgiving weekend. Have it take place in a vacation area like St Pete's and play in either an NFL stadium or MLB stadium. Make it 2 games a day all 3 days with all session passes. It would give the MAC press for doing something out of the box. It would also let us get out of the cold and enjoy some fun MACtion.

If we did as you say set something up in St. Pete for the final week of the MAC season that is interesting because you are guaranteeing Florida exposure for the conference without having a Florida school in it.

It could bring a lot of retirees out of the woodwork to check out the event.

(04-15-2018 10:35 AM)Kittonhead Wrote:  We all know the challenges of midweek maction.

One of those challenges is how tough its perceived for fans to be able to travel to a college town on Tuesday/Wednesday night to watch their team play with most MAC schools drawing some football support statewide.

One way to solve this might be to move the MAC midweek games to NFL venues. Imagine playing a late November game at Ball State in Indianapolis instead of Muncie. That is a totally different type of road trip. The local population base in Indianapolis could more than fill it up, though realistically there is a chance to get more than 30,000 for these games.

The exception would be rivalry games. CMU/WMU. BG/Toledo. Those need to stay on campus and stay on Saturdays. Something like NIU @ CMU could be moved to Detroit though.

The NFL mactions games can be worked into season packages of both the MAC schools and the participating NFL stadium.

The only possible game that this might work for is Black Friday... *MIGHT* if the school is playing well and their PR department has it together.

When UB played black Friday at the ralph they did ok, but lost money because they had to pay for the snow removal.

For that reason, and that reason alone, UB never again tried to play there.

this already happened when Toledo played NIU in a MLB stadium a couple years back. Crowd was so-so, better than most on campus mid week crowds but not more than 12,000. setting and chicago atmosphere added something to the game, although logistics were challenging. I could see a little of this being cool, but the casual football fan isn't going to pay $45 to go Ford Field till 11 pm on a Tuesday to cheer on CMU against Ball St.

The solution is obvious. The problem is it requires will and action. Limit MACtion to 1 home game and 1 away game per team and Senior night can't be midweek. Either drop a non-conf game or do it on a short week so that the last week of the season doesn't fall on Thanksgiving weekend. And stagger the games so you only have a couple a week spread out through november. everyone gets 3 saturday mac games. no one has senior night on a wednesday or black friday. ESPN still has midweek MAC content for the same time slots, but Saturday football is prioritized.

Attendance at MACtion games has been proven to be irrelevant. ESPN / MACtion should be worried about TV sight-lines in MAC stadiums on a November evening in ****** weather, not indoors in Indianapolis.

Anybody have any idea what it costs to open a facility like that for one night. Will never happen.