Arkansas State used to do tickets sold which is what a lot of schools still do. The past couple of years they have started reporting tickets scanned. Kinda wish we would have stuck with the tickets sold method. Lol. That would make us look better on paper.

(11-07-2021 11:34 AM)HighlandsApp Wrote:  Louisiana has disappointing attendance especially in light of the past two seasons.

I see our own fans comparing our attendance situation to that of App State's, and it's not a fair comparison in my opinion. There are multiple causes (excuses) we can point to:

1. Attendance to sporting events is down across the board with the ability to watch any game on the tube
2. We are not a historically strong program. Our major success has occurred mainly in the last decade
3. Casual fans like a winner, we have had a perennial winner 50 miles East of us for the last 20 years; whereas App State WAS/IS the winner for the last 20+ years in NC

I think that those causes are accurate/evident when we flip to baseball, where we do have a historically strong program and you guys don't. Our attendance is in the top 10 year to year, averaging up to 5k per game. Looks like in 2021 you guys averaged 200-300. I think it's just going to take a few more (if not many) of us playing good football. The problem is it's hard to sustain success in football like App State has done, with coaching changes, etc.

ODU has a home game coming up this week with FAU. We've won our last two games, if weather is good, and it has been for all of our home games so far fortunately I think we can break the 20K.

(11-07-2021 09:33 AM)Saint3333 Wrote:  USM is impressive given the last couple of years. What do they draw when they’re good?

Historically, we’ll do 28k-31k when we’re rolling.

(11-07-2021 11:34 AM)HighlandsApp Wrote:  Louisiana has disappointing attendance especially in light of the past two seasons.

I don’t disagree, but having so many weeknight games just kills our attendance.

Saturday games: 27,105
Weeknight games: 17,927

(11-07-2021 11:56 AM)Complacent Cajun Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 11:34 AM)HighlandsApp Wrote:  Louisiana has disappointing attendance especially in light of the past two seasons.

I see our own fans comparing our attendance situation to that of App State's, and it's not a fair comparison in my opinion. There are multiple causes (excuses) we can point to:

1. Attendance to sporting events is down across the board with the ability to watch any game on the tube
2. We are not a historically strong program. Our major success has occurred mainly in the last decade
3. Casual fans like a winner, we have had a perennial winner 50 miles East of us for the last 20 years; whereas App State WAS/IS the winner for the last 20+ years in NC

I think that those causes are accurate/evident when we flip to baseball, where we do have a historically strong program and you guys don't. Our attendance is in the top 10 year to year, averaging up to 5k per game. Looks like in 2021 you guys averaged 200-300. I think it's just going to take a few more (if not many) of us playing good football. The problem is it's hard to sustain success in football like App State has done, with coaching changes, etc.

Wake Forest is experiencing the same thing; great season but still not selling out the stadium.

How many students attend games? Do their athletic fees allow them free entry?

App has been incredibly lucky for many years to have good attendance numbers even with bad weather. However I will say that as the temperature drops and we get closer to thanksgiving our numbers do drop. Its fun sitting in the stadium with snow falling, but its usually only the hardcore faithful that show up for that.

(11-07-2021 06:05 PM)HighlandsApp Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 11:56 AM)Complacent Cajun Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 11:34 AM)HighlandsApp Wrote:  Louisiana has disappointing attendance especially in light of the past two seasons.

I see our own fans comparing our attendance situation to that of App State's, and it's not a fair comparison in my opinion. There are multiple causes (excuses) we can point to:

1. Attendance to sporting events is down across the board with the ability to watch any game on the tube
2. We are not a historically strong program. Our major success has occurred mainly in the last decade
3. Casual fans like a winner, we have had a perennial winner 50 miles East of us for the last 20 years; whereas App State WAS/IS the winner for the last 20+ years in NC

I think that those causes are accurate/evident when we flip to baseball, where we do have a historically strong program and you guys don't. Our attendance is in the top 10 year to year, averaging up to 5k per game. Looks like in 2021 you guys averaged 200-300. I think it's just going to take a few more (if not many) of us playing good football. The problem is it's hard to sustain success in football like App State has done, with coaching changes, etc.

Wake Forest is experiencing the same thing; great season but still not selling out the stadium.

