Low attendance/Conference Issues?

[Tech83]

Sorry for the new post, but after reading most of the threads, it was easier to make one post.

I was out of the loop this weekend on the Football game. Both of our sons had soccer tournaments. Good news - the youngest (U12) won the LaRosa's Tournament in Cincinnati and the oldest (U14) took second place at the BooFest in Indy. I got the gig in Cincy.

Okay back to the real issues - Low attendance is going to hurt the MAC overall. With the new NCAA rules, there are 6 schools with less than required 15,000 average tussies in seats. They go on double top secret probation and could loss Div 1-A status in a couple of years. There was an excellant article in the Dayton Daily News this past Thursday about the MAC attendance and the new NCAA rules. I will post seperately.

You will love the quote from Marshall AD Bob Marcum:
"I don't mind saying that's one of the things in our consideration in regards to moving to Conference USA. In other words, not as many schools were in jeopardy in that conference."

So.....If we lose six teams due to poor attendance, who do we get to replace them. In other words, we might not have to leave the MAC, but rebuild the MAC. Then how does this hurt the Basketball and minor sports Programs. Men's soccer is already nonexistant (six teams), but let's face it Ball State usually can field a strong B-ball team. I don't know the answer to this, just interested in what others think?

Concerning keeping our own attendance up. Changing game times hurts us. Due to the game time change for Marshall - we are out. Both boys have OPD soccer training that afternoon. The orginal late game start was going to allow us to make the game. Now we are out. AND I NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT. I really wanted to come to the Marshall game, but family first. We had it all planned, but now that is shot in the @$$.

Last but not least - NWLB you have had some great posts on this subject. Very Thoughtful.

[Tech83]

BTW - The DDN had four articles on the Penn State - OSU game and none on BG's


Miami hoping for sizable turnout on Election Night

RedHawks rank 112th in Divsion I-A football attendance

By Kyle Nagel

Dayton Daily News

Miami University's football team will face Mid-American Conference power Toledo at Yager Stadium on Tuesday. With a victory, Miami would guarantee its 11th straight winning season and stay in the hunt for a berth in the MAC championship game.

Now, all Miami needs is fans.

The RedHawks aren't the only ones keeping an eye on the turnstiles, as new NCAA Division I-A membership requirements — including an average attendance of 15,000 — have sent several schools searching for spectators.

Playing a home schedule this season in which four of the five visiting teams have a combined record of 8-22, the RedHawks' average attendance has dipped to 16,193, which ranks them 112th out of 117 Division I-A teams. That's despite winning home games by a combined 179-54 and entering Tuesday with a 5-3 record.

The turnout hasn't been great at any of Miami's home games: Indiana State (18,022), Ohio (20,113), Kent State (18,625) and Central Florida (8,012).

Those numbers caused Miami athletic director Brad Bates to send a letter Wednesday addressed to students, alumni, staff, faculty, fans and administrators asking for a sellout of Tuesday night's game against Toledo, Miami's final home appearance. Bates hopes that an ESPN2

national audience will see a full-to-the-brim Yager Stadium (capacity 30,012).

True, poor weather for two of those home games — including a lightning delay prior to the season opener against Indiana State that caused the stadium to be evacuated— has kept some fans away, but Bates said he hopes Miami can soon be a school that doesn't depend on good weather for a full stadium.

"If our fans and our supporters value the experiences of our student-athletes, one of the greatest ways they can show that is attendance at our events, whether it be football or any sport," Bates said. "Especially when we're on national television and we can demonstrate to the world what kind of atmosphere and what kind of football program Miami University is capable to providing."

While Miami is not in danger of failing to meet the NCAA's attendance requirement, many schools are trying to protect themselves.

At its March 11, 2002 meeting, the Division I Management Council voted unanimously to adopt the new memberships requirements, effective Aug. 1, 2004. The changes included specifications for number of sports sponsored and financial aid minimums, but the one the worries some MAC members is the attendance requirement.

