Attendance

BGDrew · Post by **BGDrew** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 12:00 pm

Instead of spending all that money in Cleveland, why couldn't we have a scheduled a high level "mid-major" (God, I hate that term) or a decent BCS (that one too) team? We would be able to count every person who attended.

I'm not entirely sold that we broke even in Cleveland, but that's only speculation on my part.

TG1996 · Post by **TG1996** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 12:04 pm

BGDrew wrote:Instead of spending all that money in Cleveland, why couldn't we have a scheduled a high level "mid-major" (God, I hate that term) or a decent BCS (that one too) team? We would be able to count every person who attended.

In addition to the Boise State game that we got boned on?

I see your point, and I think it's a scheduling philosophy we're slowly working toward. Of course, next year's budget is already screwed since we now need to buy Kevlar and riot gear for the FIU game.

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 12:30 pm

Warthog wrote:
PGY Tiercel wrote:The gates don't have turnstiles to count attendance,
Yes they do have turnstiles.

They don't work. At least they don't work at the gate that I went through last week. I normally try to spin it a couple times just to make sure I get counted

. This week I looked back and noticed that as other people were entering the numbers weren't changing.

PGY Tiercel · Post by **PGY Tiercel** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 12:52 pm

hammb wrote:
Warthog wrote:
PGY Tiercel wrote:The gates don't have turnstiles to count attendance,
Yes they do have turnstiles.
They don't work. At least they don't work at the gate that I went through last week. I normally try to spin it a couple times just to make sure I get counted . This week I looked back and noticed that as other people were entering the numbers weren't changing.

Broken is as good as not there.

Actual attendance and paid attendance can be vastly different. Lots of people could buy tickets then not show up. Or as it appears in our situation somehow, probably through the ticket giveaways (Marcos) more people of coming to the games then buying tickets.

Current thought I had over a great lunch of Pad Thai chicken, although it is ripped off from CMU. At tonights game they are raffling off 2, 1 semester tution and books scholarship, why not have BG do the same. In my plan you advertise the crap out of it, you give every student that walks through the gate a raffle ticket, and then you announce the winner at the end of the first qtr. Hopefully you will get students to stay, but if not you at least attracted a large number to walk through the gate.

The Niz · Post by **The Niz** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 1:00 pm

That is one heck of an idea there. I wrote on the comment cards that they keep sending us in the dorms of my plan to have a campus wide competition to see which residence halls could post the best turn out at our sporting events with some sort of prize like a giant TV for the main lounge of the winning hall, or huge party for the winners or something to that extent. I think I might write to the office of reslife/athletic people who could get something like this rolling.

If we can start kjids coming in as freshman with some sense of spirit and that sporting events are actually entertaining and great to watch, maybe we'll start getting some long term fan base going.

UK Peregrine · Post by **UK Peregrine** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 1:02 pm

PGY Tiercel wrote: Current thought I had over a great lunch of Pad Thai chicken, although it is ripped off from CMU. At tonight's game they are raffling off 2, 1 semester tuition and books scholarship, why not have BG do the same. In my plan you advertise the crap out of it, you give every student that walks through the gate a raffle ticket, and then you announce the winner at the end of the first qtr. Hopefully you will get students to stay, but if not you at least attracted a large number to walk through the gate.

Here's the link to the article PGY is referring to about a chance to win free tuition for attending tonight's game.
http://www.cm-life.com/vnews/display.v/ ... 5b1eee054b

ctowndown · Post by **ctowndown** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 1:18 pm

guys, its paid attendance, look at the jump in the paper and theres a factbox there with the paid numbers which add up to like 52,000 something with averages to 13242

Zom · Post by **Zom** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:03 pm

PGY Tiercel wrote:...you give every student that walks through the gate a raffle ticket...

Raffles and lotteries are great motivators..

BGSUfalcons · Post by **BGSUfalcons** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:05 pm

In the BG news there is a small chart that contains three columns with three sets of numbers. The first column is for paid attendance, the second column is for turnstile attendance, and the third column is for announced attendance. The announced attendance numbers are the ones that show up in the box score and apparently they are meaningless as far as the NCAA is concerned. Therefore, it seems, the university has to choose between paid attendance and turnstile attendance. The paid attendance numbers are slightly higher.

