STrib: College football mystery: Why don't students go to games?

[Rodney's Open]

As a sophomore student at the U, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that most students here just aren't interested in football or going to the games. Hardly any of my friends buy season tickets, and those who do usually just decide not to go to most of the games or sell their tickets, because they'd rather be sleeping, doing homework or hanging out. At the game most of the students don't seem to be engaged much from what I've seen, and they seem to view the game as mostly a place to socialize and get drunk at. I doubt that most of them have any idea who the Gophers played the week before, or how the team is even doing. Granted, I have met quite a few students who are die hard fans, and who know a lot about the team, but sadly, these fans seem to be in the minority.

I think it's a product of being so close to the city. I loved my experience at the U and loved being so close to downtown, but it does present other entertainment options. Madison is a great town, but there isn't as much to do.

 

[SelectionSunday]

Beer and opposite sex now, later when older they'll add live sporting event to it

Because the students are thinking of two things most of us older folks don't think about as much as we used to, beer and the opposite sex. As they get older, they'll figure out those two things (though I'm not a beer drinker at games) + the pure enjoyment of a live sporting event = perfect harmony together!

 

[Iceland12]

I think it's a product of being so close to the city. I loved my experience at the U and loved being so close to downtown, but it does present other entertainment options. Madison is a great town, but there isn't as much to do.

Very true and even in Madison there's a lot of grumbling with how long that student section takes to fill. A whole lot of students don't see much or any of that 1st Quarter.

 

[Gopher07]

It's a whole host of things. Competing for championships would help immensely but not solve all the issues, being in a smaller city or town would help but not without winning, shortening the game and dealing with TV timeouts would attract people as well but not to capacity.

Lots of problems, no one solution. The U should focus on controlling what they can (on-field product and in-stadium experience) the best they can.

 

[theTurning]

I don't know what's more sad. Them only caring about that or you posting on an internet message board about how much you care about what they care about.

Hahaa seriously.

It's folly to blame the students anyway. It's the job of the university and the NCAA ultimately to find ways to appeal to these kids. And it's just going to get worse from here.

 

[RodentRampage]

Are afternoon games better attended than 11 AM games? If so, perhaps it would be a good idea to shift away from 11 AM games. The Big Ten could have just one 11 AM game for television purposes, an have the rest of the games later. There's no reason to bound by 11 AM, 2:30 PM and 7 PM game times. Why not stagger them through the day. How about 1 PM starts?

Shaking fists at students for not attending isn't going to make more students go to games. Like it or not, a way has to be found to win students over. How about looking at minor league baseball for ways to make the game-day experience interesting?

 

[Iceland12]

Are afternoon games better attended than 11 AM games? If so, perhaps it would be a good idea to shift away from 11 AM games. The Big Ten could have just one 11 AM game for television purposes, an have the rest of the games later. There's no reason to bound by 11 AM, 2:30 PM and 7 PM game times. Why not stagger them through the day. How about 1 PM starts?

Shaking fists at students for not attending isn't going to make more students go to games. Like it or not, a way has to be found to win students over. How about looking at minor league baseball for ways to make the game-day experience interesting?

I'd guess the reason, with the millions of dollars paid by ESPN, BTN and ABC to the Big Ten, is they want some kind of certainty of when the games are to be played and want to minimize overlap of games as much as they can.

 

[DLguy]

Our group started out with 8 of us a few years ago. We now have 22 in our group, and keep packing in more each game as everyone wants to come. We are all around 30. Most went to the U, but some went to Wisconsin and are huge Badger fans, but have now turned towards the maroon and gold. I think when people get a little older, they appreciate the games and making a day of it a lot more than college kids do. Hopefully demand will get us to where if students dont sell out, then the general public will fill those seats with ease.

 

[SelectionSunday]

I think when people get a little older, they appreciate the games and making a day of it a lot more than college kids do.

A perfect summation. And I'm not saying that as a criticism of the students. Just the way it is.

 

[Dr.Don]

I don't know what's more sad. Them only caring about that or you posting on an internet message board about how much you care about what they care about.

Rodney, I am so sorry I say anything. Others can but I can't? Got it.

 

[RodentRampage]

Rodney, I am so sorry I say anything. Others can but I can't? Got it.

In a discussion about why students aren't going to games just might have some posts speculating and why students aren't going to games.

 

[GopherOhana]

A perfect summation. And I'm not saying that as a criticism of the students. Just the way it is.

this was it for me when I went to the U in the 70s. Leaving HS sports, for me, were about participation and not entertainment. At the U it was study/work/drink/repeat and I lacked comprehension about an overall student/university experience. free tix wouldn't have gotten me to more games because I had a comprehension problem before I had an economical problem

 

[GopherHomer]

The issue is HD television coverage. This is the source of it nationwide, even in the SEC. You can get a better view for free, from your own comfy couch, as opposed to paying to sit on a student section bench. Hell, you can even multitask, and the underclassmen can even drink some of the booze they're not buying. More significantly, try as they might, there's just no way to make a television commercial break compelling on the field. We see more and more of them, and it takes you right out of it, with no escape from the tedious downtime.

