Interesting Article re: Student Attendance

[Husky59]

WSJ did a piece today on student attendance at college football games here. I'm not sure if we aren't facing some of the same problems from the general fans attending the games (TV start times only a week ahead of time, other activities on the wknds, watching at home on the couch, etc).

 

[BlueWhiteKid]

It's not going to help student attendance that tomorrow night is also the home opener for the 6th ranked men's soccer team. I know plenty of students who will choose soccer over football.

 

[pepband99]

It's not going to student attendance that tomorrow night is also the home opener for the 6th ranked men's soccer team. I know plenty of students who will choose soccer over football.

...see what you wannabe-Eurotrash World Cup people have done, now? THIS IS LUNACY.

 

[freescooter]

yet another nice scheduling job by our Athletic Department...To a degree this ought to be a very worrying phenomenon for all Athletic Directors. It is like eating your seed corn. You might benefit in the short run, but long term its a potential serious problem. I posted some links in another thread about this. When every home game kicked off at 1:00 on Saturday you could plan. We have home games that we are waiting to be told when they'll kick off, and absolutly no consideration will be given to the convenience of the fans who go to the games. None. College football, and to a lesser degree basketball sold out to tv. i tshouldn't be all that shocking that the fans, especially the students, did too. An additional problem is that college football has tried to make itself NFL lite. It isn't. It is a different game with different advantages...running quarterbacks, wide varieties of offenses and defenses, styles of play all make it a much more unpredictable and in my mind more fun game. It is also a much more regional game in the sense that teams rely on "local" fans far more than the NFL. There were never national teams except Notre Dame, maybe Army, and Navy in their heyday. the current thinking is to make some teams the Dallas Cowboys of the NCAA. but what it has ended up doin gis causing the folks who really have supported programs to lose interest. People root for Michigan or UConn because they feel some gut level connection, whether because they or some family member graduated or because they live in Wayne or Willimantic. And finally, this gets left out of most analyses of this issue but I firmly believe that the focus on a national Champion is bad for football. It was never more than a modest part of the sport's history until the 1990s. Before that it was always "mythical" and often had multiple claimants, both official and unofficial. That it was rarely "settled on the field" wasn't really an issue, because Alabama cared more about beating Auburn anyway, just as Ohio State did with Michigan, and Army did with Navy. Pretty much every team had a couple of "must win games" on the that coaches player and fans all cared about. When you put a national tournament out there, beating Ohio State is less important than playing some game in an NFL stadium 1000 miles from your campus without any of your students and only your wealthiest fans. NFL-lite yet again. Michigan fans used to say "I can live with going 1-9 as long as the 1 is Ohio State." they didn't exactly mean it, but that expressed an underlying sense of how important that game was. Not any more. My guess is if you gave Ohio State AD the choice of beating Michigan or winning the National Champiosnhip, such as it is, he'd take the latter without even thinking.

 

[jackl]

...see what you wannabe-Eurotrash World Cup people have done, now? THIS IS LUNACY.

But they can't tailgate! GO HUSKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[TMB4405]

I actually was shocked when I saw the soccer team was playing at home at the same time. Not that I am a huge soccer fan, but i have been to several Uconn games over the last few years. How could this game not be rescheduled for Saturday? If even 1000 fans go to soccer instead of football its a problem. Also, the soccer attendance will certainly suffer. That is not what you want when you are paying a nationally ranked opponent in your home opener.

Terrible

 

[Jax Husky]

yet another nice scheduling job by our Athletic Department...To a degree this ought to be a very worrying phenomenon for all Athletic Directors. It is like eating your seed corn. You might benefit in the short run, but long term its a potential serious problem. I posted some links in another thread about this. When every home game kicked off at 1:00 on Saturday you could plan. We have home games that we are waiting to be told when they'll kick off, and absolutly no consideration will be given to the convenience of the fans who go to the games. None. College football, and to a lesser degree basketball sold out to tv. i tshouldn't be all that shocking that the fans, especially the students, did too. An additional problem is that college football has tried to make itself NFL lite. It isn't. It is a different game with different advantages...running quarterbacks, wide varieties of offenses and defenses, styles of play all make it a much more unpredictable and in my mind more fun game. It is also a much more regional game in the sense that teams rely on "local" fans far more than the NFL. There were never national teams except Notre Dame, maybe Army, and Navy in their heyday. the current thinking is to make some teams the Dallas Cowboys of the NCAA. but what it has ended up doin gis causing the folks who really have supported programs to lose interest. People root for Michigan or UConn because they feel some gut level connection, whether because they or some family member graduated or because they live in Wayne or Willimantic. And finally, this gets left out of most analyses of this issue but I firmly believe that the focus on a national Champion is bad for football. It was never more than a modest part of the sport's history until the 1990s. Before that it was always "mythical" and often had multiple claimants, both official and unofficial. That it was rarely "settled on the field" wasn't really an issue, because Alabama cared more about beating Auburn anyway, just as Ohio State did with Michigan, and Army did with Navy. Pretty much every team had a couple of "must win games" on the that coaches player and fans all cared about. When you put a national tournament out there, beating Ohio State is less important than playing some game in an NFL stadium 1000 miles from your campus without any of your students and only your wealthiest fans. NFL-lite yet again. Michigan fans used to say "I can live with going 1-9 as long as the 1 is Ohio State." they didn't exactly mean it, but that expressed an underlying sense of how important that game was. Not any more. My guess is if you gave Ohio State AD the choice of beating Michigan or winning the National Champiosnhip, such as it is, he'd take the latter without even thinking.

how in the hell do you expect anyone to read this?

