Attendance

gobghoops · Post by **gobghoops** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:40 pm

ok again with the attendance issues...

Is there any chance that the 21k-22k figure that JD was quoted at has nothing to do with our NCAA attendance problems?

Could it be related to the athletic budget instead and for our football program to at least break even then we need the 21-22k total

Also really if the athletic department came out and said that we only needed 8k to show up that wouldn't help our appearance, they are better off scaring everyone into thinking we will be on probation without a good turnout.

Warthog · Post by **Warthog** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:08 pm

If that's the case, all the tickets sold last week through the Blade promotion don't count. The Blade coupon allowed you to get $16 tickets for $7. Again, why would be allow these things to happen if they won't count in the official NCAA attendance?

BGSU33 · Post by **BGSU33** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 9:06 am

Here's another article on the attendance issues, this one from the Blade. We have got to get over the limit this year. It would be a crime to not be able to play in a bowl game in the next year or two because we didn't make the cut this year in attendance. I can't even begin to imagine us winning a MAC title and not being eligible because of this. Furthermore, I can’t believe we’re in this situation period after coming so close last year and then thinking the Cleveland game this year solved things, only to make things more cloudy. I know there’s a lot of people on here who hate the attendance topic, but there’s no running from it or ignoring it, it’s a problem and it’s not going away for us.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... /-1/SPORTS

Warthog · Post by **Warthog** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 9:13 am

I started a new thread to discuss Maureen's article.

NIUBro · Post by **NIUBro** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 4:00 pm

Interesting reading on the attendance issues in the MAC. I know that NIU uses bar coded tickets and scanners at the entrances. Announced attendance numbers are butts in the seats. I think this is a real issue for the MAC but the conference seems to not talk about it.
I am amazed at your attendance numbers given the high quality of football that BG has played in recent years. Is it lack of student support or adult fans or both? The MAC needs BG.

Warthog · Post by **Warthog** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 4:17 pm

NIUBro wrote:Is it lack of student support or adult fans or both? The MAC needs BG.

A little of both I would guess. And you have to remember that we have to schedule our game times around that school in Columbus. Way too many people would rather watch their game on TV then come out and see BG in person. Whenever our game times conflict with their games, our attendance suffers. That's just the way it is.

BGGrad01 · Post by **BGGrad01** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 7:17 pm

Warthog wrote:
NIUBro wrote:Is it lack of student support or adult fans or both? The MAC needs BG.
A little of both I would guess. And you have to remember that we have to schedule our game times around that school in Columbus. Way too many people would rather watch their game on TV then come out and see BG in person. Whenever our game times conflict with their games, our attendance suffers. That's just the way it is.

Because I'm a little bored, I decided to look up our home "attendance" (based on the box score) during games when OSU was playing simultaneously over the last 3 years:

2004 - SEMO 23,088 (OSU - 3:30 vs. Marshall, BG at 6:00)
Ball State 16,669 (OSU - 2:30 at Iowa, BG at 4:00)
Western 18,439 (OSU - 12:00 at MSU, BG at 1:00)

2005 - OU 14,177 (OSU - 7:45 at PSU, BG at 6:00)

2006 - KSU 12,967 (OSU - 3:30 vs. PSU, BG at 1:00)
EMU 14,525 (OSU - 3:30 at MSU, BG at 4:00)

The attendance for those games actually isn't that bad and is actually on par with the average attendance at games that were not played at the same time as OSU. Of course these stats have to be taken with a grain of salt given our confusing methods of counting attendance.

In response to the NIU poster, this has been discussed at length, but I think we lose a lot of people when we lose early in the year. I think that our losses at NIU in 2004, WMU last year (it was the 4th game, but still pretty early), and Kent State this year cost us a number of fans that would have attended games if we were perceived by the average fan to be in MAC championship contention. Most people on here are diehards, but our fan base as a whole is pretty fair weather.

Falconfliccbone · Post by **Falconfliccbone** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 8:02 am

PGY Tiercel wrote:
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.

We have a program like that here at BGSU. It is called Tuition Raffle and is run through the Honors Program. All the proceeds go into the Bashore Scholarship fund, where raise over $15,000 a year.

I'm not opposed to the idea, but I don't want to steal anything from Tuition Raffle (I was in charge of it for two years). Our hardest part was finding sponsorship, which may or may not be hard to do for a game. It just sucks that we are trying to find something like this to get people at the game.

Dayons_Den · Post by **Dayons_Den** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 8:50 am

Take it a step further:

Make it a year long scholarship and require attendance at ALL the football games to be eligible. Draw at the final home game.

Or if that would be too $$$$ make it one semester scholarships, don't require attendance at all games, but correlate their names in a hopper to the amount of games they require and still raffle off at final game- so that a student who attends all 5 home games has his/her name in 5 times at the final game for a chance to win.