The Sicatoka Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 On days like this (two in a day), how hard would it be to set up a simple student promo: Come to the football game. Starting after the 3rd quarter UND stamps student hands (green ink, unique pattern) and that moves them to the front of the entrance line to the hockey game. Basically, make the waiting line for the hockey game the student section of the football game. If the students complain, tell them it's warmer and drier than outside. (You guys are so **** lucky I don't charge you for these simple ideas.) Quote
richthorpe Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 The support for the Football Team here in GF is at an all time low since I got here in 04'. At the French Fry Feed they introduced the Players by groups/position's and u could hear Crickets Chirping... Granted it was cold, but Team support is down... This is a Class University that is going through some transition...I am 100% sure that UND will come out on top... It will just take a little while. I can understand low attendance for a 1:00 start time. I always wondered how attendance would be at an outdoor field for this team in town here... Rich T Quote
roper1313 Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 Great idea Sicatoka!! Don't compare UND to UMD. UMD's stadium is close to filled with 5,000. Plus, football tradition goes back to about 2008 for UMD. UND's not the only one struggling with student attandance. NDSU had great student crowds for the first two games, but was about 1/2 full for the UNI game, and that's only going to get worse for Youngstown and Indiana State. Quote
UND92,96 Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 Comparing UND with Duluth is an apples to oranges comparison because they are different types of institutions that are now playing at different levels. A valid comparison would be UND and Montana. The two schools are close in size, have roughly the same metro population to draw from, and are both flagship universities in their respective states. I realize that Montana has long been an FCS power while UND is just transitioning to that level. But Montana regularly sells out it 25K stadium while UND fans rationalize only getting 6K to a playoff game? Also, UND's potential football fan base doesn't end at the Grand Forks County line. There are a ton of alumni in Fargo, but unfortunately, they are not being marketed to. O.K., I've solved the mystery of the poor late season/playoff attendance--it was Dale Lennon's fault. How can I say this? Easy: 2008--Southern Illinois season attendance avg.--9055, BUT 11-15 SDSU 5829 11-29 New Hampshire 5461 (playoffs) 2007--UND season attendance avg.--9887, BUT 11-17 Winona St. 5370 (playoffs) Case closed (and no, I'm not serious ) Quote
Stromer Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 On days like this (two in a day), how hard would it be to set up a simple student promo: Come to the football game. Starting after the 3rd quarter UND stamps student hands (green ink, unique pattern) and that moves them to the front of the entrance line to the hockey game. Basically, make the waiting line for the hockey game the student section of the football game. If the students complain, tell them it's warmer and drier than outside. (You guys are so **** lucky I don't charge you for these simple ideas.) Dang it I had a similar idea but you beat me too it. Actually, the groundwork is already laid for this. On Sat, REA came out and handed blue tickets with numbers on them to students waiting in line. The tickets allowed students to go to the womens game and then get back in line after it was done. It was a great idea, probably the first one ever to come out of that building. If it can be done for that, I think something similar can be done for football. I think the stamp system would work the best. Face it, even if you aren't a football fan, sitting in the AL seems a lot more comfortable than standing outside. Plus, I think its an incentive for students to wake up early. Knowing that in order to get a good seat for hockey that you need to get up for the football game would be a big deal. I think we would see increased student section attendance. If students would have known that they could go to the front of the gopher line without waiting in it just for going to a fb game, I think the student section may have been full. As for attendance for Cal-Poly, I hope for the best. I know it Halloween but I really hope the students show up. The game gets over at 7. Plenty of time to go out after, so there is no excuse not to show. Quote
RD17 Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 O.K., I've solved the mystery of the poor late season/playoff attendance--it was Dale Lennon's fault. How can I say this? Easy: 2008--Southern Illinois season attendance avg.--9055, BUT 11-15 SDSU 5829 11-29 New Hampshire 5461 (playoffs) 2007--UND season attendance avg.--9887, BUT 11-17 Winona St. 5370 (playoffs) Case closed (and no, I'm not serious ) Dale Lennon needs to get an FBS job ASAP because he drives away the fans come playoff time. Quote
RD17 Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 On days like this (two in a day), how hard would it be to set up a simple student promo: Come to the football game. Starting after the 3rd quarter UND stamps student hands (green ink, unique pattern) and that moves them to the front of the entrance line to the hockey game. Basically, make the waiting line for the hockey game the student section of the football game. If the students complain, tell them it's warmer and drier than outside. (You guys are so **** lucky I don't charge you for these simple ideas.) This is a fine idea... have you "mentioned" this to anyone in the athletic department? Quote
