Stop blaming the fans for attendance

[FrancoPizza]

This is absolutely true. I've actually had people that live in Syracuse ask me why I buy season tickets, because you can just buy tickets to the games you want and sit wherever you want to.

The only advantage to seasons is a modest discount, but many are ok paying a bit more for 1 or 2 games that they have an interest in.

It just goes back to the product - people have to want to watch them play vs Colgate because they are exciting regardless of the opponent. People have to want to be up on the quad on a nice fall day. People have to want to listen to Kim infanti screeching.

 

[Cusefan95]

But how did the team get so bad? How did they put themselves in a position to be unable to win more games in 2019? Perhaps if the fan base had not abandoned the team in the early and mid 2000s Syracuse would've been a more attractive place to place to play and they would've been able to afford better facilities before it was forced upon them. Unfortunately since money runs the sport it is not as simple as "put out a better product" a better product isn't free. All those "well im not coming back till they're ranked" fans essnetially doom the team to constantly be stuck in a cycle of mediocrity. Nebraska invests millions a year and has a rabid fanbase and they still cant compete because it is so difficult to do so. 7-8 wins on average is doable with syracuse's current status, anything more than that takes significant work on all sides.

This is one of the worst takes I’ve ever seen on the board. Why did fans abandon the program?

The university was chronically underfunding the athletic department in the 90s (where did those concession revenues go?), and when the team started to struggle and fans complained they were told Syracuse is a one horse town - ride it and like it. Then the bottom fell out with GRob, and fans had no incentive to stick around since Shaw/Jake had burned through all their goodwill.

I’m not one to completely let fans off the hook, there have been many games in the last 5 years where I was really disappointed they didn’t show. But saying fans abandoning the program hurt investment doesn’t align with the actual historical facts - we weren’t investing in football even when we were winning and drawing solid crowds.

 

[FrancoPizza]

Considering how poorly the US networks are doing, they clearly need that revenue. It drives me mad but I study those guys for a living and commercials aren’t driving the value they used to which makes it difficult to survive

Then all the networks should band together and refuse to pay the exorbitant amounts that they are offering. Maybe more will watch if you kill the commercials. Or put the commercials off to a sidebar during actual game play. Just a crazy idea.

 

[ClkWrkOrange]

Let me ask this... did these same people care about the hoops program a few years back when we were a top 10 program and making Final 4 runs?

I don't know or really care, but I doubt it. Win or lose, the style of play had gotten so mind-numbingly boring, that I'd lost all interest in BBall shortly after joining the ACC. Couldn't tell ya.

 

[Scooch]

I think you're missing the main point.

While the comment was off-putting, and talking down to your customers, the total collapse of the product that followed meant that people indeed found other, more fun things to do with their time.

And while some people will make fun of raking leaves, the fact is, Syracuse probably lost 20,000 fans to the Buffalo Bills. It's more fun, they play good opponents, tailgating is easier than at SU, and you're home in 3 hours.

Casual football fans ditched SU for the Bills. I've never seen so many Bills flags, merchandise, car license plates, etc., as I have in the last 10 years. This is a Bills town now, much more than an SU town. And that sucks for the University, because it's not the alumni who support the program for the most part.

So, call CNY'ers who used to be SU fans petulant if you like. I just think many have found more fun ways to spend time with their friends. Buzz Shaw was wrong. SU Sports is not the only game in town.

I was addressing a specific point: that a lousy comment from Buzz Shaw 20 years is still keeping a meaningful amount of fans from attending football games at the Dome.

What you're talking about is a different dynamic. And I don't disagree. Of course a largely crummy football team for 20 years isn't going to draw spectacularly well. I grew up in Foxboro, Mass. and sat in a half empty Foxboro Stadium when the Pats were gawd-awful. I know the drill.

But SU has sold out (or come damn close) several games in the past few years. Because the team was good, or there was genuine hope they'd be good. When the team makes it worthwhile to show up, people do. Which is the way it is all over the country.

 

[Scooch]

I don't know or really care, but I doubt it. Win or lose, the style of play had gotten so mind-numbingly boring, that I'd lost all interest in BBall shortly after joining the ACC. Couldn't tell ya.

OK, well then we can't discuss this. You're finger is so on the pulse of these folks that you know they're staying away because of a 20 year old comment, but you don't know if they attend basketball games. Sounds like you're projecting, which is fine, but it's not helpful in understanding the motivation of these people you supposedly know.

