[NU Sports] Post-Mortem

[Jonathan Hodges]

I mentioned some attendance notes in my last email, so sorry if I'm
inundating the listserv with messages, but I felt this warranted a response.

It's not that NU attendance is bad, but the fact is that it's getting worse,
despite fielding a competitive team over the last 15 years or so (and, on
occasion, a pretty good to great team).

I realize that we'll never see NU regularly hitting 90%+ capacity in a
50,000 seat stadium, but it would be nice to eclipse 60% regularly.  Instead
we're barely seeing 50% and getting sub-20,000 numbers for any non-name
opponents.

Even in the Dark Ages of NU football, attendance numbers never dipped this
low (someone with attendance numbers dating back about 40 years told me that
NU attendance hadn't dipped below 20,000 from the late 1970's through 2006.
>From 2007 through this season, NU has failed to reach 20,000 FIVE times).

Another part of the problem is that Chicago is a pro sports oriented town,
and a "fair weather" one at that (although the Cubs & Bears now regularly
sell out their games).

For those who just say "win more" the problem is that NU has been doing that
(especially relative to the 70's-80's period) but attendance hasn't
followed.

Jonathan

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 12:35 PM, Mike Nolan <nolan at romaine.tssi.com> wrote:

> > Like I've said numerous times and we've discussed a ton on this list, the
> > attendance issue is the biggest problem facing NU football right now, and
> > there is no easy fix.
>
> Chicago is not really a great sports ATTENDANCE town, especially for a team
> that
> doesn't do well.  The Sox averaged just under 70% of capacity this past
> season.  (The
> Cubs were at 96%, but I recall all too well the years when 5000 was a good
> crowd for
> a mid-week day game at Wrigley.)
>
> About the only Chicago team with a long history of always packing the house
> regardless
> of how the team does is the Bears.
>
> I believe that most of the college sports teams in Chicago draw poorly.
> --
> Mike Nolan
>
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