Re: POLL: Why the Decline in Attendance
Posted:
Wed Sep 16, 2015 12:49 pm
by dtwalrus
HJS {l Wrote}:It is a national trend brought about by Obama's economy and the proliferation of every game being available in high definition.
I looked at this. Lots of teams had troubles with attendance after the '08 recession, not just in college but at the pro level too. I looked at the numbers briefly, and BC had one of the highest effects, which kicked in nationwide for the 2009 season. This is percentage change in attendance compared to capacity. (i.e. 95% of capacity in '07 and 89% of capacity in '08 = -6%)
ASU: -21%
WSU: -15%
Louisville: -13%
BC: -12%
Purdue: -11%
UVa: -9.5%
Northwestern: -9%
UCLA: -9%
Vandy: -9%
Duke: -7%
The problem is, BC didn't recover. Most recovered in '11, with ASU adding 16% towards capacity, WSU adding 13% back, Louisville jumped from 58% in '09 to 92% in '10 and has stayed there. Even more peer schooles like Northwestern, Vanderbilt and Duke recovered most of their '09 losses, and not all of them have played well every year.
Only UVa, Purdue and BC have continued at the same level, or dropped further from their '09 dropoff.
HJS {l Wrote}:That said, to the extent that it is more heightened at BC (which I am not entirely convinced is true), it is likely due to (1) the small/Nationally-diverse alumni base, (2) Spazification causing folks to become comfortable with watching games on iPads and (3) the terrible tailgating situation.
Like Dick, I donate and I used to buy tickets and regularly make the journey from NYC. However, the effort and time sacrificed to attend simply do not equal the reward of being hassled for 90-minutes in a half-filled lot where "tailgating" is allegedly "permitted". The tailgating element is what keeps fans coming back even when the team sucks. If you aren't offering that, you are left exclusively with the on-field product to attract attendance. Quite frankly, you have to go back to Matty Ice and Jags to find a time when the product was worth the time and money investment to attend.
Dropping ticket prices to virtually nothing will help get locals to attend. Opening the floodgates on tailgating will help get donors and alums to attend. Winning at an elite level will attract both. The fact that BC has elected "D - None of the Above" and still gets 77% of the seats filled during the season is a quite honestly a testament to a very loyal (and long-suffering) fanbase.
I think this falls under the category of a massive negative mojo surrounding BC football that's hard to quantify. Can't argue with any of it though.
Re: POLL: Why the Decline in Attendance
Posted:
Wed Sep 16, 2015 1:38 pm
by dtwalrus
I'm going to preface this by saying that I was always the type of person that would immediately dismiss anyone that complained about BC's move to the ACC, but after looking at the attendance numbers in detail over the last few days I'm really starting to think that the move from the Big East to the ACC is the biggest precipitant of the drop off. In general, I think the schedule prior to the departure was a good fit for BC, geographically (e.g. Service Academies, UConn, UMass, etc) and culturally (ND, Stanford, Miami, etc.). It's not that losing any one Big East team in particular made a difference, but you can just feel a change in the schedule with the move to the ACC (e.g. Wake and UVa and NCST) and it was worsened by more national and shitty OOC scheduling.
Quite simply, the schedule no longer reflects BC's identity as an academically elite northeastern school.
Here are attendance numbers by year with the corresponding home schedule (OOC in parentheses):
Before:
1998 - 41,200 - Rutgers, Temple, Virginia Tech, Syracuse, (Navy, Notre Dame)
1999 - 41,347 - Pittsburgh, Miami, West Virginia, (Baylor, Northeastern)
2000 - 39,327 - Virginia Tech, Syracuse, Rutgers, Temple, (Navy, Uconn)
2001 - 42,640 - West Virginia, Temple, Pittsburgh, Miami, (Stanford, Army, Notre Dame)
2002 - 41,106 - Virginia Tech, Syracuse, Rutgers, (UConn, Stanford, Central Michigan, Navy)
2003 - 42,604 - Miami, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, (Wake Forest, Ball State, Notre Dame)
2004 - 43,190 - Uconn, Rutgers, Syracuse (Penn State, UMass)
After:
2005 - 39,429 - FSU, Virginia, Wake Forest, NCST, (Army, Ball State)
2006 - 38,843 - Clemson, Virginia Tech, Duke, Maryland, (BYU, Maine, Buffalo)
2007 - 41,990 - Wake Forest, NCST, FSU, Miami, (Army, UMass, Bowling Green)
2008 - 41,037 - Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Maryland, (Central Florida, Rhode Island, Notre Dame)
2009 - 35,716 - Wake Forest, Florida State, NC State, North Carolina, (Northeastern, Kent State, Central Michigan)
2010 - 38,369 - Virginia Tech, Maryland, Clemson, Virginia, (Weber State, Kent State, Notre Dame)
2011 - 35,709 - Duke, Wake Forest, FSU, NC State, (Northwestern, UMass)
2012 - 37,020 - Miami, Clemson, Maryland, Virginia Tech, (Maine, Notre Dame)
2013 - 33,006 - Wake Forest, FSU, Virginia Tech, NC State, (Villanova, Army)
2014 - 34,270 - Pittsburgh, Clemson, Louisville, Syracuse, (USC, Maine, Colorado State)
My thoughts:
1) I don't even know if I can put it into words, but just compare those schedules and I'm sure you feel it in your gut. To me, the schedule just feels more RIGHT from '98 - '04. And it's not that I love Rutgers or Temple, in fact, I don't think they're much of a draw. But when deciding whether to purchase season tickets, those schedules just felt like a good schedule.