Anyway, I don't buy into the idea that TV times selected a week in advance have much of an impact on whether people are going to games or not. That may affect 1000 or so fans, but by and large, almost all fans know they are going whether the game is at 12,3, or 7.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

No to mention that UConn’s student body can walk to a soccer game versus taking a bus to the football game. Plus, the tickets are cheaper. If I was a lukewarm soccer and football fan, those would be two big points in favor for soccer.

 

[freescooter]

how in the hell do you expect anyone to read this?

Anyway, I don't buy into the idea that TV times selected a week in advance have much of an impact on whether people are going to games or not. That may affect 1000 or so fans, but by and large, almost all fans know they are going whether the game is at 12,3, or 7.

And if that were the only factor, it would be fine. But it is one of a bunch of aggravating factors that take away from the game experience. Look, as I posted on the Houston Stadium thread, a survey of fans nationwide ranked the current experience as 6.5 out of 10. Basically attending the game is borderline disappointing, so why bother. And it is affecting students in a big way. And guess who the fans will be in 5 or 10 or 20 years? Or who they won't be...

 

[Chief00]

If soccer has any impact whatsoever on football attendance we have got a bigger problem than just poor scheduling.

 

[WestHartHusk]

I don't think its really a "problem" that we also have a popular soccer team. Quite frankly, I like soccer more than football - but I support the football team because of the situation we are in. However, I can completely understand wanting to see a soccer game over a football game.

 

[freescooter]

If soccer has any impact whatsoever on football attendance we have got a bigger problem than just poor scheduling.

Warde lets this kind of nonsense happen all the time. Shoot, even Wesleyan is capable of scheduling games so big ones don't conflict. I could understand this if the football game had been re-scheduled for Friday night last week, but UConn made a big friggin' deal out of it months ago. This could have been a great event on Friday followed up by a smaller but also great event on Saturday night. But our Athletic Department is apparently incapable of looking at a calender and seeing that two events conflict. I saw the hoop schedule just came out. I'm afraid to look to see if there are conflicts there. Its a good thing that basketball and hockey don't share an arena, though, because no doubt our brilliant Athletic Department would have them both playing home games at the same time.

 

[CTBasketball]

Ease of access gentlemen.

Think back to your hey days, if you were at a college party and there was a solid 6 who was down for anything vs. a 10 who you didn't have a chance with, you're going to go with the easier option. For most lukewarm soccer/football fans, soccer is the easier option.

 

[John]

yet another nice scheduling job by our Athletic Department...To a degree this ought to be a very worrying phenomenon for all Athletic Directors. It is like eating your seed corn. You might benefit in the short run, but long term its a potential serious problem. I posted some links in another thread about this. When every home game kicked off at 1:00 on Saturday you could plan. We have home games that we are waiting to be told when they'll kick off, and absolutly no consideration will be given to the convenience of the fans who go to the games. None. College football, and to a lesser degree basketball sold out to tv. i tshouldn't be all that shocking that the fans, especially the students, did too. An additional problem is that college football has tried to make itself NFL lite. It isn't. It is a different game with different advantages...running quarterbacks, wide varieties of offenses and defenses, styles of play all make it a much more unpredictable and in my mind more fun game. It is also a much more regional game in the sense that teams rely on "local" fans far more than the NFL. There were never national teams except Notre Dame, maybe Army, and Navy in their heyday. the current thinking is to make some teams the Dallas Cowboys of the NCAA. but what it has ended up doin gis causing the folks who really have supported programs to lose interest. People root for Michigan or UConn because they feel some gut level connection, whether because they or some family member graduated or because they live in Wayne or Willimantic. And finally, this gets left out of most analyses of this issue but I firmly believe that the focus on a national Champion is bad for football. It was never more than a modest part of the sport's history until the 1990s. Before that it was always "mythical" and often had multiple claimants, both official and unofficial. That it was rarely "settled on the field" wasn't really an issue, because Alabama cared more about beating Auburn anyway, just as Ohio State did with Michigan, and Army did with Navy. Pretty much every team had a couple of "must win games" on the that coaches player and fans all cared about. When you put a national tournament out there, beating Ohio State is less important than playing some game in an NFL stadium 1000 miles from your campus without any of your students and only your wealthiest fans. NFL-lite yet again. Michigan fans used to say "I can live with going 1-9 as long as the 1 is Ohio State." they didn't exactly mean it, but that expressed an underlying sense of how important that game was. Not any more. My guess is if you gave Ohio State AD the choice of beating Michigan or winning the National Champiosnhip, such as it is, he'd take the latter without even thinking.

It was a few years ago, but I remember a 9pm basketball start vs. Syracuse in Hartford on a weeknight due to ESPN. Talk about a brutal next day at work.

 

[John]

Not to turn this into a bitchfest, but I go to the UConnhuskies.com website to do the print out schedules for soccer. The schedule that it links to is 2012. C'mon folks, get your act together.

http://www.uconnhuskies.com/multimedia/printable-sched.html

 

[freescooter]

Not to turn this into a bitchfest, but I go to the UConnhuskies.com website to do the print out schedules for soccer. The schedule that it links to is 2012. C'mon folks, get your act together.

http://www.uconnhuskies.com/multimedia/printable-sched.html

John,
Maybe in a few years the UConn Athletic Department will get this whole interweb thingy...

 

[DarthGrumpy]

It was a few years ago, but I remember a 9pm basketball start vs. Syracuse in Hartford on a weeknight due to ESPN. Talk about a brutal next day at work.

Then are different brutal days at work. First, its a brutal day at work in NYC arriving at the office at 8 AM after staying up to 2 AM after watching UConn lose in a 6OT heartbreaker to Syracuse in 2009. Second, it's a brutal day in the office when I get there at 8 AM after being out to 2 AM after partying my arse off with UConn fans after beating Kentucky for the national championship in 2014. Both required a lot of water and Advil the next day, except one was done with a grimace and was done with a smile.