Attendance. It's not just us...

[Millhouse]

Otto, are you suggesting that if we fill the air with footballs and start scoring 45 points/game, but are still just winning the same 6-7 games/year that we have been recently, that we'll draw meaningfully more people?

how about a .500 team in conference that scores 44 a game? would they draw?

i think a team like this year's Texas A&M would draw meaningfully more people

(i know they won 9)

 

[Scooch]

how about a .500 team in conference that scores 44 a game? would they draw?

i think a team like this year's Texas A&M would draw meaningfully more people

OK. I'm not so sure honestly. Maybe we'd see a bump for a year while the scoring outburst is new. But the counter to your point is that overall college football attendance is down, while scoring is at an all time high. So other programs haven't seen the growth you're saying would occur here.

 

[Millhouse]

At SU, a winning program has been enough. See the 90s. The are staying away because they lack confidence that SU can win. That's the part of the experience they haven't liked lately.

the 90s also had the entertainment component (great opponents, great offense)

this stuff isn't easy to isolate. there aren't that many examples of really good SU teams with boring offenses. 2001. marrone's good teams weren't great at home

 

[Millhouse]

OK. I'm not so sure honestly. Maybe we'd see a bump for a year while the scoring outburst is new. But the counter to your point is that overall college football attendance is down, while scoring is at an all time high. So other programs haven't seen the growth you're saying would occur here.

i don't worry about it because i happen to think innovative offense and winning are positively related. i don't see the tradeoffs. less entertaining (to the marginal fan) approaches are also less effective for a non-power to consistently win

 

[rrlbees]

First, I think you're splitting very narrow hairs. Second, it's an easy distincition because Oregon is now a much more dominant football program than Michigan State and has been for the last four years. Third, if SU were to become Oregon and were to win 11 to 12 games per year the Dome would sell out - and the same holds true if SU were to become Michigan State and were to generate the same record.

Even in our heyday though we rarely sold out. Winning is the number one thing obviously but it goes deeper than that. Even taking inflation into account, their whole donation and pricing structure was different back then. And I don't think SU wants to put the thought, effort and reduced income into increasing attendance. That's why the plan they were looking at for a new facility had reduced seating. 44k I believe. Now that we could obtain just by winning and not changing anything else.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Otto, are you suggesting that if we fill the air with footballs and start scoring 45 points/game, but are still just winning the same 6-7 games/year that we have been recently, that we'll draw meaningfully more people?

Given the ineptitude we've seen on offense for a decade and a half, yeah, I think that's in play.

But I'm not saying offense alone equals the entertainment experience either like some are suggesting that winning is the end all. You draw some when people think you're going to win. You draw some with better offense. You draw some with a better game day experience, whatever that is. You draw some with good opponents. You draw some with stars. You draw some with cheap tickets, and so on. Rather than just throw our hands up and say "We'll get the people when we have a winner," I think the smart play is to enhance everything you possibly can control.

If people are serious about winning, let's do it right - crack open the endowment and pay for players, coaches, and facilities. I'm not even kidding.

For attendance though, I think you've got to look at it holistically. People are coming for different reasons. You can't shoehorn your approach to drawing a mass audience to one reason and expect a big change in numbers, especially when that reason is one that's kind of cyclical and not something you can dictate on your own terms.

 

[OrangePA]

who is splitting hairs? michigan state has been really good.

maybe i should've picked someone worse than oregon but the last 4 years Mich St went 11-3 11-2 and 13-1 with a 7-6 in there. had to give dantonio a little time to get up and running.

it's hard to find good examples of non super powers being really relevant with defense

easier to scheme for a good offense and hope we hit the jackpot on defense than vice versa. and i think it helps attendance. if it's just winning that draws the crowd, we're never going to compete with our own basketball team. it has to have the entertainment component as well (and i don't think the marginal fan that we're talking about thinks Mich St is as entertaining as some high scoring team not quite as good as oregon)

Other than the fact that it continues to win, the BB team is not all that much fun to watch - frankly.

We don't run the break - we don't shoot well - we don't score a lot of points. We don't have Carmello or Pearl.

We play defense and we win - and that's why we pack the Dome this year for BB.

It's winning and that's pretty much all it is.

 

[Scooch]

i don't worry about it because i happen to think innovative offense and winning are positively related. i don't see the tradeoffs. less entertaining (to the marginal fan) approaches are also less effective for a non-power to consistently win

But if everyone is scoring more on average, some teams are still losing, right? Unless you're not equating innovative offense with scoring more? It's not a tradeoff, it's that lots of teams lose 38-35 now, when they were losing 21-17 a decade ago.

 

[Millhouse]

We agree about two things.

