Rovell: NCAA Football's student attendence problem
Surprised this went unposted, but Darren Rovell wrote a piece on ESPN.com today highlighting the trend of poor student turnout in college football. Elements of the article have certainly been touched on in the past around these parts, but attendence (students in particular) is a looming problem, especially with next years yawn-inducing home slate.
The Michigan-specific part:
This year, the University of Michigan drew the most fans of any school for the 16th year in a row. But 26 percent of students who paid for their tickets didn't show up at an average home game this season. That's an increase from 25 percent last year and 21 percent in 2011.
Not only did Michigan have more no-shows, they also only sold 19,850 student season tickets, about a 10 percent drop from the year before. Michigan added a $7.50 fee to each ticket this season to support student programs and also took away senior reserved seating in favor of a general admission policy which contributed to fewer people buying tickets.
Hoping to slow the slide, Michigan sent out a questionnaire to students at season's end, asking them why they might not have been happy with the stadium experience.
Adam Stillman, a senior at Michigan who attended all but one of the team's home games this year, shared his answers with ESPN.com. How he prioritized his answers might scare administrators, many of whom have looked to Wi-Fi connectivity as the answer to attracting younger fans. Stillman ranked sitting with friends, sitting close to the field, the outcome of the game, tailgating, the student section atmosphere, food specials and entertainment before the importance of Wi-Fi.
"I've kind of accepted that I'm not getting reception in and around Michigan Stadium," Stillman said. "The problem is in all the other areas. There's nothing to do while I'm waiting on line for an hour to get into the stadium, and there's little added value from being in the stands watching the game.
As the business of college football grew, many schools began moving student sections into some of the worst seats in order to make boosters happy in prime seats. But as student crowds at some schools started to fade, athletic department officials at those schools began to understand that if they didn't get the students in the building while they were at school, they might not get their money in the future."
B1G tidbits:
Success, or lack thereof, on the field obviously plays an important role. For years, Iowa's student section capacity was steady at 10,400 students per game. But this year after going 19-19 in games from 2010-2012, the school only sold 7,500 tickets and an average of 30 percent of those students didn't show up for the games. In the middle of the season, Iowa closed off two sections of the stadium previously occupied by students and began selling those tickets to the general public. Only half the student tickets purchased for the game against Michigan, which happened during the school's Thanksgiving break, were used.
Missing one out of every fifth student who bought a ticket has become pretty common these days. Michigan State has sold out its 13,500 student tickets since 2007, but the school says its no-show rate for home games this year still was about 20 percent. That's for a season in which the Spartans went 13-1, won the Big Ten title and ended the season with a victory over Stanford in the Rose Bowl.
Penn State's overall attendance has been on a five-year decline that represents a total drop of almost 10 percent. The students are actually seen as a bright spot, as the school sold almost 1,000 more full season tickets this year (21,368). An 18.1 percent student no-show rate is actually among the best in the Big Ten.
"While game time, opponent, promotion and record all had some effect, weather had the most direct effect on our student crowd," said Jeff Garner, Penn State's assistant athletic director for ticketing sales and service.
For Penn State, that means cold, wind, rain and snow.
Link:
February 17th, 2014 at 9:07 PM ^
Dirty casuals...
But seriously, either people can't spare a dime to go to games ( while a student, I didn't go for a couple of years because I literally had no money to spare ), or people just aren't as interested as they were before.
One other thing - student in the article said it takes an hour to get in? Are the entrances where most students come in that bad of a wait? Wasn't like that when I was a student, but then that was a long time ago :)
February 17th, 2014 at 9:09 PM ^
GA seating made it a clusterfuck.
February 17th, 2014 at 9:11 PM ^
Yeah, that sounds about right. GA this year was a clusterfuck. Instead of it being a true GA, every student was assigned a seat in the stadium as they came in, bottom to top. Took ages as you might expect.
February 17th, 2014 at 9:19 PM ^
If you want a good seat, the students needed to get there about 3 hours before kickoff, even sooner for the big games like ND. That's not fair to the students at all.
February 17th, 2014 at 9:37 PM ^
February 18th, 2014 at 9:25 AM ^
Showing up 3 hours before game time is plenty fair if you want to literally have the best seats in the house.
