I want UMass in the league

[storrsroars]

Oh...to answer your question, UConn fans will fill the Rent to watch their team play.

No they won't.

If there's any statement in all this mess that I can guarantee, it's that attendance will be embarrassingly low.

I live in a hotbed of football. I've seen Pitt packed to SRO for Penn State games. I've seen tumbleweeds at Heinz for this year's ridiculously awful BE schedule. There is incredible excitement here over FSU coming to start next year's season, even though it's all but a guaranteed Panthers loss.

Yes, rivalries are built over time. But they can also be regional - and usually there exist regional rivalries long before national ones. And in the mix are "interesting" games vs. interesting opponents. UConn won't even be attracting that. The faster UMass can get their act together the better to create a game UConn can sell.

Funny that we can't ask to develop a NY rival like Stony Brook to a competent D1 opponent - because their AAU status means they'd probably be asked to join the B1G before us.

 

[Husky25]

No they won't.

If there's any statement in all this mess that I can guarantee, it's that attendance will be embarrassingly low.

I live in a hotbed of football. I've seen Pitt packed to SRO for Penn State games. I've seen tumbleweeds at Heinz for this year's ridiculously awful BE schedule. There is incredible excitement here over FSU coming to start next year's season, even though it's all but a guaranteed Panthers loss.

Yes, rivalries are built over time. But they can also be regional - and usually there exist regional rivalries long before national ones. And in the mix are "interesting" games vs. interesting opponents. UConn won't even be attracting that. The faster UMass can get their act together the better to create a game UConn can sell.

Funny that we can't ask to develop a NY rival like Stony Brook to a competent D1 opponent - because their AAU status means they'd probably be asked to join the B1G before us.

Thanks for taking my quote out of context.

PSU and Pitt haven't played each other since 2000 and aren't expected to until 2016. A world of change has taken place since then and probably will before their next meeting. They started playing each other in 1893, a full 10 years before Kitty Hawk and well before air travel was a luxury for the highfalutin, let alone the current norm of chartered air travel for college athletics. All rivalries were regional back in the day.

Regarding attendance: Pittsburgh is a small market town for MLB purposes, but it is still a Major League town and a fairly large city. The Penguins recently won the Stanley Cup and the Steelers are a religion merely because of the NFL. Point is, there is a lot of activity competing for the entertainment dollar. Pitt played largely the same Big East schedule this year as they had since 2004. The reasons you see tumbleweeds at Heinz is: that Pitt is excruciating mediocre and historically under-achieving compared to their expectations and perceived talent, especially since the beginning of the Wandstandt era. In 2012, they not only had a poor showing vs. a 1-AA team, they lost on their way to finishing 6-6 and losing in their bowl game. Also Heinz holds 65,000 people. Any stadium will look empty filled to only 64% capacity.

 

[storrsroars]

The canard about "lots of options competing for the entertainment dollar" is just that. There are tons of museums, outdoor activities, etc. etc. too. For all intents and purposes the Steelers and Panthers football dollars are almost exclusive to each other.

Apologies if you think I took you out of context. Maybe some harder facts will make my point. The best three years of attendance at Heinz were Harris's penultimate year and Wanny's last two.

In Harris's last year (2004) Pitt was in a BCS bowl, yet only drew an average of 41,583 to Heinz. The largest attendance was for WVU (52.6K). In the year prior (2003), Pitt averaged 59,183. That year featured ND (66.4), VT (66.2) and Miami (60.5) - the halcyon days of the BE.

In Wanny's last two seasons, Pitt averaged 52,183 (2010) and 53,414 (2009). 2010 was bolstered by WVU and Miami. 2009 was bolstered by ND and "title game" vs. Cincy for a BCS berth. Each of the specific games mentioned drew > 60K.

To give you an idea just how bad attendance vs BE teams not named WVU was, in 2007, UConn was the biggest draw with just over 40K. In 2005, Youngstown St. outdrew every BE game (luckily they had ND on the sked or the average would've been about 36K/game).

Point being, if you give fans here a game to watch, they'll attend. And that's not much different than anywhere else. And for the last 10 years of BE football, there hasn't been much to watch - no top teams, no rivalries other than WVU. For Pitt, that's changed. For UConn, it's just going to get worse.

 

[Husky25]

The canard about "lots of options competing for the entertainment dollar" is just that. There are tons of museums, outdoor activities, etc. etc. too. For all intents and purposes the Steelers and Panthers football dollars are almost exclusive to each other.

That's not exactly true. Disregarding cost, I know for a fact that my wife would probably be my ex-wife in short order if I were at football related events on both weekend days.

Apologies if you think I took you out of context...

I have no desire to be combative. That was not my intention, as I'm pretty sure it wasn't yours. If a team is winning, they should not have to rely on a visiting opponent or their fans to fill the home stadium (especially when said stadium currently only seats 40,000 as it is), whether the opponent is right up I-91 or 1,500 miles away. Winning is winning. Winning puts butts on the benches. Pitt did not, by and large, meet (albeit some lofty yearly) expectations. I expect UConn to be a winning football program in this new conference and I expect competitive games vs Cinci, USF, and Temple. Ergo, adding another developing program in UMass is unnecessary.

 

[jostar1]

mark blaudschun‏@blauds
UMass big time football change from FCS to FBS level? 800 more people per game http://ajerseyguy.com

 

[UCFBfan]

To give you an idea just how bad attendance vs BE teams not named WVU was, in 2007, UConn was the biggest draw with just over 40K. In 2005, Youngstown St. outdrew every BE game (luckily they had ND on the sked or the average would've been about 36K/game).

How many of those fans were from Youngstown? I'm not saying you're wrong but picking a game where the visiting team is located right across the border isn't a good example. I don't see Pitt doing any better attendance wise with the ACC schedule. So beside FSU, who else is going to draw? This played out at WVU this past season. I don't specific numbers but I remember watching their Primetime game against Oklahoma, at home, and they had almost 2/3 of the upper deck on one side empty. I bet all of their fans were juiced for that game when they prepared to move to the Big-12, like you said Pitt fans are about FSU. I just think it's tough being a college team in a pro city. Northeast college teams face that every day and UConn is no exception. Add into it that there is ZERO history between these schools being shuffled around and fans find it hard to get juiced for games. It is going to be tough to draw fans but I think UConn will do fine as long as they keep winning. Boise plays a bunch of nobodies and they keep drawing and the reason is that they win. If UConn wins, and I don't think it will be a cake walk like others do, they will be fine.

 

[storrsroars]

That's not exactly true. Disregarding cost, I know for a fact that my wife would probably be my ex-wife in short order if I were at football related events on both weekend days.

That was my point. Panthers & Steelers fans/money is almost mutually exclusive (although it's apparently against the law here to not own a Steelers jersey).