K92

Different sport, different excuses.

Different sport, different excuses.

Rednecks, white socks and Blue Ribbon beer?

Northern strung together quite a few. How's their attendance? Also, it is curious that you would use the 2nd worst attended MAC Championship Game to illustrate your optimism for future Zips attendance. According Wikipedia, there were 12,051 total fans were there so I guess the entire crowd inside was Zips fans and the other 2,949 made the trip to tailgate only.

There is plenty of evidence that refutes this claim.

83 pages long, but a good read. DECLINING ATTENDANCE TRENDS IN COLLEGIATE AND PROFESSIONAL SPORTS

We are all different. Each of us have our own values and ideals, goals, dreams and frustrations. Likewise our comments and actions are as varied as the former. We are all Zips fans though and we are the sniping-est bunch of fans ever. We are the MAC version of the Bickering Bills. I am personally ok with the back and forth because I am an active participant in it and I still have respect for the rest of you guys even though our opinions differ. . . Because you are advocates for the University. You all are family to me even though I have never met face-to-face with a lot of you. A lot of you, I have. The entire shebang revolves around the social aspect of attending these games. If it weren't for that, I would be a TV Zips fan. It was not watching the game in person that brought me to Infocision Stadium on a ass-biting cold blizzard night to watch the Zips play the hapless UMass Minutemen in 2014, it was the shared experience with my buddies. I know that the key to getting people to the games is the party experience at the tailgate. You can watch at home but you have to be there to tailgate. Primetime programs have hordes of people tailgating outside the stadium that never go into the game. They are there for the party. I have tried to promote tailgating. I created a Facebook Zips tailgating page that has really sputtered. It is an easy interface to share pictures, if nothing else but no one but me was posting pictures. I stopped posting because I figured the members that we have on that page were sick of seeing me and my friends' ugly mugs on there. It's still up and active and every year when the season is about to start, I make another plea on this forum to join and use it, but it has gone nowhere fast. I have added to my tailgating setup every year to make it better and accommodate more people. Last year, I bit the bullet and purchased a tailgating trailer. ZG01 bought a 87 foot long land yacht of a RV to tailgate out of. There are people over in Lot 10 who have made a large financial investment in their tailgating gear. Every year the Phi Psis put on one helluva tailgate for homecoming. Efforts are being made by a lot of people to encourage attendance through tailgating but it's a tough go. A 25-year co-worker of mine who is a good friend has a son that is coming back this fall as a Sophomore. Last summer, I primed this kid to come over and tailgate with us. We are just a short walk from his dorm. I promised to feed him well. Do you think he bothered to come over and even just snoop around even once? Nope. There is no incoming student that had any more priming for Akron Football than this kid, trust me. This is a kid who is a football fan and who was a high school all-star player. What does his total lack of interest tell you? If the whole premise of this 9100 thread is to shine a light on the embarrassment that our attendance is and how to increase it, perhaps we should lower our sights a little bit. Maybe we should be discussing what can be done to maintain 9100 because I think we are dangerously close to having season ticket holders who NEVER miss a game pack it in and be done with it. There are is a certain contingent, myself included, who buy season tickets for the assurance of a preferred parking pass. If I was not assured a Lot 9 pass, I would not be buying season tickets any longer. I would walk up purchase on the dates I wanted to attend, which sure as Hell ain't all 6. The schedule being such a complete travesty has brought me to the point of actually deliberating if it is worth it. The two best home opponents are on Tuesday nights in November. Saturday tailgates are for a FCS, Iowa State, Ball State & Buffalo. That is not a sked that excites even the most die-hard of Akron football fans. This is a sad state of affairs. We can go on and on and on and I feel after reading what I just wrote that this post is mostly rehash, too. Skip Zip is right. What we need is an injection of 10,000 people just like the folks who already care. NOW. Wishful thinking. . .

Oh crap! Bwahahahahahaha. Oops!

How dare I profane the name of the chosen one! May my soul burn in Hell for eternity. A local Akron guy who puts his support behind the team in Franklin County that needs no assistance instead of the local institution is part of the problem no matter his celebrity level. Whatever. Maybe you're right and I'm wrong. Keep on groveling in the free world

He's part of the problem, not the solution.

This topic has been beat to death. Conventional wisdom says win and they will come. Need proof? Just look at NIU. http://www.daily-chronicle.com/2015/06/08/niu-football-looking-to-boost-dropping-attendance/aqix8sq/ Seriously though. . . Before there is ever going to be a jump in attendance, there needs to school pride instilled in students. Good luck with that. The place was nicknamed Apathy U. for a reason. I do as much as I can to promote the University but I am an extreme minority. MAC students are self-loathing. I don't know why the students of the schools that were held up as examples of better attendance have school pride but they obviously do. Perhaps the entire conference should invest some money in a research firm to come up with some solutions because every institution in this league could use an attendance boost.

Yeah, cause baseball sucks.

To not try this kid on the defensive line is criminal.

His statistics weren't spectacular, but he was the straw that stirred the drink.

No one ever understands Nostradamus' predictions before they happen, but they make a lot of sense after the fact.

You could have enlarged that a little. I'm an old Drano chugger.

I was speaking of reasons for decreased attendance across the entire spectrum of college football. I make no excuses for our pi$$ poor attendance and never have. You must have me confused with a Kool-Aid drinker. Everyone (except you, I guess) knows I'm a Drano chugger.

Blame SiriusXM & Paul Finebaum.

Some interesting reads. . . Empty Seats Now, Fewer Donors Later? The real reason college football live game attendance is down FACTORS INFLUENCING STUDENT AND EMPLOYEE ATTENDANCE AT COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAMES What Factors Contribute to Attendance in College Football?

C'mon, Doc. You can't be comparing getting out of your recliner to go around the corner and pour a delicious craft brew to standing up from your piece of aluminum to ask everyone else between you and the aisle to stand up so you can squeeze by to go down to the concession stand to buy a Yuengling.

Interesting. Perhaps this has been posted before, but I have never seen it. Factors Affecting Student Decisions to Attend Selected BGSU Athletics Events

I don't root for any other teams but the Zips but I love college football and I, like you, feel I miss out on a lot of what's going on in the larger picture of games when I am in the stadium. Many people at the stadium are looking at updates on their phones and a lot more would be looking if the University had decent wifi. An ESPN update center on the jumbotron during stoppages in play would be infinitely more entertaining than Keith Kennedy trying to lead an unresponsive crowd in the umpteenth "Let's Go Zips" chant.

Sugar coat? Our attendance blows. See what you want to see, though.