[NU Sports] Saturdays at Dyche Stadium

[Hakirsch at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/6/2009 10:18:11 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
jleonard518 at yahoo.com writes:

> Fellow Wildcat Faithful,
> 
> This falls somewhere between 719 and 751 on the top 800 things that NU 
> needs to improve, but it has been on my mind  a while. Our game day experience 
> at Dyche Stadium just isn't good. 
> 
> Attendance is a huge part of that, and I'm not sure what can be done short 
> of the team winning consistently. Our home crowds haven't cracked 20,000 
> yet this year in a city that has well over 3,000,000. I suspect that the Big 
> Ten Network may have hurt our cause somewhat too. 
> 
> The other aspects of game day in Evanston need some attention too. Wildcat 
> Alley doesn't seem to draw all that well. We must be one of only a handful 
> of schools in America to literally give out free (good) beer and we still 
> don't get big numbers. 
> 
> 

These are all valid points and definitely cause us to be viewed as a minor 
player in the BT--I have alawys thought that if need be, we ought to be 
giving away tickets--whether through charity or literally offering promotions 
through the sports bars and the like----It is embarrassing to see the crowds 
so small for a conf game--

As has been said by several other list members, a school with the 
reputation for the best marketing program in the country should come up with ways to 
improve attendance when you have 3 million people in the area and a pretty 
good product--even when NU isnt playing well.  When I was in school and we 
were absolutely horrible--(75-80)--I missed very few games, because I wanted 
to see the other teams--there has to be that kind of latent interest out 
there in Chicagoland

Harry