 

[Cuse181]

Just like someone said earlier, 'there's too much inventory' with respect to depressing season ticket prices; I think the same is true with commercials. Instead of 16 commercial breaks (which means around 50 actual ads) per game. Maybe they would get better dollars per minute of ad time if there was less of it.

Its a delicate balance. Artificial scarcity can push up prices but that leads to smaller ad-buyers leaving the market while simultaneously providing a diminishing return on investment for larger ad-buyers. My engagements likely don't improve linearly with the increase in cost-per-spot. The problem is linear ads don't provide nearly as much value as digital ads, both in terms of engagement and conversions.

 

[Cusefan95]

It’s all about choice and priority, I love SU sports, but going to a game isn’t a priority right now for football or bball. I’m 46, I have a 6 year old kid, I have my own interests and I have family priority. If you give me a choice to go watch a mediocre football team, go golfing or mountain biking on a sunny fall day, I can tell you it isn’t watching football. Prior to having kids I went to all the games, went to away games but things changed for me. Still love SU but I would rather do something else with that time and money, especially with the inconsistency on the field.

I’m with ya. The best part of having a kid when I was 40 was having my wife post “first day of school” photos of our kids the same day my high school friends were posting pictures of their kids “off to college!”

The real go getters had kids graduate college before mine started school.

 

[syrBossHogg]

Maybe it wouldn’t be 18-41 if we had gung ho fan support.

The fans weren't the ones saying to "get a life"

 

[ClkWrkOrange]

OK, well then we can't discuss this. You're finger is so on the pulse of these folks that you know they're staying away because of a 20 year old comment, but you don't know if they attend basketball games. Sounds like you're projecting, which is fine, but it's not helpful in understanding the motivation of these people you supposedly know.

Take it any way you like. Doesn't affect me in the least. I grew up there, attended games for 49 years and grew up with lots of people who went to games. I'll tell you what I saw and experienced there and you're free to ignore it.

 

[Cusefan95]

I was addressing a specific point: that a lousy comment from Buzz Shaw 20 years is still keeping a meaningful amount of fans from attending football games at the Dome.

What you're talking about is a different dynamic. And I don't disagree. Of course a largely crummy football team for 20 years isn't going to draw spectacularly well. I grew up in Foxboro, Mass. and sat in a half empty Foxboro Stadium when the Pats were gawd-awful. I know the drill.

But SU has sold out (or come damn close) several games in the past few years. Because the team was good, or there was genuine hope they'd be good. When the team makes it worthwhile to show up, people do. Which is the way it is all over the country.

I don’t think a lousy comment from Shaw is keeping fans from games today. If Syracuse ran off a bunch of 9-10+ win seasons over the past twenty years, nobody would remember that comment.

But - it does serve as inflection point. I think fans would have endured tough times better prior to the disaster OSU pressers of the late 90s/early 2000s. Once the teams started losing, fans fled quickly - and it’s a lot harder to win back a customer you lost than gain a new customer. Where we’re at now is fans with no emotional connection - the decision to go to a game is entirely transactional. That’s why if the team wins, fans show up more - the problem with that is the bottom falls out quickly and deeply if the team isn’t winning.

 

[Cuse181]

Then all the networks should band together and refuse to pay the exorbitant amounts that they are offering. Maybe more will watch if you kill the commercials. Or put the commercials off to a sidebar during actual game play. Just a crazy idea.

I can try to dig up some links around this but they did try both of these in the early-to-mid 2000s and it didn't really work. Small increases in the number of watchers isn't super important honestly (i mean it is if you're talking millions but, marginal gains here and there don't provide much value). Beyond that, actual engagement didn't improve with fewer commercials and companies were not willing to spend nearly as much on a side-bar as a full screen commercial (not getting full attention is essentially viewed as worthless.)

There has been some resurgence around the prospect of 'personalized' ad-insertion on the part of cable providers, which is essentially taking the subscribers individual information and inserting commercials that are specifically relevant to their household (you and your neighbor would see entirely different commercials). It has worked pretty well on the digital platforms (that why facebook makes what they do) but that is expensive to test and as the linear medium dies cable providers lose their insights. Granted, fears of privacy issues has complicated these efforts.

 

[Scooch]

I don’t think a lousy comment from Shaw is keeping fans from games today. If Syracuse ran off a bunch of 9-10+ win seasons over the past twenty years, nobody would remember that comment.

