attendance

Started by meadowdale, June 12, 2017, 11:47:15 PM

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meadowdale

I have some thoughts on the issue of weak attendance at many D3 games. After visiting many schools over the last 3 years along with nightly searches on the boards here.
I think the schools might be overlooking a great revenue source that is right on campus. Marketing and Businees majors are part of every campus put it to them,
get people in the stands there is only win/win in this. Academic school is not a valid excuse when it comes to fans give them a reason to cheer or a least come check it out..
When the students are there, parents start showing up ,community then alumni I have seen it at several schools..
These are not new ideas just one passionate fan who loves the purest form of college football.

jknezek

The greatest and most doggedly determined sports marketing you will find is done by minor league baseball teams. These teams do everything under the sun to bring people to their stadiums. Many of them even have some pretty nice fields. Our Birmingham Barons have an incredible downtown stadium, Memphis has a great downtown field, and more. But they pretty much never sell out. Even on 25 cent hot dog night, free kids nights, free hat nights and more. Why? Because there just isn't that much of a market for minor league baseball. Especially a game played opposite a major league team on t.v.  All DIII games are basically played opposite DI games, and sometimes h.s. games as well. There just aren't that many fans for a DIII game vs sitting on a couch watching your local State U you have supported since birth playing on your big screen t.v. with a fridge and frosty cold ones nearby and video replay whenever you want. That is simply the facts of the situation for the vast majority of DIII. 

retagent

I've been to Lansing Lugnuts games over the past few years. They have a wonderful stadium downtown, with "skyboxes" even. I echo jknezek with his description of the marketing. Great experience.

jknezek

I'm going to tack one more addendum on to my attendance comment. I don't know the average DIII liberal arts school size, but I'm guessing it's around 2000 students. Given first and second year classes are bigger than Junior and Senior, I'm guessing you are graduating 400-450 students per year at these schools. If you assume 1 in 50 becomes an alumni football fan, and I'm thinking that might be fairly generous, you are minting 8 to 9 people a year who are going to care enough to come back for games. Translate that to your local Big State U, where the graduating classes are between 5,000 and 15,000 per year. With the same ratio, you are minting 100 to 300 alumni, per year, willing to come back. If you suppose that interest lasts roughly 20 years, until the alumni kids are in h.s. tying up most of your time, that is maybe 200 people for a liberal arts school versus 2000 to 6000 alumni fans.

A lot of the DIII problem is a numbers game. You add to the problem because for a lot of these schools, alumni aren't real local. For Big State U fans, they are almost all local. I live in Birmingham and I can't tell you how many people grow up in the Birmingham metro area, go to Alabama (45 minutes away) and come back and work in Birmingham. For a W&L grad, there were maybe 20 to 30 kids per class from within 45 minutes of Lexington Virginia, and most of them didn't go work in Roanoke or Staunton after graduation. They move away from the rural small schools, making it that much harder to return for a game.

Bombers798891

In addition to jknezek's points, I'll add some things:

Sports fans drastically overestimate the number of people who like sports. Why? Because we inherently seek out people who share our interests, and sports is social. So sports fans tend to have social circles that include a lot of sports fans. If you get 20 million people watching the NBA finals, that's still a small fraction of the U.S. population. When you factor in the lower visibility of D-III sports those fractions get even smaller.

The influence of a Division III team isn't just local, it's hyper local. Colleges, for the most part, strive to not be hyper-local wrt to their student bodies. These two things are at odds with each other when it comes to interest and attendance. If you've got a student body from all over the globe, and even the state, odds are, the local football team isn't on most of their radars.

Quote from: meadowdale on June 12, 2017, 11:47:15 PM
Marketing and Businees majors are part of every campus put it to them,

I mean, colleges have marketing departments that study this stuff. The reality is, there's a lot to do on and around a college campus at 1 p.m. on a Saturday. A football game, a theatre performance, an event put on by a campus or student organization...the list is long. And from the college's perspective, it's all equally valuable (especially at D-III, where you're not making money off of the games) and it's all stuff they'll promote equally to their students.


meadowdale

Great points. But you have to try and I have seen many a game with no effort at all.

Scots13

Maryville used to have local youth teams' days where kids got in free if they wear their jersey, usually on days when UT had a late afternoon or night game.  The team(s) would sit together and the PA would announce their attendance during a timeout. Free kid tickets means paying adult tickets. Pros: increased attendance, community support. Cons:longer lines at the sno-cone vendor. Pros definitely outweigh the cons.
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Bombers798891

Quote from: meadowdale on June 13, 2017, 04:53:59 PM
Great points. But you have to try and I have seen many a game with no effort at all.

Honestly, I doubt you know the kind of effort teams and schools are putting in behind the scenes. The results may not be what you want, but I doubt it's because of lack of effort.

meadowdale

Quote from: Bombers798891 on June 14, 2017, 11:28:57 AM
Quote from: meadowdale on June 13, 2017, 04:53:59 PM
Great points. But you have to try and I have seen many a game with no effort at all.

