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Great Recession Impact on attendance
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Kittonhead Offline
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Great Recession Impact on attendance
Quote:DAYTONA BEACH — Daytona International Speedway is not immune to the downward spiral which has gripped NASCAR events across the country in recent years.

While a News-Journal estimated 60,000 spectators is hardly a failure, it’s not an unqualified success either, and the smaller head count at last weekend’s race had a ripple effect through the community. The Speedway does not release attendance figures.

Race back to 20 years ago and the Speedway had a sellout for its Fourth of July weekend racing bash.

The track sold some 170,000 tickets in 1998 as NASCAR was gaining national popularity and attracting new fans from every corner of the country, especially urban areas.

Last Saturday night’s crowd estimate included race fans scattered in the 101,500-seat stadium and those hardy infield faithful who watched atop their RVs and motorhomes and scaffolds.

NASCAR’s base has always relied on blue collar participation. When the recession hit, that group took the hardest fall.

Several big tracks, including Charlotte Motor Speedway, Dover Motor Speedway and Richmond International Raceway, have removed entire sections of grandstand because of ticket demand decline. Here in Daytona, the Speedway removed a 60,000-seat backstretch grandstand near Turn 2 as part of the Daytona Rising project.
Those vested in the business say the sport is in a bottoming out period and predict the crowds will eventually return, just not in the same numbers as 1998.

https://www.news-journalonline.com/news/...nue-to-sag

I know this is NASCAR and not college but we don't look at how the great recession has impacted sports attendance negatively.

Daytona had to downsize from 170,000 to 101,000. Ratings and attendance across NASCAR are close to half of what they were in 2005.

For those who think any program with a "P" on it is immune from a massive loss of fan support think again.
02-05-2019 12:22 AM
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Kittonhead Offline
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
Quote:In the social media and streaming age in which almost every game can be viewed with the best angles and insight from your couch or on the go, struggling attendance remains a major talking point for the powers that be in college football.

Based on our own research for college football's highest per-game home averages in 2018 among the elites, you can expect the downward attendance trend to continue nationally when the NCAA's official numbers are released in early 2019. FBS games — including neutral-site and bowl games — averaged 42,203 fans in 2017, a noticeable drop from the 2016 campaign.

That marked the fourth consecutive season attendance has declined nationally and if the major programs — many with storied cathedrals as home venues — suffered in 2018, that's often a telling sign for the rest of college football.

https://247sports.com/LongFormArticle/Co...26388217_1

This is a listing of the Top 10 in attendance and even they are having trouble selling out.

10. Nebraska-Attendance dropped with first year Scott Frost.
9. Georgia-One of the few to sell out all home games (huge season).
8. Tennessee-Could only top 100k once this season.
7. Texas-Nice year but only 2 sell outs.
6. Texas A&M-Only one sell out for Clemson.
5. LSU-Three sellouts, not that great for Top 5.
4. Alabama-Four paid sellouts, Saban called out poor student support.
3. Ohio St-Only 93,000 paid for Rutgers, actuals far less.
2. Penn St-Record 111,000 for OSU game, 3 sell outs.
1. Michigan-Led with 110,700 average, 102.9 percent capacity.

Unless the team is red hot beyond its normal level forget selling out the season anymore.

For some of these programs its a very high bar. Take Ohio State they finished in the Top 5 and by their recent historical standards it was an off year so the fans were not that enthused. Alabama too just had another ordinary year for itself in 2018.
02-05-2019 12:45 AM
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Kittonhead Offline
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
Quote:
Gophers football coach P.J. Fleck insists the team’s plunging attendance doesn’t concern him, but the announced crowd numbers this fall showed some of the steepest declines in the nation.

And the numbers counting actual fans in attendance are even worse.

According to that data, obtained this week by the Star Tribune, TCF Bank Stadium was less than half full for five of the team’s seven home games.

The Gophers’ average announced attendance was 37,914, their lowest since Jim Wacker’s first season as coach in 1992.

And that’s announced attendance, or tickets distributed, not the actual number of tickets scanned at the turnstiles. The official scanned ticket numbers show the Gophers’ actual average attendance was 22,656.

The last two home games came with kickoff temperatures of 21 degrees and 23 degrees, for Purdue and Northwestern, respectively. It rained for the Friday night game against Indiana on Oct. 26. The average announced attendance for those three final home games was 32,158.

