[NU Sports] NU Attendance et al

[Roy Lamberton]

There is no simple solution, but an old sales maxim is that if they don't buy, you can either lower your price or add more things to the proposal.

IBM did this kind of thing for years and their mainframe computers were widely used, not because they were necessarily better (you true geeks can fight over that one), but their sales guys knew how to get top dollar by offering more.

Unfortunately, I think NU has priced themselves out of the market. 

In my case, I just can't justify spending the airfare, the possible hotel stay, car rental to get to the off campus hotel, and the tickets to the game. I'd like to go, but it’s a lot of money for 2 people (my wife included) to go to Evanston for a game. Besides, I am probably the #1 jinx for home football, I've never seen NU win a game at home and I'm afraid that jinx will continue.

Basketball is another story - they win when I come into town but those games are even more expensive since you do have to stay over.

As for those from the Chicago area, we just don't seem to have many Alums in Chicago, at least not as many as other schools. My fraternity, Chi Phi, is holding a game watching party in Chicago to try to help reorganize the Illinois and NU chapters - everyone who is coming so far is from other Big 10 Schools!

So, we can try dropping the price and see what we get or we can improve the quality of play, and hope we get the media coverage that gets the possible fans excited.

But with our "friends" down in South Bend dominating the Trib and Sun-Times football coverage, don't count on anything big - maybe this week we get a big splash, but beating Iowa should have been the lead story in the Sunday papers, and I bet it wasn't.

rsl
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Roy S. Lamberton - Senior Associate & Unix Guru.
Computer Applications & Support Associates
-------------------- Also ----------------------
Commissioner Delaware American Legion Baseball
Retired Senior Chief Cryptologic Technician [R]
Northwestern University - Speech 1974 - 
Chi Phi: Pi 1974, KD 1968
Publisher Emeritus: Purple Reign (Fox Sports)
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I can appreciate the appeal of a simple solutions.
 
To summarize this one - Fans will fill our stadium if our team win more consistently.  In order to win more consistently we have to recruit at the same level as the teams you mentioned - OSU, Michigan, and Florida.
 
The problem with simple solutions are that they are most effective solving simple problems.  
 
Establishing a robust college sports program in a major metropolitan area is a complex problem.