Honestly, I doubt you know the kind of effort teams and schools are putting in behind the scenes. The results may not be what you want, but I doubt it's because of lack of effort.

Classic you made great points backed them up with facts as you know.Then took a cheap shot at my knowledge and insight of business and marketing.


doolittledog

Another thing to consider is how seriously do schools count attendance.  From the IIAC, some schools just write down the same figure almost every week, which can be a pre-programed thing.  Central, often just puts 1,200 down.  Last year, Wartburg had a bunch of 2,500 games, with a bigger figure for homecoming thrown in.  There are weeks these schools have many more than that in Pella and Waverly.  There are weeks with poor weather or what not when there are fewer.  Coe and Dubuque are two schools that seem to make an attempt at an accurate crowd count. 

I have been watching IIAC games going back to the 80's.  Crowds are much higher now than they were 30 years ago.  Back then most IIAC schools only had stands on one side of the stadium.  Now most have pretty decent away side facilities.  Likewise, back in the 80's. Central was the only school I ever noticed that brought a sizable crowd with them to away games in Dubuque.  Now, every school has a decent sized travelling fan base. 

30 years ago, it was basketball gyms that would be packed to the rafters in the IIAC.  These days, football easily out draws basketball in our conference.  2,500 for most games, with crowds over 4,000 for big games seems ok to me for our conference.     
Coach Finstock - "There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that and everything else is cream cheese."

meadowdale

Quote from: Scots13 on June 14, 2017, 09:28:28 AM
Maryville used to have local youth teams' days where kids got in free if they wear their jersey, usually on days when UT had a late afternoon or night game.  The team(s) would sit together and the PA would announce their attendance during a timeout. Free kid tickets means paying adult tickets. Pros: increased attendance, community support. Cons:longer lines at the sno-cone vendor. Pros definitely outweigh the cons.
Right on, that's what I'm talking about

wally_wabash

Quote from: meadowdale on June 14, 2017, 04:53:11 PM
Quote from: Bombers798891 on June 14, 2017, 11:28:57 AM
Quote from: meadowdale on June 13, 2017, 04:53:59 PM
Great points. But you have to try and I have seen many a game with no effort at all.

Honestly, I doubt you know the kind of effort teams and schools are putting in behind the scenes. The results may not be what you want, but I doubt it's because of lack of effort.

Classic you made great points backed them up with facts as you know.Then took a cheap shot at my knowledge and insight of business and marketing.

I didn't read that at all.  I think he said (correctly) that you can't really know what efforts these schools are putting in to promotion/marketing/whatever.  SOOOOO much of this stuff winds up settling into the jurisdiction of the sports information department- as if those folks don't have enough to do already.  The reality for 99% of the division is that there is a super skinny(if any at all) return on investments made for promotion/marketing/whatever.
"Nothing in the world is more expensive than free."- The Deacon of HBO's The Wire

HansenRatings

This was an article I read last year about how the University of Chicago is putting a big effort into making football a focal point for alumni relations. They have quite a bit bigger alumni base (and profile in general) than pretty much all of DIII, so it's not exactly a template, but it does show that some schools are putting in strides towards promoting games on campus.

https://theringer.com/university-chicago-football-culture-91db25cc0542
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jknezek

Lots of schools put in effort in different ways. I know W&L spends a lot of time internally promoting to students and especially among student athletes getting them to cross support. But the whole school is around 2000 students, including the law school, so there is a limit how much that matters. W&L does not charge for tickets unless mandated to do so by the NCAA, so all the promotion is a loss just to try and generate a better atmosphere for the players and fans.

doolittledog

Quote from: HansenRatings on June 15, 2017, 10:36:11 AM
This was an article I read last year about how the University of Chicago is putting a big effort into making football a focal point for alumni relations. They have quite a bit bigger alumni base (and profile in general) than pretty much all of DIII, so it's not exactly a template, but it does show that some schools are putting in strides towards promoting games on campus.

https://theringer.com/university-chicago-football-culture-91db25cc0542

Somewhat related for using football as a focal point for alumni relations, Dubuque tracked homecoming attendance to alumni giving and noted those who attend homecoming give at a higher level than in years they don't attend the event.  Keeping alumni involved with the school, via homecoming, or alumni events throughout the country, or even monthly newsletters goes a long way towards increasing giving levels at the school.  When the alumni feel involved, they open up their wallet. 

Another thing I notice at Dubuque is athletes attending sports events they aren't involved in.  I've seen Dubuque football players sitting together at basketball and softball games in fairly large numbers.  I've seen basketball and track teams at football games all sitting together as a group.  The more involved you are while in school, the more likely you will stay involved with the school after graduation they feel. 

Coach Finstock - "There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that and everything else is cream cheese."