And the university’s official scanned ticket numbers for those games — 20,357 (Indiana), 15,434 (Purdue) and 15,160 (Northwestern) — were even more alarming.

“I’m not concerned with that at all,” Fleck said of the overall attendance numbers. “I think we’ve got an incredible fan base, and we have a lot of people who love and care for us … and our student section and the band. I appreciate their loyalty, and those are the ones we’re going to focus on.”

http://www.startribune.com/university-of...501108962/

Minnesota averaged 22,656 tickets scanned this year. A while the only FBS team in Minnesota and located in the state's largest media market.

Averaged 17,000 scan tickets for 3 final home games, all B1G competition. Not too impressive IMO for this "P" program.
02-05-2019 01:00 AM
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Kittonhead Offline
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
Quote:It’s not really news to say that college football attendance is on the decline. Anyone who looked around half-empty stadiums during major games in the last few seasons would have been able to tell, even as the schools have announced attendance numbers that imply otherwise. The real question is, what are schools doing about it and will it make any difference?

Rachel Bachman of the Wall Street Journal wrote about this problem, which is affecting just about every program, big and small. Across every FBS conference, from the tiny Sun Belt to the mighty SEC, announced attendance for the entire season is, on average, about 30 percent higher than the number of butts actually in seats. Everyone has their tricks to goose attendance numbers, from counting staff and marching band members to just flat-out lying. When pressed about the 57 percent difference between announced and scanned attendance, Florida State blamed technical issues and human error, per a spokesman. “We do not believe the difference is as large as the data appears to show.”


Believe all you like, the proof is in the unused seats, diminished merchandise sales, and lack of concession proceeds.

For a school like Florida State, it’s mostly a vanity issue. They want to have big numbers that compare to their peers like Alabama and Ohio State, but regardless of the numbers, their athletic department’s doing pretty well.

https://thecomeback.com/ncaa/college-foo...sales.html

Wow Florida State.

In the year the article is talking about here, 2017 they had an announced attendance of 70,943 which is really low for a program that used to report 85-90k.

The butts in seats for FSU...….45,186. Those are UCF level numbers. I believe it from seeing them on TV.
02-05-2019 01:18 AM
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goodknightfl Offline
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
People simply don't go to sporting events much anymore. It is to easy to watch at home or sports bar in comfort.
02-05-2019 07:11 AM
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Kittonhead Offline
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
Its still possible to sell out if you are having a mega season. A few examples below.

1. Ranked in the top 5 in the country for the first time ever or many years.

2. In contention for an access bowl for the first time. WMU almost sold out for the season in 2016 when normally they would draw around 15k. Of course they have a much smaller capacity than the bigs.

In a must see year it can happen. Boise State had the combination of the two happen about 10 years ago and was able to push it out to 37,000 seats.

I have long thought the reason why 70k, 80k, 90k seaters happened at college football was on the backs of a peak run by that program where crazy demand pushed the schools to expand to high capacities.

At some places like State College demand was so high it could withstand a decade of down years and still put 100,000 in the stands of people who wanted season tickets for years now able to find them for sale. Tennessee and Nebraska I think are a lot like that where the latent demand was once as high as 150,000 to watch a game at those places.

Other Ps of course had to go to 50k or 60k to be adequate for the traveling fans of the conference they played in. Indiana, Virginia, Rutgers, Miss St did it that way IMO.
02-05-2019 08:15 AM
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Big Frog II Offline
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
Ticket prices are getting too high!!! People are tired of being gouged when they can watch it from home for free. I think you will see a continuing of stadium seating reductions, but with more premium seating for those with big bucks.
02-05-2019 09:56 AM
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YNot Offline
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
(02-05-2019 09:56 AM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Ticket prices are getting too high!!! People are tired of being gouged when they can watch it from home for free. I think you will see a continuing of stadium seating reductions, but with more premium seating for those with big bucks.

And, football games are too long with way too many breaks in the action. With smart phones and instant gratification, the trend should be to shorten football games to 3 hours or less.
02-05-2019 11:01 AM
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Hokie Mark Offline
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Exclamation RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
(02-05-2019 09:56 AM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Ticket prices are getting too high!!! People are tired of being gouged when they can watch it from home for free. I think you will see a continuing of stadium seating reductions, but with more premium seating for those with big bucks.

