2016 Attendance

[Kap]

I didn't see UND Biz's post. Thanks for your answer. 

[mksioux]

I've said it many times, 1:00 starts hurt attendance.  I think 3 hours of tailgating prior to a game is pretty standard.  Most young people are barely waking up at 10:00 a.m.  For people with young kids, there are typically kids' events during the day on Saturdays.  For most people, their kids' football or soccer game will take priority.  My proposal is that when there is not a mens hockey game in town that night, move UND football to 4:00, or maybe even have a 7:00 game once in a while.  That gives college kids and young people more time to get "primed up" for the game.  And it would give people with families an opportunity to not have the game conflict with their kids' activities and would also give them an opportunity to get done the many errands and chores that busy people with families usually have on Saturdays.   Hunting is not my thing, but maybe it would help with that issue too.  

[geaux_sioux]

2 minutes ago, mksioux said:

I've said it many times, 1:00 starts hurt attendance.  I think 3 hours of tailgating prior to a game is pretty standard.  Most young people are barely waking up at 10:00 a.m.  For people with young kids, there are typically kids' events during the day on Saturdays.  For most people, their kids' football or soccer game will take priority.  My proposal is that when there is not a mens hockey game in town that night, move UND football to 4:00, or maybe even have a 7:00 game once in a while.  That gives college kids and young people more time to get "primed up" for the game.  And it would give people with families an opportunity to not have the game conflict with their kids' activities and would also give them an opportunity to get done the many errands and chores that busy people with families usually have on Saturdays.   Hunting is not my thing, but maybe it would help with that issue too.  

Absolutely agree with all of this.  Night games were even well attended in the Mussman days.

[F'n Hawks]

26 minutes ago, mksioux said:

I've said it many times, 1:00 starts hurt attendance.  I think 3 hours of tailgating prior to a game is pretty standard.  Most young people are barely waking up at 10:00 a.m.  For people with young kids, there are typically kids' events during the day on Saturdays.  For most people, their kids' football or soccer game will take priority.  My proposal is that when there is not a mens hockey game in town that night, move UND football to 4:00, or maybe even have a 7:00 game once in a while.  That gives college kids and young people more time to get "primed up" for the game.  And it would give people with families an opportunity to not have the game conflict with their kids' activities and would also give them an opportunity to get done the many errands and chores that busy people with families usually have on Saturdays.   Hunting is not my thing, but maybe it would help with that issue too.  

Last week is a great example... No hockey in town so I think they should have had last weeks game at 4 instead of 1

[ericpnelson]

9 minutes ago, F'n Hawks said:

Last week is a great example... No hockey in town so I think they should have had last weeks game at 4 instead of 1

I concur, along with my liver

[fightingsioux4life]

1 hour ago, mksioux said:

I've said it many times, 1:00 starts hurt attendance.  I think 3 hours of tailgating prior to a game is pretty standard.  Most young people are barely waking up at 10:00 a.m.  For people with young kids, there are typically kids' events during the day on Saturdays.  For most people, their kids' football or soccer game will take priority.  My proposal is that when there is not a mens hockey game in town that night, move UND football to 4:00, or maybe even have a 7:00 game once in a while.  That gives college kids and young people more time to get "primed up" for the game.  And it would give people with families an opportunity to not have the game conflict with their kids' activities and would also give them an opportunity to get done the many errands and chores that busy people with families usually have on Saturdays.   Hunting is not my thing, but maybe it would help with that issue too.  

Well, you can thank Dale Lennon for the lack of night games. I know we had a lot of them in 2001 and attendance was really good, but Lennon didn't like night games, so I think that is why they stopped. They need to come back. Until October, there is no hockey. There is no reason not to have night games in September.

[geaux_sioux]

I've gone back and looked at all of the available attendance numbers since we moved into the Alerus. Let's just say that the D2 glory days weren't as well attended as we like to make it seem. 2001 2006 and 2007 were really good years. Figures for 2004 apparently don't exist and 2005 I could only find 2 games, though they were each really well attended. I'm gonna break down the numbers in a few more posts.

[SWSiouxMN]

2 hours ago, Kap said:

"Comparison is the thief of joy" - T. Roosevelt

If we just look at UND attendance numbers and its history, why isn't this thread more positive?

How often has the attendance been better than it is now and when was that? I'm sure there are some old timers that can answer this.

I'm really not this existential.

I'd say because despite an increase from last years 2nd to last game and the situation it only drew 8700 fans. The overall picture is positive yes, but it doesn't mean that Saturday's showing in a huge game was a bit disappointing. Add another 1,000 to that and i think its a bit less grumbling. 

I would hope the final Big Sky home game would have more, especially with a chance or clinch a share or the outright title, depending on what happens in Greely.

