[NU Sports] Tipping Point Near ?

[Peter C. Warner]

Thank goodness the other Big Ten schools bring in their fans to Evanston, or
NU could be in real trouble:

The NCAA's attendance requirement for continued full-fledged status in the
association's Football Bowl Subdivision (Division I-A) can be met if a
school averages 15,000 in actual or paid attendance for all home games one
time during a rolling two-year period.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2006-08-16-attendance-woes_x
.htm

Peter Warner

-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of Herman Wang
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 9:49 PM
To: cherron604 at aol.com; artmiller1 at hotmail.com; rstetson at capps-assoc.com;
nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Tipping Point Near ?

I was intrigued by those attendance statistics and checked them out on the 
NCAA website.  Perhaps some of you in the Bay Area can enlighten us on how 
Stanford, as woeful as it has been over the past few years, still manages to

draw almost 42,000 fans a game, good for 52nd in Div-1A.  That's above 
Mississippi St., Oklahoma St. and even Pac-10 rival Oregon St.  How much 
does the Stanford athletic department market the football games?  Or is it 
just the draw of a new stadium?

NU is by far last in the BigTen at about 28,000, trailing Indiana by about 
5,000 fans a game.  Vanderbilt is last in the SEC but outdraws NU by 7,000 a

game.   At least we're not Duke (19,580 a game, 92nd in Div. 1A) or Rice 
(14,760, 113th).

Florida Atlantic brings up the rear, with a paltry 9,260 fans per game.

I love statistics.
Herman


>From: cherron604 at aol.com
>To: artmiller1 at hotmail.com, rstetson at capps-assoc.com, nwu-sports at tssi.com
>Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Tipping Point Near ?
>Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 00:25:02 -0400
>
>I guess I am just a bit worried about the way this could eventually play 
>out...
>
>The University owns the seats - of course, they can sell them for whatever 
>price they want.  And since we are all fans of he program, there are 
>probably a few things we want in a football crowd:
>
>a) fairly packed houses, with
>b) enthusiastic fans.
>
>I am worried that we are maybe further from goal a) than we have been since

>the really bad old days.  I had not noticed this previously, but we fell to

>80th (out of 119) last year in Div I attendance.  We were in the 60's as 
>recently as 2001, and we were 47th back in 1998.  And 2007 attendance could

>be even worse...maybe 20K for the 3 non-conference foes as well as IU ?  25

>for Minny, 35 for Iowa and 42 for Michigan ?  And the biggest problem with 
>awful attendance is a lousy home-field advantage in the poorly attended 
>games, and actually being outnumbered in big games (see OSU last season).
>
>And while the NU fans at the games are enthusiastic (to a degree...), if we

>don't start packing the place with real, honest-to-goodness fans, we run 
>the risk of drawing more affluent, less-attached fans, and this too will 
>hurt us down the road.
>
>Can we possibly start marketing this program to Chicago and Suburban fans 
>and families who are our one hope for keeping out opposing fans ?
>
>Chuck Herron   Tech '85