With student apathy and declining attendance, the only responsible course for the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees is to follow their own precedent, to heed their own wisdom, and shut the program down.

They've said so publicly: a football program with declining attendance, to which the students are apathetic, must be shut down. There is no choice in the matter, the principle has been stated and since we know that the fine men and women of the Board are in no way hypocrits, and are in no way carrying out the agenda of a fat drunken sociopathic lump of human excrement still trying to earn the love of his long-dead drunken whore-mongering football-coaching father, then I expect this to be the final season of Crimson Tide football.

And the world will be far better for it.

(10-04-2018 11:57 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  The “kickoff times are held hostage until 12 days before” is definitely curtailing attendance. Many people’s ability to go is dependent on the time if living close and making flight/drive/hotel arrangements if living far away. If you live far away, you don’t know whether to book flight and hotel for Friday (11am game) or Saturday (night game).

I was highly considering taking the 21-hour Texas Eagle train to the Cotton Bowl this week but the kickoff time not coming out until so much later turned out to be the fly in the ointment. Conversely, I’ll be able to take that same train to Shreveport for the Independence Bowl (and not stay overnight) because the gametime is known (and fits between trains).

You, sir, are a machine

We've all heard about factors like high ticket prices, HD big screen TVs, home comforts, video games, devices and overzealous, anti-alcohol game day security being the primary drag on game attendance, particularly for students.

But I also think there is another factor that people don't talk about as much, and that has to do with changing student body demographics which may not be as sports-centric as they used to be...

Today, undergraduate admissions at the top 200 schools are much more competitive now due to the much larger numbers of kids going to college today vs. 30 years ago. For example, many of us older alums would be denied admission today at our alma maters with the high school grades and SAT/ACT scores we had back then. That means more top 200 college spots are going to more serious students, and better students are often interested in different things than college sports, or not interested at all in spectator sports. You also have far more diverse student bodies now, which skew more female, more people of color and more international, which may lessen the more traditional white male demographic that would tend to dominate student attendance at sporting events.

I think an issue is the media just focuses on the Top 10 teams. If the matchup is not a meeting between 2 Top 10 teams, the media has created a 'who cares' about the game.

(10-04-2018 07:11 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  Sold out games where the stadium is full but half the student section exits at halftime leaving a gaping hole in the crowd seems to be the new norm around the country.

Yes, it was like this at the WMU/UofM game. WMU looked like a D2 squad out there, but the student section being half gone, while the rest of the stadium was packed, was strange. I don't think the student section was even ever at 80 or 90% capacity during the game (the game being opening day the Big Hole too.) So it's not a 'oh the game wasn't just a good game' thing.

(10-04-2018 06:17 PM)puck swami Wrote:  You also have far more diverse student bodies now, which skew more female, more people of color and more international, which may lessen the more traditional white male demographic that would tend to dominate student attendance at sporting events.

Yeah, this is very true, especially at a lot of the flagships and land grant public institutions; nothing new at the private schools. This is what gave rise to these system or regional universities growing; those populations started getting turned away from dear old state, so they went to one of the directionals. For a time, those folks were t-shirt fans for the main players, but that has been changing.

(10-04-2018 04:25 PM)58-56 Wrote:  With student apathy and declining attendance, the only responsible course for the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees is to follow their own precedent, to heed their own wisdom, and shut the program down.

They've said so publicly: a football program with declining attendance, to which the students are apathetic, must be shut down. There is no choice in the matter, the principle has been stated and since we know that the fine men and women of the Board are in no way hypocrits, and are in no way carrying out the agenda of a fat drunken sociopathic lump of human excrement still trying to earn the love of his long-dead drunken whore-mongering football-coaching father, then I expect this to be the final season of Crimson Tide football.

And the world will be far better for it.

Well you had the correct premise but reached the wrong conclusion. Saban is setting up the Athletic Department which wants to shrink the student section so they can sell more high dollar seats to those who donate to buy tickets.

By publicly calling out the students they will catch less flack when they make the move for the bucks. And then it will become a protected status for alumni seating that will cut out 5,000 or more students from ever claiming those seats again.

So it's quite different from the heavily subsidized UAB fiasco with an average attendance in the 20,000 plus range.

(10-04-2018 07:28 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(10-04-2018 04:25 PM)58-56 Wrote:  With student apathy and declining attendance, the only responsible course for the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees is to follow their own precedent, to heed their own wisdom, and shut the program down.

They've said so publicly: a football program with declining attendance, to which the students are apathetic, must be shut down. There is no choice in the matter, the principle has been stated and since we know that the fine men and women of the Board are in no way hypocrits, and are in no way carrying out the agenda of a fat drunken sociopathic lump of human excrement still trying to earn the love of his long-dead drunken whore-mongering football-coaching father, then I expect this to be the final season of Crimson Tide football.

And the world will be far better for it.

Well you had the correct premise but reached the wrong conclusion. Saban is setting up the Athletic Department which wants to shrink the student section so they can sell more high dollar seats to those who donate to buy tickets.