I could tell my stories about my experiences as a student during the transition and early Big Sky days... but I would be beating a dead horse

[geaux_sioux]

Below are the yearly averages of the three Alerus eras. Note that for 2005 I could only find numbers for two games, one of which was homecoming. So obviously the Mussman era had a clear 1500/gm drop in attendance with 2011 being the lowest point in attendance despite being an 8-3 conference title season. 2010 and 2011 had the worst schedules by far of the D1 era and it shows. The 2013 season had the best schedule we've ever had: 7 home games, 4 top 15 home opponents in a row, and OOC ranked regional rival SDSU.  Without that awesome schedule I don't even want to know what the attendance would have been.  

		Avg		Era Avg
	2001	10904
	2002	9816
	2003	9423
D2	2004	?		10325
	2005	11441
	2006	9578
	2007	10790
	2008	10167
	2009	8539
Mussman	2010	8154		8556
	2011	7158
	2012	8961
	2013	8357
	2014	8802
Bubba	2015	8317		9104
	2016	10194

[BarnWinterSportsEngelstad]

11 hours ago, shep said:

So we just had a series of "the Alerus PA is too loud" posts and now we have the critique that the Alerus does not do a good enough job engaging the crowd via music, participation. Is this a generational issue?

You make it sound completely different that those posts claimed. That's not the jest of those posts, there are areas in the Alerus that are so loud from the speakers that it literally hurts you ears. I've sat in 3 different sections this year and 217 is terrible, 203 and 205 were no problem. 

[shep]

I was noting that those posts talked of noise and then another post says we need to engage the students with basically noise.

I'm in 215, I'm old and cranky and yet, I have not had any noise issues.

[Cratter]

8 minutes ago, shep said:

I was noting that those posts talked of noise and then another post says we need to engage the students with basically noise.

I'm in 215, I'm old and cranky and yet, I have not had any noise issues.

If we didn't complain about something, we wouldn't have anything to talk about.

[geaux_sioux]

Other things to make a note of. The first playoff game in Alerus history drew 5370..... that's worse than any game in the Mussman era. Homecoming is the best attended game of the year. We already knew that but it's pretty crazy how much of a difference it makes. 

Homecoming Attendance

Overall	10360
Mussman	9797	9323	8546
Bubba	9196	9847

At glance the Mussman era isn't too far down on Homecoming attendance but if you remove the first two homecomings where the success of D2 carried into the beginning of D1 then it reveals the truth. Opposite for Bubba. Remove his first year digging out of the Muss hole and his average isn't too bad considering the situation.

D2	11487
D1	9496

Non Homecoming Attendance 

Avg	9051
D2	9999
Mussman	8258
Bubba	9057

 

It appears that for D2, homecoming meant about 2000 more tickets sold. D1 equals out to only 1000 more. The extra 1000, I assume, headed south. Bubba will get them back. Bubba is only a little under 1000 below the non homecoming attendance of the "glory days".  The way some people talk you'd think back then we averaged about 12k/game but it was basically 10k on the nose. In reality we're not far off at this point which is a good thing because it feels like Bubba is just starting to build this thing up.

[bincitysioux]

There are attendance numbers for football going back to 1999 in the Wiki.

The all time attendance record was set in 2008, and none of USD, SDSU, NDSU, or UNI visited the Alerus.

2001 was the second best season for attendance, obviously that was the national championship year.  We hosted NDSU and SDSU.  NDSU was a sell out, SDSU was the lowest attended regular season game of the year.

2007 was the third best attended season in Alerus history.  None of USD, SDSU, NDSU, or UNI were in Grand Forks that year.

Now most everyone who is here regularly knows I am a big proponent of the Big Sky so I admit I am bias that way.  My point is that history shows that it is no guarantee that the former NCC schools being regulars on the schedule would be a boon to attendance.  The final game with NDSU in 2003 did not even sell out, and that was another year where we landed in the national championship game. 

To be blunt, I don't think the potential fans that are in Grand Forks that we are trying to attract are very knowledgeable about college football or probably college athletics in general.  For example in 2013, the game against Robert Morris outdrew the game against Montana who was ranked #7 at the time.  So no, I don't think "familiar" opponents are going to make a difference.  Might as well just table that idea and embrace the Big Sky! 

[geaux_sioux]

4 minutes ago, bincitysioux said:

There are attendance numbers for football going back to 1999 in the Wiki.

The all time attendance record was set in 2008, and none of USD, SDSU, NDSU, or UNI visited the Alerus.

2001 was the second best season for attendance, obviously that was the national championship year.  We hosted NDSU and SDSU.  NDSU was a sell out, SDSU was the lowest attended regular season game of the year.

2007 was the third best attended season in Alerus history.  None of USD, SDSU, NDSU, or UNI were in Grand Forks that year.

Now most everyone who is here regularly knows I am a big proponent of the Big Sky so I admit I am bias that way.  My point is that history shows that it is no guarantee that the former NCC schools being regulars on the schedule would be a boon to attendance.  The final game with NDSU in 2003 did not even sell out, and that was another year where we landed in the national championship game. 

