M grad Rachel Bachman in WSJ: CFB's attendance problem
Our own Rachel Bachman (regular sports/business staff writer for the Wall Street Journal) looks at college football's growing attendance problem.
Her focus in this piece seems to be the number of unused tickets, which might be a curious element of attendance problems, and one that is hard to gauge. (My main concern is always the basic cost of season tickets, and the number of season tickets sold. And as always, college football seems to have a big issue with haves and have-nots in terms of ticket sales and related revenue. Michigan, Ohio State and Notre Dame don't seem to have too many attendance problems.)
Still it would be interesting, if the scan data is good enough, to check on which portions of the Michigan Stadium crowds are the most problematic for no-shows.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:33 AM ^
I was pleasantly surprised at Camp Randall last year to see all of the controversial calls on the board. I knew exactly what the officials were reviewing.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:04 PM ^
If you think the Michigan Stadium video board is awful, you haven't been to Yost Arena lately.
Michigan scores. The scoreboard spends the next 45 seconds showing the band. Then the student section. Then the replay of the goal (the replay starts about 2 seconds before the puck goes in the net, not showing any of the play development, and spends more time showing the celebration than the goal). Also, the replay usually isn't finished by the time they drop the puck and start the game back up.
As you point out, it's true in Michigan Stadium as well, so I have to think they have hired directors / camera operators who don't really know anything about sports in general or the sport they are covering in particular. Are they student interns?
August 30th, 2018 at 10:53 AM ^
I was surprised that Alabama's attendance is 76%, wow. And they're 'leading the way' to reduce seating. I was not aware this was a trend. However, it might be a good idea to have some kind of viewing terrace for the students. The Millenials might change the CFB gameday experience.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:38 AM ^
If there really is a growing in-stadium attendance issue, and big programs are regularly seeing 20% of their seats unused, we have a market inefficiency situation. We lament that gone are the days of going to the stadium with $10-$25 for a ticket, but should those days really be gone?
Stub-hub has changed the game, but with their exhorbitant fees, maybe there’s a need for something that offers cheap resale. What’s the market like outside Michigan Stadium these days? Are there still dozens upon dozens of tickets in the air at every corner for games like SMU?
August 30th, 2018 at 11:40 AM ^
It's fairly straightforward I think. Tickets prices continue to rise and it's an ordeal for a lot of people to get into A2, park, cram into the stadium, and then fight home for a few hours.
Compare that to my couch. HDTV, air conditioning, all the (relatively) cheap food I want, no traffic, and my whole day isn't consumed by the event.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:44 AM ^
I know season ticket holders that have missed games and weren't able to find anyone to take them, even for free with a few days notice.
It's all about options in my opinion. College kids, local alumnus or die-hards within 50-60 miles and those looking to attend a first game will shell out the cost of tickets. But not only that, if you don't live on campus or close to it you have to pay for gas, parking, tailgate supplies, concessions and maybe a t-shirt or swag item.
The $$$ starts to add up quick and if you're a family man who has to pay for the tickets, everything else and coordinate getting the family to and from the stadium, suddenly your couch and 6 pack sounds pretty reasonable.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:57 AM ^
I have season tickets, and we park about a third of a mile away (Pauline) - all in on just parking and tickets it's well over $200, add food, gas (100 miles each way), it get's really expensive quickly - so that's absolutely a factor - I can't consistently use all 3 of my tickets on any given game (big games are the exception). However, the thing that's making me look at not going each week is the in-stadium experience: taking kids is hard, made harder by the fact that cell phones that we have come to rely on aren't reliable. Baking in the sun and essentially sitting on top of your neighbors isn't pleasant either - shrinking the capacity by increasing the seat size would a HUGE step in the right direction for me. The days of having the largest stadium being important to me are long over.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:03 PM ^
Being the largest stadium in the country is pretty much the only thing Michigan stadium has going for it. There isn't a beautiful backdrop like a colorado, utah, washington or byu. There is no unique great tailgaiting experience like being on a boat at Tennessee or Washington, or the grove at ole miss it isn't a unique design (plenty of schools play in bowls, the rose bowl exists, etc.) and the in game atmosphere is known for being quiet more than anything else and doesn't come close to comparing to an lsu, clemson, or even penn state or osu. Without being the largest stadium in the country Michigan stadium is pretty much the same as Cal, which nobody gives a fuck about.
August 30th, 2018 at 1:31 PM ^
Yet at some point, who cares? If it means a better experience for everyone and not having the largest stadium in America, how is that even a question? Are message board bragging rights that important?
