Student Body Consensus

[Jacobs4Heisman]

Back then, there weren't year-round youth baseball, volleyball, hockey, basketball, etc. travel team leagues where games were primarily on weekends (conflicting with BG games). MANY of the "sucky" community members have school-age children in these activities and choose their kids' activities over BG football. The gall.

Can you deny the BG community sucks in terms of supporting a D1 football team? Don't misinterpret my comments as me thinking individual members of the community suck for making their choices. I didn't say that. I made no statements as to the validity of the community members' choices.


And I agree with you to a point about all the choices, but there are a lot of schools that don't have these attendance problems, and I think a lot of their fans have TVs as well.

[Flipper]

In my 25+ year association with BGSU and BGSU athletics I've come to the conclusion that the town doesn't embrace the University and the University doesn't embrace the town. Hockey seems to be the exception, but the locals seemed more annoyed by the presence of the U than excited by the idea of interacting with it.

[bg8492]

Can you deny the BG community sucks in terms of supporting a D1 football team?

Bowling Green population roughly 30K. Let's say 25% attending the game would be reasonable since 25% of student population is deemed to be reasonable (prior post) - that's 7500 community members + the 5000 students = about our usual attendance for average game 12,500. Community proper supports the team no less than the student body.

[hammb]

In my 25+ year association with BGSU and BGSU athletics I've come to the conclusion that the town doesn't embrace the University and the University doesn't embrace the town. Hockey seems to be the exception, but the locals seemed more annoyed by the presence of the U than excited by the idea of interacting with it.

BINGO!

In my time working for the city of Bowling Green, one of the things I learned is that the city & university administrators tolerate one another more than they enjoy working together.

I definitely think that attitude tends to trickle down throughout the community. I think there are a large number of BG "townies" who would just as soon have the university gone completely.

[Warthog]

I think the problem is that we are located in a rural area. I mean are lucky if the population within 15 miles of the Doyt totals 30,000 (not counting students.) I wonder how many other Div I schools have a similar issue? I mean, if there aren't people close by, it is hard to fill the seats unless you have a great team. Then people will make the drive to attend a game. When the team is mediocre/average, it is pretty easy to just stay home and avoid the one-two-three hour drive.

[bg8492]

I think the problem is that we are located in a rural area. I mean are lucky if the population within 15 miles of the Doyt totals 30,000 (not counting students.) I wonder how many other Div I schools have a similar issue? I mean, if there aren't people close by, it is hard to fill the seats unless you have a great team. Then people will make the drive to attend a game. When the team is mediocre/average, it is pretty easy to just stay home and avoid the one-two-three hour drive.

Exactly.... If Toledo could pull in even 10% of their population base, they could fill their stadium. They can't even do that. Other MAC schools and their population base? My point is that BG does pretty well, comparatively, in pulling in fans from what we have to work with.

[The Niz]

So my question now must be: Who is going to do something about make university and city administrators enjoy working together and get that attitude to trickle down into the community? Maybe its time for someone to do something to make the school and the town like each other a little more. Any ideas on how to make a change like that begin to happen are welcomed and I will gladly persue them in my very limited spare time!

[Falconboy]

So my question now must be: Who is going to do something about make university and city administrators enjoy working together and get that attitude to trickle down into the community? Maybe its time for someone to do something to make the school and the town like each other a little more. Any ideas on how to make a change like that begin to happen are welcomed and I will gladly persue them in my very limited spare time!

I wouldn't even know where to begin with something like that. This is a very unfortunate problem that the city of BG and the university can't get along or whatever. I haven't been around long enough to notice any rift between BG and college but something isn't right between the townies and students for some reason.

[Globetrotter]

I think the problem is that we are located in a rural area. I mean are lucky if the population within 15 miles of the Doyt totals 30,000 (not counting students.) I wonder how many other Div I schools have a similar issue? I mean, if there aren't people close by, it is hard to fill the seats unless you have a great team. Then people will make the drive to attend a game. When the team is mediocre/average, it is pretty easy to just stay home and avoid the one-two-three hour drive.

Exactly.... If Toledo could pull in even 10% of their population base, they could fill their stadium. They can't even do that. Other MAC schools and their population base? My point is that BG does pretty well, comparatively, in pulling in fans from what we have to work with.

I think the solution is adopting the area counties that love football on the HS level as part of BG. There are big football cities all around that have similar populations to BG. Adopt them somehow. Findlay, Fostoria, Port Clinton, Fremont the Naoplean area. All are within 45 minutes. Get them to come to the games. Tailgating areas or something. Ticket deals for the specific areas. etc. etc.

[Falconfreak90]

Did anyone catch the fact that Doyt Perry Stadium is celebrating it's 40th year as the home of the Falcons? In all that time, the average crowd for a BGSU football game is 15,531. I shake my head in disbelief that with the program we've had over the years, we cannot get 20K+ for every home game. But, like some have said, there are reasons why that is. Don't blame the students...I can remember 500 showing up in the late 90's for games. It's the townies and alumni. How many alumni live within a 3 hour drive of BGSU? Plenty. Why don't they go back for games? If I knew that answer, our attendance problem would be solved. This game in Cleveland is a great way to reintroduce BG Football to a market saturated with BG grads. A win could get people thinking "We should get back to BG for a game!"