To be blunt, I don't think the potential fans that are in Grand Forks that we are trying to attract are very knowledgeable about college football or probably college athletics in general.  For example in 2013, the game against Robert Morris outdrew the game against Montana who was ranked #7 at the time.  So no, I don't think "familiar" opponents are going to make a difference.  Might as well just table that idea and embrace the Big Sky! 

Interesting that the stats from the UND website would differ in a couple of years from the wiki. Have we really only sold out a single game at the Alerus?

[Cratter]

2 minutes ago, geaux_sioux said:

Interesting that the stats from the UND website would differ in a couple of years from the wiki. Have we really only sold out a single game at the Alerus?

What was odd was the alerus center revised it's seating capacity numbers....seems they used to use a nice round 13,500 before they decided to count the actual seats and there is over a 1,000 less than that.

[bincitysioux]

7 minutes ago, geaux_sioux said:

Interesting that the stats from the UND website would differ in a couple of years from the wiki. Have we really only sold out a single game at the Alerus?

Hmmm....

I admit that I am the one that did that work in the wiki starting several years ago and just keep adding to it after each season.  Which are the discrepencies you found.  I'll take a look and fix them.

As far as sell outs, 2001 against NDSU, and 2009 against USD are the only official sell outs that I came across.

[geaux_sioux]

6 minutes ago, bincitysioux said:

Hmmm....

I admit that I am the one that did that work in the wiki starting several years ago and just keep adding to it after each season.  Which are the discrepencies you found.  I'll take a look and fix them.

2003 I have them at 9423. 2006 - 9578. 2007 - 10790. 2014 - 8802. Every other discrepancy is due to the site missing data.

[bincitysioux]

4 minutes ago, Cratter said:

What was odd was the alerus center revised it's seating capacity numbers....seems they used to use a nice round 13,500 before they decided to count the actual seats and there is over a 1,000 less than that.

That is a strange topic, and several years ago I even communicated with Alerus officials to figure it out.  When it opened, capacity was listed as 13,500.  In 2003 I believe, they revised the listed capacity to 12,283.  In a handful of discussions I've had with Alerus staff and UND staff, the answer that I finally got was that 12,283 is the number of seats that UND controls.  This number does not include potential standing room only tix that could become available, or the number of tickets that are allotted to suite holders.

[Cratter]

8 minutes ago, bincitysioux said:

That is a strange topic, and several years ago I even communicated with Alerus officials to figure it out.  When it opened, capacity was listed as 13,500.  In 2003 I believe, they revised the listed capacity to 12,283.  In a handful of discussions I've had with Alerus staff and UND staff, the answer that I finally got was that 12,283 is the number of seats that UND controls.  This number does not include potential standing room only tix that could become available, or the number of tickets that are allotted to suite holders.

Sounds about right. Don't know why they would have included SRO in the total capacity in the first place. 

Suites account for about 200 people or less.

[bincitysioux]

3 minutes ago, geaux_sioux said:

2003 I have them at 9423. 2006 - 9578. 2007 - 10790. 2014 - 8802. Every other discrepancy is due to the site missing data.

UND's football stats page has the following:

2003:  N/A on the website anymore it appears.  I should have a hard copy somewhere in my office that I can check though

2006: 8,827

2007:  9,887

2014:  7,486  (Wiki is off by one here)

 

 

[fightingsioux4life]

In 2001-2005, the crowds we would get were passionate and made a lot of noise. We are still trying to get that back. You don't need a full house to make it loud in the Alerus Center, but you need fans that understand the impact noise has on the visiting team.

[geaux_sioux]

2 hours ago, bincitysioux said:

UND's football stats page has the following:

2003:  N/A on the website anymore it appears.  I should have a hard copy somewhere in my office that I can check though

2006: 8,827

2007:  9,887

2014:  7,486  (Wiki is off by one here)

 

 

Interesting. I went through game by game..... probably the dumb way to go. I wonder why they differ. Either way our attendance is closer to the D2 days than people think. The main difference to me is the student section. 

[geaux_sioux]

6 hours ago, mksioux said:

I've said it many times, 1:00 starts hurt attendance.  I think 3 hours of tailgating prior to a game is pretty standard.  Most young people are barely waking up at 10:00 a.m.  For people with young kids, there are typically kids' events during the day on Saturdays.  For most people, their kids' football or soccer game will take priority.  My proposal is that when there is not a mens hockey game in town that night, move UND football to 4:00, or maybe even have a 7:00 game once in a while.  That gives college kids and young people more time to get "primed up" for the game.  And it would give people with families an opportunity to not have the game conflict with their kids' activities and would also give them an opportunity to get done the many errands and chores that busy people with families usually have on Saturdays.   Hunting is not my thing, but maybe it would help with that issue too.  

For how true and popular this comment is perhaps we should send some emails to Bubba. 

[ND1]

I have mentioned this to Bubba in the past and he is not a fan of night games.  He like Lennon have everything built around a 1pm start date.