Football attendance numbers

[Misfit]

To avoid offending anybody, I won't link to the CL article. From Horka's column today, MSU had average attendance this year of 56,190 per game. That has to be a tickets sold number, rather than butts in the seats. It is down only about 1900 from 2018 and the lowest average since 2013. Cohen says it is due to TV coupled with the fact that most MSU fans have to travel to get to the games, three 100 degree day games, and product on the field. UM attendance was down almost 7500 from last season and Arkansas was down almost 9000.

 

[Nunya.sixpack]

To avoid offending anybody,.

I am hereby offended that you are attempting to post something without offending someone.

 

[Seinfeld]

Didn’t see that you had posted this when I started a similar thread, and I don’t know what we’re doing to pad the numbers, but we’re doing some kind of accounting magic.

Let’s use Abilene Christian as an example. 55k tickets sold according to the article....

Last year, we sold 46k season tickets, and as we all know that number was down significantly this year, let’s assume 42k for 2019. Between visiting tickets, mini packs, and individual tickets, are they seriously telling us that they sold another 12-13k to people that wouldn’t buy season tickets, but they just had to go see Abilene Christian? This makes even less sense when you consider the thousands of $10 seats available on stubhub.

I don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re clearly more or less giving away tickets and then claiming them as attendance

 

[Misfit]

Please accept my most humble apology. I promise to never aGAIN try to avoid offending anyone.

 

[Misfit]

I had a lot of the same thoughts. Were there 20,000 at the Abilene Christian game before half time? I wasn't able to make that one. They may be counting tickets they gave away for that game.

 

[GhostOfJackie]

I don't know all of the details, but I do know one thing. The University better lower prices for next season or Davis Wade is going to be half empty for more than just the Homecoming game. Don't believe me John? Wait until renewal time comes around.

While I've got your attention John, the Lower West Side needs some serious work done. Starting with adding a stairway right in the middle of all of those long rows if that's even possible. I appreciate you listening to us.

 

[FQDawg]

Didn’t see that you had posted this when I started a similar thread, and I don’t know what we’re doing to pad the numbers, but we’re doing some kind of accounting magic.

Let’s use Abilene Christian as an example. 55k tickets sold according to the article....

Last year, we sold 46k season tickets, and as we all know that number was down significantly this year, let’s assume 42k for 2019. Between visiting tickets, mini packs, and individual tickets, are they seriously telling us that they sold another 12-13k to people that wouldn’t buy season tickets, but they just had to go see Abilene Christian? This makes even less sense when you consider the thousands of $10 seats available on stubhub.

I don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re clearly more or less giving away tickets and then claiming them as attendance

Any tickets that are on a secondary market like StubHub count as a ticket sold from the athletic department's perspective. In other words, someone had to first buy the ticket from MSU before it could show up on StubHub.

Unless we sell tickets directly on that platform (or others like it) that I'm just not aware of... in which case, never mind.

 

[Shamoan]

gameday ops have been bad

security bottlenecks
understaffing at concessions
inadequate concessions (lack of water)
lines at concessions (see staffing)
parking issues

mix in HOT AS BALLS 11am kickoff times because we are hind teat in the sec pecking order

bad product on the field lead by a clueless coach

that is the perfect storm for really bad attendance.

anecdotally, from what i have heard totally unsolicited, season ticket renewals are going to be in the dumps....like REALLY bad. there is a TV factor, but to blame it totally on TV is not taking responsibility for some serious problems we have on when, where, and how we do gameday. some of those factors are out of Cohens hands, but he can directly impact and fix a lot of the issues.

 

[Drewbowski]

I had a lot of the same thoughts. Were there 20,000 at the Abilene Christian game before half time? I wasn't able to make that one. They may be counting tickets they gave away for that game.

Pretty sure the school threw in a ticket to Abilene Christian if you bought Alabama single game tickets.

 

[Seinfeld]

Right, but my point there was that the vast majority of stubhub tickets are going to be season ticket holders that can’t make certain games, so those tickets would’ve already been counted in the season ticket group of 42k

 

[maroonmania]

gameday ops have been bad

security bottlenecks
understaffing at concessions
inadequate concessions (lack of water)
lines at concessions (see staffing)
parking issues

mix in HOT AS BALLS 11am kickoff times because we are hind teat in the sec pecking order

bad product on the field lead by a clueless coach

that is the perfect storm for really bad attendance.

anecdotally, from what i have heard totally unsolicited, season ticket renewals are going to be in the dumps....like REALLY bad. there is a TV factor, but to blame it totally on TV is not taking responsibility for some serious problems we have on when, where, and how we do gameday. some of those factors are out of Cohens hands, but he can directly impact and fix a lot of the issues.