(1) Syracuse outhits its weight in terms of attendance when you combine football and hoops. I posted that analysis a couple weeks ago and it was stunning to me to see how well we fared on that combined metric. When you consider how much we draw for hoops, and that we're drawing from a small-ish population base in that regard (football factories in podunk towns pull in people from all over their state on fall Saturdays and then tend to draw flies to weeknight winter hoops games, so their population base is functionally much larger) we do pretty damn well.

(2) SU really needs to expand their base. I've been crowing about that since I first started posting on boards in the mid-90s. We have a large hoops fanbase in western NY because the team has been so good for so long. If the football program can continue to improve we should market the hell out of it there too. There are brand positives for doing what we did in NYC, but there are tangible attendance benefits to marketing SU football more to people in WNY and the Southern Tier.

TV had a lot to do with it too. I was an SU fan first because they were on tv. Football wasn't on as much in WNY back then

 

[OrangePA]

Given the ineptitude we've seen on offense for a decade and a half, yeah, I think that's in play.

But I'm not saying offense alone equals the entertainment experience either like some are suggesting that winning is the end all. You draw some when people think you're going to win. You draw some with better offense. You draw some with a better game day experience, whatever that is. You draw some with good opponents. You draw some with stars. You draw some with cheap tickets, and so on. Rather than just throw our hands up and say "We'll get the people when we have a winner," I think the smart play is to enhance everything you possibly can control.

If people are serious about winning, let's do it right - crack open the endowment and pay for players, coaches, and facilities. I'm not even kidding.

For attendance though, I think you've got to look at it holistically. People are coming for different reasons. You can't shoehorn your approach to drawing a mass audience to one reason and expect a big change in numbers, especially when that reason is one that's kind of cyclical and not something you can dictate on your own terms.

The offense in 2012 was hardly inept.

We do pay th players - at least $54,000 per year.

 

[xc84]

the 90s also had the entertainment component (great opponents, great offense)

this stuff isn't easy to isolate. there aren't that many examples of really good SU teams with boring offenses. 2001. marrone's good teams weren't great at home

There is a lag in attendance. You need to build confidence in fans. You do that with wins and fans follow. Marrone's teams did not equate to "winning program". I think a boring offense with lots of wins (and that likely means a good defense) will still bring fans. Fans like to feel good about having spent time watching the game. They feel good when their team wins the game. They feel good when they have confidence that their team can win each game. It took the '87 team to wake up the sleeping fan base but they still waited for a "winning program" before they trusted the program enough to regularly buy tickets.

I am not saying winning = capacity crowds. Maybe winning gets them to 95% and the other 5% comes with an exciting team.

 

[OrangePA]

That's the big question. I don't think that's true.

i think we might be overestimating the fraction of people who can or want to go to games.

Time will tell.

But I think the Dome will sell out for football in the future.

 

[Scooch]

Given the ineptitude we've seen on offense for a decade and a half, yeah, I think that's in play.

But I'm not saying offense alone equals the entertainment experience either like some are suggesting that winning is the end all. You draw some when people think you're going to win. You draw some with better offense. You draw some with a better game day experience, whatever that is. You draw some with good opponents. You draw some with stars. You draw some with cheap tickets, and so on. Rather than just throw our hands up and say "We'll get the people when we have a winner," I think the smart play is to enhance everything you possibly can control.

If people are serious about winning, let's do it right - crack open the endowment and pay for players, coaches, and facilities. I'm not even kidding.

For attendance though, I think you've got to look at it holistically. People are coming for different reasons. You can't shoehorn your approach to drawing a mass audience to one reason and expect a big change in numbers, especially when that reason is one that's kind of cyclical and not something you can dictate on your own terms.

But my point is that we're not looking at a "big" change. It's not like we draw 20K and want to get to 40K. We used to draw 45K, and now we're more in the 40K range. I'm certainly not against improving the game day experience, scoring more, sensibly pricing the good seats, etc. But none of that will get us those incremental 5K if we're a 7 win program.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

The offense in 2012 was hardly inept.

We do pay th players - at least $54,000 per year.

2012 was an oasis in the desert of suckitude.

Now you're just being difficult.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

But my point is that we're not looking at a "big" change. It's not like we draw 20K and want to get to 40K. We used to draw 45K, and now we're more in the 40K range. I'm certainly not against improving the game day experience, scoring more, sensibly pricing the good seats, etc. But none of that will get us those incremental 5K if we're a 7 win program.

Meh, we haven't ever seen it, so who knows? I think that stuff combined can get us that 5k.

 

[Millhouse]

Other than the fact that it continues to win, the BB team is not all that much fun to watch - frankly.

We don't run the break - we don't shoot well - we don't score a lot of points. We don't have Carmello or Pearl.

We play defense and we win - and that's why we pack the Dome this year for BB.

