Game Attendance. Beautiful Day for Game
- Thread starter catfans5
- Start date
Really wish I could have been there today. A three hour drive means I need to be a little bit selective for which games to attend. Hopefully it will be just as nice for the Ohio game.
And this is what will keep NU from getting to the next level.
I’d say it’s more what’s happening on the field than the crowd.
7-10K? Let’s just blame it on COVID and tell recruits’ parents that it allows us to be safe by socially distancing.
I don’t know how the count ESPN gives differs from reality, but it say 26,181.
The crowd filled in later in the game, but my estimate was before the sky divers. I wonder if the count is all season ticket holders included.
While game was snoozefest after 1st quarter it was a great day for a game.
There couldn’t have been more than 500 people in the west stands upper deck outside seats.
About 5 minutes into the third quarter, I know this will sound crazy, but it wasn’t hard, I counted 42 people in sections 232 through 235.
Even if I assume an additional 20% were in the washroom or getting food that still leaves the count at about 50…
I say it to anyone who will listen: NU football deserve a better quality of fan. I say that as a native of Evanston, and someone with deep ties to the athletic program. I'm tired of our fanbase. The school tries and tries and tries, but we have an aging fanbase that can't make noise and leaves early. I don't know what the answer is. We certainly can't depend on our alum base (too geographically scattered and small anyway) and the students have shown little interest in showing up regularly en masse when they have started their semester, be they bribed, bought, or coerced.
I don’t know how you get locals that don’t have ties to the University become fans. I only know of a couple instances where a smaller private school has done it. Those places are Georgetown and Miami. Part of it was performance, but part of it was having players that locals could identify with. I don’t think NU has the right type of team to do what those programs did.
There's just not much we can do, I mean the team has had about as much success as is historically reasonable (compare that to Illinois for example).
I think rebuilding the stadium will help give us a chance to really attract new people, but there's really just not much that can be done except to keep winning, spend on a big stadium renovation, and keep trying to build the brand locally/nationally.
It's just hard for an elite private school to appeal to locals when most of its students come from outside the state and alums leave the state upon graduation.
If we'd had this kind of success in the 70s-80s, would have been able to build something more permanent. Now? It's near impossible given the million things people have to do/teams to support locally/etc.
Stadium renovation and what we can do to really try to bring people in after that is basically where rubber meets the road.
As an alum I love that Fitz is finding a way to win at Northwestern, but it is an incredibly boring style of football for the average fan.
Also, everyone is likely to be struggling with attendance issues like this post-Covid. And over next few years likely more people will transition to just watching games on TV.
Everyone is going to have attendance issues, especially smaller privates like ours.
It's why considering shrinking the stadium in the renovation makes sense. Make it an absolute top of the line experience for 40-42k.
Everyone is going to have attendance issues, especially smaller privates like ours.
It's why considering shrinking the stadium in the renovation makes sense. Make it an absolute top of the line experience for 40-42k.
This is the biggest factor. Welsh-Ryan has every amenity you could want and it’s still half-empty because the product is hard to watch.
Yes, but what way could we win while getting the athletes required to win in that way?
We're never going to get guys that can run faster or jump higher than the guys at Ohio State.
This is probably the only way we can win; suffocating D with a ball control offense. It's going to look boring, but it reduces your opponents possessions while giving us the best chance to win.
Solution: Give away tickets for free to anyone local who has no other B1G allegiances and is aware that NU is giving them to then. They’re more likely than not to wear purple or black and cheer on our team.
It is depressing to watch 30K empty seats even on replay. Why didn’t Phillips or Polisky think of this? Were they - or Fitz - truly happy with this crap showing?
It is depressing to watch 30K empty seats even on replay. Why didn’t Phillips or Polisky think of this? Were they - or Fitz - truly happy with this crap showing?
Because right now things are being affected by Covid; especially in a place like Evanston where people are probably more hesitant to be in crowds than other areas.
I think people just gotta calm down about attendance for a bit, next year is probably a better gauge.
And the stadium revamp needs to get underway as fast as possible (at least announcements need to be made in the next 18 months).
Until people feel safe during the pandemic we really cannot judge on our ability to attract fans.
Don't underrate the importance of winning too.
Miami was mentioned as a team that "attracts the locals". Sure, when they were "The U" and winning National Championships.
As soon as they went down...here are some Miami crowds.
The team enters, just minutes before kickoff.
Different game at halftime, sure some had gone to buy something but you get the idea
Article (from 2019 so pre-Covid). College football attendance reaches historic low -
fanbuzz.com
Don't underrate the importance of winning too.
Miami was mentioned as a team that "attracts the locals". Sure, when they were "The U" and winning National Championships.
