Fan support

Submitted by 3rdGenerationBlue on
Last week there was a board post regarding tickets being available for the MSU-Iowa game as late as Thursday. Like many I was surprised that the game wasn't sold out months ago given the high expectations for the Spartans this year. With this in mind I performed a very unscientific study of fan support while flying I in and out of DTW. Starting on Friday afternoon in my home airport (RIC), I was happy to see at least four other fans wearing M gear and only one guy in a PSU jersy. At DTW the numbers grew significantly for both Michigan and Penn St (hats off to them, they brought lots of support). I saw a surprisingly low number of travelers in either MSU or Iowa garb. Sunday morning I was proud to see a lot of people sporting Michigan colors (plenty of it looking newly purchased) as well as an impressive number of (gloating) PSU fans. Unfortunately for MSU I only saw ONE person wearing Spartan gear and a few with Hawkeye sweatshirts. I realize Michigan has always had a relatively high percentage of out of state students and more of a national reputation than MSU but I was frankly expecting to see more than a handful of their fans in passing at DTW. What gives Spartys? Given this experience I wonder which school a bowl committee would rather extend an invite to. Did anyone else notice the same while traveling back for the game in A2?
MGoBoard

The King of Belch

October 26th, 2009 at 4:45 PM ^

I don't know what is. Man, I can think of no better way to measure fann support than sitting at an airport counting sweatshirts. You go, boy! The Nobel Prize committee will be in touch.

Joined: 07/21/2009

MGoPoints: 8

allHAILthedeat…

October 27th, 2009 at 11:39 AM ^

I understand you're trying to highlight the fact that there is very little correlation between the number of people at the airport wearing a team's colors and fan support, but there are better ways to go about it.
Your policy seems to be one of immediately picking something to bitch about and then launching into personal attacks (as I have no doubt you'll do in response to this) combined with over the top sarcasm.
It's getting old. It's time to grow up a little bit and maybe add something useful to the conversation.

Joined: 04/13/2009

MGoPoints: 49

BlueinLansing

October 26th, 2009 at 4:50 PM ^

were flying in to see Iowa/MSU you probably flew into Lansing........they do have an airport. A quick check of flightaware.com shows 3 planes leaving Lansing Saturday night for Eastern Iowa....one is sure to be the team plane, the other other two probably fan charters.

Joined: 09/01/2009

MGoPoints: 23520

James Burrill Angell

October 27th, 2009 at 11:47 AM ^

I recently ran into an alumni recruiter from State (for regular students/not athletes). Something like nearly 90% of their students are from Michigan and they estimate about 80% stay in Michigan after they graduate (with a higher percentage in the over 40 crowd than the under 40 alums). Of the 20% out, most live in Chicago so they could drive in. We I believe are at about half right of our alums in state and half out with a similar higher percentage of the under 40 crowd being out of staters. In other words, they don't have to fly as much as we do.

Joined: 08/12/2009

MGoPoints: 15946

3rdGenerationBlue

October 26th, 2009 at 4:58 PM ^

BlueinLansing +1 for the quick research but I've needed to travel to the Lansing area for work in the past (from BOS and RIC) and there are many more flight options to DTW and it isn't that far of a drive.

Joined: 08/11/2009

MGoPoints: 1209

imablue

October 26th, 2009 at 7:43 PM ^

My neighbor isn't even flying her MSU flag anymore. That game must have demoralized them so bad they won't recover the rest of the season. My guess is they had the sweatshirts packed. Holy cow, KoB, that's about a -1500 swing in just a couple of months. Don't worry, it rolls over when you hit -1000.

Joined: 09/01/2009

MGoPoints: 1552