That requirement states that schools must average 15,000 in "actual" attendance for all home football games, and that institutions must perform an "annual certified audit."

If a school fails to meet any of the membership requirements, it will receive a notice of non-compliance from the NCAA, which basically is a warning. If the school fails to meet any requirement again within a 10-year period, it will be placed in restricted membership, keeping it from postseason competition.

During the season of restricted membership, if the school again fails to meet any requirement, it will drop out of I-A classification.

So far this season, two MAC schools — Akron (10,737) and Central Michigan (14,987) — have dropped below the requirement. Six from the conference — Kent State (8,524), Eastern Michigan (11,258), Ball State (12,339), Buffalo (12,419), Akron (13,812) and Central Michigan (13,907) — failed to meet 15,000 in average attendance last season, before the new requirements went into effect.

"The marketing department has put together a lot of different ideas, like tailgating and student involvement," Kent State coach Doug Martin said in August. "But the bottom line is you have to go out and win."

Kent State has raised its average attendance to 17,466 in three home games this season.

Some in the MAC feel that the new requirements were pushed too much by Division I-AA conference commissioners tired of seeing their schools leap to I-A.

"I've been in this business for a long time, and I think the Division I-A criteria is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen put forward in college football," Marshall athletic director Bob Marcum said. "I think we've taken college football and figured out a way to make it as confusing as possible."

Marcum, who was the AD at I-AA Massachusetts from 1993-2002, feels that the NCAA is over-legislating and hurting the college game. Marshall, in its final MAC season before moving to Conference USA, leads the MAC in attendance with an average of 28,913.

"If you look at the (MAC) compared to the best I-AA league in college football, the (MAC) would have far superior facilities than any of those I-AA people. So why would that be good for I-A to go down to I-AA?" Marcum said. "Then you start another arm's race, which people can't afford to start with facilities.

"I don't mind saying that's one of the things in our consideration in regards to moving to Conference USA. In other words, not as many schools were in jeopardy in that conference."

[Warthog]

Don't take this personally Tech83, but you unknowingly posted the exact reason our attendance sucks. You are going to a soccer clinic instead. I am not singleing you out, but that is the problem. BG football is not the #1 prioirity for most people on Saturdays in the fall. It is more like "I will go to the game is the weather is nice, they are playing somebody decent, Ohio State isn't on TV at the same time, and I can't figure out another excuse not to go."

For Ohio State, people plan their fall activities around when the Buckeyes play. People travel across the state and farther just to go to a game. Until people start veiwing Bowling Green as a consistent, top notch team that is worth spending a Saturday afternoon/evening to see, our attendance issues will continue.

And don't take this the wrong way, I am as big a family man as the nexxt person and go to all my kids activities, games, etc. But you know what? Those thing go on every day, every week, all year round. There are but five home football games a year. Is it asking too much for people to make Falcon Football their #1 priority on those five days?

[Tech83]

And don't take this the wrong way, I am as big a family man as the nexxt person and go to all my kids activities, games, etc. But you know what? Those thing go on every day, every week, all year round.

No offense taken, but my son playing in the Championship game of premier soccer tournament pulling teams from a three state area is more important than BG football. It does not happen every day - he will only be 11 years old this one time.

ODP (Olympic Development Program) Soccer Training is how players are selected for regional and state teams. Why would I forgo the opportunity for my sons to advance athletically for my self-interests in Falcon Football. My youngest is one of the top players in the area and plays on a team thet just finished the Fall season, including tournaments 18-2-2. They played three tournaments this Fall- won two and were runners-up in the other.

Having lost a parent when I was young and watching my brother pass away from cancer six years ago when his children were 13 and 15 refocuses your life.

I love my Falcons and my Redhawks. When I attend games it is with my family. We were at Homecoming this year.

