Iowa vs Iowa State (in Ames) is not QUITE sold out yet for tomorrow's game. About 100 tickets remained yesterday.
Kirby Smart wasn't happy about the lackluster crowd for the 2nd half of the Dawgs' game vs. Marshall last week:
With the game in hand on Saturday, attendance for the second half was noticeably sparse compared to the start of the game. Following the victory, head coach Kirby Smart was asked how he felt about the fans' attendance. Smart's response to the question was rather interesting.
"Yeah, you said it, I didn't," Smart responded to a question about the sparsity of attendance in the second half.
The Bulldogs' head coach has always encouraged fan involvement during home football games and even stated at one point last season that he was "disappointed" with the fanbases engagement during a game and urged them to bring mroe energy the following week.
Fan participation in the second half of blowouts has been a point of emphasis for many great teams. During his time with Alabama, legendary Nick Saban criticized fans for leaving games early and even once proclaimed that certain fans were "entitled".
Getting butts into stadiums may be a historical issue for IU but it's a relatively new issue for programs like Georgia. It's only going to get worse too. Tickets are too expensive, food/drink too expensive, seats/weather is uncomfortable, games are ridiculously long with the insane timeouts, traffic sucks, etc... The seat in my living room is PRIME. Schools/NCAA can't do much about the weather and traffic is a bigger thing than them BUT they can work on the other stuff. Just ask Major League Baseball. This will be the 3rd consecutive year of attendance growth. Owners brought down ticket and concession price a little bit. And the MLB shortened the game times.
My younger daughter just graduated from Iowa State last year, no way that game isn’t sold out, those have to be late released tickets. Ames is a fun game experience. Wife and I are looking to get back there for some games in the near future.
Getting butts into stadiums may be a historical issue for IU but it's a relatively new issue for programs like Georgia. It's only going to get worse too. Tickets are too expensive, food/drink too expensive, seats/weather is uncomfortable, games are ridiculously long with the insane timeouts, traffic sucks, etc... The seat in my living room is PRIME. Schools/NCAA can't do much about the weather and traffic is a bigger thing than them BUT they can work on the other stuff. Just ask Major League Baseball. This will be the 3rd consecutive year of attendance growth. Owners brought down ticket and concession price a little bit. And the MLB shortened the game times.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but game times have largely held for the past 20 years or so and are completely in line with the times of NFL games (10 minutes difference, on average).
Kirby Smart went into it a lot more than was quoted. I am not direct quoting him here, but he said some things like if you want a championship product they need to be champions in everything they do which includes fans doing their part as well. Considering I can’t get to the games I’m not going to complain about fans leaving early, but when I did live in Indiana and attended them regularly I usually stayed for the entire game. The only exception is if we were getting embarrassed and only like 5 minutes left in the game I may try to get a jump on traffic.
The school just needs to think outside the box and come up with unique ways to keep the crowd engaged for 4 quarters when we are playing a lower tier opponent and winning big or if we happen to be getting blown out. I don’t know what the answer is there, but I do remember during the Kevin Wilson era we played an HBCU and the band really got the crowd going. Since I don’t still live in Indiana I don’t know if they still do it, but that was the main attraction for the circle city classic. If they could get some hbcu bands to come and perform at halftime and between quarters for one game with a final performance at the end of the game that may be a way to keep fans entertained the entire time. Perhaps that won’t be needed for bigger draw games, but these cream puff games I think they need to do more to keep people entertained if they’re going to schedule those types of opponents. They could maybe even bring in some celebrity to perform. I remember when I was in school several celebrities did performances (LL Cool J, Digital Underground, etc.) during little 500. So, if they can pull celebrity entertainment for that I don’t see any reason they couldn’t pull someone family friendly for a football game that needs a little extra entertainment value. Just because no one else is doing it doesn’t mean that we can’t do it better. Jmho.
@thehoosierhuddle verified resale. Yep, it’s like that on most of their games in this rivalry. The key being resale. Technically those tickets have been bought and now someone is trying to make a profit off of them. On the student exchange kids are asking $160 for a student seat and up. Seeing a lot of new parents of freshman asking about tickets because a lot of kids get scammed for this game in private sales. You can certainly find a seat if you are willing to pay but technically the game will be a sell out.
@oneeyedundertakerlympian97 100% agree with this sentiment. They still have the Circle City Classic on Sept.27. It is Miles College against Morgan State. HBCU bands are unbelievably good.TV makes it so easy to watch games, but people want to go to events. The last four games last year were events that people wanted to be at.
@oneeyedundertakerlympian97 100% agree with this sentiment. They still have the Circle City Classic on Sept.27. It is Miles College against Morgan State. HBCU bands are unbelievably good.TV makes it so easy to watch games, but people want to go to events. The last four games last year were events that people wanted to be at.
IU can't be this meme though:
Yup. Haven't done a thing. Just sat and hoped people would buy tickets.
Kirby Smart wasn't happy about the lackluster crowd for the 2nd half of the Dawgs' game vs. Marshall last week:
With the game in hand on Saturday, attendance for the second half was noticeably sparse compared to the start of the game. Following the victory, head coach Kirby Smart was asked how he felt about the fans' attendance. Smart's response to the question was rather interesting.
"Yeah, you said it, I didn't," Smart responded to a question about the sparsity of attendance in the second half.
The Bulldogs' head coach has always encouraged fan involvement during home football games and even stated at one point last season that he was "disappointed" with the fanbases engagement during a game and urged them to bring mroe energy the following week.
In the NIL era, a coach like Kirby Smart has the means to pay out of pocket to the fans to stay til the end.
Say....10,000 tix he buys for students, they get $30 after the game if they scan in before game time and scan out after.
6 home games, that's $1.8 million. Coach can get a personal sponsor and wear a stupid little chicken fil'A shirt or something to cover it.
In the past I could understand getting mad at the crowd for not sticking around, but not in this new NILvera of "haves" and "have nots".
Coaches need to pay up if they want students to stick around.
@mrhighlife you cannot even compare watching a game on TV vs. being there in person in my opinion. On TV you cannot see the speed, the size of players, or get any kind of feel for the game. Add in the entertainment of the crowd, etc. well worth the problems you mention. I guess that is why some of us actually go to the games.
@mrhighlife you cannot even compare watching a game on TV vs. being there in person in my opinion. On TV you cannot see the speed, the size of players, or get any kind of feel for the game. Add in the entertainment of the crowd, etc. well worth the problems you mention. I guess that is why some of us actually go to the games.
Getting butts into stadiums may be a historical issue for IU but it's a relatively new issue for programs like Georgia. It's only going to get worse too. Tickets are too expensive, food/drink too expensive, seats/weather is uncomfortable, games are ridiculously long with the insane timeouts, traffic sucks, etc... The seat in my living room is PRIME. Schools/NCAA can't do much about the weather and traffic is a bigger thing than them BUT they can work on the other stuff. Just ask Major League Baseball. This will be the 3rd consecutive year of attendance growth. Owners brought down ticket and concession price a little bit. And the MLB shortened the game times.
I would disagree about the couch being the PRIME seat. Sure, it’s great on the big screen either alone or with a group. But, nothing beats watching a game live and be IN the environment with the sights and sounds of a crowd. It’s about the experience.
@big-red-cb-v-2-0 Yep. Anyone who was there for some of those games last year can testify to that. You don’t get nearly the exhilaration of being in the crowd for that Nebraska game for example, watching it at home.
