Brandon complains about attendance in Blade

[redskins4ever]

Just keep winning and the fan base will continue to grow...

Until MAC opponents RESPECT each other and realize there is good football top to bottom in the conference there wont be as many fans at games as everyone wants. Games that are sold out, are way more fun and interesting.

Unfortunately we have a ton of bottom feeders that do nothing to help the conference generate interest. Honestly the games that draw well across the conference are... Miami, Marshall, OU, Northern, BG, and Toledo. No else really gives a rat's a$$ about some of the other programs because they are so terrible. I understand building a program, but there are some schools that remind me of the Cleveland indians of three decades, absolutely terrible and nothing fixes the problem.

[hammb]

Just keep winning and the fan base will continue to grow...

Until MAC opponents RESPECT each other and realize there is good football top to bottom in the conference there wont be as many fans at games as everyone wants. Games that are sold out, are way more fun and interesting.

The problem is as the rest of your post correctly states there ISN'T good football at the bottom of the conference. In fact the bottom of the conference is made up of some of the worst teams in all of college football. Many of them would have a difficult time in 1AA.

The MAC has 5 good teams, one mediocre team, and the rest are just awful.

Wouldn't it be cool to have the top midmajors get together and form a "major" conference?

BG
NIU
UT
Miami
Marshall
Fresno St.
Boise St.
TCU
Utah
Louisville

It will never happen for many reasons, but it would be pretty cool.

[Warthog]

Hammb,
That would be very interesting conference. Louisville is joining the Big East next year so they would be out of it. But what if this new association was a football-only deal and the commisioners of the MAC, WAC, C-USA, Mtn West, and Sunbelt got together each year and like nominated the teams to play in that league while keeping the rest of their leagues intact? Then you could avoid the ups-and-downs a program has and put the best teams in this league every year. Then also work a deal with the BCS that the winner of this league gets a BCS Bowl bid. Further, the BCS schools could make a bowl-like slotting with the new conference to schedule OOC games. Like the #2 Big Ten team will play the Mid-Major Conference school closest to it, and so on to at least get one big OOC opponent for each league school. I like this idea.

Too bad it will happen about the same time that monkeys fly out of my

[BGSUfanatUT]

yeah that is what i was saying in another thread Hammb. We need to pull together and make an uber conference. I would rather take Troy or Navy or someone over TCU though. I really think they are not a good team. last year they were nothing special either. But most people do think them a top level mid-major so I see why you placed them there.

A football only conf like that would make for some serious pwnage. And making it a BcS conf jst makes sense. The BcS would cut down on a lot of the crap it gets for not giving teams like us a chance. And with 8 teams making BcS games, its not like we are taking a spot away from a conference.

I bet we would have an easier time scheduling current BcS schools too. Given that the SOS of the new uber conf would be quite good, a win over one of those teams actually looks quite good, even for a middle of the conf team, to a Michigan or Texas etc.

[CapitalFalcon]

I'll add a few other points I haven't read yet...

Nathan, Great Points! Couldn't agree with you more! The other thing you have to think about is that not only was the loss to NIU a huge let-down, this entire CONFERENCE has been a munumental let-down this year. Face it...The MAC Stinks this year! On another thread it showed the following:

106. Akron 3-4
107. Kent State 1-6
108. Central Michigan 2-4
109. Eastern Michigan 3-4
110. Idaho 2-5
111. UL Lafayette 3-4
112. Ball State 1-6
113. Western Michigan 1-5
114. SMU 1-6
115. San Jose State 2-3
116. Buffalo 1-6
117. UCF 0-6

The conferece is arguably the worst in the country...How far we have fallen from last season...Let's just hope THIS season is the abberation rather last season...

