Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="gocraz4dasu, post: 3060439, member: 1109"] WVU has free tickets for their students and they have a pretty strong student attendance; WVU had the 25th highest attendance average in 2018. I believe Maryland, South Carolina (17th highest avg.), Vanderbilt, Clemson (14th highest avg.), Miami (22nd highest avg.), Stanford, and Northwestern also use free student ticket systems. Some of those schools have great attendance, others not so much. [URL='http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/Attendance/2018.pdf']Northwestern[/URL] saw the largest jump in their attendance average in the entire FBS last year, at an increase of 8,020, and Purdue was 10th here. [B][COLOR=rgb(251, 160, 38)]Cuse was actually 11th with a 3,114 increase in our average attendance.[/COLOR][/B] The Pac-12 conference as a whole saw a decrease in their average attendance of 3,159, which is wild, the SEC's decrease was 1,080. Games that were located at a neutral site saw a decrease of 2,979. James Madison University has a free ticket system and they are third in average FCS attendance (Montana is second highest). But overall, FBS, FCS, Division II, ad Division III all saw their average attendance decrease. FCS attendance actually dropped 4.5%. I feel like much of attendance is based almost entirely on how good the team is, outside of the traditional powerhouse exceptions like Nebraska r Texas A&M, but most schools are having trouble getting students and casual fans into their games on time and for the whole game. Hell, Alabama fans/alumni complain regularly how their students bail at half-time and those students pay [URL='https://rolltide.com/sports/2016/6/10/tickets-m-footbl-student-tickets-html.aspx']$125 for season tickets[/URL] ($20 for SEC opponents). As a side note, outside of LSU they have a pretty lackluster how schedule this year considering how good Bama should be this year (New Mexico State, Southern Miss, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Arkansas, LSU, and Western Carolina). Cuse getting 8,000+ new season ticket holders is impressive and I'm ecstatic for it and I think we will notice improvements in student attedance, but I don't think all the student attendance issues will be resolved. They will still likely show up late and leave early except for the Clemson games (unless it happens to be a blow-out). The truth of the matter is that the actual football game itself is timed to be optimized on tv and that comes at a significant cost for in-game experience watching it. Students, like everyone else, are turning more and more to watching the games on tv. It's a shame but football games aren't cheap to attend and require essentially a whole day be dedicated to attending one now. The [URL='https://www.jacksonville.com/sports/florida-gators/florida-state-seminoles/2017-08-05/it-s-about-time-college-football-steadily']average college football game[/URL] in 2016 averaged 3 hours and 24 minutes, which is 23 minutes longer than they were on average in 1996. FBS games were actually 16 minutes longer than the NFL game average that year (2016). Schools have to differentiate their in-game experience and market the game experience as superior to what fans would get if they stayed home to watch the game. That's getting harder to do. Tailgating is what I believe has saved a lot of the attendance averages of many middling teams. It makes attending the games an event where people feel like they miss out on. It's one of my worries with Syracuse because tailgating seems more difficult here, but it isn't like Central/Western NY doesn't have a tailgating culture. The Bills have a unique and wild tailgating scene. I'm hoping our newfound success can build a new generation of fans who have largely ignored attending live SU games because of our past two decades of mediocrity. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?