My point is that I did make arrangements to make the Marshall game and the School or whoever has changed the game time and now we are unable to attend. My attending is not the issue. I made committments and arrangements based on a 4:00 PM game start. That changed. All the other things I scheduled cannot be reworked for me to attend a football game.

The question is how many more people were/will be/are in my situation.

[hammb]

Actually I think you're wrong Warthog. The problem is that there are so many fewer BG fans. Not every OSU fans plans every fall saturday around the games. The problem is that OSU has such an overwhelming number of fans they don't lose out on attendance when many of them cannot make every game. There is demand for those tickets, and every time that some season ticket holder must miss one home game there are more than enough people who feel lucky enough to make it to one game.

Conversely here at BG we need every single BG fan within reasonable distance to come to every game to have a chance in hell of ending up with good attendance figures. I would bet that the % of our attendance that come to every game is much higher than that of your normal institution. For instance, myself, my friends, my parents, and most of my family attend 80% of our home games. Unfortunately that's not enough with our fanbase the size that it is.

You cannot fault any fan for putting his family ahead of BG football. The problem is that there aren't enough BG fans out there. I don't know if its location, image, or what, but there just aren't that many BG fans out there. Those that are BG fans do come to the game, that's not our problem. Our problem is that a good portion of the city of BG doesn't give a rat's ass about BG football.

Personally I'm tired of caring. If they don't want to come to the games fine. If they do then still fine. I have looked at our attendance numbers of the past 2 years and its blatantly obvious that if you have a quality opponent attendance is good. When we play the bottom feeders of 1A football its low. That is the state that our program is in. I'm tired of complaining about it because personally I don't think we'll ever improve on that fact. BG is not a large community, and there is a great rift between city government & the university, that certainly doesn't help build up that spirit. On top of that most of our alumni move more than an hour away, and very few care enough to make that journey on a week to week basis. There is no fix, no marketing, no nothing that really will make a difference.

[Tech83]

You cannot fault any fan for putting his family ahead of BG football.

Thanks Hammb.

It is a 2 to 2 1/2 hour drive for us to catch a BG game. We make at least one Hockey game a year. And try to make a football game. We attended the Motor City Bowl last year. My wife is also a BG grad. She loves BG hockey.

When we went to homecoming this year, we did it in one day. It was a long day, but enjoyable. (5 hours in the car - 3 or 4 at BG).

Normally, when we come to town, we spend the night, meet friends and spend some hard cash in town and on-campus. My boys love BG hockey.

My youngest has a stick from Tyler Masters when BG played at the Lefty McFadden here in Dayton two years ago. He was wearing his BG jersy and I held him up over the glass. Tyler saw him - his eyes lit up and he skated right to Nicholas. Nicholas slept with that stick for a week. I'm sure it also made Tyler's day. I don't recall seeing a lot of BG fans at either the Friday or Saturday game during that tournament. I bought eight seats for the entire tournament and took friends and clients.

I have yet to break the news to Nicholas, my 11 year old, that the Marshall game is out. He will not be happy. But we will be in Oxford tomorrow night rooting for Miami to knock-off Toledo. It is a 40 minute drive from my garage to me sitting down in Yeager Stadium. A Miami victory should help our Falcons.

[Warthog]

Actually I think you're wrong Warthog. The problem is that there are so many fewer BG fans. Not every OSU fans plans every fall saturday around the games. The problem is that OSU has such an overwhelming number of fans they don't lose out on attendance when many of them cannot make every game. There is demand for those tickets, and every time that some season ticket holder must miss one home game there are more than enough people who feel lucky enough to make it to one game.

Conversely here at BG we need every single BG fan within reasonable distance to come to every game to have a chance in hell of ending up with good attendance figures. I would bet that the % of our attendance that come to every game is much higher than that of your normal institution. For instance, myself, my friends, my parents, and most of my family attend 80% of our home games. Unfortunately that's not enough with our fanbase the size that it is.

