BusinessJournal: Gophers win, but attendance lags

[ruppertflywheel]

I'm going to assume you don't work for the Chamber of Commerce up there in Nisswa.

LOL...19. What the heck, everything else has been tried. We're dealing with sheep
19 They need to be prodded.

 

[GophersInIowa]

To increase attendance and make the game seem like the place to be, the Gophers need to win regularly and to beat ranked Big Ten teams. Say what you will about some disappointing come from ahead losses and the bitterness at the end of the Mason era, but the big moment the team jumped from "same old Gophers" to relevancy was the win at Penn State in 1999. The team was already rising, but that win made people take notice. It set the relative boom period in motion.

Unfortunately the attendance still wasn't good. Even after the Penn St. win, there were still only 47,000 at the next game. In the four years we were .500 or better in the Big Ten under Mason, the average home attendance was a little over 46,000 per game.

As an aside, I have another pet theory on student section attendance and early departures. Students don't seem to dress for the cold at these games. Kids turn up on 40 degree days like this past weekend in jeans, light sweatshirts, and sneakers. They freeze. They decide after halftime to bag it. They don't want to come back. I freely admit there are many other factors in play, but am willing to bet this is at least in the mix. It's also something that's hard to overcome because good luck getting these kids to dress for the weather. The best bet is to improve the gameday experience and win to overcome it.

You're right, that is probably a factor.

 

[Killjoy]

I'm going to assume you don't work for the Chamber of Commerce up there in Nisswa.

Wrong again! It is the Moorhead Chamber of Commerce.