But - it does serve as inflection point. I think fans would have endured tough times better prior to the disaster OSU pressers of the late 90s/early 2000s. Once the teams started losing, fans fled quickly - and it’s a lot harder to win back a customer you lost than gain a new customer. Where we’re at now is fans with no emotional connection - the decision to go to a game is entirely transactional. That’s why if the team wins, fans show up more - the problem with that is the bottom falls out quickly and deeply if the team isn’t winning.

That's fine. Honestly I don't think attendance is that bad at all given our 20 year run of crummy football.

 

[IthacaMatt]

I highly doubt they lost that many to the bills. And now that tickets are so hard to get and so expensive buying from resellers, there should be a little equilibrium where some of those people say, ya know, I can take my whole family to SU to the whole season for what it costs to go to one bills game

You haven't lived in Syracuse in a long time, have you?
Bills gear is everywhere. The tickets are still much easier to get than they are for the Giants. I see girls in the hair salon cutting hair talking about going to the Bills game with their boyfriend / family. I hear the same thing a lot around town. You almost never hear anyone talking about SU football anymore, except for about a month last season.

You're right; you could buy season tickets for your whole family for price of a time out at a Bills game, but which one is likely to be the better time? People are voting with their wallets.

 

[IthacaMatt]

And the NFL is an absolute colossus.

The average cost of a Bills season ticket is a shade under $1100. Before parking (average $50 a game) and $4 a gallon gas and 2.5 hours each way. The "casual fan" apparently has more disposable time and income than we realized!

The "casual" fan hasn't necessarily become a Bills season ticket holder, any more than the "casual" SU fan is a season ticket holder (unless it's the $99 end zone cheap seats). Everybody knows you can basically walk up and buy an SU ticket for $10 or $20 on game day. Those are the casual fans who don't bother with SU anymore. They go to a Bills game once or twice a season for their big road trip.

 

[Scooch]

FWIW, this is such a deeply weird conversation to be having.

Last year we averaged 41K per game. We were up 25% over the year before, and 14% over 5 years ago.
That 41K put us within 10% of the average attendance of Baylor, Minnesota, Arizona, Arizona State, Kansas, Illinois, Louisville, Colorado, and UCLA.

We drew more than Virginia, Cal, Cincinnati, BC, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Oregon State, Stanford, Vandy, Northwestern, Houston and Duke.

I guess people were bummed that we didn't draw a few thousand more for Clemson. But all things considered, our attendance isn't really that bad at all.

The look and feel of the Dome is likely to be a ton better next season when we drop 8K seats that never should have been built.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Let me ask this... did these same people care about the hoops program a few years back when we were a top 10 program and making Final 4 runs?

Yes, but that was almost 10 years ago now that we were nationally relevant.

After a decade of decline in performance, family favoritism, purges of the roster, terrible recruiting, sticking to a zone that no longer is as effective now that everyone can make 27 foot jump shots, and so many terrible, bitchy press conferences and disdain for the local media (and even student reporters), our attendance hit a 20 year low last year.

And Boeheim STILL had the nerve to say, back in February, that HE would decide when he retires, and nobody else. Remember that? And then when he was forced out, he couldn't even keep his mouth shut about it in a couple press conferences.

So, yeah, toxic relations with your fans doesn't do your program any favors.

 

[Scooch]

Yes, but that was almost 10 years ago now that we were nationally relevant.

After a decade of decline in performance, family favoritism, purges of the roster, terrible recruiting, sticking to a zone that no longer is as effective now that everyone can make 27 foot jump shots, and so many terrible, bitchy press conferences and disdain for the local media (and even student reporters), our attendance hit a 20 year low last year.

And Boeheim STILL had the nerve to say, back in February, that HE would decide when he retires, and nobody else. Remember that? And then when he was forced out, he couldn't even keep his mouth shut about it in a couple press conferences.

So, yeah, toxic relations with your fans doesn't do your program any favors.

The majority of people loved Boeheim through most all of that. It basically wasn't until this past year (maybe the one before) that sentiment really turned.

This place is not representative of the broader fan base. No message board is.

By the way, as recently as 2022, SU led the nation in hoops attendance. I get that we're down from our peak a couple decades ago, but so is everyone else.

*edit: We also were #1 in 2020 and 2019.

*edit edit: The more I look at it the more remarkably stable our hoops attendance appears. Yes, we averaged in the upper 20s in the late 80s/very early 90s. But by the mid/late-90s we averaged around 21K, and that's basically where we've been ever since. That's wildly good.

