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So there have been lots of critiques, how would you improve the game experience?

Some Thoughts
Game experience
I would have yell leaders instead of cheerleaders
I would have a very small band and/or simply involve local high school bands in some way each game.
I would have a youth game for five minutes of half time every game. Coaches by former bg players
I would give an sbx 1000 book scholarship to the best dressed bg student fan and announce it in between the first and second quarter. Or make it a competition and let the fans choose

Facilities
I would have a garden of honor between the basketball arena and football stadium with info and busts of the best players ever and information and highlights.

Concessions
I would sell pollyeyes breadstix and Myles in a picnic area just inside the stadium

Day of Event experience
I would have an area where you can buy beers outside of the stadium fenced in with gigantic tvs playing the Osu game before or after the game with a live bg student band during commercials and befor pre game.
I would create a shuttle that ran from the hotels to the downtown bars from noon to three am every football and basketball Saturday encouraging alumni to come
I would have a free coaches clinic with ex bg players helping kids outside prior to the game
And after the game.
I would break up the parking lot and name them by counties and have tailgaters park in the counties they were from, encouraging rivalries and ownership of the event

Tradition building
I would mandate that the football players and basketball players have a presence at all other bg home sporting events and campus wide events even a. Small presence with jerseys or gear on would do a lot. Have sign ups.

I'm ok with the beer garden. I would say other college football games not specific to OSU.

Kids game at halftime could also work.

As far as breaking up the parking lot and having tailgaters park in the county lots, we tried segregation once in this country and it didn't work too well. Let tailgaters park where they want or at least be consistent in enforcing the rules. Policies need to be clear, consistent, and make sense.

How would you know these things are not being done already?

I'm already bored with this thread and I am not coming back to it.

Maybe they are being done and just not marketed properly.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/10/28/ohi ... hollywood/

This would be cool too.

As to these ideas, I have the following comments:

I don't really see a difference between yell leaders and cheerleaders. Are yell leaders people with annoying voices screaming into a microphone, because that's been tried before and failed miserably.
Don't mess with the band. We have a fantastic band.
I'm good with the kids game and the book scholarship, as well as the garden and the local eateries in the picnic area.
I HATE the idea of creating a TV lounge in the parking area. Besides, will the TVs stand up to the weather?
Shuttles are a great idea.
Don't they do coach clinics anyways? Sure, not on game days, but I would argue that there are better uses of time on game days.
I believe the other sports are highly encouraged to attend other games on campus.

I haven't been to a game this year so I don't feel qualified to comment.

Flipper wrote:I haven't been to a game this year so I don't feel qualified to comment.

What would compel you to go to a game? Isn't that kind of the point.

I am fairly certain that many on this board don't really believe in the "discussion" part of the discussion board.

Why would they bother with a TV area that sells beer? Frickers and BW3 are literally across the street. I'm not sure that solves the problem of getting people into the actual game.

Honor Garden? Meh. There is already a hall of fame. After 1 or 2 games would it really attract people to come?

Little kid football would be fun for halftime.

I'm not sure how much shuttles are going to help with anything. There are cab services in BG now. Not to mention a downtown bus route.

Get rid of the band? I could care less. But, there is a pretty good amount of band parents who have season tickets and they even show up on Tuesday night in November.

Selling local stuff would be good.

I would be in favor of an in stadium beer garden. Maybe that's where you could sell Myles / Pollyeyes, have 8-10 craft / local beers on draft.

Make a space a company could rent out like a, "Bud Light party zone."

It's really all lipstick on a pig. The Doyt is what needs fixed. The concessions are doomed to fail, the walk ways aren't adequate, there is no premium seating, the slope is to gradual, the sound system isn't very good.

Globetrotter wrote:I am fairly certain that many on this board don't really believe in the "discussion" part of the discussion board.

I'm actually attempting a discussion on this topic as I feel you have some good, creative ideas. I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but that's where the discussion occurs.

We were faced with a similar issue when we were trying to create an open house event for our location on campus. The year before we had frisbees and a piñata outside. These never encouraged anybody to enter the building and simply served to annoy the people that were already enterring the building. So, we really tried to find a way to get people into the building. So, we created a scavenger hunt that required them to tour the vast majority of the building and talk to people. Their reward was a T-shirt and prize pack. For the most part, it worked.

So, the question is what will get butts in the seats? To figure that out, you need to figure out what is keeping people's butts out of the seats. I'm sure the annoyance of traffic has to do with it, as does the lack of quality concessions. However, one very important thing that would help, that nobody mentions because they feel it would annoy fans, would be making sure people are sitting in the seats that their tickets are for.

A couple years ago I bought season tickets for the first time for football. I had just graduated and I wanted to buy tickets. At nearly every game, I had to kick people out of my seats so I could sit there. They would argue that there were plenty of other seats available, which was true. But, I bought those specific seats. Perhaps they could go sit somewhere else since, you know, there wer plenty of other seats available. Yes, it might seem like extra policing, but a little bit of order in the stands may encourage some people to actually buy season tickets so they are guaranteed the good seats.

I'm not sure what to do for parking. But, here is my idea.