Shit, when I was a student I once camped out overnight in a January snowstorm next to Crisler just so I could sit up front for abig basketball game. That's the beautiful part of a true general admission, it lets die hard be die hards.
February 18th, 2014 at 12:16 PM ^
Except we didn't have a true general admission becuase you can't sit wherever you want.
And they aren't the best seats in the house since they're still stuck towards the endzone.
And if you get there too early you can get stuck in the low rows where you aren't in the front, but you're still too low to see anything not happening right in front of you.
And one basketball game =/= several saturdays throughout the fall.
February 18th, 2014 at 11:01 AM ^
This is frankly, one excuse for students not showing up that I can by. Who wants to go sit in a line for an hour when the weather is good, let alone when it is bad.
February 17th, 2014 at 9:07 PM ^
HD TV with dozens of games at your fingertips, booze, other intoxicants. I'd rather stay home too.
February 17th, 2014 at 9:09 PM ^
The 12th game and instant replay have both severely damaged the quality of the game, at least from a spectators perspective.
The 12th game in itself is not a bad thing, but when every single major program used it to add a cupcake home game to pad their balance sheet, it's severely diluted the non conference schedule.
Instant replay is 10-20 minutes of complete boredom added to each game in an effort to make the game marginally more fair. I know fans in every sport seem to think not having instant replay is backwards, but it cannot be implemented in football without hurting the quality of the game.
I would guess those 2 changes explain 25% of the decline in student attendance. The rest can probably be explained by cultural factors - kids growing up on cell phones, computers and not into athletics quite as much.
February 17th, 2014 at 9:11 PM ^
it should literally take 10 seconds to make a call. if you can't overtern the call after like 10-15 seconds, then don't change it.
February 18th, 2014 at 9:30 AM ^
Maybe there shoud be a "shot clock" on replay reviews?
Personally, I don't think it's just the instant replay that slows it down but television (with all those f'in timeouts) in general. Anybody old enough to remember how much quicker paced & engaging a football game was back when some of them were still untelevised? It was actually quite nice.
Oddly, I think this is also one of the most appealing aspects of soccer. No TV breaks and playing straight through.
February 18th, 2014 at 12:08 PM ^
February 17th, 2014 at 9:20 PM ^
Are you talking instant replay when they show it on TV or when they review a call?
Football is already a pretty slow game in terms of action per play. I think I read somewhere on average, the action in an NFL game is something like 13 minutes. I can't imagine it's too far off for college. Either way, the sports are growing in popularity so I don't really think lack of action or time stopped is the problem (I really don't ever remember there being a game where there were 15-20 minutes of booth reviews).
I don't really think it's a cultural thing either of not being into athletics either. We consume way more athletics then ever before. We have to make choices on what we're going to consume. Some people are diehard college football fans and want to watch every good game as opposed to go to a single Michigan game. Others might decide a hockey or NFL game is better use of their weekend time. We have like 5 channels that are devoted to 24/7 sports coverage. We're definitely not less into sports than before.
February 17th, 2014 at 11:38 PM ^
Granted, I'm giving this from the perspective at Rynearson instead of the Big House, but the Media Timeouts tend to suck the wind out of things too. 2-3 minutes of watching nothing is not fun.
February 17th, 2014 at 9:27 PM ^
I don't know if there's anything to be said about the gradual up-tick in making college football more....cheezy? corporate? exploited? cash-centered?
Half the joys of the older days of Yost was it was untouched and was totally our place. No goal horns, fancy metal bleachers, or bright lights. It was old, dim, and awesome. The only atmosphere was basically what we (the fans) and the band created. It doesn't feel the same now with the renovations - there's a little less luster to it.
Similarly, I don't know if college football seemingly becoming all about the money has taken away some of the old-timey ownership that fans feel of their team and their stadium. College football feels more and more like a pro game where it feels like the ownership is granting you the privledge of watching your team for a price.
Obviously, it's always been about money to some degree, but it just feels like college sports, even in just the last few years, keeps becoming less and less about the Universities, students, and their teams and more about "How can I pizzazz this some more??". Maybe I'm imagining it, but it just feels like college football is less owned by the fans now and more owned by the almighty dollar.