+1.
02-05-2019 11:26 AM
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Wolfman Offline
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
NASCAR is experiencing different issues. 1 - t-shirt fans flocked to the sport, inflating prices and forcing true fans out. The t-shirt fans are now moving on to what ever fad is next. True fans will be back when the prices adjust. 2 - NASCAR is losing its most popular drivers. Dale Jr., who seemed like he hardly ever won a race, was one of the most popular ever and is now retired.

As others have noted, college has its own issues - games too long, ticket prices, parking prices, concession prices, required donations, TV, traffic, etc.
02-05-2019 11:27 AM
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
(02-05-2019 01:18 AM)Kittonhead Wrote:  
Quote:It’s not really news to say that college football attendance is on the decline. Anyone who looked around half-empty stadiums during major games in the last few seasons would have been able to tell, even as the schools have announced attendance numbers that imply otherwise. The real question is, what are schools doing about it and will it make any difference?

Rachel Bachman of the Wall Street Journal wrote about this problem, which is affecting just about every program, big and small. Across every FBS conference, from the tiny Sun Belt to the mighty SEC, announced attendance for the entire season is, on average, about 30 percent higher than the number of butts actually in seats. Everyone has their tricks to goose attendance numbers, from counting staff and marching band members to just flat-out lying. When pressed about the 57 percent difference between announced and scanned attendance, Florida State blamed technical issues and human error, per a spokesman. “We do not believe the difference is as large as the data appears to show.”


Believe all you like, the proof is in the unused seats, diminished merchandise sales, and lack of concession proceeds.

For a school like Florida State, it’s mostly a vanity issue. They want to have big numbers that compare to their peers like Alabama and Ohio State, but regardless of the numbers, their athletic department’s doing pretty well.

https://thecomeback.com/ncaa/college-foo...sales.html

Wow Florida State.

In the year the article is talking about here, 2017 they had an announced attendance of 70,943 which is really low for a program that used to report 85-90k.

The butts in seats for FSU...….45,186. Those are UCF level numbers. I believe it from seeing them on TV.

To be fair, Tallahassee isn't exactly an easy place to get to for most of the alumni base. Couple that with a few years of bad football and you get these numbers. While it is reasonable to see the numbers go back up in the next few years, it will be contingent on FSU returning to the 1990's style glory days in short order.
02-05-2019 11:54 AM
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
(02-05-2019 11:54 AM)whittx Wrote:  
(02-05-2019 01:18 AM)Kittonhead Wrote:  
Quote:It’s not really news to say that college football attendance is on the decline. Anyone who looked around half-empty stadiums during major games in the last few seasons would have been able to tell, even as the schools have announced attendance numbers that imply otherwise. The real question is, what are schools doing about it and will it make any difference?

Rachel Bachman of the Wall Street Journal wrote about this problem, which is affecting just about every program, big and small. Across every FBS conference, from the tiny Sun Belt to the mighty SEC, announced attendance for the entire season is, on average, about 30 percent higher than the number of butts actually in seats. Everyone has their tricks to goose attendance numbers, from counting staff and marching band members to just flat-out lying. When pressed about the 57 percent difference between announced and scanned attendance, Florida State blamed technical issues and human error, per a spokesman. “We do not believe the difference is as large as the data appears to show.”


Believe all you like, the proof is in the unused seats, diminished merchandise sales, and lack of concession proceeds.

For a school like Florida State, it’s mostly a vanity issue. They want to have big numbers that compare to their peers like Alabama and Ohio State, but regardless of the numbers, their athletic department’s doing pretty well.

https://thecomeback.com/ncaa/college-foo...sales.html

Wow Florida State.

In the year the article is talking about here, 2017 they had an announced attendance of 70,943 which is really low for a program that used to report 85-90k.

The butts in seats for FSU...….45,186. Those are UCF level numbers. I believe it from seeing them on TV.

To be fair, Tallahassee isn't exactly an easy place to get to for most of the alumni base. Couple that with a few years of bad football and you get these numbers. While it is reasonable to see the numbers go back up in the next few years, it will be contingent on FSU returning to the 1990's style glory days in short order.

Come on. Where do most FSU alums end up working? Probably places like Atlanta, Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa. Those are breezy few-hour drives on interstates.

