Student Game Attendance – Root Cause Problem Solving | Page 5 | The Boneyard

Student Game Attendance – Root Cause Problem Solving

I was at game, it was long.

We have to determine:

1. Why students don’t stay (beautiful day, wasn’t cold, if it was transportation that’s a problem)

2. Maybe they don’t care. No one leaves hoops games early.

I will say, unlike basketball you go to a football game it is literally an all day affair. We left house at noon, got back at 9 pm.

And I live in Farmington. You can’t have after plans
 
JohnFSilver said:
I was at game, it was long.

We have to determine:

1. Why students don’t stay (beautiful day, wasn’t cold, if it was transportation that’s a problem)

2. Maybe they don’t care. No one leaves hoops games early.

I will say, unlike basketball you go to a football game it is literally an all day affair. We left house at noon, got back at 9 pm.

And I live in Farmington. You can’t have after plans
Expand ...

This really is a big hurdle culturally. Unless you grew up around college football and this was the norm in your childhood, it is difficult to flip this from theory to practice.

Where I'm at in the panhandle of Florida we have friends who are fans of every southern school you'd expect. It's not uncommon to go to a friend's house from 11am until 9-10 pm and end up watching 3 or 4 games. Lots of times, someone hosts and friends pop in for one or two of the games. It's a rolling timeframe.

When we go to a Saturday game, it is definitely go up on a Friday, football all Saturday and head home on Sunday. An entire weekend focused around a football game. And no one bats an eye at the thought of it.
 
HCCForever said:
And the players certainly notice. Jordan Wright mentioned the student section during his interview with Ava (I think that's her name). The game was a four-hour slog but I would hope most students could remain till the end of the game.
Expand ...
The four hour game certainly forced some folks to leave early, but that had nothing to do with the students leaving. 90% of the student section bailed out at halftime.
 
JohnFSilver said:
I was at game, it was long.

We have to determine:

1. Why students don’t stay (beautiful day, wasn’t cold, if it was transportation that’s a problem)

2. Maybe they don’t care. No one leaves hoops games early.

I will say, unlike basketball you go to a football game it is literally an all day affair. We left house at noon, got back at 9 pm.

And I live in Farmington. You can’t have after plans
Expand ...

For 1 and 2, isn't the problem the "experience" isn't worth it for them? Other than the actual game itself (which up until this year was a negative), the tailgate and food and communal event just isn't there for them? And it's just not attractive enough to draw groups of students 4 or 8 at a clip for their own individual party?
 
.-.
Do a hoops ticket giveaway with prime seating but winner isn't announced until end of game and you have to be in the section to win.
Other than that I got nothin. I don't think the students give a rats ass and I dont think it's changing until we are in a good conference.
Meanwhile the poor band that does a great job gets stuffed in a corner. Maybe it's time to switch the seating of the two.
 
I am going to play “back-in-my day”, so please bear with me. I was at Penn in the late 1960s. Ivy League football culture was far from the SEC/BiG model. My fraternity brothers and I would walk six blocks to Penn’s on-campus Franklin Field for a 2:00 kickoff.

At game’s end, we’d walk the six blocks back to the house, have dinner, then get ready for the best fraternity parties on campus.

No 45 minute bus rides. No waiting for buses to leave back to campus. The entire focus of my experience was campus (and party) driven.

Need I say more to explain the students’ lackluster attitude toward The Rent.

P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, my enthusiastic embrace of the party culture was a major reason for my academic demise at Penn, resulting in three years of service in the U.S. Army before transferring to UConn, where I received a terrific education.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Kembafan said:
If you attend all home games you get to place out of the math requirement (if you’re a humanities major) or humanities requirement (if you’re a stem major). Problem solved.
Expand ...
This would unironically work lmao
 
Those who care to, throw a buck or two into a collection box as they enter the stadium. At end end of the game the amount collected is awarded to a seat number and the student in that seat gets the prize so long as they are in their seat at the time of the drawing.
 