I am not saying that all OSU fans plan there falls around Buckeye games, but there are a lot of them that do. And I agree that there are a ton more Buckeye fan than Falcon fans. That is why it is so important for all those Falcon fans to make coming to a game a priority. As you stated, it is the same core group of fans that come to every game. I know there are lots of casual fans out there and they need to develop this same passion. I mean, Freak comes from Akron for every home game. Why aren't there more people out there like him? (Wait, maybe more people like Freak would be a bad thing. j/k) Maybe we should buy him a bus so he can pick people up on the way to BG.

I am just trying to say that there is a group of us like me, you, Freak, Flipper, etc, that go to the BG games rain or shine, win or lose, good opponent or bad. So what is it about us that is different from all those other people that don't come?

You cannot fault any fan for putting his family ahead of BG football.

I am not faulting anyone for that reason. But why can't Falcon Football be a family activity? What happens these days is that there are some many activities that our kids are involved in that they often are going on at the same time, especially on weekends. So how is Mom taking one the kids and heading off somewhere while Dad takes the other and has to go somewhere else being about building a family? How about everyone doing something together as a family, like coming to a football game?

[goBG]

Attendance will always be a problem in the MAC. Almost every team in the MAC faces the same problems BG has with fans. Most people don't go due to quality of opponents. Look at last year, NIU and Toledo games had huge turn outs because those teams were actually good last year. I am sure Gameday helped but the turn was so large because NIU was high in the BCS. So attendance problems will continue until BG starts playing better teams and that is not going to happen unless BG leaves the MAC or the MAC rebuilds. I give credit to Marshall for trying to make their schedule tougher eventhough Conf USA is not much better but at least they tried to do something about their problems.

[1987alum]

How about everyone doing something together as a family, like coming to a football game?

The Smith Clan was proud to see the Temple thrashing and Noah & I will be happy to see a similar outcome Saturday.

I can tell you that if we were within an hour or two drive of BG, we'd be at every home game!

[Falconfreak90]

Is it asking too much for people to make Falcon Football their #1 priority on those five days?[/quote]

Absolutely not. My boys beg to go to the games every year....and I will take them to any and all games, home or away.

[UK Peregrine]

Attendance will always be a problem in the MAC. Almost every team in the MAC faces the same problems BG has with fans. Most people don't go due to quality of opponents. Look at last year, NIU and Toledo games had huge turn outs because those teams were actually good last year. I am sure Gameday helped but the turn was so large because NIU was high in the BCS. So attendance problems will continue until BG starts playing better teams and that is not going to happen unless BG leaves the MAC or the MAC rebuilds. I give credit to Marshall for trying to make their schedule tougher even though Conf USA is not much better but at least they tried to do something about their problems.

This point of weak conference games is well illustrated by Miami's attendance problems too that they having this season. Here's an exerpt on the issue of attendance and the link to the article:

A large home crowd could mean more to Miami this year. The school needs 21,000 fans or else it will not meet the NCAA's average attendance requirement of 15,000, athletic director Brad Bates said.

Miami is averaging 13,140 this season. "We need our fans to really come out and support us," he said.

If the RedHawks fail to meet the standard, they will go on Division I-A probationary status. Two straight years under the mark could draw NCAA sanctions.

http://www.pal-item.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a ... 004/NEWS01

[niucob86]

What a great thread this is!
How do attendance figures at neutral sites figure into the mix?
Will BGSU be able to apply a portion of the 2006 Wisconsin game to the Falcon home gate? Also, I don't know how successful it is but NIU has implemented a Recent Alumni Ticket Program. 1999-2004 grads can purchase season tickets for $60 each instead of the normal $75.
It seems like a good idea to keep the young alums in the loop.

BTW, I always appreciate the opportunity to contribute.
We are all wondering how large the DeKalb crowd will be on the 9th.

[Tech83]

I can tell you that if we were within an hour or two drive of BG, we'd be at every home game!

This is not directed at the Smith Clan, but they can serve as a discussion point. They sound alot like the Tech83 family a few years ago.