How many students attend games? Do their athletic fees allow them free entry?

And their stadium only holds 31,500, as a “P5” school that was inside the top 25. Still not filling their stadium.

(11-07-2021 06:05 PM)HighlandsApp Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 11:56 AM)Complacent Cajun Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 11:34 AM)HighlandsApp Wrote:  Louisiana has disappointing attendance especially in light of the past two seasons.

I see our own fans comparing our attendance situation to that of App State's, and it's not a fair comparison in my opinion. There are multiple causes (excuses) we can point to:

1. Attendance to sporting events is down across the board with the ability to watch any game on the tube
2. We are not a historically strong program. Our major success has occurred mainly in the last decade
3. Casual fans like a winner, we have had a perennial winner 50 miles East of us for the last 20 years; whereas App State WAS/IS the winner for the last 20+ years in NC

I think that those causes are accurate/evident when we flip to baseball, where we do have a historically strong program and you guys don't. Our attendance is in the top 10 year to year, averaging up to 5k per game. Looks like in 2021 you guys averaged 200-300. I think it's just going to take a few more (if not many) of us playing good football. The problem is it's hard to sustain success in football like App State has done, with coaching changes, etc.

Wake Forest is experiencing the same thing; great season but still not selling out the stadium.

How many students attend games? Do their athletic fees allow them free entry?

Wake Forest has grown their student population from 4400 when I was at App to now just under 9K, they have a 35K seat stadium, and never fill it up, I remember when App used to play Wake regularly , we would fill up their stadium with app fans, it was like a home game to us, I think thats why they don't like playing App anymore.

(11-07-2021 11:45 AM)stAteNation Wrote:  Arkansas State used to do tickets sold which is what a lot of schools still do. The past couple of years they have started reporting tickets scanned. Kinda wish we would have stuck with the tickets sold method. Lol. That would make us look better on paper.

Georgia Southern also reports tickets scanned. Since 2016 or so, our numbers always look worse than the stadium on tv.

Last night however was really bad. In part because of the weather, but also because this season is a wash and everyone knows it.

(11-07-2021 11:05 AM)AppfanInCAAland Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 09:57 AM)Troy_Fan_15 Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 09:50 AM)TroyGuy88 Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 09:37 AM)Purplehazed Wrote:  Are you saying numbers are horrible across the board or the ODU & Marshall numbers are horrible because they both played
at a no account FL schools, one that should not have a football team and one that is going to the AAC (I take jabs at the AAC when I can at it's easy) haha

ODU can't help it that FIU is MIA

Across the board

Troy’s attendance I thought was very respectable given what we are dealing with. 26k (~1.5-2k USA fans were there if I had to guess).

JMU pulling 23k in a FCS game. Playing in the SBC East they should push above that.

How was the atmosphere in Harrisonburg? I was at a function in Richmond last night with a few JMU grads. They obviously weren't at the game, but they were both bouncing off the walls in excitement for the announcement of the move. I had a good time filling them in on the happenings in the Sun Belt

It was good, but I'm looking forward to what I'm betting will be a very noticeable improvement in the excitement and atmosphere once we have Sun Belt teams come to town, especially when opponents and/or JMU are ranked. I'd say there's a pretty noticeable difference between even five years ago and now because of how many of our games are expected to be a blowout win or at least pretty much of a sure win.

There was definitely extra excitement in the air with the Sun Belt move though. A lot of the biggest cheers of the day were any time anything about the Sun Belt was mentioned, and a lot of the student seating spent pretty much the whole first quarter chanting "**** the CAA!"

(11-07-2021 06:05 PM)GEAUX UL Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 11:34 AM)HighlandsApp Wrote:  Louisiana has disappointing attendance especially in light of the past two seasons.

I don’t disagree, but having so many weeknight games just kills our attendance.

Saturday games: 27,105
Weeknight games: 17,927

How can we host Marshall in Boone to 27k and Coastal at 21k on weekdays but we come down to Lafayette and play there are empty seats all over the place? Not trying to gaga over my Alma Mater, but I would have expected that game to be packed.

What are we doing in Boone that the other SBC schools aren't? I can understand low attendance if your team is garbage, but why aren't these other stadiums packed even when the team is good? And what can be done to remedy that?