It's winning and that's pretty much all it is.

when we win 25 in a row in football with stifling defense, I'll happily concede this point!

this year is extreme. you're right about the offense. these nailbiters are plenty exciting though. i've about had it with it excitement, i want something boring tonight.

part of my stance on this is that it's unlikely that there is some intersection between boring and winning for the football side of the house.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

part of my stance on this is that it's unlikely that there is some intersection between boring and winning for the football side of the house.

Yeah.

 

[Millhouse]

There is a lag in attendance. You need to build confidence in fans. You do that with wins and fans follow. Marrone's teams did not equate to "winning program". I think a boring offense with lots of wins (and that likely means a good defense) will still bring fans. Fans like to feel good about having spent time watching the game. They feel good when their team wins the game. They feel good when they have confidence that their team can win each game. It took the '87 team to wake up the sleeping fan base but they still waited for a "winning program" before they trusted the program enough to regularly buy tickets.

I am not saying winning = capacity crowds. Maybe winning gets them to 95% and the other 5% comes with an exciting team.

i agree. i think defense is more volatile from year to year than offense is for most programs. that's part of why i would love to hear our qbs dismissed as products of a system - my kingdom for that criticism

 

[Millhouse]

But my point is that we're not looking at a "big" change. It's not like we draw 20K and want to get to 40K. We used to draw 45K, and now we're more in the 40K range. I'm certainly not against improving the game day experience, scoring more, sensibly pricing the good seats, etc. But none of that will get us those incremental 5K if we're a 7 win program.

frame it as 13%, the needed increase looks bigger

 

[Millhouse]

But if everyone is scoring more on average, some teams are still losing, right? Unless you're not equating innovative offense with scoring more? It's not a tradeoff, it's that lots of teams lose 38-35 now, when they were losing 21-17 a decade ago.

i'm not talking about just keeping up with scoring inflation. i think there is low hanging dome fruit that can help us recruit and make our offense much better on a relative basis.

pitt zzzzz psu zzzzz rutgers zzzzz bc zzzzzz

 

[KaiserUEO]

That's the big question. I don't think that's true.

i think we might be overestimating the fraction of people who can or want to go to games.

heres what i dont get...

for hoop theres what, about 15-20k good seats?? and the rest are all relatively crappy to absolutely Fn stupid to sit in. expecially when compared to a normal hoop arena.

and for football theres 45k good seats.

we need to ask these 10-15k people that enjoy sitting in some of the worst seats in the history of american sport, why they give up their HDTVs and couches for that nonsense.

it cant be the family of 4. why would you take your kids and sit a half a mile from the court?? if im taking the fam, im going to make damn sure the seats are at least in the same zip code of the court.

no dude is going to impress a date by sitting there.

its got to be a bunch of guys with disposable income who want to just 'be there' and go to get drunk.

and if thats the case, then why the hell wont they show up for a couple of football games??

 

[OrangePA]

when we win 25 in a row in football with stifling defense, I'll happily concede this point!

this year is extreme. you're right about the offense. these nailbiters are plenty exciting though. i've about had it with it excitement, i want something boring tonight.

part of my stance on this is that it's unlikely that there is some intersection between boring and winning for the football side of the house.

If the FB team wins 9 in a row - the equivalent to the BB team winning 25 in a row - the Dome will fill.

That's the point.

 

[OrangePA]

2012 was an oasis in the desert of suckitude.

Now you're just being difficult.

Sorry, just citing the facts.

The football team has a ways to go - is on the way - and will sell out once it wins 9 or 10 games in a row - even if the games are low scoring and close - similar to what we are seeing now with the BB team.

 

[Millhouse]

heres what i dont get...

for hoop theres what, about 15-20k good seats?? and the rest are all relatively crappy to absolutely Fn stupid to sit in. expecially when compared to a normal hoop arena.

and for football theres 45k good seats.

we need to ask these 10-15k people that enjoy sitting in some of the worst seats in the history of american sport, why they give up their HDTVs and couches for that nonsense.

it cant be the family of 4. why would you take your kids and sit a half a mile from the court?? if im taking the fam, im going to make damn sure the seats are at least in the same zip code of the court.

no dude is going to impress a date by sitting there.

its got to be a bunch of guys with disposable income who want to just 'be there' and go to get drunk.

and if thats the case, then why the hell wont they show up for a couple of football games??

network effects. it's fun to go to a basketball game because lots of other people go. it ain't to watch the game, it's to be a part of it.

football games there are no network effects because no one's there!

 

[Millhouse]

If the FB team wins 9 in a row - the equivalent to the BB team winning 25 in a row - the Dome will fill.

That's the point.

maybe we should try approaches that don't preclude winning 9 in a row and might work in the absence of 9 game winning streaks