As soon as they went down...here are some Miami crowds.
The team enters, just minutes before kickoff.
Different game at halftime, sure some had gone to buy something but you get the idea
Article (from 2019 so pre-Covid). College football attendance reaches historic low -
College Football Attendance at Lowest Mark in 22 Years, But Is That Really a Bad Thing?
It's hard to imagine Saturdays in the fall without a heavy dose of college football. Whether you can be found outside your favorite team's stadium cooking on your grill of choice or sitting at home where the beer is cold and your gigantic television never misses a moment, the allure of the...
fanbuzz.com
I don't even want to imagine Northwestern attendance if we'd had the last 15-20 years that Illinois had.Until people feel safe during the pandemic we really cannot judge on our ability to attract fans.
Don't underrate the importance of winning too.
Miami was mentioned as a team that "attracts the locals". Sure, when they were "The U" and winning National Championships.
As soon as they went down...here are some Miami crowds.
The team enters, just minutes before kickoff.
Different game at halftime, sure some had gone to buy something but you get the idea
Article (from 2019 so pre-Covid). College football attendance reaches historic low -
College Football Attendance at Lowest Mark in 22 Years, But Is That Really a Bad Thing?
It's hard to imagine Saturdays in the fall without a heavy dose of college football. Whether you can be found outside your favorite team's stadium cooking on your grill of choice or sitting at home where the beer is cold and your gigantic television never misses a moment, the allure of the...
I think things will improve after we do the stadium revamp and get past Covid.
It seemed about 30-40% full and since it holds 47k that would be about 15k Probably the ESPN numbrs are paid tickets and not actual attendance. That would include ST and probably some figure for students even when school does not start for another couple weeks
Attendance was pathetic. It will be difficult getting the locals to become passionate fans. You know how many locals I see rooting for the Fighting Berts for no other reason than their kids went there? With NU it is the opposite. I know locals still view NU as snooty nerds and are pissed when their nerd gets rejected by admissions because they attend a selective (or whatever term we call it) HS. Fitz claims our recruiting begins in Chicagoland, but admissions doesn’t have that policy. Many of our students don’t know a football from a hockey puck. Who cares if they stay in Chicago or move to Timbuktu? They won’t be going to games either way. The respect the team gets is mainly due to the HC. Fitz is viewed as a Chicago blue collar grinder made good. Born and raised. Hard work, no short cuts. Keep marketing him.
Thats silly. I think our progression to any next level is continuing. Nothing will stop that progress.
Student attendance wasn’t that bad either game. We are in section 110 near the students. Michigan State was probably 3/4 full to the top in the student section and yesterday was probably 1/3 full. Not really that bad considering school hasn’t started.
I really wouldn't use an 11:00 AM game against Indiana State on a hot day in the middle of a pandemic as the best gauge for NU attendance.
Don't think our decision makers will either.
In some sense, we're fortunate that we waited on the stadium revamp. Would hate to be debuting a brand new stadium last year or this year or even next year.
Don't want to miss a once in a generation opportunity to sell something like that.
Probably best to aim at a new stadium in 2024 (or 2025) and try to really generate hype around that.
We see these threads every year. It's very hard to attract huge crowds with an undergraduate population of well under 10,000 and a relatively small alumni base that is scattered across the U.S. And you don't have the state in the name of your university. I guarantee that in any Penn State crowd you'll have thousands of people who never attended the university. And NU is not only a small, private school. It's a small, private school located next door to a huge city with multiple pro sports teams and other entertainment options. Thousands of fans who could afford NU season tickets are attending Bears games. If they revamp the stadium, I'd cut out about 10,000 seats, jazz up the concessions, and make it a comfortable experience for our fans.
It was a non con game against an FCS opponent in the age of COVID and we are not dOSU. Not sure what you expect. I was there but a lot of the usuals around me were no longer there
Honestly would not be a surprise if something closer to a majority of the fans in the stands at major state universities didn't attend the school.
Also helps that a lot of the big flagships have tons of regional campuses and such with the name; a lot of those students end up supporting the main flagship even if they never attended the main flagship.
We have non of the cache that State that even indirect affiliation with the state university offers. UofI has over over 200K of alums that are within traveling distance ( While we have all of about 15K) but they also offer a draw for anyone who lives in IL. I would guess that ST holders are still basically alums
Myself and many others from Evanston, Wilmette, Etc, area have been die hard fans since young and still prefer NU sports over our college's teams. Guess were a unique crew
Latest posts
-
FB RECRUITING Braun and staff making a strong early impression on IHSA coaches- Latest: PURPLE Book Cat
-
-
-