[Class of 61]

I'm surprised that no one has brought up the topic of losing good head coaches who get discouraged by poor attendance.... I still feel that at least a small part of UM's departure was tied to this ( not to mention $500,00), but when Brandon starts "complaining" about the attendance, I'm also reading into the fact that: 1. He was/is a candidate for other jobs and 2. After busting his butt here for 4 years total, he's not seeing any radical improvement in the crowd situation....
Yes, the kids do seem to be turning out better, and he might claim at least a little responsibility for that, but what I really see is that BG alums don't seem to care about their alma mater... Weather or no weather, poor scheduling or not, we didn't reach 17,000 for HOMECOMING for gosh sakes! That's 6,000 less than the SEMU game, and doesn't make sense to me.
If we don't see that this has an effect on the coaches, as well as the players, then I think we're all being naive. That's why I posted my comments on bringing recruits in on Sat. to see a blowout, instead of a highly competitive game like, gads, Marshall in front of what we all hope will be a large crowd. 8)

[CapitalFalcon]

61, That is a FANTASTIC point! I never thought about that!!! You are right that if we create a great environment that really supports the team, our chances of skilled coach retention goes up...But the almighty dollar is very pursuasive!

[SICSICsez]

Ok here are my 2 cents. BGSU is a very apathetic school. The fact that a post said he left after the first quarter should prove the statement. As my name suggests I was in SICSIC (late 90s), do you know how hard it was to get people excited about the university? I would get frustrated at how people would not want to go to a football game because their frat or sorority had a party that night, or they were going back home for the weekend.


Someone mention go job students for coming out to the game. If the attendence was 17000 only 5000 were students. 5000!!!! out of a campus of 20000!! That is horrible, some how the student body needs a good swift kick to get to the games. I don't think the administration can do that much more something within the student body has to change.

[NWLB]

I wouldn't say that the MAC stinks, as much as this is a year where most of the top programs are off to "slow" starts. They are having slow starts in as far as we play the major non-conference games early, and with as much talent to replace as we did, the results were not as stunning as last year. Plus, last year was a totally unique year thus fan in the conference's history.

Anybody that thinks the MAC won't be back in the future is foolish, and that is why you are not hearing a lot of reformed media types say last year was a fluke. They know better now.

But 61 brings up a sub-topic that is important here.

I think we can overstate the need of head coaches to boost attendance. There are times when it is an obvious need of taking a job, as with EMU, or Kent. It is expected that you are going to have to be an active part of boosting attendance with those kind of programs. However, you can start alienating a coach if in the case of our own BGSU, you lay the blame at his feet, or expect him to "do more" to improve things. At some point when things are beyond a crisis level, the job shifts to the University. As things improve, what a coach should be expected to do changes.

Urban came in, added traditions, went out and grabbed the students by neck and got them to the game. He pushed hard with a demoralized fan base, people started to show up. Brandon's job was/is different. He has the students already, the fans generally are showing more than in the past. Expecting him to slug it out at every frat house won't work.

I think dwelling on the smaller crowd puts focus on the wrong thing. I'm not worried about keeping a decent season attendance average now, as much as I am seeing the gameday experience polished more.

[1987alum]

NWLB:

I'm sure the subtext of your message is that if the gameday experienced is "polished" then the crowds will improve over time.

61, as usual, makes a number of solid points. First, the alumni turnout is an emabarrasment. To have less than 20K for Homecoming is inexcusable. Period. Someone posted a while back that something like 60 or 70 % of BG alums live within a short drive (2-3 hours) of the school. If I were that close to BG, you can bet Noah & I would be season ticket holders.

Second, the impact on Brandon, in particular, and our ability to retain coaches overall cannot be brushed aside. The image of Brandon turning toward the sparse crowd at last year's Kent State game haunts me. Here's a rookie coach whose team finds itself in a dogfight in a game crucial to its division title hopes and he's begging for noise. Begging an announced crowed of 12,000. A year later he sees his team ride a nice two-game winning streak into Homecoming and is greated by less than 17,000 people.

It has to be demoralizing.

[NWLB]

There isn't a hard and fixed way to figure these things, so the best we are left with are educated guesses and observation.

At or near the bottom of BG's past downturn, the Falcons still drew about 8,500 to some of the least appealing games late in the year. There were no students there.
So I will figure the hard-core local fan base to be that figure.

If BG draw 5,000 to 7,500 students per game, and you add them to the hard-core fans, you have a rough average of 16,000.

With those numbers in mind, factor in locals staying home and out of the weather, and several thousand alumni that don't normally come to games being present.

Give or take the place of the Falcons in a title race, who we are playing, and you have a good picture of who didn't show up to homecoming.