2) I think the changing point was actually in 2005. The numbers don't drop until '09, but I think the process was already underway. I looked at the game-by-game numbers and as clear as day, our first matchup against every ACC opponent brought in an extra 5K fans compared to all subsequent matchups. FSU sold out in '05, and has been 40K in every game since. Same thing with Clemson, who sold out in '06 and has averaged 40K since. NCST brought in 43K and has been averaging 33K since. Duke brought in 42K in '06. We even sold out our first Maryland ACC game. I'm not saying traveling fan bases accounted for all of the artificial bump, but there was a clear bump for the novelty of it in '05 and '06.
3) In addition to the novelty of the ACC artificially propping up attendance immediately after the move from the Big East, the Matt Ryan years and BC being consistently ranked also artificially inflated attendance. The years '06, '07 and '08 saw BC ranked better than any sustained time in the Big East, and yet still the attendance is worse than in mediocre years in the Big East. The BC national rankings probably added 3K or 4K for the attendance those years. If the quality of the team had been more in line with previous years, I think the attendance drop off would much more clearly have started in '05 with the move to the ACC.
4) I don't think it's purely opponent quality. We played 8 ranked opponents in those last 7 years in the Big East and 10 ranked opponents in the 10 years in the ACC. That's almost identical. But Miami ranked #1 and #2 respectively in '01 and '03 sold out, as did a #4 VT in '00. Hell, a #23 Syracuse brought in 43K in '99. Not so much for a #16 ranked Clemson or a #9 ranked FSU or a #9 USC. And I know people will say that Spaz killed the team and nobody cares now, and that's certainly contributing, but BC wasn't exactly great from '99-'03. But we still showed up then to try to upset highly ranked Big East opponents.
5) On top of all of this, the Spaz hire (with all of it's terrible results, boring play calling, fans booing the home team, players seeming disinterested), an OOC schedule that makes absolutely no sense in terms of our football identity (Ball State, Central Michigan, Kent State, Weber State, Colorado State, etc), the recession and belt-tightening and -- as much as we like to hate on espn3 -- the fact that you can watch every single game on TV, and the terrible ticket-pricing and game day experience has added to the cultural shift of moving to the ACC and has really created a perfect storm of terribleness.
It's almost as though someone tried to create a game plan for how to destroy BC football. And then they got away with it for 10 years. That's just my $0.02.
p.s. I reread this before posting and immediately started hating myself for suddenly becoming one of those people bemoaning leaving the Big East. For the record, I am 100% thrilled we got into the ACC before the Big East collapsed. I wouldn't want it any other way. But still, I think the moribund state of BC football is one of the side effects of the move.
Re: POLL: Why the Decline in Attendance
Posted:
Wed Sep 16, 2015 2:45 pm
by dtwalrus
TobaccoRoadEagle {l Wrote}:twballgame9 {l Wrote}:This is a good theory if you ignore the fact that BC had no option to stay in the Big East, as it imploded thereafter. Attendance would be gone if BC hadn't moved.
yep - it's right up there with the "fill in the corners and attendance will skyrocket" theory
Obviously we can't and shouldn't undo the move to the Big East. But maybe, if there is something to the fact that the more-southern ACC schedule is a big part of the problem, there are things we can actually do moving forward.
1) There's already talk of division realignment in the ACC thanks to Louisville's addition in the Atlantic. If BC can actually get back to 9-10 wins per year, those calls for redistributing the divisions will grow a lot louder. Outside of Notre Dame, most of our recent sellouts came from Miami. We need Miami annually. BC should push for a Big East/ACC division split to get Miami, VT, Pitt and Syracuse back on the schedule annually. Miami's attendance has also been struggling since the ACC move. I'm sure they're not thrilled with UNC, Duke, and UVa every year. There's enough Big East in the ACC to get this done. I'm imagining an Atlantic of Louisville, Miami, VT, UVa, Syracuse, Pitt, and BC. Get rid of the fixed cross-division rival and then we sprinkle in FSU, GT, Clemson and the Carolina garbage. The less the Carolina schools come to Boston, the better our attendance will be.
2) OOC has to be very intentional. It can't just be cheap and easy wins. We need to get the service academies back (harder now with Navy in the AAC, I know) and we need UMass, UConn, Temple, and Rutgers to take the places of the Colorado States, Kent State, UCF, etc. And we need a marquees game on the schedule not once every 4 or 5 years, but at least every other year if not annually. Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Stanford, etc. The marquee game can be the difference for some potential season ticket holders, but as was clear with USC or Notre Dame over the last few years, not when the other 5 or 6 home games make no geographic or cultural sense. 2004 was our best attended year in recent history, and look at that schedule!!! Penn State, UConn, UMass, Rutgers, and Syracuse. Geographically appropriate with a payday game. That AVERAGED 43K.
That's not going back in time and rejoining the Big East, but it is correcting what was lost a bit.