Again it's not gloating about App, but this conference has got to get scenes of packed stadiums week in and week out if we want to make a run at being the premire G5.

JMU home games are usually around the 21k-23K range most of the time. At least 1 or 2 sellouts a year (25K) - usually for parents weekend, homecoming, or the home opener. Again these attendance numbers are with us playing teams that our fan base doesn’t care about (Elon, Campbell, Morehead State???, etc.)

We expect Sun Belt East teams to be 23K+ when we host, and sellouts for ODU, App, and Marshall at a minimum.

Not to be rude but do y’all’s teams draw well when playing on Saturdays? The numbers in the first post were lower than I would’ve expected

(11-07-2021 09:18 PM)jmu18 Wrote:  JMU home games are usually around the 21k-23K range most of the time. At least 1 or 2 sellouts a year (25K) - usually for parents weekend, homecoming, or the home opener. Again these attendance numbers are with us playing teams that our fan base doesn’t care about (Elon, Campbell, Morehead State???, etc.)

We expect Sun Belt East teams to be 23K+ when we host, and sellouts for ODU, App, and Marshall at a minimum.

Not to be rude but do y’all’s teams draw well when playing on Saturdays? The numbers in the first post were lower than I would’ve expected

Pre-pandemic App was doing about 24-25k averages in attendance. I'm not sure about currently but from what I've seen the games have been well attended. I would assume that trend would continue with more geographically friendly ODU, JMU and Marshall coming to town as well as well as good traveling to Harrisonburg. The eastern teams seem to do well with attendance, minus the two Georgia Schools...but one plays in a former MLB stadium and before that an NFL stadium so their games always looked sparse, and the other one will probably get their numbers back once they start getting a winning record again. I think Coastal's attendance has always been high teens. App has always been an anomaly when it comes to attendance. I'd think adding the four teams we did though will make for more compelling games and if stAte, Troy, Georgia Southern, Southern Miss and ODU can get their programs turned around you'll see the crowds increase. Winning cures everything.

(11-07-2021 09:42 PM)hotrod2001 Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 09:18 PM)jmu18 Wrote:  JMU home games are usually around the 21k-23K range most of the time. At least 1 or 2 sellouts a year (25K) - usually for parents weekend, homecoming, or the home opener. Again these attendance numbers are with us playing teams that our fan base doesn’t care about (Elon, Campbell, Morehead State???, etc.)

We expect Sun Belt East teams to be 23K+ when we host, and sellouts for ODU, App, and Marshall at a minimum.

Not to be rude but do y’all’s teams draw well when playing on Saturdays? The numbers in the first post were lower than I would’ve expected

Pre-pandemic App was doing about 24-25k averages in attendance. I'm not sure about currently but from what I've seen the games have been well attended. I would assume that trend would continue with more geographically friendly ODU, JMU and Marshall coming to town as well as well as good traveling to Harrisonburg. The eastern teams seem to do well with attendance, minus the two Georgia Schools...but one plays in a former MLB stadium and before that an NFL stadium so their games always looked sparse, and the other one will probably get their numbers back once they start getting a winning record again. I think Coastal's attendance has always been high teens. App has always been an anomaly when it comes to attendance. I'd think adding the four teams we did though will make for more compelling games and if stAte, Troy, Georgia Southern, Southern Miss and ODU can get their programs turned around you'll see the crowds increase. Winning cures everything.

App is around 29K this year so far. 31K for Coastal, 28K for Marshall, 30K for Elon, and 29K for Monroe. We will probably have a good crowd this week and thin vs Ga Southern. Students make up 1/3rd of our attendance most weeks. We get 10K on average.

(11-07-2021 06:05 PM)GEAUX UL Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 11:34 AM)HighlandsApp Wrote:  Louisiana has disappointing attendance especially in light of the past two seasons.

I don’t disagree, but having so many weeknight games just kills our attendance.

Saturday games: 27,105
Weeknight games: 17,927

How far are people coming from?

Is the kick-off time the actual issue for programs in Central Time? If kick-off is at 630, most people get off of work between 5 and 6:30, rhey may not see a value in getting there after the game has started. I wonder how much attendance might increase if kick-iff was moved back to 8:00 PM ET for midweek games in Central timezone.

