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The steady decline of student attendance

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BigWoof31

BigWoof31

"Barkin' up the wrong tree"
Very interesting and fair piece written by the WWL. (Link contains automatic video)
http://espn.go.com/college-football...-concern-students-show-college-football-games

Quotes and statistics are taken from every conference and no particular conference is thrown under the bus.
The cliffs notes version: AD's have noticed that about 18-26% of student tickets aren't being used despite being sold. Data comes from stadium scans at entry points.
Those that do attend, tend to leave at halftime or midway through the third.

Mostly tailgating and the access to cheaper food, booze and TV's are being named as the culprit.

Some choice quotes from multiple conferences:

Nebraska: "The routine is the exact same as it was the first game of my freshman year. The exact same warmup songs at the same time in every game. Even the tunnel walk has gotten stale after being there for a couple seasons. I believe the university needs to try some new rituals, get some new traditions. At a place that covets tradition, as much as any fan base in the country, a change is needed."
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Arkansas: "Students have to line up as much as 2 hours before the gates open, then wait in the stadium for two hours before kickoff in order to have good lower-row seats. It eliminates many students from being able to enjoy the tailgate so they'd just rather watch on TV."
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Georgia Tech: "I want to be able to flip over to other football games while watching my team. I don't want to miss the entire LSU-Alabama game because my team is playing at the same time."
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Iowa: "There are students here who have been Hawkeye fans since birth and will show up every game. Others would rather drink away their fall Saturdays."
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Bucky32 said:
Not too hard to figure out. The experience at home is better and only improving by the year.
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And increasing prices for everything (tickets, concessions, etc.), increasing tuition costs for people paying their own way...I bust on the Entitlement Generation as much as anyone, but there are some other legit explanations.
 
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Thinking long term - the new CFB Playoff isn't going to help matters much.
If your team loses two games, they're basically eliminated.

You have to figure some students are thinking, why bother?
Other than traditional rivalry games, does league play even matter if you can't make Football's Final Four????
 
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BigWoof31 said:
Thinking long term - the new CFB Playoff isn't going to help matters much.
If your team loses two games, they're basically eliminated.

You have to figure some students are thinking, why bother?
Other than traditional rivalry games, does league play even matter if you can't make Football's Final Four????
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I often wonder if the newer generations appreciate the traditional rivalries anyway, at least as much as others have in the past. If both teams aren't good, it seems youngsters often don't have the first clue as to why their school hates school X.
 
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Bucklion said:
I often wonder if the newer generations appreciate the traditional rivalries anyway, at least as much as others have in the past. If both teams aren't good, it seems youngsters often don't have the first clue as to why their school hates school X.
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Just sacrifice one of the opposing teams cheerleaders at Halftime. That should get the point across.
 
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Bucklion said:
And increasing prices for everything (tickets, concessions, etc.), increasing tuition costs for people paying their own way...I bust on the Entitlement Generation as much as anyone, but there are some other legit explanations.
Click to expand...


I think you "hit the nail on the head" here.

hit-nail.jpg
 
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I agree that the at-home experience is often better than being at the game, and certainly the beer selection is both better and cheaper. However, if ESPN et al. keep adding distracting ticker-tapes and pop up graphics to the game feeds, I will be attending more games.
 
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Couple of comments: 1) isn't the phrase used by Nebraska in the first post,
get some new traditions.
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an oxymoron?

2) I say it's the pill, lite beer, pong and those damn near see through pants girls wear today.

I doubt that this holds true at Ohio State, but many of my students at NKU are trying to go to school full time and work 20 to 30 hours a week. They are totally dependent upon their cars to get to work and to school and school, even at NKU, is expensive. I wouldn't call them academically driven -though some are- But I also wouldn't call them lazy.

You can also add the seat selection. In my time at OSU I could - and did - get tickets between the 40s in C deck and between the goal line and the 30 in A. You have to be really in to card section antics to put up with the lousy seats they offer students. My guess is that OSU probably would rather students not buy their deep discounted tickets so the school has more to sell at full fare to disgruntled alums who are denied season tickets.
 
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Damn kids, with their hula hoops and Dan Fogelberg records...

To me it's quite simple - with each passing year more and more of what makes the experience of going to games great is being taken out of the hands of students. For the band to play or for a cheer to start they have to wait for the PA to stop blasting radio tunes, public service announcements/admonishments or advertising Bob Evans sausages. I can't keep track of the number of times over the last few years an O-H-I-O cheer was interrupted by public address. The seats are getting worse too. Ohio State is adding a few thousand terrible seats to the south stands so they can move students out of A-deck to make room for more baby boomers and gen-Xers. Once they decide they can sell those seats to their parents and grandparent for more money than what students pay, they'll be moved out of that part of the stadium too.

"Buckeye Swag"... there's an example of students (in the band) coming up with way to add something to the gameday experience. It's a fun thing, and it belongs to them. "New traditions" is not an oxymoron. Everything that is now a tradition was once something new, and through the years different generations have made their mark on the experience of attending the game. Where is the opportunity nowadays for students to do that kind of thing? With all of the corporate crap that they've stuffed into every single non-football moment of the game, is there room for anything to be added by today's students? Is that even allowed or encouraged anymore, or will every "new tradition" be the result of the students being led where the athletic department wants them instead of the students being able to make their own mark?

TL;DR... The gameday experience needs more "Buckeye Swag" and students in A-deck, and less top-down "traditions" like Seven Nation Army and Quick Cals. Not only is it better for the students, but as I march inexorably toward old-persondom I find think that it would make the experience better for people like me too.
 
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I think the generation gap can be felt at the stadium too. I have been to many, many games...older folks yell at the kids to sit down, younger folks yell back that "If you want to sit, stay at home". Older folks complain, micro to the ushers, macro in general in the papers, to the admin, etc. Students get moved out of seats old folks want and secluded by themselves in crappier and crappier parts of the stadium, and conduct is more and more regulated. I understand why they do it, but I don't think it helps. The energy in the building is far more universal with a mixture of fans in all areas. Just my IMO though.

Another thing to consider is the post 9/11 security measures...you basically can't take anything into the stadium now at all. Combine that with the Holbrook parking lot policies, and the Hineygate issues, and...well, you get the idea, the games just aren't as fun as they used to be for the younger folks either, so they aren't worth the money.
 
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I really think this is in large part due to the accumulating effect of a lack of quality opponent for fans who have been paying more and more and getting less and less. What I say here is definitely true of the fan experience at Wisconsin and may also be true elsewhere, but I don't want to generalize.

UW has experienced a period of 10+ years now where nearly half the home schedule has been contorted to accommodate automatic wins from the Citadels, Akrons and Western Illinoises of the World. Those easy wins have, up to this point, been of bigger worth as it pertains to the prospect of "getting the better bowl" and making money. That has absolutely sucked to endure as a spectator for the last 10 years and it has begun to ware on fan bases. Not to mention if you coupled those 3 or 4 cupcakes with getting the unlucky years of getting the league bottom feeders (Indiana/NW/Purdue/Ill) on the home schedule. Also, in my opinion, the fact that Wisconsin's supposed biggest rivalry game is typically a meaningless drubbing of a limp Minnesota team makes things much less interesting. There have been some real shitty home slates in the past decade that have sucked the incentive out of attending in person.
 
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