I know some of you really like this but.... I just drove by Pedan Stadium in Athens and there could not have been more than 1,000 people at the game tonight. I know it is cold but these games just kill your local fan base
MAC tion
- Thread starter ohio herd
- Start date
I just like having football games on TV throughout the week. It’s a good opportunity for programs that aren’t normally on TV to get some exposure.
They had a great crowd last Wednesday night for the game against Miami, but it was 12 degrees in Athens last night at kickoff.
Trust me: if Marshall loses to LTSU and the FIU game is in the low teens, the Joan ain't exactly going to be bumping Thanksgiving weekend.
Trust me: if Marshall loses to LTSU and the FIU game is in the low teens, the Joan ain't exactly going to be bumping Thanksgiving weekend.
Trust me I live here and that (Miami) was the exception to the rule on those games. They(Ohio) really struggle here to keep the base because of these games. Miami is the long time rival and the weather was decent. Playing multiple games on tuesday and wed nights makes it difficult for many to attend these games ,good weather or bad weather. I suppose it all depends on what is more important to the University. Providing opportunities for the fan base to be able to attend games on Saturday or having some random guy in Nevada watch because he is bored. One game per season on a Friday (non holiday) is no big deal IMO.
100% correct.
The MACers have tossed away any hope of a normal college football experience for TV $$, not “TV exposure”. The MAC games are lost in a sea of college basketball (EVANSVILLE!!!, WOW) NBA, NHL, etc. Ratings equal out to infomercial levels.
When Disney’s contract runs out, the MACers are going to look to their fan base and find out that they have all long since left the building.
Whats the excuse for most of CUSA? I've watched a ton of games and the only teams consistent in drawing decent crowds are Marshall and USM. FAU had hardly anyone at their game with FIU.
To be honest, if its gets us on ESPN or ESPN2, I wouldn't mind playing one Thursday night home game and one weekday away game. Tuesday and Wednesdays are nuts. Friday is for High School football. But we'll continue to be on Facebook and Stadium and take great delight in the 3K or so fans watching online. WOOT!
Since you asked.
Nobody is making an “excuse” for CUSA. CUSA is not perfect. But, since you brought up FAU and FIU, they simply have a different business model. FIU has 60,000 students; FAU has 30,000. They run their programs off student fees and taxpayer subsidy (FIU taxpayer subsidy rate is 71% of its budget, FAU is 50%). The same can be said about the Texas schools. A different business model. In states so well-governed and pro-business that that NINE HUNDRED PEOPLE PER DAY moved to Florida and ONE THOUSAND PEOPLE PER DAY moved to Texas last year, according to the Census Bureau. In other words they each get a new Cabell County worth of population every three years.
Now, you might think that gigging students for athletic fees for games they don’t go to and using taxpayer $$ to subsidize unwatched football is pretty dumb, but unless you vote in FL or TX (or NC or VA, because they do the same thing) or are a student there, it does not really matter what you think.
Now to the lowly MAC. In Ohio and Michigan. Bleeding population and prosperity. Same taxpayer and student fee subsidy. And still they whore themselves out to ESPN (and, no ESPN will not agree to a “just Thursday” deal.) Destroying what college football should be all about. Playing in the bitter cold before no one. Not very many people can miss a day and a half of work to go to a football game. And the ESPN contract, signed in a bygone era before “cord cutting” will eventually expire. And the MAC will be up the creek.
I don’t have a source, but I would say that last night’s MACer twin-bills got ratings well below the national college basketball games, NBA, and NHL, and certainly behind ESPN’s playoff hype show, which is nothing but talking heads blathering for an hour.
We really cant bad mouth schools who survive from fees and school subsidies. This is from a USA Today article showing overall athletic budgets for the 17-18 school year.
Marshall C-USA
Total Revenue $30,612,153
Total Expenses $31,820,335
Allocated $14,714,969
% allocated 48.07
Marshall C-USA
Total Revenue $30,612,153
Total Expenses $31,820,335
Allocated $14,714,969
% allocated 48.07
Last edited:
true, however, people can drive to a game on Friday and get home late and sleep in the next day since most don't have to work on Saturday. Many can't do that for a Tuesday night game.I can't work til 4 then drive 2 hours, go to the game, spend 3-4 hours at the game and then drive 2 hours home and get to bed around 1 or 2 am and function at work the next day. I would also add that playing night games, (our Friday game included) in November in the Northern states is inviting a low turnout due to weather. Most of the time it is a little more tolerable to sit in challenging weather conditions during the day than at night. Just my view from where i sit.
I get that, but the point of the topic discussed is attendance and how weak the MAC is. I was just pointing out that other than Marshall and USM, overall CUSA attendance is just as bad. We have one school that can't fill their puney 15K seat stadium based in one the fastest growing metro areas in the country.
