I'm also in Section 241, and what I see is this:
1) When we aren't playing a big name school at home, plenty of the seats around me are either empty or occupied by somebody who doesn't own the tickets (meaning people give tickets away for the weaker games). There is a strong group of people that use their season tickets for every game no matter who the opponent is, but that probably only accounts for half the fan base. It has always been this way and I don't think it is worse this year.
2) LOTS of people come to the Rent for the party, and the football game is icing on the cake. That alone will keep attendance north of 30K unless the program falls off the map.
3) There was NO enthusiasm about last season in my section. The diehards complained about every inside handoff, every bad pass, and whined about every game even though we won ALL of them at home. Up until our last home game, when it became "possible" for us to go to a BCS game...there were always predictions of gloom and doom, even from the people that showed up every game.
Bottom line...the fan base at large has a long way to go...and given the demographics of the fan base and the way the people in this state are in general, I just don't see it changing that rapidly.
There are always passionate, knowledgeable fans at UConn games. There are usually greater numbers of passionate and knowledgeable fans at UConn games when the games are against better opponents and the game has importance. But UConn does suffer, in relative numbers, passionate fans compared to many other programs.
Two years ago Georgia played an important game against Alabama. The Gerogia fans dressed in red. It was an impressive showing on television. Everywhere it was red. Every fan was standing. By halftime the game was over for Georgia. No one left. They were still standing.
UConn has more than its share of fans that think it is dumb to put on a color to support the school. There are many fans that refuse to stand up even during exciting moments and many of these fans are not geriatric. Far too many people leave well before the game ends. Certainly less so if the game is exciting and the outcome is uncertain. But I'm always amazed anyone leaves in these games.
This is not just a problem for football. I've been to men's and women's bb games during seasons of NC runs and the above holds true.
Fans on the Boneyard forums are not the prototypical UConn fans. They are the prototypical fans of the major programs in the South and Midwest. Too many fans attending UConn games believe it is wrong to express passion and emotions. They are either successful, stoic types or puritan types.
The Northeast does not lack passionate fans. Anyone attending or observing a Giants game, Eagles game, Patriots game, Yankees or Red Sox game knows this. But this passion is not nearly as evident at the UConn games. The problem imo, was the push by Lew Perkins and Jeff Hathaway to get corporate people into the arenas. Many of these fans have allegiances to other schools and/or many of these fans find sports a diversion or trophy and not an important part of life.
The passionate fans were first moved to upper seats and then out of the arenas all together. President Herbst and the future AD must, imo, reverse this. They could take immediate steps by getting more students into the venues. And not by a lottery which ignores the passionate students, but by allowing the kids to camp out for games. Reserve some seats for high school kids in the state. Hold contests in which kids compete in cheering and dressing competitions for seats. And get those blue collar crazies back into the seats as well.
This doesn't have to be accomplished all at once. Start with a mix, keeping the big sponsors for the immediate bucks. But begin the process. The school needs to think long term and value long term loyalty. The school needs to factor the importance of a large fan base that, although it can't come up with tens of thousands of dollars in donations, will turn on a television set and tune into the game and show ESPN it has a huge viewership to consider. There is no reason at all that UConn should have trouble filling 75,000 to 100,000 seats if they start the process of bringing in the right "type" of fan. I remember growing up and going to the Yale Bowl and there would be 70,000 screaming fans for an Ivy League game.
