Welcome to Ziggyville...

[footballguy51]

Your grumpiness is valid! It drives me nuts to see students at the game sitting elsewhere.

Why? Some students probably enjoy the game itself more than the craziness that should be the student section. Nothing wrong with them finding elsewhere to sit.

I am to remember some posts from a few years ago about ushers acting like Gestapos, and people complaining. Some of these posts make me think it's what people really want.

It’s one thing for students to sit in the general admission sections, but sitting in a section where you are sitting in someone’s reserved seat is something else. That’s the main problem here.

But also, I’m a definite student section person when I was a student, and it drove me nuts that none of my peers wanted to participate when I was in school from 2016-2020. It’s deflating to go to a game that you know the team needs to win, and for there to be basically nobody on campus that actually cares.

I’m hopeful that the efforts from this administration will revive the excitement and passion for sports in the student body, because that has been severely lacking for years now, outside of hockey.

When I was a student, I loved the student section. Then, as a grad student, I just wanted to watch the game and therefore I sat in seats that allowed me to watch but away from the craziness. At football, that just meant sitting towards the top rows of the student section. I didn’t t do any other sports.

I avoided taking reserved seats because they weren’t mine. Now that I’m the one paying for those seats, I want the seats I paid for. The students have the end of the arena with overflow into the adjacent general admission seats. That doesn’t include the reserved sections.

[FalconTurf]

The students sitting wherever are just part of the problem. We had a lady who’s kid was involved in one of the supporting groups at games that become very familiar in our section. We assumed she bought those tickets until one game where a good sized crowd attended and she had to move several times. No reason to sit in GA if nobody checks. At the same time no reason to check when nobody attends.

Signage would help and ushers should deter these issues but when there are no crowds there is no effort. With new coach and new AD that seem motivated to change the climate this issue must be addressed so customers don’t have to clear their purchased seats at every game.

[hammb]

With the current state of attendance and student section I just find it tough to complain too much about people just sitting wherever they want. When they built the Stroh one of the colossal mistakes was making the student section the worst seats in the house (compared to Anderson where they were the best) and giving the best seats to the stupid media row. That will NEVER make sense to me. It's an open concourse and there is zero reason why the media row isn't on the concourse. The view up there is fine, and you'd regain the best seats (I'd make them premium student seating, but even more expensive reserved would make sense on some level).

The only way you're going to get students into the student section is building an atmosphere that they want to be there. Otherwise if the arena is 20% full why would they continue to sit in the worst seats? I think Van der Merwe's department seems to understand this so they're trying to start creating that atmosphere.

Ultimately you hope this is a problem that solves itself. Once you start selling 80% of the arena the reserved seats will be full and the GA folks (students included) will have to pack those sections.

Personally, I don't mind if I have to politely ask somebody to leave my reserved seats. And I will do so when it comes up (which isn't that often). I've never had anybody put up an argument (and they typically just move to the next row or whatever that is usually empty). Honestly I prefer that over the first few years of the Stroh where I was forced to show my tickets to the usher after every trip up to the concourse. That would be even MORE annoying now with the electronic only tickets.

[Redwingtom]

I like the idea in general, with one exception.

The cue cards with chants is pretty lame. Those usually work out much better when they develop organically and then become a tradition like the original Bleacher Creature chants from the early days of hockey in the late 70's and early 80's.

Especially if these chants are just rip-offs of what everyone else is doing.

IIRC, they tried some defined chants at football games many years ago...and they were a DISASTER to put it mildly!

[guest44]

This might have a chance to be sustainable. Con Man Kit Hughes is no longer around to choke it out with his over involvement. Letting students do it organically is the key. If BGSU staff gets too involved it will fizzle like always. In the social media age it’s really hard for the paid people not to try to get overly involved to take credit for things.