FSU's core attendance base, the rain or shine people, is probably around 55,000. Their last 20,000 or so in attendance has always been very sensitive to how well the team is doing.
(This post was last modified: 02-05-2019 12:05 PM by quo vadis.)
02-05-2019 12:03 PM
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JRsec Offline
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
(02-05-2019 11:27 AM)Wolfman Wrote:  NASCAR is experiencing different issues. 1 - t-shirt fans flocked to the sport, inflating prices and forcing true fans out. The t-shirt fans are now moving on to what ever fad is next. True fans will be back when the prices adjust. 2 - NASCAR is losing its most popular drivers. Dale Jr., who seemed like he hardly ever won a race, was one of the most popular ever and is now retired.

As others have noted, college has its own issues - games too long, ticket prices, parking prices, concession prices, required donations, TV, traffic, etc.


And actual game experience stinks. My wife and I held our season tickets for over 4 decades. Whether Auburn won or lost had a great season or a lousy one we were there. We sat with the same folks for over those 40 years with minor changes. Their kids were like our kids, and then their grandkids were like ours. When IMG took over the game day experience the constant blaring of the new mega stadium speakers made it impossible to socialize with our friends of four decades at the stadium. The couple who had sat next to us for those four decades had to cup their hands and shout into our ears to be heard. We couldn't even have the hour before kickoff to socialize because the damned piped in noise started as soon as the gates were open.

I could cheerfully have choked the ever loving life out of the stupid S.O.B. who decided that piped in noise added to the television excitement!

What all these corporate add people forgot was that the game event is a social occasion as much as it is a game. I'm totally cool with the legitimate noise of the game. But now you can't even talk in between plays and timeouts because as soon as the action on the field stops the speakers start blaring pieces of the same noise all over again.

We still support the school, but seldom do anything now except give the tickets away. We see our friends in our home where the food is better, the noise level of the game doesn't drown out our conversation, and where nobody has peed on the bathroom facilities.

You know it's the little things that make you feel ripped off. When they passed a rule against stadium cushions in order to force all the fans to pay $5 bucks for the stadium rental of one, I felt more ripped off over that than I did over the donation to the Athletic Fund for the right to buy tickets, or the $85 dollar tickets. If $2,500 a year for the donation and tickets isn't enough for a bunch of jerks who were making my game day experience miserable with their idiotic schemes then maybe they don't really want loyal fans if they have to stick us again for a $5 dollar cushion every game.

But to top it all off in the rude department, one of our friends lost her Mom. Some jerk from the Athletic Department called her the day of her mother's funeral to tell her if she wanted her mother's tickets (she had been faculty) that their family would have to increase their donation level. She told them where they could stick their tickets, and the one's she had faithfully bought for decades.

My point being this:

Alumni feel a close bond to their school which has nothing to do with wins and losses. They resent being fleeced when their donations, years of buying tickets, and faithful attendance indicate their loyalty and imply a deeper relationship to the school than that of a consumer buying a product.

People my age resent the hell out of having to wait 45 minutes to an hour in a phone queue to speak to a person from AT&T when we have a problem. We resent state and federal governments that want our tax money by April 15th but whose sorry butts can't get us the tax forms before mid March. We resent having a feckless FCC that permits our very elderly parents to get fleeced by overseas phone scammers when in our lifetimes the FCC once tracked down bunco schemes and arrested them and when our phone companies could simply block overseas calls linked to scammers if their affiliate overseas wasn't raking in some revenue from the phone banks being used to scam.

Our Federal Government once looked out for the people and Congressmen would return a reply to a call or letter.

Corporations have inserted their noses, along with their lack of personal contact and their lack of accountability, into every aspect of our lives and have corrupted our state and federal government in the process. There is no customer relations being practiced anywhere that I can tell.

Attendance is down at college events, and NASCAR, and the NFL, and elsewhere because one crappy corporately run experience is the same as the next. It's all as phony as Epcot is at Disney World. And now it has invaded our college venues and people whose voices can't be heard by the corporate entities sponsoring the mess, and can't be heard over their noise, vote with their feet. And when we are good and pissed off we'll start voting with our wallets and then and only then will those greedy bastards start listening. And apparently it has begun!
(This post was last modified: 02-05-2019 12:53 PM by JRsec.)
02-05-2019 12:39 PM
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
Things I have learned as a fan of Sporting Kansas City.