From that, you can gain some idea of what is and is not working marketing wise.

I think we buy into catching phrases to much. Folks are unhappy that we drew so low for homecoming, so understandably, those inclined to show up anyway, declare it "inexcusable." The inexcusable part is hinged on the fact we declared the game "homecoming" in this case. What is homecoming? Not many alumni came to campus in the good days because of it. Why are people going to go out of their individual or family routine on a Saturday, to show up for it?

There are some reunions for select groups, a few modestly attended alumni association events, the game, etc. I say modestly attended events because compared to a 25,000 seat stadium, they don't amount to much impact as they currently stand. So clearly whatever homecoming is supposed to mean to alumni, it doesn't. At the very least, it isn't convincing many alumni to travel two to three hours to attend it.

So inexcusable attendance depends on how you look at it. It is a call to dig deeper into why alumni don't come back and to polish what is done.

Hence my other thread on improving attendance and polishing the gameday experience.

[Class of 61]

There isn't a hard and fixed way to figure these things, so the best we are left with are educated guesses and observation.
What is homecoming? Not many alumni came to campus in the good days because of it. So clearly whatever homecoming is supposed to mean to alumni, it doesn't. At the very least, it isn't convincing many alumni to travel two to three hours to attend it.
So inexcusable attendance depends on how you look at it. It is a call to dig deeper into why alumni don't come back and to polish what is done.
Hence my other thread on improving attendance and polishing the gameday experience.

NW- Guess as one of the 'old folks" who still takes pride in BG, I'm one of those who feels that HC "should" be a reason to come back, if for no other reason to see the changes on campus etc. I've had to give DIRECTIONS to former alums when they did plan a trip back. Pathetic!!

[NWLB]

I don't think it is a much a matter of pride, as much as habit. In some respects, it is a matter of marketing and money. There isn't much money, and the marketing is therefore kept more general.

Maybe homecoming as we have known it, has outlived its purpose? After all, if it is supposed to be about pride in BGSU, why should that be restricted to one weekend. Focus to tightly on HC for alumni, and when they can't make it, you may do more to cause them to give-up on coming back at all that year. The University should make alumni feel that there isn't going to be something to do if they can't make it back a given weekend. The alumni and development people already are spread thin for HC. The Alumni Board of Trustees (which were at Hampton Inn from what I noticed) take a huge amount of man-hours to support and service.

Target the pioneer groups and older alumni circles for the home opener, before they snowbird south. Target parents day for alumni with kids and families in particular. Target single alumni and the younger set for a weekend with the traditional HC, if you keep the title at all, and taylor events for the young and single set. Spread reunions for fixed years over other games. The individual colleges and programs factor into this as well.

I'm sure somebody would argue it is harder to plan for several home dates as a University, and it is better to combine all focus on a single date. I would argue it isn't, and if it is hard, that is what needs to be done. Not for the sake of boosting football attendance as it is for rallying support for the University in general. Why limit the range of time you can use a huge marketing tool that can draw alumni back to campus.

Regardless, if in an otherwise good year, we don't draw more than 16,000 for a HC game, "61" and others are right, there is something wrong.

[Metz]

Someone mention go job students for coming out to the game. If the attendence was 17000 only 5000 were students. 5000!!!! out of a campus of 20000!! That is horrible, some how the student body needs a good swift kick to get to the games. I don't think the administration can do that much more something within the student body has to change.

I figured out the best way to get students there. Offer free alcohol at the door without checking IDs. More would come, the alcohol would heat them up, and then they would stay the whole game. Big problems for the univeristy would arise from this but students would buy food to go with their drinks (must make it bursarable first though) which means more income for the university. With that income, they could pay off the local police and everything is solved!

[NWLB]

I recall when 500 students was a big number.

Things change. Its good to want more, certainly work for it, but keep the expectations in their historical perspective.

I think the actual number of undergrads at BGSU's MAIN campus is only in the 16,000 range. Figure another 1,900 at Firelands, and around 2,500 grad students. Some students are going to have to work, as most at BGSU do. Others have reasons to want to go home. If they can draw 8,000 students to the football games, I would consider it a happy thing.

More is better, but they are already improving the current draw year-over-year, so lets let them work at it a few more years.