By publicly calling out the students they will catch less flack when they make the move for the bucks. And then it will become a protected status for alumni seating that will cut out 5,000 or more students from ever claiming those seats again.

So it's quite different from the heavily subsidized UAB fiasco with an average attendance in the 20,000 plus range.

+3 for laying down some truth to the insanely bitter

In 2017, Alabama basically created a system in which incoming Freshman couldn't get tickets.

http://cw.ua.edu/34558/news/university-c...tudents-2/

They also have a student policy in which one who has tickets us penalize for not.attending or not giving up their seat by Wednesday for reuse.

https://actcard.ua.edu/my-tickets/

Nick, you do not control and cannot control these kids. These aren't your "student-athletes". Simmer, it's not your role to "discipline" or modify behavior to fit your needs.

(10-04-2018 11:17 PM)Renandpat Wrote:  In 2017, Alabama basically created a system in which incoming Freshman couldn't get tickets.

http://cw.ua.edu/34558/news/university-c...tudents-2/

They also have a student policy in which one who has tickets us penalize for not.attending or not giving up their seat by Wednesday for reuse.

https://actcard.ua.edu/my-tickets/

Nick, you do not control and cannot control these kids. These aren't your "student-athletes". Simmer, it's not your role to "discipline" or modify behavior to fit your needs.

Saban, "Young lady, how often are you going to use those season student tickets maybe once or twice?"

Student, "Yeah.."

Saban, "And how much did they cost you, maybe 30 or 40 dollars?" "Don't you think an alumni using those seats for maybe $1200 to $1500 dollars would do your school more good?"

Student, "Yeah, I guess your right."

Saban, "I expect I am right."

**************************************************************

So we've seen this commercial before, it just didn't sink in quite like Nick hoped it would!

(10-04-2018 11:31 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(10-04-2018 11:17 PM)Renandpat Wrote:  In 2017, Alabama basically created a system in which incoming Freshman couldn't get tickets.

http://cw.ua.edu/34558/news/university-c...tudents-2/

They also have a student policy in which one who has tickets us penalize for not.attending or not giving up their seat by Wednesday for reuse.

https://actcard.ua.edu/my-tickets/

Nick, you do not control and cannot control these kids. These aren't your "student-athletes". Simmer, it's not your role to "discipline" or modify behavior to fit your needs.

Saban, "Young lady, how often are you going to use those season student tickets maybe once or twice?"

Student, "Yeah.."

Saban, "And how much did they cost you, maybe 30 or 40 dollars?" "Don't you think an alumni using those seats for maybe $1200 to $1500 dollars would do your school more good?"

Student, "Yeah, I guess your right."

Saban, "I expect I am right."

**************************************************************

So we've seen this commercial before, it just didn't sink in quite like Nick hoped it would!

It's not that they want to resell it to the public, they know they can resell it to a student as a "Guest Ticket", which is face value minus the $10 cost of the student ticket. For lesser games, like the FCS opponent, that is an additional $20, but for A&M, that's another $100+ per ticket.

(10-04-2018 11:17 PM)Renandpat Wrote:  Nick, you do not control and cannot control these kids. These aren't your "student-athletes". Simmer, it's not your role to "discipline" or modify behavior to fit your needs.

Saban is the GOAT coach, at least of my lifetime, and it's therefore hard to critique his approach. Part of that approach is complaining during the season. He clearly believes that if he isn't complaining, people around him, and even himself, might lose their edge and rest easy, which is when disaster strikes.

This week, he felt the need to stand up for his players by criticizing apathetic students. Good for him.

Rutgers students show up in the second quarter and leave by the end of the third quarter. What do you think Saban would think about that.

(10-04-2018 07:13 AM)whittx Wrote:  

(10-04-2018 06:54 AM)chargeradio Wrote:  The game against Louisiana was less than 3 hours, probably closer to 2.5 assuming it kicked off at 11:22 CDT.

A few years ago, it was difficult for freshmen and sophomores to even get student tickets. Enrollment is roughly double what it was twenty years ago, but the student section had not grown with the enrollment.

And you expect students to come out for a pre-noon kickoff against a Sun Belt school after a night/early morning of drinking/tailgating. Man, you have insane standards.

The game itself is in competition with the tailgating parties as the main (attendance) event on Saturdays.

(10-04-2018 11:17 PM)Renandpat Wrote:  In 2017, Alabama basically created a system in which incoming Freshman couldn't get tickets.

http://cw.ua.edu/34558/news/university-c...tudents-2/

They also have a student policy in which one who has tickets us penalize for not.attending or not giving up their seat by Wednesday for reuse.

https://actcard.ua.edu/my-tickets/

Nick, you do not control and cannot control these kids. These aren't your "student-athletes". Simmer, it's not your role to "discipline" or modify behavior to fit your needs.

That's been in place for quite some time.

They used to have a system where you had to choose between different packages and only certain games.

They also tied the tickets to your ACT card and punished you for not actually going to the games.

They could revoke your ability to purchase tickets or actually take a ticket from you.