1. There is absolutely a market for very cheap tickets in the lesser spots of the stadium, if you market it for the people who want to stand and yell all game and give them a sense of belonging with a "club" for their trouble.
2. Fans want easy access to concessions and team merchandise from their seats.
3. Smart leadership finds ways to engage fans electronically in the stadium.
4. Smart leadership grants rewards for regular attendance.
02-05-2019 12:57 PM
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
(02-05-2019 12:39 PM)JRsec Wrote:  
(02-05-2019 11:27 AM)Wolfman Wrote:  NASCAR is experiencing different issues. 1 - t-shirt fans flocked to the sport, inflating prices and forcing true fans out. The t-shirt fans are now moving on to what ever fad is next. True fans will be back when the prices adjust. 2 - NASCAR is losing its most popular drivers. Dale Jr., who seemed like he hardly ever won a race, was one of the most popular ever and is now retired.

As others have noted, college has its own issues - games too long, ticket prices, parking prices, concession prices, required donations, TV, traffic, etc.


And actual game experience stinks. My wife and I held our season tickets for over 4 decades. Whether Auburn won or lost had a great season or a lousy one we were there. We sat with the same folks for over those 40 years with minor changes. Their kids were like our kids, and then their grandkids were like ours. When IMG took over the game day experience the constant blaring of the new mega stadium speakers made it impossible to socialize with our friends of four decades at the stadium. The couple who had sat next to us for those four decades had to cup their hands and shout into our ears to be heard. We couldn't even have the hour before kickoff to socialize because the damned piped in noise started as soon as the gates were open.

I could cheerfully have choked the ever loving life out of the stupid S.O.B. who decided that piped in noise added to the television excitement!

What all these corporate add people forgot was that the game event is a social occasion as much as it is a game. I'm totally cool with the legitimate noise of the game. But now you can't even talk in between plays and timeouts because as soon as the action on the field stops the speakers start blaring pieces of the same noise all over again.

We still support the school, but seldom do anything now except give the tickets away. We see our friends in our home where the food is better, the noise level of the game doesn't drown out our conversation, and where nobody has peed on the bathroom facilities.

You know it's the little things that make you feel ripped off. When they passed a rule against stadium cushions in order to force all the fans to pay $5 bucks for the stadium rental of one, I felt more ripped off over that than I did over the donation to the Athletic Fund for the right to buy tickets, or the $85 dollar tickets. If $2,500 a year for the donation and tickets isn't enough for a bunch of jerks who were making my game day experience miserable with their idiotic schemes then maybe they don't really want loyal fans if they have to stick us again for a $5 dollar cushion every game.

But to top it all off in the rude department, one of our friends lost her Mom. Some jerk from the Athletic Department called her the day of her mother's funeral to tell her if she wanted her mother's tickets (she had been faculty) that their family would have to increase their donation level. She told them where they could stick their tickets, and the one's she had faithfully bought for decades.

My point being this:

Alumni feel a close bond to their school which has nothing to do with wins and losses. They resent being fleeced when their donations, years of buying tickets, and faithful attendance indicate their loyalty and imply a deeper relationship to the school than that of a consumer buying a product.

People my age resent the hell out of having to wait 45 minutes to an hour in a phone queue to speak to a person from AT&T when we have a problem. We resent state and federal governments that want our tax money by April 15th but whose sorry butts can't get us the tax forms before mid March. We resent having a feckless FCC that permits our very elderly parents to get fleeced by overseas phone scammers when in our lifetimes the FCC once tracked down bunco schemes and arrested them and when our phone companies could simply block overseas calls linked to scammers if their affiliate overseas wasn't raking in some revenue from the phone banks being used to scam.

Our Federal Government once looked out for the people and Congressmen would return a reply to a call or letter.

Corporations have inserted their noses, along with their lack of personal contact and their lack of accountability, into every aspect of our lives and have corrupted our state and federal government in the process. There is no customer relations being practiced anywhere that I can tell.

Attendance is down at college events, and NASCAR, and the NFL, and elsewhere because one crappy corporately run experience is the same as the next. It's all as phony as Epcot is at Disney World. And now it has invaded our college venues and people whose voices can't be heard by the corporate entities sponsoring the mess, and can't be heard over their noise, vote with their feet. And when we are good and pissed off we'll start voting with our wallets and then and only then will those greedy bastards start listening. And apparently it has begun!

