Defending the fans | Page 2 | Syracusefan.com

Defending the fans

just how much more is there to do in central new york? again, i'm not buying it, our fans just suck

I live 30 mins from Athens ... 45 mins from Atlanta ... I literally have more to do around me in a one hour radius than I ever did in CNY ...
 
Its obvious you are pretty ignorant so I won't spend too much time on this ... but football is religion and while it is heavily followed there is a lot to do in the south ... I guess could counter with the fact that if the morons in Mass would stop electing Kennedys to office they would have more disposal income to go see the games instead of paying outrageous taxes but then again the truth is something many don't want to hear.
Massachusetts has had one of the lowest unemployment rates through the recession, the best public education system in the country, and health care for all. Maybe you should go look up some facts before demonstrating your ignorance.
 
Kentucky is also the flagship program in the state. I would assume without caring to look it up, that they have way more students/alumni than Cuse. NY also has 3 pro football teams vs. Kentucky which has 0. These things make a difference.
 
So you should know its not fair to compare a private school in the North to a giant state school in the South. Our fanbase sucks for football right now but we are not in the South, we are not a giant State School and we sucked for almost a decade and keep starting off seasons 0-2. That's a recipe for disaster.

Dude I had seasons starting in 95 till I moved here ... I watched the attendance decline you make it sound like support was never there ... I was a student all 4 years DNabb was slinging it and there were a ton of fannies in those seats ... I was there for the 66 on UM ... I was there for UT and the PI call ... the only reason I'm not there now is I am a 15 hour car ride away ... there are no excuses for the fan base sorry.
 
I haven't read this whole thread. But as a USC grad mother, and having attended USC games in some of their worst years, it is still impossible to get a seat that is not like in row 180. This place fills up on game day no matter what. The entire campus is filled with tailgaters, and parties. Right on their quads. They throw huge parties themselves for parents, alum etc. You can't walk through campus on game day without being among the throngs of people. Students and faculty who have parking spaces do not have them on game day unless they get to campus at 8am. They turn all parking facilities over to those attending the games. Their fan base is there no matter what. It is like a religion in Southern CA.
 
Good post and true. Gotta love all these posts and threads about leaves and front runners and community support. There are so many differences between when we had decent crowds in the 90's and now, it's not funny. And many of the differences have been conscious decisions made by SU.

1. Winning, winning, winning

2. Lime OOC schedule/MetLife

3. Pricing structure of sideline seats

4. Parking has gotten worse.

5. Marketing

6. Economy especially considering #3.

People want to act like we are this huge state school with a large active alumni base. I'll use PedSt as an example. Even when they were down some for a few years, they packed the stadium. You think it's because Happy Valley is some large metropolis? No, it's because they are a STATE school supported by fans across the state with an alumni base that comes to games in droves.

I know everyone will pick on the personal favorite gripe above, but it's the totality of all of them that has made the perfect storm. It's a lot different playing a Florida in the 90's as a 9-3 program than it is playing Tulane as a .500 program.

I have 6 seasons, so I could easily blame the locals and not take shots at myself. But I see the reality and and it's not about leaves.

How many alumni does SU have in a 6 hour radius? I dare every single one of them to come back for at least one game a year, maybe more. Actually, if people want a big time program, there's no reason most of those alumni shouldn't come back for most games.

I think you summed it up nicely right there. Now there are things we can't fix - being a small private school where a good percentage of the students are from other areas of the country, or don't speak english as a 1st language. But knowing this you think we could try to make up for that significant deficiency with better marketing, parking, and price structure for seating, not to mention letting our facilities getting so bad that it made is fall further behind on the field where it really matters. And before I get we need private donors, I will say that should have been foreseen and had a more aggressive approach to attracting those doners.

So I am sure, or would hope the people in charge know that these are the exact problems and have a plan to fix this. The question is what is going to be done about it because it's obvious the problem isn't going to fix itself.
 
Dude I had seasons starting in 95 till I moved here ... I watched the attendance decline you make it sound like support was never there ... I was a student all 4 years DNabb was slinging it and there were a ton of fannies in those seats ... I was there for the 66 on UM ... I was there for UT and the PI call ... the only reason I'm not there now is I am a 15 hour car ride away ... there are no excuses for the fan base sorry.
You just referenced a time we were really good. I have no doubt you'd have that same experience if we started off 2-0 and not 0-2. We might never have huge turnouts for nooners against Tulane but I guarantee you if we were sitting at 4-0, even 3-1 Clemson ticket sales wouldnt be an issue and going forward you'd see big crowds against the ACC schedule. Keep winning and next year more people buy season tix and more casual fans go to more games and Ta-Da there's the fan support again. It's not ideal but we're a northern private school.
 
Massachusetts has had one of the lowest unemployment rates through the recession, the best public education system in the country, and health care for all. Maybe you should go look up some facts before demonstrating your ignorance.

LOL ... labor participation rate isn't as hot as you sell it ... and there is a reason you are called Taxachusetts ... what I find funny is that Georgia has a higher labor participation rate than Mass ... didn't realize you got paid to catch catfish with your bare hands ... health care for all ... great ... LOL ... you must drink the Obama kool-aid. What a joke.
 
Kentucky is also the flagship program in the state. I would assume without caring to look it up, that they have way more students/alumni than Cuse. NY also has 3 pro football teams vs. Kentucky which has 0. These things make a difference.

Two of those 3 pro teams are over 4 hours away ... people in Kentucky have a shorter drive to Cincy than a CNYer does to NYC ... does anyone know geography? Its 1.5 hours from Lexington to Cincy ... we need to stop making excuses for our fanbase ... seriously.
 
