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🌏MAN OF MYSTERY🕵
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12 years 9 months
# | Wall St Journal - Student Attendance at College Football Games This is exactly why connectivity is so important in sports facilities, or really any type of building with large crowds. The world has changed and younger generations, and even older generations, need to be connected. Without it these facilities struggle with operations because they cannot attract the crowds.
There are new design innovations as well that are specifically targeting this issue to help keep people connected both to the game/concert/musical/shopping mall/etc that they are watching and the greater online social communities. Facilities that are designed with this in mind are a significantly higher retention rate and return value.
Agreed +1
Still wish they would have used more of the gray Hokie Stone and less of the brown...
yeah there was no stripe
My apologies. I don't venture over there since I can get to Bitter's articles and blog on my own.
It makes me feel better that the kids saying this stupid stuff go to a SEC school. Guess everything isn't as perfect in the SEC as they would have us believe.
The last part....4:30 games draw the students!!!
Not noon games. Not 7:30 games. I know it's not all about the students, but noon is too early for everyone.
3:30-5:00 kicks are in the "I'm not busy zone" for students, allow for them to wake up & tailgate, and fill the seats.
I don't know if this completely translates to students lacking attendance, but it has been shown that with all the technology we have today, the younger generation has ever decreasing attention span. The only games I ever left were the ones where we were handidly winning or losing (clemson from 2011 comes to mind here...ugh) and it was so cold i had lost feeling in my limbs. But with football on TV, i watch until the end regardless of the circumstances.
I think you're forgetting the one FSU fan who always writes into the Mailblog every week.
I did a tailgate my senior year and my one year of graduate school. It was unbeatable. Awesome atmosphere, good eats, big TV, tons of people yelling and screaming for the same team. Good times.
The easiest way to keep students in stadiums is to sell alcohol in the stadium.
I'm pretty sure every student realizes after their first home game that anyone can 'sneak' alcohol into the stadium. Now if said alcohol was free... well I would never leave.
All valid points. I know the system has changed from the times when I was there in the mid-90's. I also know the culture and generations have changed. My 12 year old plays on 3 travel soccer teams, so watching football on Saturdays doesn't hold the tradition it used to. Thus, he's not learning how to celebrate football the way it should be. On top of that, if he says he really wants to watch an NFL game on Sundays, I find him just getting up and walking out of the room in the middle of a series. Can only imagine the same attention would be afforded to a game when he gets older and is a student in college. It's a different world, and two things can occur. You can either figure out a way to get the students in there and keep their attention (the 4:30 games, paper tix, overselling to compensate for no shows) or simply take tix away and sell at full boat to real fans.
I am the same way now--I can watch CFB, NFL, and NASCAR all from my comfortable chair and still yell, drink beer, etc. but the one thing I miss the most, is the atmosphere of gameday and being on campus...i guess that comes with the territory of being an adult and not living in blacksburg.
I personally check two things on my phone during games: ESPN Scorecenter for Scores/Stats from other games and stats from our games and Twitter after an injury to our player to find out what it was and if he'll be back. That's it.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know when Jump is going to be a senior and if he is VT caliber? I am sure he would attend if given a scholarship. Would love to see another Hopkins wrecking ball.
You have good points, and yes I agree that it was worse before. But with the plethora of college football on TV these days, I'd rather scream and shout at a TV on campus while drinking beer (which isn't allowed in SEC games) and eating my own nachos. When I was 18, 19, 20 I waited in line. I even gladly waited in line for every game when Auburn won the NC in 2010. After 3 years of lines and packed conditions where every bodily fluid was thrown on me at some point in time, I can honestly say I'm over it lol.
Can't say that Auburn's students have ever thrown paper airplanes during games as the North Endzone has been shown doing, but everywhere has it's things. Most of the students in the student endzone at Jordan-Hare are probably too hammered to throw paper airplanes anyway lol.
Another point about the airplanes: give students actual paper tickets like the rest of the stadium and it takes the paper airplanes out of it.
fully aware it is not just 1 play. The problem is that on almost all read option plays its the same slow decision and handoff. So far I am not a fan of it, though I know it's a good tool in the playbook. It just has not produced the results and we seem to keep going back to it.
You can't tweet? WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY DO?! Oh yea, watch the friggin football game! And the other stupid quote
Granted, this has never stopped me from going to games, but I do like to check scores from other games, read analysis, see other people's opinions of replays, etc when at the game. While this would NEVER stop me from going to a game, I would enjoy having service at a game.
1) there are a lot of people against this because that would mean the scheming to get better seats would end. It would also benefit in making the stadium appear more full--but I totally get why people move down closer to the field. Like deathrow below this, I like to be a bit higher up because I am a fan of the game and want to see it clearly. I would prefer lower if I would be guaranteed a good view (which is what purchasing a ticket should ensure).
3) I never understood why concessions couldnt be purchased from our mealplans. We have dining dollars on our passports, the university still gets our money and I guarantee you they would make a boat load from switching to dining dollars since very few students actually think about the money they spend on food.
The easiest way to keep students in stadiums is to sell alcohol in the stadium.
So a $6 burger is too much but a beer is worth $9? Even if people paid for it, so you keep the seniors and juniors there. What about the freshmen and sophomores who aren't 21? They still leave. Sorry, but selling alcohol at the stadium is not the answer to solving the attendance problem IMO.
I'm just happy my putrid squad won one game this year...I thought I would be making a solid run at an 0-fer season.
(Sorry Dani)
well i don't remember waiting in lines for student tix at Tech. I complained that there weren't enough and my freshman year I got screwed by the lottery system more than once...but we at least had "assigned" seats and short waits. Yes concessions are expensive (everywhere) but you can always sneak in airplane bottles. I never spent more than 30 min inside the stadium before kickoff. I think it's more a function of the system than anything else.
I agree that I actually like upper East because I can see the game. And I don't really mind other people, I can go a whole game without sitting down so I generally do.
As for the prices, they're definitely too high. But I'll pay $9 for a Turkey Leg any day. The easiest way to keep students in stadiums is to sell alcohol in the stadium. That's honestly, and sadly, all it comes down to.
1) sounds like they need to do real paper tickets like the season ticket holders. Get them mailed or wait in line for them. Easy solution IMO lol.
3) concessions are absurd when you have easy alternatives to circumvent them with so many games on TV and what not.
Glad someone shares this veiwpoint, because it is seeming to get lost in the shuffle of opinions...
I really think television/media is the big one here (although there are other factors that contribute to students leaving early/not showing up at all - they are just factors that have always existed - part-time jobs, wanting to leave early to drink/tailgate, general apathy for bad teams - those have been reasons to miss games forever)
If you go back before the mid to late 2000s, you actually had to be at the game - inside the stadium - to know what was going on at the game. There was no espn3, espnu, twitter updates, live gamecast, instant highlights uploaded to youtube, instagrams in Lane as the game is happening. Before all that, if I wanted to see Kevin Jones' first game of the season, I actually had to buy a ticket to the Arkansas State game and sit in the bleachers to see it. My only other access was a poorly detailed AP report long after the game. Now, every game is covered. I could watch the Western Carolina game from my dorm, while doing homework/laundry - so I could go out later that night and have fun.
Of course, you could always watch the big games on ABC, ESPN etc long before this, but as the article mentions, the big games still sell - Georgia students still show up in droves for South Carolina and LSU.
The media we have at our disposal has changed, the ways that we are entertained have changed. The NCAA and the NFL for that matter need to adapt. The live presentation of most sporting events hasn't changed even though the technology around us has. I believe there are opportunities to explore to keep people coming and staying and providing a better overall experience then at the bar or at home.