ABSOLUTELY Cohen should fix the issues he can with concessions and parking and prices and such. However, I don't think those are the main factors that would stop someone from buying a season ticket. Quality of the product on the field along with terrible kickoff times are probably the biggest 2 factors. I personally hate going to games that I pretty much know the outcome before I go. So if you think about this year's schedule, our best, most competitive games were all in September in the sweltering heat (USM, Kansas St., Kentucky). After those you had 2 games where you knew we would get blown out (LSU and Bama) and one game where we knew we would blow out the opponent (Abilene Christian). So, outside of September the only competitive game we had at home was the Egg Bowl and it was stuck on a major holiday night where many are not going to travel from many hours away and leave the family get togethers. Just a really disappointing home slate this year.

 

[Misfit]

He has a tough job there. Half the people who signed up to work the Ole Miss game were no-shows. It is apparently a recurring problem. $10 an hour doesn't get much these days. The people willing to clean toilets at Davis-Wade for that often have transportation issues. At one point this season, the athletic department was offering to make donations to local churches if they would provide volunteers to work game-day parking. This is part of being located in a small town.

 

[Lawdawg.sixpack]

Maybe don't have the game on Thanksgiving then...

Half the people who signed up to work the Ole Miss game were no-shows.

 

[maroonmania]

Maybe don't have the game on Thanksgiving then...

Well, for me, as long as they keep it on Thanksgiving I will be watching on TV. If they would move it to Friday or Saturday I would be there.

 

[RocketDawg]

To avoid offending anybody, I won't link to the CL article. From Horka's column today, MSU had average attendance this year of 56,190 per game. That has to be a tickets sold number, rather than butts in the seats. It is down only about 1900 from 2018 and the lowest average since 2013. Cohen says it is due to TV coupled with the fact that most MSU fans have to travel to get to the games, three 100 degree day games, and product on the field. UM attendance was down almost 7500 from last season and Arkansas was down almost 9000.

Those are all legitimate reasons. The high temps didn't really affect season ticket sales though since the game times were not known when tickets were renewed. And since the attendance numbers count tickets sold (and maybe some other add-on) and not actual attendance, the temps didn't affect reported attendance, except for additional tickets sold other than season. Not sure if student tickets count as season tickets or not.

 

[vhdawg]

Articles like that would be much more relevant if the university provided actual attendance numbers. But they don't, so it's a waste of time reading it, because it's all fake numbers.

 

[Seinfeld]

This entire paragraph describes my entire issue with the way football has been run lately to a T.

Over the last 4-5 years, numerous changes have been made to DWS to convince fans that they were getting premium seats and service so that MSU could start charging premium prices. Cabanas, loge seating, NEZ club and skybox seating... every single move they’ve made has been about the premium ticket holder

If the demand is there for that stuff, more power to MSU for making some extra bucks, but the issue is that NO ONE is getting premium service. It’s taking 45 minutes to get into the stadium, concessions are grossly understaffed, West side seating is as uncomfortable as anywhere in the country, and let’s not even get started about post-game traffic

Everyone has their reasons for going or not going to a college ballgame, but for me it’s simple.... MSU wants a premium price of $2400 for my season tickets, but they’re not providing premium service. They’re scouring the town for volunteers and minimum wage workers to operate a weekly multi-million dollar event

 

[seshomoru]

I've stopped making plans around football games and started seeing if football games fit into my plans. I don't want to deal with oversold passes to lots, spending an hour in line with a 7 and 4 year old to get into the gate, missing near full quarters of the game to get them the all important popcorn and skittles, and bathrooms that wouldn't look much worse if I took a **** on the floor.

Sure the game times and weather sucked this year, but I've been to hot games, cold games, rainy games, early games, late games, etc. in the past. I just don't want to deal with all the other crap when at those games. They have made it HARD to want to go to a game and should probably stop blaming things they can't control and take the blame for some of the things they can. Get it 17ing fixed. My comfy couch, instant access to food and beverage, and clean bathroom are beginning to far outweigh the fun of experiencing college football in person because all the other stuff is just draining.

 

[MagicDawg]

Are they counting the bats **