You just referenced a time we were really good. I have no doubt you'd have that same experience if we started off 2-0 and not 0-2. We might never have huge turnouts for nooners against Tulane but I guarantee you if we were sitting at 4-0, even 3-1 Clemson ticket sales wouldnt be an issue and going forward you'd see big crowds against the ACC schedule. Keep winning and next year more people buy season tix and more casual fans go to more games and Ta-Da there's the fan support again. It's not ideal but we're a northern private school.

Again you made my point for me ... our fan base is a joke ... loaded with front runners.
 
Two of those 3 pro teams are over 4 hours away ... people in Kentucky have a shorter drive to Cincy than a CNYer does to NYC ... does anyone know geography? Its 1.5 hours from Lexington to Cincy ... we need to stop making excuses for our fanbase ... seriously.

The NFL is more popular than college. Period. I dont care about differences in travel time, and neither do CASUAL fans.
 
The NFL is more popular than college. Period. I dont care about differences in travel time, and neither do CASUAL fans.

My point went completely over your head for some reason ... I AM SAYING THAT THE PRESENCE OF A PRO TEAM SHOULDN'T BE USED AS AN EXCUSE BECAUSE UK FANS HAVE ONE CLOSER TO THEM THAN ANY RESIDENT OF CNY!!! Good lord is everyone asleep today?
 
Again you made my point for me ... our fan base is a joke ... loaded with front runners.
I'm not trying to argue that our football fan-base is great. Just pointing out differences between us and fan-bases you think we should be like. Also saying its not all on the fans, maybe we shouldnt have been one of the worst teams in D-1 for a string of years, maybe we should stop scheduling like we're Alabama, maybe we should stop starting seasons 0-2. Unless you want to move Syracuse down south or make them a state school, those are relevant issues.
 
What you guys need to understand is the following I am not saying people on this forum are bad fans ... I consider most of the posters here to be the passionate segment of the fan base ... however a majority of our "fan base" is awful and there is really no way to defend that. There is no excuse. People act like I am calling them bad fans directly ... that is not it. There is no true justification to our attendance numbers other than the fact that we have a ton of fair weather fans ... that is it ... in a nutshell ... no other way around it.
 
In other words, front runners.

Most fans are, PA. When it comes to money and sacrifice,most fans are. Alumni may be different, but most locals at any level are like that.
 
I'm not trying to argue that our football fan-base is great. Just pointing out differences between us and fan-bases you think we should be like. Also saying its not all on the fans, maybe we shouldnt have been one of the worst teams in D-1 for a string of years, maybe we should stop scheduling like we're Alabama, maybe we should stop starting seasons 0-2. Unless you want to move Syracuse down south or make them a state school, those are relevant issues.

My point about having large crowds in various decades ... (at least large by our standards) nullifies this state school vs private school garbage ... if that were a true issue we never would have had the attendance at all period ... so that doesn't even float ... the status of the school didn't impact us before ... that doesn't carry weight sad but true. Again being awful hasn't affected UK ... scheduling tougher teams has shown to help attendance since no one cares to watch us obliterate Wagner ... and if you cite a 0-2 start it once again goes back to having a bunch of band wagon fans.
 
Most people don't care about su football. It's just a fact. We are a basketball school. Period.
 
My point went completely over your head for some reason ... I AM SAYING THAT THE PRESENCE OF A PRO TEAM SHOULDN'T BE USED AS AN EXCUSE BECAUSE UK FANS HAVE ONE CLOSER TO THEM THAN ANY RESIDENT OF CNY!!! Good lord is everyone asleep today?

It didnt go over my head at all. We will never sell out games without CASUAL fans. Those people care way more about the 3 NFL teams vs. The 1 college team in NY. You also ignored the part in my original post about the size of their current student body/alumni base vs ours. A huge portion of which lives within 4 hours of their campus in kentucky, Tennessee, ohio, and virginia. Check out the thread about whos going to the clemson game, and see where our fans/alumni live.
 
as a city syracuse is small compared to the draw of a state school-
the university has never marketed the program outside of the city limits for decades-they just stated
its going to take a decade of decent football to grow fans from outside the city
 
Dude I had seasons starting in 95 till I moved here ... I watched the attendance decline you make it sound like support was never there ... I was a student all 4 years DNabb was slinging it and there were a ton of fannies in those seats ... I was there for the 66 on UM ... I was there for UT and the PI call ... the only reason I'm not there now is I am a 15 hour car ride away ... there are no excuses for the fan base sorry.

How many of those fans are in your situation and are now a half day car ride plus from CNY? Not to pick on you but people act like theres 200K local fans who love SU and refuse to go to games, trust me there isn't.
 
It didnt go over my head at all. We will never sell out games without CASUAL fans. Those people care way more about the 3 NFL teams vs. The 1 college team in NY. You also ignored the part in my original post about the size of their current student body/alumni base vs ours. A huge portion of which lives within 4 hours of their campus in kentucky, Tennessee, ohio, and virginia. Check out the thread about whos going to the clemson game, and see where our fans/alumni live.

I don't need to I have seen the discussions about who comes from where ... hell CuseTroop is in Alaska ...

You have repeatedly ignored the fact that I have stated that when we won attendance was not an issue ... and I know the same number of pro teams existed then that do now ... sorry but it isn't that hard to comprehend. If anything the only thing that changed since the McNabb years with regards to the size of our alumi base is that it has increased ... more kids are graduating each and every year ... its not an excuse ... there are 662K+ people in the Syracuse metro area ...
 
wow thats huge-NOT

until recently the university didnt market itself outside of syracuse

Right because no one knew it existed? One of the most prestigious journalism schools in the world .. really? Lexington has a metro population of 472K+ doesn't seem to hurt them at all ...
 

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