I feel the new and improved SBC East will spark a lot of interest. If Coastal sustains success, I expect Coastal to pull 18-20k most games in the future. I believe the South Endzone project could bowl in the other end to mirror the North side and get the capacity to 23-24k. I hope we can get it done before we host Virginia in 2024. That game will sell out and will be the largest crowd in Brooks easily.

(11-07-2021 11:56 AM)Complacent Cajun Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 11:34 AM)HighlandsApp Wrote:  Louisiana has disappointing attendance especially in light of the past two seasons.

I see our own fans comparing our attendance situation to that of App State's, and it's not a fair comparison in my opinion. There are multiple causes (excuses) we can point to:

1. Attendance to sporting events is down across the board with the ability to watch any game on the tube
2. We are not a historically strong program. Our major success has occurred mainly in the last decade
3. Casual fans like a winner, we have had a perennial winner 50 miles East of us for the last 20 years; whereas App State WAS/IS the winner for the last 20+ years in NC

I think that those causes are accurate/evident when we flip to baseball, where we do have a historically strong program and you guys don't. Our attendance is in the top 10 year to year, averaging up to 5k per game. Looks like in 2021 you guys averaged 200-300. I think it's just going to take a few more (if not many) of us playing good football. The problem is it's hard to sustain success in football like App State has done, with coaching changes, etc.

Try sharing a state with Alabama and Auburn. I really wish we had started football 15-20 years sooner.

2009 - South Alabama played their first down of football.
2009 - Alabama won the BCS national championship
2010 - Auburn won the BCS national championship
2011 - Alabama won the BCS national championship
2012 - Alabama won the BCS national championship
2013 - Auburn played for but lost the BCS national championship
2014 - Alabama played in the inaugural CFP but didn’t win
2015 - Alabama won the CFP national championship
2016 - Alabama played for but lost the CFP national championship
2017 - Alabama won the CFP national championship
2018 - Alabama played for but lost the CFP national championship
2019 - first year since USA Football existed that Alabama/Auburn weren’t in the BCS/CFP playoff
2020 - Alabama won the CFP national championship

(11-08-2021 08:14 AM)SkullyMaroo Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 11:56 AM)Complacent Cajun Wrote:  

(11-07-2021 11:34 AM)HighlandsApp Wrote:  Louisiana has disappointing attendance especially in light of the past two seasons.

I see our own fans comparing our attendance situation to that of App State's, and it's not a fair comparison in my opinion. There are multiple causes (excuses) we can point to:

1. Attendance to sporting events is down across the board with the ability to watch any game on the tube
2. We are not a historically strong program. Our major success has occurred mainly in the last decade
3. Casual fans like a winner, we have had a perennial winner 50 miles East of us for the last 20 years; whereas App State WAS/IS the winner for the last 20+ years in NC

I think that those causes are accurate/evident when we flip to baseball, where we do have a historically strong program and you guys don't. Our attendance is in the top 10 year to year, averaging up to 5k per game. Looks like in 2021 you guys averaged 200-300. I think it's just going to take a few more (if not many) of us playing good football. The problem is it's hard to sustain success in football like App State has done, with coaching changes, etc.

Try sharing a state with Alabama and Auburn. I really wish we had started football 15-20 years sooner.

2009 - South Alabama played their first down of football.
2009 - Alabama won the BCS national championship
2010 - Auburn won the BCS national championship
2011 - Alabama won the BCS national championship
2012 - Alabama won the BCS national championship
2013 - Auburn played for but lost the BCS national championship
2014 - Alabama played in the inaugural CFP but didn’t win
2015 - Alabama won the CFP national championship
2016 - Alabama played for but lost the CFP national championship
2017 - Alabama won the CFP national championship
2018 - Alabama played for but lost the CFP national championship
2019 - first year since USA Football existed that Alabama/Auburn weren’t in the BCS/CFP playoff
2020 - Alabama won the CFP national championship

Troy's attendance has actually gotten better over the years. We get three or four sections full of students, which is the most we've ever had.

Even the Troy/USA game had that many, and that was with Auburn playing Texas A&M at the same time on TV. I was impressed.

Maybe the worst weather at Paulson for about 20 years. I sat out in the sleet/snow/frozen rain at App in 2019, but for some reason, it just felt even colder and nastier this past Saturday in Statesboro.