Attendance Woes

[jpfalcon09]

As it stands today, BG is 12th in the MAC in home attendance at just over 15,000 a game. I'm pretty shocked given the hype this year that the students and community haven't turned out more for the three home games thus far. It seems like everyone gets pumped for the opener, and then things just fall off from there. I know the Toledo and Ohio games should hopefully bump up the numbers, but this has to be a concern of Kingston's considering how much he did before the season to get people excited about the team this year.

[bgsufalcon24]

Flat out, there was no excuse for the poor attendance on Saturday. NONE.

It was a beautiful, warm day, about the best possible weather you could have in late September. It was a Saturday. You were playing your first home conference game. You had a decent start time in the mid-afternoon, not too early for the students and not too late for the out of town crowd. You didn't have to go up against Ohio State, they were playing at night. You had a team that was 3-1 on the season coming in. Basically all of the external factors were setting up for this to be a monster attendance game, and for whatever reason, the fans just didn't turn out.

I'm especially upset with the students. Where in the hell were they? There was maybe 1/4 of the students on Saturday than we got vs Tulsa, and that was just the standing crowd. There were plenty of other students scattered around elsewhere in the stadium for Tulsa too. Virtually none of them showed up for Akron. Was it all the opponent we were playing, or did most of our student population see our defeat against Indiana and just give up on the season?

Extremely baffling to me.

I understand that Family Weekend was Murray State and homecoming is Massachusetts, which may have prompted some of the out of towners to stay away, maybe even some of the BG "townies" too. But for the students to almost completely no-show on such a beautiful day for a game of importance...there's just no excuse for that.

[Falconfreak90]

I am baffled as well. The perfect day to be at the Stadium and we get just over 13K??? I honestly don't know what else we need to do to get butts in the seats. The student turnout was pathetic this week.

[mscarn]

Not to go all Bo Pelini, but much of our fan base consists of fair weather followers who can't even be bothered to attend a game when the team is winning and the weather is fair.

bgsufalcons24 laid it out perfectly. At some point we might have to stop looking for answers in the traditional realms: size of the town, quality of the opponent (they almost beat Michigan!), creativity/thoroughness of the marketing plans, etc.

Unless it's the opening game, Toledo so some high school band extravaganza they turn up their nose and turn on the TV and that includes the students. It's their loss.

[kdog27]

I gave up on wondering about attendance in the Harris/Jacobs era. If we couldn't consistently put 20,000 in the seats when we were ranked and beating the hell out of teams I seriously doubt we ever will again.

Question that I think I know the answer to. I buy season tickets every year that go unused. Do they count them in the figure? I hope that they do because if not I guess I should just cut the department a check for the same amount.

[transfer2BGSU]

I gave up on wondering about attendance in the Harris/Jacobs era. If we couldn't consistently put 20,000 in the seats when we were ranked and beating the hell out of teams I seriously doubt we ever will again.

Question that I think I know the answer to. I buy season tickets every year that go unused. Do they count them in the figure? I hope that they do because if not I guess I should just cut the department a check for the same amount.

I'm like you. No need for me to worry about something that I can't control. And I seriously doubt the NCAA will be able to enforce their 15000 seat rule if they were to ever decide to try and enforce it.

Your season tickets get counted into the attendance figure. Tickets have to be sold for a certain price (I believe no less than half-price to be counted towards attendance figures). So sometimes when you ask why the announced attendance was so far below what the actual attendance looked like, it could be that many of those seats were filled with people who purchased tickets through promotional means.

[footballguy51]

Yes, Akron almost beat Michigan. But, it's still Akron, and they still suck. We beat Tulsa up pretty good and the attendance was there. But if you have three home games in a row that are Murray State, Akron, and Massachusetts, you aren't going to get attendance to those. We're supposed to destroy all three of those opponents on paper, so why show up to watch a blood bath?

I was at the Tulsa game, but neither of the past two. How was the student attendance for Murray State? Student attendance is always huge for the first game and then drops significantly due to problems from the first game. If I was a student that had to stand in line at the Tulsa game until the 2nd quarter just to get to a spot where I could see the game, I wouldn't come back. That mentality spreads across campus as well.