Hammb might have put his finger on the problem -- the turnstiles don't work. I remember many on here claiming that the announced attendance for the Eastern game - 14,500 - seemed low. Over the past two years, I have thought that many of the announced figures seemed (very) low. What concerns me about these turnstile numbers is that they are EVEN LOWER than the announced attendance. For the Eastern game, the turnstile number was JUST UNDER 11,000. If the turnstile number is supposed to capture every fan that enters the stadium, it clearly is wrong.

So I wonder: Is the turnstile number low because the turnstiles are broken, or because turnstile attendance isn’t meant to capture actual attendance? And, what the heck is this announced attendance number supposed to reflect?

I would hate to think that BG is having these attendance problems because the turnstiles are broken and not accurately accounting for everyone who enters the stadium. I wonder if the Athletic Department knows that the turnstiles are broken.

Warthog · Post by **Warthog** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:05 pm

TG1996 wrote: I forget where that was supposed to sit on the schedule and what game replaced it.

It was supposed to be on Sept 23 and we replaced it with a trip to Temple.

Warthog · Post by **Warthog** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:14 pm

PGY Tiercel wrote:Or as it appears in our situation somehow, probably through the ticket giveaways (Marcos) more people of coming to the games then buying tickets.

But doesn't Marco's have to buy the tickets? That's where I am struggling with the big difference between paid attendance and actual. Even if I went to Marco's and got a "free" ticket, didn't Marco's have to buy that ticket from the University? Don't all ticket promotions work that away? Or are we simply giving away 3,000 tickets per game? That seems extremely counterproductive if we are going to use "paid tickets" to measure attendence and we need to hit an average of 15,000 per game.

TG1996 · Post by **TG1996** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:14 pm

Warthog wrote:
TG1996 wrote: I forget where that was supposed to sit on the schedule and what game replaced it.
It was supposed to be on Sept 23 and we replaced it with a trip to Temple.

Oh yeah. Temple.

I don't know what Boise State would travel for a game like that, but I'm guessing it would be more than the zero that will be at the Doyt for a road game against Temple. And as it turned out, Sept. 23 wasn't a very pretty day after all.

PGY Tiercel · Post by **PGY Tiercel** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:16 pm

Warthog wrote:
PGY Tiercel wrote:Or as it appears in our situation somehow, probably through the ticket giveaways (Marcos) more people of coming to the games then buying tickets.
But doesn't Marco's have to buy the tickets? That's where I am struggling with the big difference between paid attendance and actual. Even if I went to Marco's and got a "free" ticket, didn't Marco's have to buy that ticket from the University? Don't all ticket promotions work that away? Or are we simply giving away 3,000 tickets per game? That seems extremely counterproductive if we are going to use "paid tickets" to measure attendence and we need to hit an average of 15,000 per game.

I agree. But at the same time, does it help Marco's that much in their sales to spend, lets say 12$ a ticket (they buy in bulk), and give away 2 per large pizza?

I just dunno. Damnit, I'm a biologist not a marketing major.

Warthog · Post by **Warthog** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:20 pm

Marco's is probably a corporate sponsor. (Kroger, Meijer, Pepsi, etc) I wonder if their corporate sponsorship does get them x number of "free" tickets to each game. FWIW, they only have a limited number of tickets available. For the Kent game, I went to Marco's on Friday evening and got the last two. For the EMU game, they were all out by the time I called on late Friday afternoon. (Guess I am part of the problem not the solution

)

I wonder how the kids count in the attendance from last week's game? Kids got in free as part of an NCAA promotion to "Take a kid to the game" day. They were issued tickets but they were free.

factman · Post by **factman** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:37 pm

I know the rule used to be that your cheapest ticket had to be at least half of your most expensive ticket to be counted. In other words, if your top ticket price is $20, only tickets priced $10 or more count. What I do not know is if that rule has changed in the past few years.