John Wildhack and Pete Sala Press Conference | Wed 9:30 AM

[AngryOtto]

Clearly where this thread is going Saturday can not get here soon enough.

 

[grepal]

The data I found on neilsburg.com was as follows:

"The median household income in Syracuse was $43,766 in 2021, which marked an a decrease of 305 (0.69%) from $44,071 in 2020. This income is 58.66% of the U.S. median household income of $74,606 (all incomes in 2022 inflation-adjusted dollars)."

The was for Syracuse and not the metropolitan area, but what Wikipedia had for the MSA was "The median household income in the MSA [in 2020] was $39,210, while the median family income was $47,862".

Where did you get the $68,314, and are you sure you're comparing apples to apples? Because an apples to apples comparison should show Syracuse is well below the national average.

To be fair you also need to calculate the cost of living in an area. Housing, food, energy all vary depending on the where you are in determining disposable income averages. For instance the national average of buying a home is 338 K in Syracuse it is 157K. Just a cherry picked stat but is shows a very wide disparity between Syracuse and the rest of the country. According to Best places it costs, on average 12.6 percent less to live in Stracuse, NY than the national average.

 

[Scooch]

Last Archbold game vs Navy had 26,500.

In the late 60's / early 70's before they removed a bunch of unsafe wooden bleachers around the track, PSU used to draw crowds over 41,000.

Thanks! It was definitely a 70s/80s thing to build stadiums for max capacity. So I get why they figured 50K was where they landed for the Dome.

But it also guaranteed we’d rarely fill the place. Building it smaller to push demand is a much better strategy these days.

 

[sufandu]

One thing not mentioned in the new seating.. When you sit for bball in the outer reaches you have to turn to see the court. Much harder to do when sitting in a chair vs a bench.

I hadn't thought of that.

 

[OrangeinBoston]

To be fair you also need to calculate the cost of living in an area. Housing, food, energy all vary depending on the where you are in determining disposable income averages. For instance the national average of buying a home is 338 K in Syracuse it is 157K. Just a cherry picked stat but is shows a very wide disparity between Syracuse and the rest of the country. According to Best places it costs, on average 12.6 percent less to live in Stracuse, NY than the national average.

Yes, way too much "woe-is-us" stuff about Syracuse. Tickets don't sell like we might like because people want to see a winner. The average person has no clue how good this team will be and therefore isn't going to shell out their entertainment dollar until they have proof.

 

[Cusefan95]

Census profile: Syracuse, NY Metro Area

Census data for Syracuse, NY Metro Area (pop. 652,956), including age, race, sex, income, poverty, marital status, education and more.

censusreporter.org

That is wild - this site uses ACS data as well, but shows a radically different median income. I played around for a little bit trying to figure out why, but probably need to get to the base data to figure it out.

Syracuse, NY Median Household Income - 2024 Update | Neilsberg

Explore the median household income trends in Syracuse, NY over time. Find the latest insights on income distribution across different household sizes and between family and non-family households in Syracuse.

www.neilsberg.com

 

[BomberOrange]

I think all games being on TV has hurt attendance more than anything. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't even think the 87 game vs WV was on TV. Schools are having a harder time having their cake and eating it too.

I think this is huge. Had a conversation with someone at work today who was very excited about the football team this year. I asked if he was going and he said no, he'll watch on tv. He makes very good money so there is no financial strain keeping him away.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

Thanks! It was definitely a 70s/80s thing to build stadiums for max capacity. So I get why they figured 50K was where they landed for the Dome.

But it also guaranteed we’d rarely fill the place. Building it smaller to push demand is a much better strategy these days.

From what I could find we averaged 22,384 our last year. The prior year was 18,992. Part of that was the stadium stunk. Part of that was the team wasn’t good. Part of that was the weather. But going from that average to 50,000 seems like a stretch.

 

[cliftonparksufan]

From what I could find we averaged 22,384 our last year. The prior year was 18,992. Part of that was the stadium stunk. Part of that was the team wasn’t good. Part of that was the weather. But going from that average to 50,000 seems like a stretch.

Yup, all of the above. But, besides a winning program as probably the number one reason for the average fan to attend, I've always thought a lot had to do with number of actual alumni. Syracuse is not Penn State or Michigan with the amount of alumni living within four hours and generations of alumni who attended State U. Syracuse is a relatively small private school compared to the big public universities and a lot of alumni may support the school financially but many haven't been back to the city of Syracuse since graduation.

So that leaves all the "townies" in and around CNY. They don't necessarily have the same ties that will cause them to support a program that has struggled for the last 20 years. Hoops is different. The team was winners, plus it's during winter when the options aren't as great. Give "townies" a reason not to go to football and they won't.

But once they start winning it will be the hottest ticket in town. Everyone knows it.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

I tried to find the current Northeastern schools stadium capacities at the time. Hope these are accurate.

Penn State - 76,639 which was just expanded from 60,203

Temple - 65,352 who just moved into Veterans Stadium from their home 20,000 stadium

Pitt - 56,500

Maryland - 45,000 who just expanded from 34,680

Army - 42,765

West Virginia- 38,000 but they soon built a 50k stadium

Navy - 34,000

BC - 32,000

Rutgers - 31,219

SU - 26,000

Marshall - 18,000

UMass - 17.000

UConn - 16,200

Buffalo- 4,000



Based off of those I would think 40k would have made the most sense.

 

[sutomcat]

I'd personally like to see us find a way to add 1,216 to the number.

I think 49k to 50k was fine last century, but this one, not so much.

There is a lot of wasted square footage above the field on both the sides of the center hung scoreboard.

Wonderful view of the field. You really feel a part of the action (and we may have to provide some special evasion features in case of booming punts (I am looking at you, Moustache Jack).

Syracuse is rapidly becoming a center for drone technology.

Let's get 1,216 seats hovering above the field and expand our capacity in a uniquely Syracuse 'can do' manner.

All we gotta do is find 1,216 Syracuse football fans/wannabe test pilots to make this work. Along with development of hover seat technology.

What about when the airborne fans get thirsty? Dome foam drone deliveries.

What about when the airborne fans need to pee? NASA diapers.

I think we are almost ready to roll on this.

 

[rocklloyd]

Win games and the dome will fill. We continue to prove it each year and then We proceed to lay an egg losing all causal fan momentum.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

And Verizon, for one, was inaccurate with its stated timing.

I, for one, am shocked.