[NU Sports] Attendance

[Roy Lamberton]

My casual observation on attendance:

1. The 11 AM time makes it virtually impossible to fly into Chicago from the
east coast for a game without arriving Friday night and staying until Sunday
morning. A return to the 1 PM start would make it a LOT easier for out of town
people AND those on the south side of Chicago to get to games.

2. Bring back the Greek Tailgates - when we played Navy, several NU fraternities
had tailgates in the parking lot for their alums who also were former NROTC
guys. My fraternity apparently has wangled a way to hold a tailgate in the East
lot and does so every home game. I'm sure they are not encouraged to do that,
but they do.

3. Provide a way for NU people to sell their tickets [with parking] to other NU
people. The Naval Academy has a ticket share system that is run through their
official web site. I was able to get tickets a couple of weeks ago, to see the
sold out Navy - Delaware game. My seats were 10 rows behind the Navy bench.

4. I like the idea of putting the Band in the endzone, or on the other side with
the students - we need to take back our field. After all those years of poor
football, we need to figure out how to get a purple presence on both sides of
the field at the 50.

We also have to remember that few mid level Div I college teams in major markets
that have NFL teams draw well [with the exception of Los Angeles.] Maryland
still doesn't sell out, Philly and New York don't have Div I teams, Boston
College is up and down. SMU [Dallas] never could get enough people in the stands
to fill Cowboy Stadium, Georgia Tech has issues in Atlanta, Miami U still has
trouble drawing in Miami.

Look at the major markets with NFL and college football will always be 3rd or
4th to the local pro teams. Now, if the college is not in the major city,
they'll do fine if they win [Michigan and MSU for example] The fact still
remains that the major college teams that sell out all the time, all play in
cities without a true pro football presence.

I'm sure someone can do a study on why - maybe its that the Columbus paper only
has football news about the Bucks as a lead with the Browns and Bengals as
secondary . 

rsl



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Roy S. Lamberton - Senior Associate
& sometime Unix Guru....
Computer Applications & Support Associates 
==========  Go Cats -  Beat 'em All  ============
"You have a Republic Madam --
     If you can keep it" - Benjamin Franklin
============================================