(The threat of the other football looms high over American shores).

You had me until the last statement. Soccer will NEVER overtake football in America. Once every 4 years everybody pretends to be soccer fans for a couple weeks, and then they sweep it back under the couch. The day more people show up for a Gopher men's soccer game than a Gopher football game, you can tell me I'm wrong. (wait, do we have men's soccer?)

 

[RodentRampage]

You had me until the last statement. Soccer will NEVER overtake football in America. Once every 4 years everybody pretends to be soccer fans for a couple weeks, and then they sweep it back under the couch. The day more people show up for a Gopher men's soccer game than a Gopher football game, you can tell me I'm wrong. (wait, do we have men's soccer?)

Never is an awfully long time. Soccer has been growing in popularity for decades. Major League Soccer's popularity rivals that of the NHL.

 

[Gopher07]

You had me until the last statement. Soccer will NEVER overtake football in America. Once every 4 years everybody pretends to be soccer fans for a couple weeks, and then they sweep it back under the couch. The day more people show up for a Gopher men's soccer game than a Gopher football game, you can tell me I'm wrong. (wait, do we have men's soccer?)

To answer your last question, we do not.

W/r/t the popularity of soccer, undoubtedly it's rising (particularly among the younger segment, and very much linked to the exploding Hispanic population in the US). Given that 1 in 4 babies being born in the US is Hispanic, and Hispanic support of soccer is much higher and much more ingrained culturally, I would guess that we'll only continue to see soccer's popularity grow in the coming decades. It likely will not pass football for a long, long time (if it ever does) but I don't doubt that in the next 30 years, it will be at least #3 in the US sports heirarchy (potentially #2, surpassing basketball).

 

[Winasota Gopher]

With all the “social media” advancements, the world is actually becoming much less social. Why go to Coffman Union and hang out with friends when I can "hang out with them" on my new iPhone 6?

Bus stops, light rail rides, airports. Wherever you go, you see drones of people with their phone smashed into their face. Nobody talks anymore. It's sort of appalling and shameful to see a table full of people at a restaurant “sharing a meal”.

Additionally, the “need it now” element to society is also driven by technology. The 24/7 news cycle and "immediacy" culture has made patience a thing of the past. Give it to me know. Why watch the game when I can see the highlights in real-time from my bathroom. Why experience something when I can just read about it on Twitter in real-time? I know someone that live-tweeted their own wedding and I just about wanted to vomit after they told me.

The problem is much deeper than college football attendance. We are raising a generation of kids that will not understand what it means to actually be social. What is means to have patience. What it means to lose and wait for something better.

Technology is wonderful, but we have to look at the element of technology that is actually making us dumber as a society. The element that is making us regress

It’s not the kids fault. It’s our fault. We are business leaders, civic leaders. We are on school boards. We own stock in technology companies.

That was my “old man moment” of the day.

Look at the pic in the article. The girl is playing her god-damn cell phone! You know she's not trying to find a good Chinese restaurant in the area or the solution to a differential equation. She's checking her Facebook page or her texts or what ever - but her mind no doubt is centered immediately on herself and how she controls this. Technology and modern society have delivered this to her and she now has the luxury of being able to dedicate all of her social energy to herself without the need for anything external (that she can't control) to help satisfy her social needs. She doesn't need the football team to anchor for her social orbit, to amplify for her social energy, or to commune with other humans. All she needs right there in the palm of her hand. Too bad. She missed the game.

My generation was better than your generation....

 

[station19]

In the last 20+ years:

The price of tickets(FB & BB) has skyrocketed, not to mention the extra for priority seating.
Non conference home games have become mostly cupcakes.
The length of the games has expanded due to TV timeouts and rule changes.
The ever annoying 'in-game promotions' seriously takes away from the game day experience.
The ever changing, and inconvenient, game times leads to confusion.

All these are money driven issues(there are probably more that I am not thinking of right now)...............................Point is---you keep screwing the Golden goose, she'll stop coming by. You lose a few, and then you lose a few more. The trend can be hard to reverse. People attract people. If it isn't 'The Place To Be' for the general seating, why should the students think it is.

 

[AuEGO4]

So what we need is a contract with Aggievision (lower quality tv broadcast), with the entire game sponsored by Casa de Autos (to limit TV timeouts), and students to be older (to appreciate the game more).
Problem solved.

 

[Dr.Don]

In a discussion about why students aren't going to games just might have some posts speculating and why students aren't going to games.

And that was my speculation and I caught hell for it. Figure that out.

 

[station19]

My generation was better than your generation....

Good One

 

[bleedsmaroonandgold]

It's a whole host of things. Competing for championships would help immensely but not solve all the issues, being in a smaller city or town would help but not without winning, shortening the game and dealing with TV timeouts would attract people as well but not to capacity.

Lots of problems, no one solution. The U should focus on controlling what they can (on-field product and in-stadium experience) the best they can.

