Where Are the Herd Fans?
- Thread starter bbneutralfan
- Start date
Honestly I get the feeling a lot of the local Huntington area folks don’t go, obviously many do.
All I know is I’ve spent about half my life in Huntington and half in the Kanawha Valley. I know many from both areas but as I stroll the west lot it seems to me a disproportionate amount of Teays and Kanawha Valley folks compared to Huntington area, at least to what I expect. Now that’s not a good analysis but it seems to me that’s the way it is. Same thing if I study the bricks of names that participated in Vision campaign.
All I know is I’ve spent about half my life in Huntington and half in the Kanawha Valley. I know many from both areas but as I stroll the west lot it seems to me a disproportionate amount of Teays and Kanawha Valley folks compared to Huntington area, at least to what I expect. Now that’s not a good analysis but it seems to me that’s the way it is. Same thing if I study the bricks of names that participated in Vision campaign.
Something that can help is having a special guest of some kind, lead the chant on the microphone on the field. Doesn't have to be some superstar, just someone getting recognized for good they've done.
It's the same reason the Thunderclap is always off and out of sync.
That DJ would actually be beneficial if he were to be on the scoreboard and could lead some things to improve the gameday atmosphere.
I recall St Mary's, Cabell Huntington, Ashland Oil, all used to buy up huge blocks of tickets and give them to employees. Usually that meant a companion had to buy a ticket.
Same with midget league football. They used to give end zone tickets to the leagues, that meant mom and dad, or one parent would buy a ticket.
We used to have a huge band day - that's diminished considerably.
All end zone seats should be $15 each and every game; or 4 for $40.
I do think COVID is keeping many away. Students don't attend well, only a small portion. Most leave at halftime.
It is what it is.
Same with midget league football. They used to give end zone tickets to the leagues, that meant mom and dad, or one parent would buy a ticket.
We used to have a huge band day - that's diminished considerably.
All end zone seats should be $15 each and every game; or 4 for $40.
I do think COVID is keeping many away. Students don't attend well, only a small portion. Most leave at halftime.
It is what it is.
So an empty seat is more profitable than a $15 ticket? Which is mostly done through the Internet. The need to print tickets is diminishing each year. Not to mention the $2 convenience fee applied to each online ticket .
Obviously there are costs involved but I fail to see the value of an empty seat.
Sammy probably doesn't even attend the games.
- Too many Ads- not everything has to have Dutch Miller, Go Mart, Or one of the hospitals. Halftime was 15 minutes of commercials, and 5 minutes of our awful band. Also there is a very disjointed way in which music is played between stadium noise and band, the only crowd cheer is "we are marshall" and there's no one leading any type of other cheers or organized music that would give you the feeling of being involved.
- The concourses are way too small. Even with 24,000 fans they were jam packed on Saturday. I had to wait for 15-20 minutes to get a drink when I first came into the stadium. Honestly if there was more room we would have even bigger problems. People don't want to come to a game and then not be able to walk to their seat.
- The bathrooms are disgusting.
- Too many people don't return after halftime, this has been mentioned constantly but re-entry really shouldn't be an option.
- Overall game presentation could be better.
- The DJ was a good idea, but they screwed it up. Its not a student its a middle aged man, and the students (at least from my vantage point) seemed like they could not care less about it.
- Lastly, Its just going to take time for fans to come back. We had a lot of years of Doc and his overly conservative style that was honestly boring. I loved that at the end of the second quarter Huff decided to take one shot down the field to see if we could get in field goal range before halftime. Those are things Doc never did. Those are things that, if we fix the other issues with our atmosphere, I think keep people engaged and in the games.
It’s interesting to hear so many people on multiple boards mention the $30 cheapest ticket as a reason for the disappointing crowds; This is the paradox of Herd fans… How many also complain about not being in the AAC, and never competing for the access bowl? To compete in the AAC we’d need to seriously increase giving & probably raise ticket prices even higher. Would fans really support that? (And if we ever get that Peach Bowl bid, game tickets are $135-250!) Can we afford to be D1 and also be as relevant as we’d like if so many fans feel this way? Do we even know what the new normal will be for fan support after Covid finally goes away? Lots more questions than answers right now. But someone needs to unify this fan base ASAP.
Last edited:
This fan base is so fractured that I really don’t know how to do that.
The obvious answer would be winning. But, we haven’t been losing. The issue is not wins and losses. It is the fundamental lack of respect for the league. And please do not tell me the attitude in the SBC would be a lot different, as most SBC members were I-AA 8 years ago. Yeah, THIS YEAR, somebody is ranked. And? See me in a couple years when the ‘little engine that could” story has shifted again, as it always does.
Which brings us to the AAC. The supposed solution. But, typical Huntington, another, probably overlapped, crew wants to piss and moan about how much every thing costs, and expects “them” to pay the freight.
Then we have people that want to see “Power 5” teams come to town. Really? There have been 7 all time.
Kansas State in 05, which was signed when Kansas State was barely relevant. WVU in 07 and 10, which is politics. Virginia Tech in 11, good job by the AD. Purdue in 15, which Purdue is a pretty hapless Big 10 field filler. Louisville in 16, which was signed when Louisville was in the mid-major Big East conference. And NC State in 18, again good job AD.
Regular P5 appearances are NOT happening. And, pretty much playing a P5 cuts the chance of getting the ONE access bowl slot by 99%.
Then you have the “get off my lawn” crowd that get upset that OTHER PEOPLE are on cell phones or are mad about the band or the cheerleaders, or what not.
Best way to come together?
Understand that THIS is Marshall football. Playing who it plays, where it plays, with the stadium it has and the TV packages it has.
Get with the program.
Or move on.
We will never sell out the Joan until we play a quality team that travels well and brings their own fans and that’s a fact!!!
The fans are customers. It is simple: if we want people in the stadium the product has to be worth it. We've got a base of fans that show up. To casual fans, we haven't given them a reason to care in a long time. And there isn't enough space to talk about the incompetent marketing at MU and specifically in the AD.