I can see much of that as poor marketing and a history of being awful for those FL schools.
Thats their problem as an individual insititution.
Market your team and win.
Even with a shocker of a season for FAU, their fans weren't used to that...combine the area they're in with about 1,000 other things to do, and you will have trouble finding people wanting to see them.
The MAC is a conference-wide problem governed by their TV deal.
I can't remember what year it was, but ESPN showed maybe 2 MAC games on a saturday for most of the season.
I have said often, that the payout from ESPN may look nice and is higher than CUSA pays, but factor in the lost revenue at the gate for a weekday game multiple times a season...is it really worth it?
You are absolutely right. Excepting the MWC, which is mostly just based in states/regions/cities that are smaller than the P5, the other four G5 leagues mostly have what I will call “relevancy issues”. If you didn’t go to or have some other relationship (parent, employee, etc) to [fill in the blank with most any G5 team] why do you care? Even if you live in Akron, why does that make the University of Akron “us” to you? Bluntly there are schools in each of the G5, excepting the MWC, that need to seriously rethink where they are in athletics, especially in light of the taxpayer subsidy, and in light of, IMHO, a coming revolt of students relative to constant unjustified tuition increases.
The only point I was making was that college sports marketing includes several elements, and one of the more important is alumni coming back to see the game, especially for more rural based schools like Ohio. Playing in the dead of winter on a Tuesday night presents the issues ohio herd points out for those fans. When the ESPN $$ run out, there will not be more to follow, as the TV business has changed, and the teams have pissed away once solid Saturday fan bases.
Plus the MAC has production costs that CUSA doesn't have
In essence its a gamble either way. The MAC has prime exposure with additional costs involved; while CUSA has much less exposure with fewer costs. Both leagues play to about the same number of fans on a weekly basis - game in and game out. The latest figures I could find show that in 2018, the MAC averaged a little over 15.5K fans per game, while CUSA averaged around 18.8K fans per game. Pretty sad on both fronts.
Lets be honest. Mike Hamrick himself said the exposure we get playing on ESPN for a bowl or during the NCAA tourney was invaluable and we couldn't get that anywhere else.
Last edited:
Where were you when we played home playoff games back in the 90s in December and your feet rested on a slab of ice? Fun times , I must say.
No tradition at all and in most of these places I am not sure many people know they have a football team.
You have to look past just CUSA as a whole but at programs that do draw. With the amount of graduates from Marshall with season tickets that live outside of Huntington, should we have two games at home on Tuesday or Wednesday, our season tickets would drop drastically.
Quite frankly...I don't want to see our stadium on TV any more empty than it already is. We would have to start tarping off a bunch of our stadium for those game.
I would prefer to be on ESPN networks or CBSSN any day...however I want to attend games and if we had a bunch of weeknight games I would drop my tickets and very seldom come back for games. It would not do me any good to have the tickets. Since I have had season tickets (about 15 years), I have missed 3 home games. We can't afford to sell ourselves to ESPN like the MAC. The MAC doesn't have fans on weekends so they need any money they can get.
well I lived 6 hours away back then so with my work schedule what it was I wasn't able to make several of those games. I came to as many as I could.
I certainly agree. We all want the exposure but no Tuesday or Wednesday night games. I really don't like Friday games as it interferes a bit with HS football. But I wouldn't mind a Thursday game at home and one on the road if it meant playing on ESPN. The remaining home games should be on Saturday.
We've played two Friday games that last few years I think. Our brand is suffering greatly due to the leagues poor media package.
I can agree with what he said based on the bowls and NCAA tournament happening because those are actual "seasons" or "events."
"Bowl season is upon us" and "March Madness" as well.
Bowl season is during the holidays which allows people more time to see the teams play since plenty will have lighter schedules.
March Madness engages everyone because people actually bet on these games.
But on a Tuesday or Wednesday night in the middle of October?
Not sure the exposure is really as effective as these games seem to be more for bar background filler than actual meaningful sporting events.
Win tomorrow and we have a decent crowd to secure the title game. Lose tomorrow and we have 15-18k there to watch 6-4 Marshall take on FIU.
Title game comes...20-23k in attendance because it’s cold. We don’t have TOO much room to talk here
Title game comes...20-23k in attendance because it’s cold. We don’t have TOO much room to talk here
True. But I would bet good money, anything on ESPN on a weeknight would kill anything streamed over Facebook or Stadium in terms of viewers. Our league package is embarrassing!
I hated when we played those Thursday night games. They were one reason that I finally gave up my season tickets. I found it impossible to attend the game, drive home where I usually arrived around 3:30 am, then get up at 6 for work. Always felt like a zombie the whole work day.
Similar threads
Latest posts
-
-
-
-
Who is our biggest rival in basketball right now?
- Latest: herd4life5 (HN)
-
