Brandon complains about attendance in Blade

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 11:17 am

factman wrote:Hamm, try reading it one more time. I never said we had the same talent level as USC. I said 90% of the fans would NOT know the difference if we changed uniforms!!! Ok, maybe 95%!!!!

Okay...I see where you're coming from. There would be a big difference, IMO, but perhaps you're right. It's quite likely that a large percentage of the fans that are attending those games might not know the difference.

UK Peregrine · Post by **UK Peregrine** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 11:48 am

Keep the attendance issue in perspective. We've come along way in just a few years after driving them away in droves in the late 90's.

2003 - 21,002
2002 - 17,836
2001 - 17,812
2000 - 8,464
1999 - 11,437
1998 - 11,277
Sure its not where anyone of us wants it to be. Brandon just feels the same way we do about this team and feels its a travesty that more people don't come out to see one of the better football programs in the nation. But nonetheless, I still feel that complaining in public doesn't help with increasing attendance.

HuskieDan · Post by **HuskieDan** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 12:19 pm

As a MAC fan, I'm very disappointed to see some of your attendance numbers. You've had an excellent team, and perhaps more importantly to the more casual fan, a very exciting team to watch, so these attendance figures are head-scratching low. Ohio folks know good football, so why they aren't coming out in droves I don't know. It'd be sad if it is simply because the more casual fans are giving up on your season already.

BGSUfanatUT · Post by **BGSUfanatUT** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 12:30 pm

HuskieDan wrote:As a MAC fan, I'm very disappointed to see some of your attendance numbers. You've had an excellent team, and perhaps more importantly to the more casual fan, a very exciting team to watch, so these attendance figures are head-scratching low. Ohio folks know good football, so why they aren't coming out in droves I don't know. It'd be sad if it is simply because the more casual fans are giving up on your season already.

In ohio, non-osu fans are a large minority, adn looked down upon by the masses. People here prefer to watch osu play indiana on TV, than drive 5 minutes to see BG play Western Michigan or anyone else for that matter, toledo included almost.

The casual fan doesnt care about us in teh first place. our attendence should be higher yes. but look at the population we have to work with. To fill the Doyt, we need all the students and all the citizens to attend. I know we have ppl that travel for the games, but look at ND and osu, they have ppl taht commute 5 hours or more for a game every week. WE may have a handfull that will travel that far to watch us play.

Metz · Post by **Metz** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 12:41 pm

BGSUfanatUT wrote:WE may have a handfull that will travel that far to watch us play.

A handfull?? I don't think I could fit in your hand my friend

1987alum · Post by **1987alum** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 12:56 pm

BGSUfanatUT:

I don't think we can lean too heavily on the sparse population of the greater BG area for the low attendance figures. I've traveled to every school in the MAC (and CCHA, for that matter) and while BG isn't exactly in the hub of a city (hello, Akron?), it's not exactly in the hinterlands (hellow, Lake Superior?).

Dekalb's population is slightly larger than Bowling Green's but not overwhelmingly so. They are in the shadow of major midwestern city (Chicago), but that's a population base that could largely care less about Northern Illinois. Sound familiar?

UK Dan:

I agree that complaining isn't going to help, but I think it's important to keep these types of discussions at the forefront. This problem can be solved with more than just a winning team and I think I speak for many AZZers when I say we want the university to address the situation with a systematic, broad-based plan.

Schadenfreude · Post by **Schadenfreude** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 1:28 pm

BGSUfanatUT wrote:I know we have ppl that travel for the games, but look at ND and osu, they have ppl taht commute 5 hours or more for a game every week. WE may have a handfull that will travel that far to watch us play.

I personally think we have more than a handful that travel a great deal to watch the team play.

I agree we need more with that commitment. But a handful seems low to me.

Please don't construe this as whining, but I think NIU has advantages we do not. Bowling Green and DeKalb are both farm towns situated near big cities -- but Chicago is a whale of a lot bigger than Toledo, and Chicago has no competing MAC team.

Dayons_Den · Post by **Dayons_Den** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 3:31 pm

I"ve said it before and I"ve said it again I would compare MAC school sizes and competitiveness with the WAC and such, but the difference is hte amount of Division 1 schools in Ohio compared to say Wyoming or Utah. We have our own WAC type situation in Marshall, they have a huge following and fan base because other than WVU they are the only game in town. Much like Utah and BYU, Boise and others. . .

Dekalb and NIU don't have to compete with UT, Findlay, UM, OSU, Tiffin, the list goes on and on. Yes they are near Chicago but there is a huge difference between Dekalb and the distraction that is Chicago and the distractions that come into play surrounding BG and NW Ohio.

HuskieDan · Post by **HuskieDan** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 7:30 pm

Schadenfreude wrote:Please don't construe this as whining, but I think NIU has advantages we do not. Bowling Green and DeKalb are both farm towns situated near big cities -- but Chicago is a whale of a lot bigger than Toledo, and Chicago has no competing MAC team.

That's a fair point, Schad. What I'm most surprised about, though, is that NIU fans have always been apathetic because NIU has pretty much always been lousy. BG at least has a storied history, so I would expect fans to return when the team is good and exciting, but that doesn't really seem to be the case.

I'm not trying to dig on BG. Despite the ugly colors

BG is certainly one of the top MAC FB programs and I hate to see it be so difficult to get people to watch you play.

HuskieDan · Post by **HuskieDan** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 7:34 pm

Dayons_Den wrote:Dekalb and NIU don't have to compete with UT, Findlay, UM, OSU, Tiffin, the list goes on and on. Yes they are near Chicago but there is a huge difference between Dekalb and the distraction that is Chicago and the distractions that come into play surrounding BG and NW Ohio.

OK, that last part doesn't make much sense. Chicago has every distraction known to man, and I would consider those to be much bigger draws than Tiffin and Findlay. Keep in mind that Chicago is a Notre Dame city first, then U of I, with Northwestern coming in down the line - NIU's attendance is actually very comparable to NU, with the exception being that we don't get a bump from Ohio State coming to town like they do.

I'm originally from Ohio, so I do have some idea of the OSU ruling the roost kind of mentality that exists in Ohio. But I can't buy that the Chicago area has less going on than NW Ohio. Perhaps I misunderstood exactly what you meant.

Schadenfreude · Post by **Schadenfreude** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 8:17 pm

HuskieDan wrote:
Dayons_Den wrote:I'm originally from Ohio, so I do have some idea of the OSU ruling the roost kind of mentality that exists in Ohio. But I can't buy that the Chicago area has less going on than NW Ohio. Perhaps I misunderstood exactly what you meant.

I don't buy that either, but let me express my point another way:

Chicago certainly has more NIU grads than Toledo has BGSU grads.

Our biggest concentration is probably in the Cleveland area. That's about two hours away.

transfer2BGSU · Post by **transfer2BGSU** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 8:20 pm

HuskieDan wrote:I'm not trying to dig on BG. Despite the ugly colors...

HEY! What do you call that remark?