August 30th, 2018 at 11:58 AM ^
If they can figure out the technology to do it quickly a smart AD is going to set prices very low for endzone tickets so people can still get in but make it so you have to use the ticket you bought. You can sell it back to the university for the value of the ticket if you can't make it but no non-school re-sale market because each ticket is tied to an individual. If you are buying multiple tickets you just list who will be attending.
Season ticket holders can transfer tickets to a friend for no cost for up to like 3 games and season ticket holders have to verify their attendance at the other 5 or sell back to the university so scalpers don't buy. It makes getting into the stadium more difficult, but it allows for tickets to be cheap without the difference just going to scalpers.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:09 PM ^
TV timeouts are killing the live experience
August 30th, 2018 at 12:45 PM ^
You could go a step further.
And say that TV is killing the live experience, period.
In Don Canham's heyday, Michigan was in some years officially limited to a certain number of appearances on the one network that did the games. Now I am not so foolish as to suggest a return to that; but we should all face the fact that on a broad range of metrics, the live game is being sacrificed for television.
To wit:
- Games crammed into the three-games-a-day slots (Noon, 3:30, break for the evening news, 8:00.) I'd like all home games to be at about 1:30pm.
- Night games (see above).
- TV timeouts (as you have mentioned).
- The drain of fan interest away from the Stadium on Saturdays, to their couches and HDTVs.
I seriously question whether it is worth it. So far, the P5 football conferences are satisfied to keep doing stuff to maximize TV revenue. Because, logically, the conferences have not as yet had it made clear to them that there is a cost for doing so. So teams schedule their games when TV wants them to, under the presumption that only the TV networks care. If it was made clear to the conferences that there would be a cost -- that long-time season ticket holders would revolt if their game-day experiences kept getting stiffed for the sake of TV -- then maybe we'd see some different behaviors and choices by the conferences.
The simple fact is that yeah, I feel as though my game day experience is at war with the TV experience. And the money that comes into our Athletic Department thanks to TV is a whole lot less dominant than you'd guess. Our Athletic Department, and the B1G Conference, ought to be a whole hell of a lot more solicitous of the people who are the donors and season ticket holders.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:55 PM ^
One word my friends: saturation. Expanding: hdtv.
August 30th, 2018 at 2:03 PM ^
It's simply a natural progression. Older people are less enthusiastic because it's harder to get our kids to want to go to games. They don't have the same love of sports many of us had.
There's more competition for their entertainment. They have prettier video games. Televised football may be attractive, too, but the long and frequent commercial breaks (something we didn't have to deal with as kids ourselves) kill the mood.
We put up with the commercials because we're invested in the system (I mute and often check another game), but our kids won't. And our kids don't particularly want to go to the games because what the television does provide is a far better view of the action than what we saw generations ago.
They don't socialize the same way we did. Being in a crowd of 100,000 just pisses them off - lines for everything. They're more used to socializing via device.
It's a mistake to blame the students or think this is fixable. Younger people simply don't view sports the same way we did and the structure of this business essentially means season-ticket holders (and attenders) are dying out.
At Michigan, I'd imagine people are still buying season tickets just to get the premium games and they hope they can sell the rest.
August 30th, 2018 at 2:27 PM ^
From my decades-long experience with season tickets, it is the season ticket holders who are the best, most important and most reliable fans. They are in their seats first, and leave last. They miss very few games, and when they are not there, they generally give their tickets to friends or (more rarely) sell them. I almost never see season-ticket holders' seats empty. And, they are the most attentive toward other fundraising (UMCGD, UMCGC, UMCGR, etc.).
And if you look at general revenue for the Athletic Department, it is season ticket purchasers (and PSD-payers) who are the backbone of funding for Michigan athletics.
August 30th, 2018 at 3:06 PM ^
Easy fixes - schedule better teams and remove some TV timeouts (now we should eliminate the kickoff as I think Ace said on the podast since playes can fair catch anywhere inside the 25 on kickoffs and still get it at the 25).
August 30th, 2018 at 8:21 PM ^
Why on earth do they track the scanned number? Just an embarrassing stat they then have to release via FOIA down the road. Lulzy attempt to explain away the difference ("sometimes we tear tickets instead of scanning").
How to fix:
1. Sell booze and have better food. Aside from the game, the in-stadium experience at the Big House is legit terrible and hasn't materially improved in the 10+ years since I have graduated. The lines are long and the food is bad.
2. Sell less student tickets. It would ramp up demand and ensure only the most dedicated go. An earlier poster alluded to this at Clemson.
3. Stop acting like customs agents at the student section and just let the students come in. It used to take forever to get through that line and made me less inclined to want to be there at kickoff. Also let them sit wherever they want instead of assigning.
4. Add wifi so everyone can do their instasnaps stories or whatever.
5. Play at night. Students want to go bananas all day and then go to the game. Noon starts are annoying.