1987alum wrote:
Kdog: Not so sure about that and, honestly, I am not optimistic about our home attendance for 2005.
Our 2005 home schedule: Ohio, Akron, Western Michigan, Toledo, Temple.
Ohio: Despite hiring Frank Solich, this is a struggling program. They drew OK at home last year (16K for BG, 19K for Marshall), but I doubt you'll see a Green Wave at The Doyt.
Akron: On the face of it, you'd think jackpot, right? Well, despite being a program on the rise, take away the Marshall game and they averaged about 12K a game at home in 2004. Could be a good draw, but this game would benefit from being played late with two teams in title contention.
WMU: Despite being the Family Weekend game last year (including two folks from Philly!), the East Side of The Doyt was relatively empty on one of the most beautiful days you could imagine.
Temple: This one could be our lowest attendance figure of the young decade. And for someone who sat through the Kent State game in 2003, that's saying something.
Toledo: Automatic sellout.
That doesn't add up to a stellar year, attendance-wise.
From what i have learned the past season is there is pretty much no for sure game that is going have good attendance unless it is UT or gameday is coming. It's so weird that SEMO was our best attendance last season.
Here is what i hope happens. UT will have 27+. I think the Temple game could draw a really good attendence if the weather is nice and on 10/01 it's definitely still possible. We also need to have one of those home conference games to be on 9/10 or 9/24. Good weather is the predictor fro a good crowd and bad weather is a predictor down right awful crowds. If we were able to get good weather for the Temple game and the early home game I think we would be sitting pretty nice. I think we could draw at least 22k if the weather is nice. If SEMO can bring in 23, Temple should not be far off. That makes the third game probably homecoming which drew 17k last season in pretty bad weather. So I would think 17k is as bad as we can do for that game. That leaves one other home game which will probably have an attendence anywhere from 10-15k. Overall those numbers are better than last season. But hey, it's just a guess and who knows what will really happen.
Obviously much of this has to do with how do in Boise and Madison.