We used to make a heck of a lot more games when we were childless and when our boys were younger. But things change when your kids start playing and EXCELLING at a sport.

I am assuming that Noah is your only child. But when he gets older and starts to participate in youth sports, your time for attending BG football games (even if you lived 1 or 2 hours away) will be greatly limited. And if he wants to "play for Bowling Green and ...stuff people", you will start missing games. For our boys its select soccer.

Select(Premier level) soccer is a 10 month committment. Fall season starts August 1 and ends Mid-November. We get December off- sort of, you have indoor training once a week, then an indoor winter league from January to March. Then Spring season starts, which ends with try-outs for the following season in June. A typical week durng the season is two days of practice with the team, one day of training with a professional trainer (in our club that is a former European player), and one to two games. Practices increase to three a week once you get to a certain age or level of play. That is five days a week of soccer times two boys. Saturdays and Sundays are game days. There goes BG Football, unless we have morning games and BG plays late in the afternoon. During the season, we have one evening that is not soccer - Friday. It is not fair to the team to go off and watch a football game. We roster 14 players and need 11 on the field. They play 2) 30 minute halves and you need the additional players due to the aerobic nature of soccer. My youngest is a wing/midfielder and has to cover the field from 18 to 18. He sprints this probably 10-15 times a game and has a sub to give him a rest. When we are short a player it can hurt the team.

Nicholas may shift to football next year (He would be in seventh grade by then). He knows that Ryan Brewer (Mr. Football Ohio Div. 1 - 1998 from my hometown and South Carolina stand-out for Lou Hotz - MVP in the Outback Bowl vs OSU) played youth soccer until 7th grade. That may open my Saturdays again for BG football. But if he stays in soccer - goodbye football for another year.

It is easy to get on here and say you would make every game, but are you really saying you would forfeit the opportunities your child may have if they began to excell in a sport so you could watch a BG football game. Because they will not get on the turf by watching in the stands.

That said, I am not looking for my kids to be superstars or get scholarships. Just to develop phyiscally and enjoy the aspects of team sports. Because our reality here in Tech83 land is that my oldest (who is in 8th grade) maybe has a two or three years left of playing soccer and may be more of a cross-country runner in high school than anything else. Sam's real focus is earning his Eagle rank in Boy Scouts. While many people, including the two former high school soccer coaches who coach my youngest (who also played college soccer) think he has the skills to play high school - I will believe it when I see it.

Quite frankly - I think Nicholas is like Noah - He wants to "stuff" someone on the girdiron. Probably explains the yellow cards and the fouls he gets to thumping his opponents into the soccer pitch on game day.

I think someone said it best during this thread. BG only has so many fans and when a family like us have to redirect our focus it is more likely to show in the stand than lets say at OSU. It pains me, but it pains me worst to hear some of the negative comments from my fellow fans and alumni.

[transfer2BGSU]

I love my Falcons and my Redhawks.

Well, I wasn't going to find any fault until he added "...and my Redhawks" to his comment

I agree family does come first. I lost my Dad when I was 21 and I would love to have him come up and visit me some weekend and take him to some games.

I can't fault Tech83 for being with the sons who are doing extremely well in soccer if thay are involved with the ODP. I just fault him for "...and my Redhawks."

[Tech83]

I just fault him for "...and my Redhawks."[/color]

Yeah, yeah, okay,okay. You got me there. But to explain, which I have done before - Undergraduate from BG (4 years) - Master of Architecture from Miami (3 years). I have fond memories of both schools and friends from each. All my architecture peers are Miami Grads.

My BG friend give me crap for Miami and vice-a-verse. My wife can bearly speak to me when I am rooting for Miami. Not a good thing.

For the record, I was hoping for BG and Miami to meet in the MAC Championship game again this year. If it happens or if it would have happened, I think Miami would get a little uppcomance. BG is by far the better squad this year.


"Seven years of college down the drain"