All I know is I get 4 season tickets every year and have missed ONE home game in the last 10 years....the Miami game in 1997 which BG won 28-21. I was in a friend's wedding that day in Buffalo. I'll not make that mistake again. When Josh and Jake want to get married, they'll need to do it in the summer.

GO FALCONS!! BEAT WISKY!!

[Falconfreak90]

I think the problem is that we are located in a rural area. I mean are lucky if the population within 15 miles of the Doyt totals 30,000 (not counting students.) I wonder how many other Div I schools have a similar issue? I mean, if there aren't people close by, it is hard to fill the seats unless you have a great team. Then people will make the drive to attend a game. When the team is mediocre/average, it is pretty easy to just stay home and avoid the one-two-three hour drive.

Exactly.... If Toledo could pull in even 10% of their population base, they could fill their stadium. They can't even do that. Other MAC schools and their population base? My point is that BG does pretty well, comparatively, in pulling in fans from what we have to work with.

I think the solution is adopting the area counties that love football on the HS level as part of BG. There are big football cities all around that have similar populations to BG. Adopt them somehow. Findlay, Fostoria, Port Clinton, Fremont the Naoplean area. All are within 45 minutes. Get them to come to the games. Tailgating areas or something. Ticket deals for the specific areas. etc. etc.

I like that idea. Promote BG Football to these areas and cities as "their" team too. It's a good idea.

[Schadenfreude]

It cracks me up that the students always get the blame for our attendance issues. The fact is students consistently make up right around 20% of the actual attendance. That is a really solid number for any football program. We have done a better job getting students to the game than community members and alumni combined. A few years back i looked at the numbers and that season, Brandon's first I think, student attendance averaged right around 5000 per game. Thats almost 25% of the student body attending games. And that would account for filling the stadium to about 20% capacity. Those numbers are better than community and alumni attendance combined, yet it's still their fault. Thats BS! God forbid any of them actually come to this academic institution for ACADEMIC REASONS! Between tests, homework, class, and work for some attending sporting events does not fit in. So instead of focusing on the students lets try getting more people in the community out to the games. How hard can it be in an area supporting over 100,000 people to get 10,000 in the stadium? And BGSU has over 100,000 alumni out there. Lets focus on getting them to the games however we can. The people here on this board are not the problem, we are the die hards. I just think sometime we need to take the die-hard colored glasses off and look at things from a different perspective. Could student attendance be better, absolutly. In the overall scheme of building a more consistent fan base is that the best use of resources, I don't believe so.

I think this is a good post. I agree.

[Schadenfreude]

Can you deny the BG community sucks in terms of supporting a D1 football team?

Bowling Green population roughly 30K. Let's say 25% attending the game would be reasonable since 25% of student population is deemed to be reasonable (prior post) - that's 7500 community members + the 5000 students = about our usual attendance for average game 12,500. Community proper supports the team no less than the student body.

I agree with this post, too.

[Flipper]

I've suggested this before, but I'd put some marketing interns/students to work and do a little surveying. I'd fan out to these smaller communities and hit the HS football games...maybe work within a 60-75 mile range of of BG. I'd stop at the Ohio/Michigan state line...I might consider stopping at the Wood/Lucas county line, but I think we have a number of fans in Toledo proper.

I'd try to find out how many of them go to college football games and see why those who don't go to BGSU games choose not to. I suspect it's because they don't feel a very strong regional allegiance to the University, but I don't really know that.

Then i'd xref the list of "local" alums from the last 10 to 15 years with season or multi ticket purchases (we should have those names on file if they bought them with a credit card ) and do a a mailing or two to see if we can find out why those alums within a reasonable drive (maybe as far east as the cleveland metro area and as far south as Lima and west to maybe Defiancearen't coming out to the games.

I think that would be a pretty good target market to start talking to...local HS football fans and local alumns who graduated recently enough and stayed close enough to BG that they might feel some pull or allegiance.

[Schadenfreude]

I think the solution is adopting the area counties that love football on the HS level as part of BG. There are big football cities all around that have similar populations to BG. Adopt them somehow. Findlay, Fostoria, Port Clinton, Fremont the Naoplean area. All are within 45 minutes. Get them to come to the games. Tailgating areas or something. Ticket deals for the specific areas. etc. etc.

I agree with this as well -- although I do think some of this outreach to high school football programs goes on (from the marketing department).

To me, the biggest issue is growing our support outside of Bowling Green. It's a two-tiered problem:

-- Alumni in places like Columbus, Cleveland and Dayton and some of the smaller places in between (Sandusky, for example).

-- folks in nearby small towns who may have no connection with the university except that it's the closest big time sports team.

What we need I saw 11 years ago as I drove from the Cleveland area to Columbia, Mo. for the Bowling Green-Missouri game.

After hitting St. Louis, we were taiiling a car with a Tiger tail attached to its bumper for most of the way. We passed (and were passed by) cars pimped out with gold and black Tiger flags.

Columbia isn't much bigger than Bowling Green. The University of Missouri isn't much bigger than Bowling Green. And, as we know, its football teams certainly aren't better. (The Falcons won that day, launching what would become a 3-1 advantage over the Tigers).

Yet, somehow, they had this passion going on.

That's what we need -- and some of the challenges are obvious.

But I can say this much: It isn't about students or the community. It's further away.