Fake atmosphere sucks!
I've grown to hate the video board too because when I want to see a replay, I'm lucky to get it. When we are in breaks do I get to see some of the best plays again? Nope. I get to hear an ad from a local hospital telling the story of someone having cancer or some loud guy trying to sell me a truck or shots of people dancing in the stands (hey dummy we are down and they've got the ball, what are you dancing for????), and surely someone will give up on the kiss cam because AState fans ain't been playing along.

When I go to Kansas City for a soccer game, at least at halftime I get a highlight reel.
(This post was last modified: 02-05-2019 01:05 PM by arkstfan.)
02-05-2019 01:04 PM
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RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
The games themselves are less fun to watch in person than they used to be. NASCAR is the #1 offender in this.

NASCAR used to be easy to understand. 500 miles (or laps), whoever gets there first wins. Simple, anyone can understand. Now, it's all about earning points over the season. Now when I turn on a race, I can't even understand what's going on any more. They took a good thing and ruined it.

Football is 2nd worst, especially college football. Every booth review just crushes the atmosphere in the stadium.

Baseball is exciting when ball-meets-bat and players try to field it. And stolen bases. Sabermetrics is ruining this. Everything is a walk, strikeout, or HR. No one takes chances on the basepaths any more.


NBA and NHL attendance has been flat over the last decade. So they're doing allright. It's hard for their attendance to grow much because you have to be close to the action to see what's going on.
02-05-2019 01:26 PM
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Post: #17
RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
(02-05-2019 12:39 PM)JRsec Wrote:  
(02-05-2019 11:27 AM)Wolfman Wrote:  NASCAR is experiencing different issues. 1 - t-shirt fans flocked to the sport, inflating prices and forcing true fans out. The t-shirt fans are now moving on to what ever fad is next. True fans will be back when the prices adjust. 2 - NASCAR is losing its most popular drivers. Dale Jr., who seemed like he hardly ever won a race, was one of the most popular ever and is now retired.

As others have noted, college has its own issues - games too long, ticket prices, parking prices, concession prices, required donations, TV, traffic, etc.


And actual game experience stinks. My wife and I held our season tickets for over 4 decades. Whether Auburn won or lost had a great season or a lousy one we were there. We sat with the same folks for over those 40 years with minor changes. Their kids were like our kids, and then their grandkids were like ours. When IMG took over the game day experience the constant blaring of the new mega stadium speakers made it impossible to socialize with our friends of four decades at the stadium. The couple who had sat next to us for those four decades had to cup their hands and shout into our ears to be heard. We couldn't even have the hour before kickoff to socialize because the damned piped in noise started as soon as the gates were open.

I could cheerfully have choked the ever loving life out of the stupid S.O.B. who decided that piped in noise added to the television excitement!

What all these corporate add people forgot was that the game event is a social occasion as much as it is a game. I'm totally cool with the legitimate noise of the game. But now you can't even talk in between plays and timeouts because as soon as the action on the field stops the speakers start blaring pieces of the same noise all over again.

We still support the school, but seldom do anything now except give the tickets away. We see our friends in our home where the food is better, the noise level of the game doesn't drown out our conversation, and where nobody has peed on the bathroom facilities.

You know it's the little things that make you feel ripped off. When they passed a rule against stadium cushions in order to force all the fans to pay $5 bucks for the stadium rental of one, I felt more ripped off over that than I did over the donation to the Athletic Fund for the right to buy tickets, or the $85 dollar tickets. If $2,500 a year for the donation and tickets isn't enough for a bunch of jerks who were making my game day experience miserable with their idiotic schemes then maybe they don't really want loyal fans if they have to stick us again for a $5 dollar cushion every game.

But to top it all off in the rude department, one of our friends lost her Mom. Some jerk from the Athletic Department called her the day of her mother's funeral to tell her if she wanted her mother's tickets (she had been faculty) that their family would have to increase their donation level. She told them where they could stick their tickets, and the one's she had faithfully bought for decades.

My point being this:

Alumni feel a close bond to their school which has nothing to do with wins and losses. They resent being fleeced when their donations, years of buying tickets, and faithful attendance indicate their loyalty and imply a deeper relationship to the school than that of a consumer buying a product.