February 17th, 2014 at 9:27 PM ^
I've hated this whole "oh we better schedule soft out of conference teams to have a chance at the BCS!" mentality that's been going around for about a decade now. Only ten teams get there, and it's a road game that you have to take a second mortgage out on your house to go to. Set up some home and homes with some real teams, and let's get some high quality games in our backyard. If Michigan played Notre Dame, Oregon, and Texas (or something on the order of that) in a year, I couldn't care less about what bowl game they end up at, because I would have already watched quality football games with Michigan participating in them.
/hopesanddreams
February 17th, 2014 at 9:27 PM ^
I just don't get the wifi thing. Then again, given the number of people who can't even walk down the street without staring at their smartphone, maybe people just don't really care about real-life things around them (like football games) as much as they used to.
February 17th, 2014 at 9:49 PM ^
February 17th, 2014 at 10:48 PM ^
February 18th, 2014 at 5:30 AM ^
February 17th, 2014 at 9:39 PM ^
I expect a major drop off next year as the best games are Penn st and minny...
I love the team and the stadium. but it's an economical choice to buy a few good games.
February 17th, 2014 at 9:59 PM ^
If the plan was to test student loyality by creating the worst, most idiotic GA policy in the nation then I think we can safely say "Mission Accomplished" and move on. A true GA lets people sit where they want - not assaigned seats - and it completely defeats the purpsose of first come first served. For some reason we are punishing our students who didnt attend games by making those who do attend sit where they dont want to. That makes total sense.
Look - I was one of the most vocal people here regarding student attendance until I realized just how fucked up our GA policy was. Then I did a complete 180 and now applaud any student that shows up given how difficult we chose to make it for them.
When I was in school seating was based simply on your class - Freshmen under the scoreboard, Sophomores in the corner, Juniors around the 20 and Seniors around the 40 with grad students and faculity at the 50. But we could bring in anything (literally anything) and sat where we wanted within the general areal of our seats. Tap a keg, fire up a joint and pass a girl up the seats. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon at all. Oh - and games usually started at 1:00pm and TV rarely screwed up the game play.
And the football from 1978-81 wasnt too bad either.
February 17th, 2014 at 10:21 PM ^
February 17th, 2014 at 10:29 PM ^
Exactly right. Heck, i think they ought to consider simply giving away 20,000 seats to the first 20,000 students that show up for the game. Students have four years (give or take) in school and for most of us, probably 50 years of post-student life or more to go to games. But if you dont start the habit when you're there you probably wont continue it once you've gone.
The amount of lost revenue those 20,000 seats generate will be dwarfed by the number of tickets, bowl games, shirts, hats, etc they will buy the rest of their life. And it would be a genuinely nice thing to do.
February 18th, 2014 at 8:18 AM ^
I never ever thought that would work at Michigan Stadium but maybe something about that system can be implemented in the face of declining attendance.
February 17th, 2014 at 10:27 PM ^
The game was a party and the party enhanced the game experience. And through it all, we watched and enjoyed some really great football without being at all worried about some "wow!" factor, or rawk music, or plays that needed to be reviewed, or GA holding pens...
Yes, I know darn well that we can't go back to those days. And I know that not only do students have a lot faster-paced world to negotiate than we did in the 70's, but also a lot more options and distractions pulling them in directions other than Michigan Stadium (not referred to back then as a "Big House") on a fall Saturday afternoon. All things considered, though, we were very fortunate to experience Michigan Football in a way today's students will never experience it. For that, I am very thankful.
February 18th, 2014 at 8:28 AM ^
mGrowOld I want to party with you!
February 17th, 2014 at 10:29 PM ^
When it feels like you're being squeezed for money the whole time, it's hard to build up much loyalty to the football program. Also, they give the students pretty bad seats - both in football and in basketball.
It's supposed to be that you loved going as a student and then you pay later to re-live that experience. The AD focuses so much on money that I can't really imagine many students loving the experience anymore.
February 17th, 2014 at 11:05 PM ^
February 17th, 2014 at 11:28 PM ^
Our AD has no god damn idea what they're doing in this regard, and I mean that literally. They changed the GA policy for every single game, often without warning. Some games, you got a little stub upon entry saying which section you were allowed to sit in. Other games it was a wristband. Other games it was other things, or nothing at all.