I would make the Stroh, the paved sections, and the season ticket lot pass lots / RV lots. Keep the same general traffic flow but make all general admission parking stay in the left lane and take E. Merry / Stadium drive to the back side of the stadium and use the grass. Anyone with a parking pass could use the right lane and turn on Alumni Drive.

Let season ticket holders pick which lot they want to park in. It would be a nice little perk for season ticket holders. Make getting into and out of the game much easier.

At the end of the game make general admission take E. Merry and let them turn left or right onto Mercer. Let the season ticket lot use the main exit to Wooster at the light. Have cops direct the traffic.

Also add 2 or 3 ticket taking line behind the scoreboard. Seems it would alleviate a lot of ticket lines to have people spread out and going through more gates instead of 12,000 people going through 1 side and 4,000 through the other.

Just my 2 cents.

Globetrotter wrote:

Flipper wrote:I haven't been to a game this year so I don't feel qualified to comment.

What would compel you to go to a game? Isn't that kind of the point.

No...you're making some false assumptions. I'm not staying home because I don't want to come down for a game. I'm not coming down for games because I have other things going on in my life that are more fun and important to me. No amount of sandwiches, marching bands, yell leaders or TV sets are going to get me to re-order my priorities. If I can watch the game on TV while I'm doing something else...I'll tune in. I like coming in here and talking sports because I like talking sports, but I don't HAVE to be as engaged in BGSU sports as I was when I was younger and my wife, daughter and I didn't have so much going on.

If you look at the landscape that is college football...I don't think I'm unique. Stadiums all accross the country have empty seats when they didn't before.

Flipper wrote:

Globetrotter wrote:

Flipper wrote:I haven't been to a game this year so I don't feel qualified to comment.

What would compel you to go to a game? Isn't that kind of the point.

No...you're making some false assumptions. I'm not staying home because I don't want to come down for a game. I'm not coming down for games because I have other things going on in my life that are more fun and important to me. No amount of sandwiches, marching bands, yell leaders or TV sets are going to get me to re-order my priorities. If I can watch the game on TV while I'm doing something else...I'll tune in. I like coming in here and talking sports because I like talking sports, but I don't HAVE to be as engaged in BGSU sports as I was when I was younger and my wife, daughter and I didn't have so much going on.

If you look at the landscape that is college football...I don't think I'm unique. Stadiums all accross the country have empty seats when they didn't before.

This is me as well, and I don't even have kids yet.

I would love to see many of the things discussed here come to fruition to improve the experience on the games I make it to, but I'm not sure there's anything they could do to get me to go to games I'm not going to. If they're winning and playing exciting football I'll come out to the games...especially if it's against a top tier opponent. But I'm not sure I'd wanna go to a Tuesday game in November against Buffalo even if it were free beer night.

Falcon137 wrote:Why would they bother with a TV area that sells beer? Frickers and BW3 are literally across the street. I'm not sure that solves the problem of getting people into the actual game.

Honor Garden? Meh. There is already a hall of fame. After 1 or 2 games would it really attract people to come?

Little kid football would be fun for halftime.

I'm not sure how much shuttles are going to help with anything. There are cab services in BG now. Not to mention a downtown bus route.

Get rid of the band? I could care less. But, there is a pretty good amount of band parents who have season tickets and they even show up on Tuesday night in November.

Selling local stuff would be good.

I would be in favor of an in stadium beer garden. Maybe that's where you could sell Myles / Pollyeyes, have 8-10 craft / local beers on draft.

Make a space a company could rent out like a, "Bud Light party zone."

It's really all lipstick on a pig. The Doyt is what needs fixed. The concessions are doomed to fail, the walk ways aren't adequate, there is no premium seating, the slope is to gradual, the sound system isn't very good.

When I mean TV area I mean very large jumbo tron projector screen. OSU has several such areas in Riverwatch and had Heineygate in the past. It created a party atmosphere before and after the game and adds to the appeal of going around the stadium.

Flipper wrote:

Globetrotter wrote:

Flipper wrote:I haven't been to a game this year so I don't feel qualified to comment.

What would compel you to go to a game? Isn't that kind of the point.

No...you're making some false assumptions. I'm not staying home because I don't want to come down for a game. I'm not coming down for games because I have other things going on in my life that are more fun and important to me. No amount of sandwiches, marching bands, yell leaders or TV sets are going to get me to re-order my priorities. If I can watch the game on TV while I'm doing something else...I'll tune in. I like coming in here and talking sports because I like talking sports, but I don't HAVE to be as engaged in BGSU sports as I was when I was younger and my wife, daughter and I didn't have so much going on.

If you look at the landscape that is college football...I don't think I'm unique. Stadiums all accross the country have empty seats when they didn't before.

I completely agree with you but I am not making false assumptions. What would make it so that the other things were not more fun and important to you? That's the butts in seats question.

I put down what would make me come to BG for a game. What would essentially make me drive 2 hours and spend the time at the game and then drive 2 hours back. For me it has to be a party and an event. I don't think that's true of everyone. What would make it an event not to be missed for you and your wife and daughter?