.-.
businesslawyer said:
The vast majority of students who got themselves to the game left at halftime of a game with UConn up two. Maybe — just maybe — it’s time to quit blaming others for the fact that the student body just doesn’t give a damn.
Expand ...
Of course, they don't give a damn about a product that's located at a half hour off-campus. Might they be more likely to actually give a damn if it were actually an integrated part of campus life rather than an off-campus activity choice that requires an hour of commuting? Probably.
 
CL82 said:
Of course, they don't give a damn about a product that's located at a half hour off-campus. Might they be more likely to actually give a damn if it were actually an integrated part of campus life rather than an off-campus activity choice that requires an hour of commuting? Probably.
Expand ...
This argument would be stronger if they didn't leave a game at halftime that they were already at...
 
UConnDan97 said:
This argument would be stronger if they didn't leave a game at halftime that they were already at...
Expand ...
Perhaps. Or perhaps it just speaks to the fact that they aren't emotionally invested in an event that takes place 30 miles off campus?
 
CL82 said:
Perhaps. Or perhaps it just speaks to the fact that they aren't emotionally invested in an event that takes place 30 miles off campus?
Expand ...
Then they wouldn't have been there to begin with, right?

Unless you mean that they aren't emotionally invested in the product, in which case, there is NO location that will help make their attendance better...
 
GoConn said:
students will be there vs Wake. Im confident.
Expand ...
I hope so.

This all reminds me of UConn basketball in the 80s, where we had Jeff King and Gerry Besselink singing "you can't sit down" on TV commercials to drum up interest. But then we had the Dream Season, and the rest is history.

Football needs to have a second dream season. We had one in 2010, but conference realignment and poor coaching hires wiped it away. Let's hope the Second Dream Season will come soon...
 
.-.
UConnDan97 said:
Then they wouldn't have been there to begin with, right?

Unless you mean that they aren't emotionally invested in the product, in which case, there is NO location that will help make their attendance better...
Expand ...
No, there were plenty of things I did off-campus that I went to because it was something to do. Doesn't mean I was particularly emotionally invested in it.

I love you, buddy, but the argument that having a football team that does not play on campus doesn't impact students connection with the team really doesn't hold water. Honestly, the best argument for the Rent is that "it already exists" and thus is more meaningful than any fictional alternative. That would be tough to disagree with. You could also say that it's great tailgating, or that there isn't a bad seat in the house, both of those things are true as well. At some point in the future, though, the state will have to decide whether to invest significant amounts of money at Rentschler Field or invest in an on-campus stadium. Hopefully, at that point in time, they'll consider the fact that it likely makes sense to actually put it where the students are and invest in future generations of fans.
 
CL82 said:
No, there were plenty of things I did off-campus that I went to because it was something to do. Doesn't mean I was particularly emotionally invested in it.

I love you, buddy, but the argument that having a football team that does not play on campus doesn't impact students connection with the team really doesn't hold water. Honestly, the best argument for the Rent is that "it already exists" and thus is more meaningful than any fictional alternative. That would be tough to disagree with. You could also say that it's great tailgating, or that there isn't a bad seat in the house, both of those things are true as well. At some point in the future, though, the state will have to decide whether to invest significant amounts of money at Rentschler Field or invest in an on-campus stadium. Hopefully, at that point in time, they'll consider the fact that it likely makes sense to actually put it where the students are and invest in future generations of fans.
Expand ...
I love you back, but none of what you've typed explains why students would leave at halftime, with great weather, in a close game, if they actually gave .

A campus stadium won't fix that. The only thing that fixes that is winning. Is it ideal to have the stadium be 25 minutes away? Absolutely not. But until we can figure out how to get the other 12,000 - 18,000 diehards to Storrs on a Saturday, we're kinda screwed.

Believe me when I say that I get ZERO joy giving an entity $14 for a beer when I know that not a single penny goes to the university...
 