Next year is going to be bad, I'll warn you now. It won't be a terribly drastic drop, since most people who go would do it almost no matter what. But asking poor kids to drop $300 bucks for tickets that next year are probably worth about half of that and then jerking them around with policies is stupid as shit, and it's going to start becoming noticeable.
February 18th, 2014 at 9:43 AM ^
Holy shit, I had no idea football tickets were that expensive. I thought that they were maybe like $5-10 per game. Frankly, I'm now amazed that anybody goes to these things.
February 18th, 2014 at 11:20 AM ^
FYI: Alabama charges $10 per home game.
February 17th, 2014 at 11:39 PM ^
February 18th, 2014 at 9:44 AM ^
...I've definitely been losing interest because of the bigger money and creeping corporatization. But maybe that's just me.
February 18th, 2014 at 12:09 AM ^
February 18th, 2014 at 1:25 AM ^
It's very simple. Being charged the same prices as OSU when they're good when we look like a MAC team plus shitty matchups plus stupid GA seating system plus too many commercials in football nowadays plus people being too dependent on technology equals the problem.
The neutral site with Florida was the worst thing we could've done. Make it home and home and that's a game people are looking forward to for years.
It irritates the shit out of me when after a touchdown they go to a commercial, come back, kick off, and go to another commercial. Then since people don't know how to make small talk anymore their first reaction is to go to their phone which they can't do, so you have to keep showing ads for mgoblue.com and other sports which gets annoying after a while.
Bottom line, prices and lack of good games are what's killing college football.
February 18th, 2014 at 4:22 AM ^
For those that want to complain about this years schedule, it's not entirely DB's fault. Remember the Big Ten is the one that took the State game away and he was already locked in to going away for ND. He took the App State game, which was a gigantic mistake, but one he made early on and one I am sure he would like to take back, though he will never admit that. I think he has done a great job scheduling since then, based on what he does control.
Let's hope we can continue to put 110k in the seats and show we have the best fan base in the country through the good times and the bad.
February 18th, 2014 at 6:46 AM ^
February 18th, 2014 at 9:33 AM ^
February 18th, 2014 at 9:37 AM ^
I'm in my third year as an alum and I downvoted you.
Us non-students aren't any better. You just don't noticed the missing people at football games when they are spread out among 80,000 seats fairly uniformly.
And don't get me started about the basketball high rollers in the lower-level. I hate them. They stand for maybe one possession a game and are the quietest worst group of fans at the University of Michigan. Three-quarters of the games (literally) they just don't show up and the other quarter they are silent.
Why hasn't Brandon and the other higher ups rewarded the Maize Rage with those seats like the Izzone? Those alums haave proven year after year that they don't deserve lower-bowl seats in Crisler.
February 18th, 2014 at 10:59 AM ^
Of late, Michigan has struggled even in these games. Think App St in 07, Toledo in 08, UMass in 10, and Akron in 13. Those games are demoralizing and in turn have a big negative impact on attendance the rest of the year.
February 18th, 2014 at 12:25 PM ^
Because we all know that it's a requirement for graduation to attend 100% of Michigan games. Sports are entertainment - if the university fails to make it worth it to students then that isn't the students problem.
$300/season for a poor college student to see mediocre football, get crappy GA seats, and listen to crappy rawk music? Plus it's not like UofM is an easy school, a lot of people use Saturday's for working. Why are any of us surprised attendance is declining?
February 18th, 2014 at 2:42 PM ^
I downvoted you.
Did you read the part about this being a nationwide problem? Does it not then follow that the largest stadium would have the most difficulty? Even if not, it's a problem everywhere, not just at Michigan. Please remove maize and blue blinders, kthxbai.
February 18th, 2014 at 7:20 AM ^
February 18th, 2014 at 7:26 AM ^
February 18th, 2014 at 7:49 AM ^
February 18th, 2014 at 8:51 AM ^
Clearly, there are a lot of other factors at play at each individual school. However, the fact that this is a universal problem for both college and NFL football tells me that the overall lack of discretionary income nationwide has a lot to do with it.
February 18th, 2014 at 9:03 AM ^