People my age resent the hell out of having to wait 45 minutes to an hour in a phone queue to speak to a person from AT&T when we have a problem. We resent state and federal governments that want our tax money by April 15th but whose sorry butts can't get us the tax forms before mid March. We resent having a feckless FCC that permits our very elderly parents to get fleeced by overseas phone scammers when in our lifetimes the FCC once tracked down bunco schemes and arrested them and when our phone companies could simply block overseas calls linked to scammers if their affiliate overseas wasn't raking in some revenue from the phone banks being used to scam.

Our Federal Government once looked out for the people and Congressmen would return a reply to a call or letter.

Corporations have inserted their noses, along with their lack of personal contact and their lack of accountability, into every aspect of our lives and have corrupted our state and federal government in the process. There is no customer relations being practiced anywhere that I can tell.

Attendance is down at college events, and NASCAR, and the NFL, and elsewhere because one crappy corporately run experience is the same as the next. It's all as phony as Epcot is at Disney World. And now it has invaded our college venues and people whose voices can't be heard by the corporate entities sponsoring the mess, and can't be heard over their noise, vote with their feet. And when we are good and pissed off we'll start voting with our wallets and then and only then will those greedy bastards start listening. And apparently it has begun!

+2 for much of what you said, even though some of that starts to veer into Get Off My Lawn territory. Sports are increasingly television shows for which they're charging the live audience who watches it. And the need to squeeze every last penny out of the consumers is ultimately what is killing the sport for older fans. What they don't seem to realize is that none of them are really growing their future fan base.

USFFan
02-05-2019 01:37 PM
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usffan Offline
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Post: #18
RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
(02-05-2019 01:04 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I've grown to hate the video board too because when I want to see a replay, I'm lucky to get it. When we are in breaks do I get to see some of the best plays again? Nope. I get to hear an ad from a local hospital telling the story of someone having cancer or some loud guy trying to sell me a truck or shots of people dancing in the stands (hey dummy we are down and they've got the ball, what are you dancing for????), and surely someone will give up on the kiss cam because AState fans ain't been playing along.

Oh my God, a million times this! So many times you're at the game, your team just gave up a score or had a turnover, the game then goes into the (interminable and inevitable) TV timeout, and then they play some loud music while the cameras find people in the crowd who immediately start hamming it up all excited. Drives me up a frigging wall!

USFFan
02-05-2019 01:40 PM
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No Bull Offline
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Post: #19
RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
(02-05-2019 11:27 AM)Wolfman Wrote:  NASCAR is experiencing different issues. 1 - t-shirt fans flocked to the sport, inflating prices and forcing true fans out. The t-shirt fans are now moving on to what ever fad is next. True fans will be back when the prices adjust. 2 - NASCAR is losing its most popular drivers. Dale Jr., who seemed like he hardly ever won a race, was one of the most popular ever and is now retired.

As others have noted, college has its own issues - games too long, ticket prices, parking prices, concession prices, required donations, TV, traffic, etc.
I was at the Orlando International Airport the day after Dale Jr. died... lost of folks from Daytona were flying home...and the place was just desolate... it was as though a President had been assassinated.

I am not a NASCAR fan but growing up in Central Florida... even I understood that Dale's death was going to change NASCAR forever..and it did.

I have always loved sports and movies...but I have been conditioned by my phone, my job, my kids.. and I just don't have the time or attention span to sit for hours watch football or some movie.. even whne I do..i am scanning my phone or the internet..

the day of 80k at a football stadium is largely through...

attendance is down for all sports.. attendance numbers for baseball... hockey... football and basketball are down... MLS papers the house and still can't get butts in seats...

college sports... attendance is down..for all sports.

Check this site out. It is a trip. (a bad trip)

Empty Seats Galore...
(This post was last modified: 02-05-2019 01:43 PM by No Bull.)
02-05-2019 01:42 PM
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usffan Offline
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Post: #20
RE: Great Recession Impact on attendance
More Stay Off My Lawn stuff...

Why the hell are people like this, who are effectively glory whores for the in stadium (and occasionally TV) cameras, the focus of so much attention?

[Image: 21766423_120521651988935_440027944508964...e=5CF957EE]

[Image: UCF-Anthony-Allan-5.jpg]

[Image: 91b12ecea3f527e9c2d6380d0785f5e4--bcs-ch...nuary-.jpg]

OK, I need to go take my blood pressure medicine and a nap...

USFFan
02-05-2019 01:45 PM
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