UConnDan97 said:
I love you back, but none of what you've typed explains why students would leave at halftime, with great weather, in a close game, if they actually gave
Expand ...
No, it just explains why they don't actually give a -----. Because it's a random off-campus activity.

UConnDan97 said:
A campus stadium won't fix that. The only thing that fixes that is winning.
Expand ...
Actually, I think a campus stadium does fix that.

UConnDan97 said:
But until we can figure out how to get the other 12,000 - 18,000 diehards to Storrs on a Saturday, we're kinda screwed
Expand ...
If they're actually diehards do you think they won't make their way to campus six Saturdays a year?

That said, doesn't matter. The Rent is our stadium,
 
I am continuing to see very unimpressive crowds across FBS.
I never paid attention to it until this year.
Somthing is happening with football - either CTE is changing peoples' interests, we're diluting the product with too many FCS-level teams trying to fill 30K seat stadiums to comply with FBS stadium/facility size requirements...

...or maybe both are true.
In either case, UConn attendance is not as horrible as it feels, when compared to G5 crowds.
Besides the SEC/B1G/Big12, no one is pulling great crowds. Even some ACC crowds have looked G5-ey, instead of P4-ey.

Even in the SOUTHEAST, where football is supposedly king, I've seen these verrryyy lackluster showings from fans.
Looks like it's basically SEC or bust for those fans. Sry, UAB/LATech.

we'll be alright.
 
.-.
Jetskies said:
I am continuing to see very unimpressive crowds across FBS.
I never paid attention to it until this year.
Somthing is happening with football - either CTE is changing peoples' interests, we're diluting the product with too many FCS-level teams trying to fill 30K seat stadiums to comply with FBS stadium/facility size requirements...

...or maybe both are true.
In either case, UConn attendance is not as horrible as it feels, when compared to G5 crowds.
Besides the SEC/B1G/Big12, no one is pulling great crowds. Even some ACC crowds have looked G5-ey, instead of P4-ey.

Even in the SOUTHEAST, where football is supposedly king, I've seen these verrryyy lackluster showings from fans.
Looks like it's basically SEC or bust for those fans. Sry, UAB/LATech.

we'll be alright.
Expand ...
I was at the Duke game. Their stadium looked less filled than the game this past Saturday at the Rent.
 
Jetskies said:
I am continuing to see very unimpressive crowds across FBS.
I never paid attention to it until this year.
Somthing is happening with football - either CTE is changing peoples' interests, we're diluting the product with too many FCS-level teams trying to fill 30K seat stadiums to comply with FBS stadium/facility size requirements...
Expand ...
Gargantuan stadiums + a generation of kids who prefer video games to live sports.
 
Watched the highlights from the Temple game and even while I was at the game, seeing the student section from a view from the North after a field goal try I was stunned at how few were left right after halftime. A long running problem. And a real shame Wright did not return the fumble to a mostly full student section. Hopefully Wake at noon will be better.
 
JohnFSilver said:
I will say, unlike basketball you go to a football game it is literally an all day affair. We left house at noon, got back at 9 pm.

And I live in Farmington. You can’t have after plans
Expand ...
Not necessarily if you're a college kid. Parlay the day drinking straight into Ted's or Huskies
 
They need to be lax with the kids on having fun. I was at UCF a couple of weeks ago and they have designated tailgating areas where cops observe but don’t bust anyone for underage drinking. You have to be a danger to yourself or others or be fighting to get a talking to. The kids were very well behaved overall. I was impressed. The fraternities bring tons of beer and seltzer and hand it out. Quite a few people brought their own little cooler.

UConn really curtailed partying several years back. I believe it’s still that way. In order to fully embrace big time athletics and student engagement, you’ve got to allow the kids to party a little bit.
 
.-.
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
168,160
Messages
4,555,228
Members
10,438
Latest member
UConnheart


Top Bottom