Love the comment in the bold. I think our "one extreme or the other" mentality which permeates so many parts of our lives (especially in politics or sports) that people forget about what can be controlled. A lot of times I think people make the jump from "this is affected by things we can't control" to "its not our fault" to "there is nothing we can do about it" and skip right past "there are a mix of things we can and can't control, so let's go ahead and whine about what we can't control instead of doing everything we can about the stuff we can control".

 

[Com_Cool]

Love the comment in the bold. I think our "one extreme or the other" mentality which permeates so many parts of our lives (especially in politics or sports) that people forget about what can be controlled. A lot of times I think people make the jump from "this is affected by things we can't control" to "its not our fault" to "there is nothing we can do about it" and skip right past "there are a mix of things we can and can't control, so let's go ahead and whine about what we can't control instead of doing everything we can about the stuff we can control".

+1

Putting an axe in the trophy case could boost attendance.

 

[gopherncostarica]

Man I want to cal poly SLO for four years and just graduated. I wish I could have the opportunity to get season tickets to gopher games. I would never miss a game honestly... But that's just me lol

 

[BBQ Platypus]

You had me until the last statement. Soccer will NEVER overtake football in America. Once every 4 years everybody pretends to be soccer fans for a couple weeks, and then they sweep it back under the couch. The day more people show up for a Gopher men's soccer game than a Gopher football game, you can tell me I'm wrong. (wait, do we have men's soccer?)

I perhaps should have included a smiley. I was being half-facetious, there. I will say, however, that "No ads interrupting the games" is a huge point in soccer's favor.

(And I can assure you that I'm not faking, nor are a number of my friends. Of course it'll never overtake football, but the increase in soccer's popularity is NOT a mirage. Ratings for Premier League and Champions League games continue to increase every year. Carry on and go Toffees).

 

[bkrownd]

As a sophomore student at the U, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that most students here just aren't interested in football or going to the games. Hardly any of my friends buy season tickets, and those who do usually just decide not to go to most of the games or sell their tickets, because they'd rather be sleeping, doing homework or hanging out. At the game most of the students don't seem to be engaged much from what I've seen, and they seem to view the game as mostly a place to socialize and get drunk at. I doubt that most of them have any idea who the Gophers played the week before, or how the team is even doing. Granted, I have met quite a few students who are die hard fans, and who know a lot about the team, but sadly, these fans seem to be in the minority.

Yeah, I would EXPECT that students are very fickle and distracted fans. Most students haven't been tied to campus for generations. I'm not sure what the college experience was like for other people here, but during my undergrad years Saturdays were primarily work days and after work I spent time with my girlfriend. That was the most busy and overworked period of my life. I was a hardcore college football fan and yet I only went to a few games during my final year. Most students I knew paid little or no attention to campus sports, and few of us lived near campus anyway. We lived all over the metro area and commuted to the U with the rest of the 9-5 workers.

 

[El Amin Fan]

And that was my speculation and I caught hell for it. Figure that out.

You think a single comment to you is "catching hell" or "holy hell" always. Yet you take shots at people more than anyone. Your bolded big letter tagline should be "Do as I say, not as I do."

 

[DarrenTheGreek]

I went to some high school football games this year for the first time in a long time and it was a breath of fresh air to not have to sit 4-5 minutes between each change of possession. I agree with the poster that said football coverage needs to figure this out. It can be done.

 

[BarnBoy]

My generation was better than your generation....

Tell me you seriously think there hasn't been a shift in people's attention spans due to technology.

Or just google a couple of images and be cranky old guy.

 

[golden boy]

You had me until the last statement. Soccer will NEVER overtake football in America. Once every 4 years everybody pretends to be soccer fans for a couple weeks, and then they sweep it back under the couch. The day more people show up for a Gopher men's soccer game than a Gopher football game, you can tell me I'm wrong. (wait, do we have men's soccer?)

Something will eventually overtake football. Why not soccer? It is the fastest growing TV sports media in the country. Not the world cup (it's good too), not the MLS, but foreign soccer. Mexican and Euro leagues. The world now is different than when listening to a baseball game on the radio was the best thing out there, and the world in 50-60 years will be different than now when watching HGH monsters give each other permanent brain injury every Sunday is the best thing out there. Things change that people of history could never anticipate.

 

[Winasota Gopher]

Tell me you seriously think there hasn't been a shift in people's attention spans due to technology.

Or just google a couple of images and be cranky old guy.

Obviously, but I'm also telling you that your generation went through the same thing. Depending on your generation you went from Campfire stories to books, from books to radio, from radio to tv, from tv to internet, from internet to connected devices. It happens EVERY GENERATION!

I am part of a family owned business. My Dad often told me stories of how his dad, when he took the business over, yelled at him and told him "he didn't get it" or that "he was ruining the company". 40 years later the company has quadrupled in value and my father is pounding his chest about how he knows everything. For the past 2 years he's told me the exact same things his father said to him, and I'm quite confident that 40 years from now I'll do the same to my daughter/son whomever succeeds me after I quadruple the value of the company.