RD17 Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 The support for the Football Team here in GF is at an all time low since I got here in 04'. At the French Fry Feed they introduced the Players by groups/position's and u could hear Crickets Chirping... Granted it was cold, but Team support is down... This is a Class University that is going through some transition...I am 100% sure that UND will come out on top... It will just take a little while. I can understand low attendance for a 1:00 start time. I always wondered how attendance would be at an outdoor field for this team in town here... Rich T What? Didn't UND just set a single season attendance record last season (per game average)? Didn't the Alerus sell out just two weeks ago for just the second or third time in facility history? Didn't Chris Mussman say that the atmosphere at the USD game was the best he'd ever seen at the Alerus Center? The last two weeks were poor opponents scheduled on the worst possible weekends so attendance was (predictably) down. This sort of thing is going to happen during the transition. But I don't think there has been a complete collapse of support for the program. Quote
The Sicatoka Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 Pondering my notion a little further ... Why not sell student lower bowl hockey tickets as a package to the students like now, with the whole "camp out in line" thing. But, why not have the upper bowl hockey tickets be given out at the preceding home FB or BB game. For Friday's Gopher hockey game you'd have had to attend the FB game v. Stony Brook. (Last FB/BB game before that day.) For Saturday's Gopher hockey game you'd have had to attend the FB game v. USF. Want to see UND v. Wisconsin in hockey on Dec 11 or 12? You'd have to either go to the M/WBB games on Nov 29 or the M/WBB games on Dec 7/8. (I'd pick "give away" games to be the ones being televised on FCS so you have a better looking crowd on national TV.) It's a pretty simple plan. Quote
Stromer Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 Pondering my notion a little further ... Why not sell student lower bowl hockey tickets as a package to the students like now, with the whole "camp out in line" thing. But, why not have the upper bowl hockey tickets be given out at the preceding home FB or BB game. For Friday's Gopher hockey game you'd have had to attend the FB game v. Stony Brook. (Last FB/BB game before that day.) For Saturday's Gopher hockey game you'd have had to attend the FB game v. USF. Want to see UND v. Wisconsin in hockey on Dec 11 or 12? You'd have to either go to the M/WBB games on Nov 29 or the M/WBB games on Dec 7/8. (I'd pick "give away" games to be the ones being televised on FCS so you have a better looking crowd on national TV.) It's a pretty simple plan. Would never fly. 1. REA would never go for this. They used to put single game upper bowl tickets on sale a week or 2 before the game. Whatever tickets were not sold went on sale to the general public a couple of days before the game. However, a couple days notice wasn't enough for the public. It resulted in tickets being unsold. REA did not like this (and for good reason). So they then put all student upper bowl tickets on sale on 1 date at the beginning of the year. Students have up to one month before the game to pick them up. Any unsold then go to the general public one month before the game. This has resulted in almost all of the tickets being sold. No way should they go back to a different system that wouldn't allow this to happen. 2. Students do have jobs and other things (labs, studying) that prevent them from attending every sporting event. To force them to attend events they don't want to go to just so they can attend ones they do seems pretty weak. Now if you want to come up with a system that give better seats to students based on their attendance at other events, fine. But to penalize students by not giving them tickets just because they have to work during their college years seems very unfair. Quote
dakotadan Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 We can sit and and make up excuses and reasons for the attendance for the last game but the fact of the matter is 7807 is just sad. UND football has a proud history and tradition. There is no reason that the football team at the state's flagship university can't get more people than that to a game. I don't care if it is against the ND School for the Blind. There is plenty of blame to go around from the students, the administration and us as fans. With that being said, let's look at some other attendance figures from this last Saturday: SUU @ Cal Poly: 10,017 WSSU @ UC Davis: 10,289 HOMECOMING UNH @ UMass: 13,108 HOMECOMING USD @ MSU: 13,817 NDSU @ SDSU: 14,188 NWSU @ McNeese: 16,132 SIU @ UNI: 17,190 FA&M @ SCSU: 24,496 EWU @ UM: 25,751 If we could get a base of 10,000 dedicated fans that was at every game, we would be sitting about where we need to with games here and there going up to 12-13,000 in attendance. But I guess I don't see any reason that we shouldn't be able to have 12,000+ at the Al every Saturday either. Quote
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