To get better student attendance at home, that first home game needs to be a good experience for the students. Make the student section bigger by including seats on the east side, or move the entire student section to the east side. Or, put the students on both ends of the west side. That difference at the first game will actually boost student attendance at the other home games.

[kdog27]

Thanks for the info Transfer.

[thewebboy]

I used to care about attendance, but I'm over it nowadays.

The fact is BG is a small town and there are several teams in this region to split up fans interest. OSU, Michigan, Mich State, Notre Dame, Toledo. These schools are never going away. People grew up rooting for these teams and although they may attend BG, sadly most of them still root for these other schools. When people ask me if I like OSU or Michigan, I say BG and get looked at funny. I don't like it, but that's the way it is.

For those who do follow BG, more games are on TV or watchESPN. This helps bring the game to the fans, instead of the fans having to go to the game.

Winning cures all though. Keep winning and the fans will come. Maybe not sellouts, but a great crowd nonetheless. If we beat Indiana I bet attendance would be much better for this 3 game stretch.

I do hope any future plans for the Doyt involve less seats. I think if we settle around 20,000 seats instead of 24k, that helps the stadium feel less empty. If we're not filling them now, why have them in future plans.

[kdog27]

When people ask me if I like OSU or Michigan, I say BG and get looked at funny. I don't like it, but that's the way it is.

Ha, this question is especially hard for me to answer because 1 most people here think BGSU is in KY or never heard of it. And 2 you have no idea what a rivalry is until you live down here with these Bama and Auburn fans who all greet each other by Roll Tide or War Eagle. They don't think football exists outside of that. I live kind of in between Troy and UAB and I don't know anyone that cares about either of them.

[mmisbg]

To be honest, I'm surprised that 11 other teams in the MAC have had better attendance. Not that I'm excusing the poor showings in BG, but at least half the teams in our conference have consistently lower turnouts than that.

Bottom line, it is inexcusable that an in-state/division team didn't draw a larger crowd, especially on such a beautiful day. However, complaining about it on this message board does nothing.

Instead, focus your attention on inviting people to the games. If you want to do more, kick some idea out to the AD on how to draw more people in. He seems open to ideas, and determined to boost attendance.

Heck, maybe he reads these boards from time to time, so post something productive here and see what happens. I'll start: We drew a bigger crowd on high school band day. Maybe we could find other community groups to bring into the games that would bring other people in as well.

[Falco_peregrinusana]

I go to all of the Akron University home games.... let me promise you, there is NO way they average more than 8,000 to their games. Most of the time, you can get the real attendance by counting the fans; it takes about two minutes...

[jpfalcon09]

Saw this today on Facebook, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do...

THIS JUST IN: For every 2,500 students in attendance at Saturday's Homecoming game vs. UMass BGSU Athletics will raffle off an iPad! You won't want to miss this game as the Falcons look to improve to 5-1 on the season!

[dstubb]

Pretty sure that averaging 15K a game is an improvement from about 10 years ago. And that is with competing media, games on TV, tOSU, UM, etc.

I am a season ticket holder and if I can't go to a game I make sure I give my tickets for free to anyone who will put their butts in our seats on Gameday.

It's kinda like the Tribe...if we keep winning...they will come

[Falcon137]

I said this in a thread awhile back. Good attendance numbers are based on 2 things. Student turnout and the amount of fans the opposing team brings.

Akron brought about 50 total fans. Maybe the student numbers had something to do with 3 straight home games (when is the last time that happened?). Parents weekend vs Murray State and homecoming this weekend vs UMass. Maybe a lot of students went home? The student attendance issue needs fixed.

Townies and other people are going to show up for the big games / big names, Minnesota, Boise St, Marshall, Toledo, next year they will for Indiana, not likely for a team like Akron.

12-13,000 seems to be the number the past few years that is pretty much always going to be there for BG. Last year's EMU game had just under 13k on a beautiful late October day coming off a 4 game win streak. Hell, Kent only drew 15,600 even with the weather being as good as it gets in mid November.

As a side note. What did you guys think of being told where to park in the season ticket lot? I'm not exactly a fan.