Positive vs Negative

[Falcon137]

The reality of attendance is fans are not what they used to be. Getting kids just to go outside today is a chore in itself. If you throw cold weather on top- forget it. Until we somehow address the changing demographics of fans we are not going to make any headway. It would cost me 90 to take my family of three to the Toledo game (tickets only) plus parking, food etc. I would go to the game but at over 100 forget it and that is with nice weather in the forecast. Sorry but they price people out of a game with this crap.

You could have gotten 4 season tickets with a parking pass included for $160. Toledo set their BG ticket price last year at, $37.


I may be in the minority, but, I think things have gotten better. BG and Kingston in particular have done a better job connecting fans and students with the programs. When I was in school there were no, student fan organizations, there were no logos splashed on buses, no giant logos in the union, teams didn't visit dorms, Brandon and Clawson weren't out visiting with students. There were days you could be on campus and rarely see athletic logos or a scene of school spirit. Now you walk around and see signs, things painted orange, buses wrapped in athletic trademarks, logos throughout the union.

The past 3-4 years BG has done a much better job trying to connect everything. I've always thought one of BG's biggest problems is keeping alumni connected to the university. I think they've begun to do a better job recently. Could attendance be better? Sure. But, I've been pretty happy overall this year with it.

[falconfan1999]

I'm a season ticket holder. I go to nearly every game unless there are some serious conflicts with my family's schedule. I've had season tickets for ten years now. I go because I feel it's important to support the university that helped make me who I am today. I don't care about how nice the bathrooms are or that I can't have a chicken waffle cheese enchilada or whatever. I do think it's insane how bad our sound system is. I get annoyed when people leave at halftime. I am always saddened by how poorly most of our opponents travel. I'd like to see more alumni making an attempt to come back when they can. I'd like to see alumni , opening up their wallets, no matter how small the generosity is or how large.

That's a lot of random thinking, I need to go lay down now......

[gspointer]

Hey have at it then. My family will be watching from the couch. Season tickets when half the games are miserable in terms of weather? The open end of the stadium hurts big time with the wind. I know many season ticket holders who simply do not go. Sorry but the price for this game is why I am staying home.

[Falcon137]

Edit - this attendance thing is always frustrating to talk about. This is a 3 time east champ, 2013 MAC Champ, 2014 Bowl Winner, taken down 3 Big Ten teams in 2 years. I will just say the $500 I spend on just tickets is a steal, IMO. I'm going to stop worry about why others refuse to go and just enjoy it. Because, this run may end in 5 years, it may end next year. Ask Miami fans how fast it can go downhill.

Beat Toledo.

[Falconfreak90]

I'm a season ticket holder. I go to nearly every game unless there are some serious conflicts with my family's schedule. I've had season tickets for ten years now. I go because I feel it's important to support the university that helped make me who I am today. I don't care about how nice the bathrooms are or that I can't have a chicken waffle cheese enchilada or whatever. I do think it's insane how bad our sound system is. I get annoyed when people leave at halftime. I am always saddened by how poorly most of our opponents travel. I'd like to see more alumni making an attempt to come back when they can. I'd like to see alumni , opening up their wallets, no matter how small the generosity is or how large.

That's a lot of random thinking, I need to go lay down now......

I've had season tickets since 1996...rarely miss a home game and drive in from Akron. I cannot control what others do so I don't worry about those who choose to stay home. It's their choice and right. I HAVE to be at the Doyt. Yes the stadium has issues and needs updated badly. Yes the sound system is bad and we have an announcer who talks over music. Ugh. But, it is still the best damn value in college football. You charge me $160 for tix to 5 games watching this team? I'm robbing you.

Less thank 48 hours until kickoff....CRUSH THE ROCKETTES.

[Falcon Commander]

Tickets for the U of M - tosu game in Cols next year.... $195 each and the AD says that's price is under value.

Just sayin....

[bgsufalcon24]

Ask Miami fans how fast it can go downhill.

Truer words have seldom been spoken. What a mess. If you ever feel any reason to be upset about any aspect of BG Football, just have a peek at what is going on in Oxford (or oddly enough, at the university of the same name in Coral Gables).

The Redhawks are BAD, like 1 step above Eastern Michigan bad.

[hammb]

Tickets for the U of M - tosu game in Cols next year.... $195 each and the AD says that's price is under value.

Just sayin....

The price is under value, as evidenced by the fact that tickets will probably sell for double that (or more) on stubhub if both teams are as good as you expect them to be.

The price of tickets to that game is also about as relevant to the situation at BG as can possibly be. It's akin to comparing tickets to BG to tickets to an NFL game, really (which are actually closer than the OSU games...crazy how much more those tickets are than NFL...)


BG is good value in the world of Division 1 athletics, I suppose. I don't think it's good value for entertainment in NW Ohio, and I don't think they do anything close to what UT does for their season ticket holders. If they fill the house this week I have no issues with pricing the tickets so high for BG/UT. We SHOULD be making a nice profit off the UT fans that wanna come down south for the game. If the game ends up having 10k empty seats, then I'll agree that it was priced too high. There is no excuse for this rivalry game between two top tier MAC teams to be well attended.

All that being said, I completely get not buying season tickets. I didn't buy mine this year because I knew I couldn't make our opener and I have no desire to attend these midweek November games. I went to the OU game only because the weather was amazing (still left at halftime to catch the rest on TV). I'll go tomorrow only because it's the UT game. When you put out a home schedule of only 3 Saturday games I don't know how you can be surprised that we struggle to sell season tickets. Throw in the fact that we do so little to add value to those tickets, and I'm not surprised at all.

