Yes, when MLB players no longer felt like "home town boys", the connection to the fans went away. I see the same thing happening in college football with the portal. College football teams feel like businesses who hire "temps" to do their work. The connection between the alumni and fans and the student athletes is getting weaker every year. When that connection is completely gone, I think you will see vast swaths of empty seats in college football stadiums.
UW women's soccer team loses to U14 boys team.
- Thread starter 18IsTheMan
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And that's one reason why I like college baseball better than MiLB. For the most part, they are "home town boys" for 3-4 years, not 3-4 months.
I am curious about TV ratings. I would think those would start to dip before attendance numbers.
I would think attendance would fall off first. People would decide the cost of "donating", travel and tailgating and buying tickets wasn't worth the experience of watching the paid help play for a year or two but they would still be fans of the team and watch on tv. I know a number of people who used to be season ticket holders who attended every home game for years who now attend one game a season with tickets from Stubhub. They are still fans, but their passion is a shadow of its former self. WB holds around 78,000 people. There are quite a few games where there are lots of empty seats. The whole "the stadium is full no matter how the team is doing" myth hasn't been true for some time now.
It's not the passion that's lessened; it's the cost of attendance. Just did a quick Google search and the cost of attending 1995's Georgia vs. South Carolina game was $20. With inflation that's $43 today.
By comparison, this November's Georgia vs. South Carolina game face value is $170.
That's insanity.
I might consider paying that kind of money for a championship game. Hell will freeze over before I spend $170 on a regular season football game.
The passion is what drives people to spend the big money. I look at the total cost to go to that game for 2 people meeting a group of friends at the tailgate:
2 tickets $340
Gas for a 100 mile one way trip (both ways) in a full size SUV $40 (assuming $3 a gallon gas)
Parking $40
Food for tailgate $100
Tailgate beverages $50
Stadium food/beverage $40
TOTAL: $610
This doesn't include any "donation" required to purchase the tickets. That number would vary, but would likely be no less than $25 per ticket, bringing the total to $660 for attending that one game.
To spend that kind of money to attend a game requires a fair amount of passion.
But the sheer amount of money makes it impossible for many passionate fans to even think about spending the money.
It's a lot easier to decide to go to a game if it's not half a paycheck to go.
Can't argue with that. My thought process was that the viewing public was a much larger number of people.
The percentage of people that stop going to games and start just watching on TV would probably be absorbed at first (mostly) by others filling in, or people getting discounted from promotions.
Imo, and immediate impact should be felt if that same percentage of people just stop watching the games.
But I can see it both ways. Im not sold on any one side.