 

[IthacaMatt]

I was addressing a specific point: that a lousy comment from Buzz Shaw 20 years is still keeping a meaningful amount of fans from attending football games at the Dome.

What you're talking about is a different dynamic. And I don't disagree. Of course a largely crummy football team for 20 years isn't going to draw spectacularly well. I grew up in Foxboro, Mass. and sat in a half empty Foxboro Stadium when the Pats were gawd-awful. I know the drill.

But SU has sold out (or come damn close) several games in the past few years. Because the team was good, or there was genuine hope they'd be good. When the team makes it worthwhile to show up, people do. Which is the way it is all over the country.

And I'll say this one more time, and hopefully you'll get it this time.

Buzz Shaw's comment was not a "one off". It did not occur in a vaccuum.

It was the pinnacle of disdain for the fans (most of whom are NOT alumni). And if you recall, he kept it going in the Post-Standard with a rebuttal interview. 'Get a Life' was the original comment, and then when people raised hell, that's when he made the "One Horse Town" comment.

People didn't stop coming completely because of one or two comments. It was the pinnacle of a look-down-your-nose attitude from the old guard, and that killed a generation of fan support, along with a truly inept, terrible product on the field. Remember when we spent several seasons in Sports Illustrated's "Bottom 10" rankings?

If you want to keep comparing us to other teams, then stick to private schools with generally losing records for the last 20 years, and let us know what terrible fans we are again. One off games that have good attendance do not sufficiently fund an athletic department when you only have 6 football games per season to raise revenue, and 20,000 tickets go unsold for four of them.

 

[Scooch]

If you want to keep comparing us to other teams, then stick to private schools with generally losing records for the last 20 years, and let us know what terrible fans we are again.

Man, you've missed the point of everything I've been posting in this thread. I've been defending SU fans. Yeesh.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Man, you've missed the point of everything I've been posting in this thread. I've been defending SU fans. Yeesh.

Well, if you're "defending" SU fans, why do you keep criticizing them for having found other interests in the last 20 years, and calling them babies for not liking when the University took to the newspapers to trash their own customers?

 

[IthacaMatt]

The majority of people loved Boeheim through most all of that. It basically wasn't until this past year (maybe the one before) that sentiment really turned.

I think a lot of people who are hard-core fans turned against Boeheim 2 or 3 years before he finally left.

 

[FrancoPizza]

I think a lot of people who are hard-core fans turned against Boeheim 2 or 3 years before he finally left.

A couple of sweet 16s bought him about 4-5 extra years.

 

[Millhouse]

You haven't lived in Syracuse in a long time, have you?
Bills gear is everywhere. The tickets are still much easier to get than they are for the Giants. I see girls in the hair salon cutting hair talking about going to the Bills game with their boyfriend / family. I hear the same thing a lot around town. You almost never hear anyone talking about SU football anymore, except for about a month last season.

You're right; you could buy season tickets for your whole family for price of a time out at a Bills game, but which one is likely to be the better time? People are voting with their wallets.

I don't doubt that about gear. Zubaz make me irresistable. The bills are heroes and the Giants are the worst even when they're good

But I just don't think they're displacing WNYers at the games

 

[orangecuse]

And I'll say this one more time, and hopefully you'll get it this time.

Buzz Shaw's comment was not a "one off". It did not occur in a vaccuum.

It was the pinnacle of disdain for the fans (most of whom are NOT alumni). And if you recall, he kept it going in the Post-Standard with a rebuttal interview. 'Get a Life' was the original comment, and then when people raised hell, that's when he made the "One Horse Town" comment.

People didn't stop coming completely because of one or two comments. It was the pinnacle of a look-down-your-nose attitude from the old guard, and that killed a generation of fan support, along with a truly inept, terrible product on the field. Remember when we spent several seasons in Sports Illustrated's "Bottom 10" rankings?

If you want to keep comparing us to other teams, then stick to private schools with generally losing records for the last 20 years, and let us know what terrible fans we are again. One off games that have good attendance do not sufficiently fund an athletic department when you only have 6 football games per season to raise revenue, and 20,000 tickets go unsold for four of them.

100% You can't make it any clearer than you have, IMO.

As he stated himself earlier in this thread; "for the most part, people decide to do (or not do, or believe or not believe)." This, obviously, includes himself.