I mean if I'm a casual football fan in Northwest Ohio looking to get season tickets to a MAC school (not sure how many of these there even are), I'm getting UT tickets, not BG. UT has a better facility and offers far more value to its season ticket holders. They have done so for probably close to a decade now. There is no excuse at all for us not offering a similar Falcon Pack of cheap seats that come with parking, concession, and team shop vouchers.


Honestly though, I don't think there is anything we can really do to improve attendance, and I really don't care. Cannot control who comes to the games, and it really doesn't change my experience one way or the other. Bottom line is that in the world of HDTV and nearly every game being available on TV you're hardpressed to find a reason to get casual fans to go to the game...only the die hards that truly enjoy watching the game away from the ball are going to see the value of attending vs just watching on TV.

[jpfalcon09]

The attendance issue is what it is, it'll never change and I only expect it to get worse as the younger generation continues to have technology at their disposal to get what they want, when they want it. The football games were always social events for my friends and I and thus we always went, and even traveled to road games when it was feasible...there wasn't the proliferation of ESPN3 back then and the myriad of sports networks we have today.

I agree that the BG marketing department can do better, especially in a season where there's only five home games. You need to provide incentives to people to go to the games and there's honestly not much the school offers up. Amenities at the Doyt are second rate, the game atmosphere is pretty amateurish compared to other MAC schools I've been to, and I hate to say it but today's students just don't have the same connection to BG athletics like older generation graduates do. It is what it is...

[bgsufalcon24]

For what it's worth, ticketbastard is reporting that the west side is nearly sold out, with about 2k-3k left on the east side for tomorrow. I have to figure with the weather being excellent that whatever didn't get sold will be consumed by the walk up crowd.

All things considered this could be the grand culmination of BG football greatness this season...a sold out Doyt for our biggest rivalry game when both teams are having their best seasons in over a decade...capped off with a Falcon victory of course!!

[hammb]

For what it's worth, ticketbastard is reporting that the west side is nearly sold out, with about 2k-3k left on the east side for tomorrow. I have to figure with the weather being excellent that whatever didn't get sold will be consumed by the walk up crowd.

All things considered this could be the grand culmination of BG football greatness this season...a sold out Doyt for our biggest rivalry game when both teams are having their best seasons in over a decade...capped off with a Falcon victory of course!!

Love to see that. Cannot wait for a packed Doyt.

It's been awhile since we've had a home game that stacks up to this one for me.

[bgsufalcon24]

Well, first the elephant in the room...the game on the field last night sucked. The team didn't play well, and BG got beat. Generally speaking, if you go back to the beginning of the Clawson era, even in years we're good, the team usually plays one game a year where they just look like a I-AA team for most of the game and you're left wondering, wtf? West Virginia in 2011, Virginia Tech in 2012, Indiana in 2013, Western Kentucky in 2014, were all examples of this and up to this point this year, BG hadn't played any games like that. It happened last night. It sucks, but what's done is done.

However, I must devote the remainder of this post to the positives of last night. The fans packed the Doyt, even at 6pm on a Tuesday. The crowd was late arriving as you might expect but by the end of the first quarter there was no space on the West side at all, and only the 2 sections in the northeast end had any empty seats on the East side. The crowd was even standing at times and on key downs were making lots of noise despite the fact that we were losing the entire game. I only wished that BG would've been able to cut the lead to 2 or 6 in the late 3rd/early 4th quarter and gotten to see just how loud and rowdy the Doyt would've been with the game on the line. The students, oh my, they were outstanding. There was literally no space left in the student sections by late in the 1st quarter and they had to start moving into other sections of the stadium. That was a loud, proud, large student section the likes of which I haven't seen since probably Minnesota 2008 or Boise State 2009. And best of all, very few of them left at half or even by end of the 3rd quarter despite the fact that we were losing quite handily. Fantastic job!!

We had a crowd that was almost this size vs Memphis earlier this season, but it was a more laid back crowd, and there wasn't nearly as much noise in the stadium for most of the game until the very end. Nights like we had last night at the Doyt are very special, and I just wish that we would put that many butts in seats all the time. Maybe as some suggest, a new stadium would do the trick, but who knows how long we'll have to wait for that.

sidebar - I think the MAC and ESPN need to seriously consider starting these midweek Maction games at 6pm next year instead of 8pm. From a television standpoint you could have quality programming at an earlier hour, and have the back half of the game in the prime 8pm-10pm timeslot, which might help with your advertising and all that. From the fans perspective, yeah maybe 6pm makes it hard to get there by the start, but honestly, I don't get the feeling that many fans are staying all the way through 11:30pm for the end of an 8pm game. For me, I'd rather miss part of or all of the 1st quarter and see the end as opposed to having to leave early because of school or work the next day. Just my $.02

[BGSU1]

Totally agree on an amazing atmosphere despite the product on the field. Best/loudest crowd since Boise St IMO. Students were awesome, whole crowd was awesome. Only thing that could've made it better was the product on the field.

[footballguy51]

I thoroughly enjoyed having a lady a few rows behind me yell at me to sit down. It was 3rd down and short, I'm standing in support of the defense. You can get off your rump and do the same, or you can enjoy the looks of my rump from your seat. Some people are such party poopers.

Even though we lost, now that I've had a couple days to get over it I will say that I had fun at the game. I can't always say that. I definitely had fun at that Toledo game. Also, knowing that we're going to Detroit on December 4, and TSUN most likely won't be there, makes me smile. They won the battle, but they lost the war.

[Schadenfreude]

I thoroughly enjoyed having a lady a few rows behind me yell at me to sit down. It was 3rd down and short, I'm standing in support of the defense. You can get off your rump and do the same, or you can enjoy the looks of my rump from your seat. Some people are such party poopers.

My theory is that this doesn't happen in most other stadiums because the slope of the seating is more pronounced in most other buildings.