[NU Sports] Tipping Point Near ?

Fri May 11 09:26:53 CDT 2007

Regarding attendance:

I posted an analysis of the home attendance over the last 10 years (since
the 1997 season - the data that was readily available on NUsports.com minus
missing attendance numbers from the 1997 Wisconsin game and 1998 Purdue
game) on a popular NU message board, but I will summarize here.

2007: Attendance will be potentially be the lowest since 2002, which was the
lowest average attendance in the last decade.  The first 3 home games are,
of course, non conference games against bad teams (Northeastern, Duke) or
teams that have virtually no fan base anywhere close to here (Nevada).  And
even though Nevada is a good team, last year's game in Reno (despite being
the first home game against a BCS guaranteed conference) was not that well
attended (although they do have a smaller stadium).  Add to that the fact
that new student orientation (when the dorms open on campus) does not happen
until AFTER the Duke game, and that equals virtually no student attendance.
NUMB will also only be performing at the Duke game, leaving the earlier
games to a pep band and/or high school band.  Michigan comes to town this
year, but it's early in the season and it will not be a night game since the
one night game / year policy of Evanston is taken by the Duke game (which
will be televised on the BTN).  Other than the Michigan game, Iowa looks
like the only other game that will draw a big crowd, and last time Iowa came
attendance was about 35000, which is still a ways away from a sellout.  My
prediction for 2007 attendance is an average of 27590, unless the team does
really well (i.e. beat OSU and Michigan in consecutive weeks early in the
season).

Here is a rundown of attendance over the past decade (1997-2006):

Season - Games - Average - Sellouts

1997 - 6 - 40148 - 2
1998 - 5 - 41173 - 2
1999 - 6 - 30890 - 0
2000 - 6 - 34267 - 1
2001 - 5 - 34743 - 0
2002 - 6 - 27188 - 0
2003 - 6 - 28763 - 0
2004 - 6 - 28408 - 1
2005 - 6 - 32527 - 1
2006 - 6 - 27996 - 1

1997-2006 Average = 32426 (8 sellouts)
1997-2006 BT Average = 35408
1997-2006 Non-Conf Average = 26760

Largest Non-Conf Attendance = 40178 (Duke 1998)
Smallest BT Attendance = 22242 (Illinois 2006)
Smallest Attendance overall = 20108 (New Hampshire 2006)

Due to the season ticket base, attendance hasn't fallen below 20,000 in the
last decade, and I would imagine that it would stay above that for all of
the games this year, although the Northeastern game may really be hurting
since they are not even that great of a I-AA team.  Plus there hasn't been
any buzz about this coming season outside of the NU supporter crowd.

Main factors that have affected NU attendance:

- Performance: When NU does well on the field, attendance gets a bump (see
2000, 2001 - which was the effect of the 2000 success, and 2005).
- Time of game: night games bring in more people.  11AM games hurt
attendance.  And, of course, this is up to the media to determine so there's
not much NU can do there.
- Opponent: The only sellouts after 1997 have been for OSU and Michigan
games only.  In 1997 there were sellouts for PSU and MSU, but that was most
likely due to the following NU garnered after the 95 and 96 seasons.
Conversely non-conference games equal a large cut in attendance - compounded
by the fact that they are early in the season.
- Date of game: NU is on the quarter system and the students do not arrive
on campus until late September.  This means that home games before then will
be missing the student section (outside of probably 100 students who stayed
in Evanston over the summer).  Also, NUMB usually does not perform at the
very early games that are not within about 2 weeks of the start of classes.
This could shave off up to 5000 people from the attendance numbers.

At this point, I don't think ticket prices are the main factor in
attendance, although I do think that the university could maximize revenue
with a tiered pricing system or auction-like system (or, for something like
some pro teams do - have an authorized auction site for season ticket
holders to sell off single game tickets if they wish).  Success of the team
is probably #1.  Time/Date/Opponent - things out of NU's control for the
most part - are #2.  Marketing is the wild card and, despite having one of
the nation's top business schools, NU sports has been lacking a solid
marketing effort recently.  The big state schools don't really need the
marketing effort but being in the saturated pro-sports market of Chicago NU
needs to step up its game.  And that probably means putting at least some of
the seats in a different price range to encourage families and those who
would not normally go to a pro sports game to go to an NU football game.

Jonathan

On 5/10/07, cherron604 at aol.com <cherron604 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> 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
> -----Original Message-----
> From: artmiller1 at hotmail.com
> To: rstetson at capps-assoc.com; nwu-sports at tssi.com
> Sent: Thu, 10 May 2007 10:55 PM
> Subject: RE: [NU Sports] Tipping Point Near ?
>
>
> Roy, there *are* good seats to be had at Camden Yards.  I sat right behind
> the visitors dugout a couple summers ago.  Now, the tickets cost me $100
> each through StubHub, but for people willing to pay the market price there
> will ALWAYS be tix available for ANY event.
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
> Behalf Of Roy Lamberton
> Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 9:52 AM
> To: 'Dennis W. Brandt'; nwu-sports at tssi.com
> Subject: RE: [NU Sports] Tipping Point Near ?
>
> Ain't no diversity in the football or basketball stands...
>
> And the problem extends far beyond college sports - you can't get a decent
> seat
> at Camden Yards because all of the beltway bandits who bought up the
> season
> tickets and now give them to Yankee and Redsox fans AAAAARGH
>
> Ravens seats are out of sight [as are daBears] and I wouldn't pay to see
> an
> NBA
> game unless Kuban was going to be tossed.
>
> And I live where you can't get NU games on TV unless you watch on a
> computer,
> fuzzy picture and all.
>
> I'd rather sit in the press box and watch HS Baseball.
>
> rsl
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Roy S. Lamberton - Senior Associate
> Computer Applications & Support Associates
> and Publisher of Purple Reign,
> The Scout.com Northwestern University Site
> (http://www.purplewildcats.com)
> AIM Handle: CoachRoy74
> ======== Go Cats -  Beat 'em All ===========
> "You have a Republic Madam --
>      If you can keep it" - Benjamin Franklin
> ============================================
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com
> > [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On Behalf Of Dennis W. Brandt
> > Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 9:31 AM
> > To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
> > Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Tipping Point Near ?
> >
> >
> > Every one of you who has written in support of seating fees,
> > hidden or
> > overt, is using the same logic:  Two wrongs make a right,
> > i.e., if Johnny
> > threw a baseball through Mrs. Smith's window, then I should
> > be allowed to
> > bust another.  Heaven forbid a publically-funded university
> > actually make
> > some decent seats available to the general public.  Does Penn
> > State think
> > they won't be able to sell them?  Universities allegedly
> > support fairness
> > and diversity but never on Saturdays.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > nwu-sports site list
> > nwu-sports at tssi.com
> > http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/nwu-sports
> >
>
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-- 
Jonathan W. Hodges
829 Foster St Apt 401
Evanston, IL  60201-3259
(847) 736-2449
jonathanwhodges at gmail.com