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  • SAC Enrollment Trends / Effects on Football Attendance Numbers

    The enrollment numbers at some SAC schools are not trending very well at all, or stagnate at best, while some schools are showing nice increases. Are these trends effecting home game attendance? How's your school presently trending, and why?

  • #2
    I know you (Eagle74) and I have had a great discussion on this before, so I will abbreviate here.

    C-N football attendance has been kinda cruddy for a while, long before Clowney era and even Turner era. It's gone down since I was a student almost a decade before Sparks retirement.

    1. Lack of students attending games. Majority of students don't attend for various reasons: not caring about football; negative feelings towards football for various reasons; going to UT games instead or UT watch parties when the Vols aren't at home. There is also more commuters students now than there was a decade ago. Lots of kids go home every weekend. There's other reasons but those are the first that come to mind. It annoys me. You didn't get your degree from UT.

    2. Lack of faculty/staff attending games. Take all the reasons in #1 and plug them in here. I know there are faculty and staff at C-N who have openly cheered when football lost. I've been told that by students over the years. I had a football player just last year tell me a professor laughed in class while giving a lecture about how bad they lost a game. Another factor is a large portion of them don't live near campus like they did back in the day and aren't going to drive from Knoxville, Maryville, wherever to come watch and support the student athletes and coaches. Most of the faculty and staff who attend games do for 1 of 2 reasons: they are in a role at the university where they kind of have to be there or because they are told to be there by their boss on campus. Very very few come to support the team.

    3. Carson-Newman is not a community team. People from Jefferson County, Hamblen County, Sevier, Grainger, Cocke, etc. do not come to campus specifically to watch C-N play (for the most part) unless they have some kind of connection to campus (such as being an alumnus) like you would see with a high school team or bigger university. That's just the facts no matter if the college likes it or not.

    4. When you talk to folks who have been at the school for a while, they got spoiled in the 80's, 90's and 00's when C-N was competing for national championships every year. They got so used to C-N winning, that they quit coming.

    Comment


    • #3
      Interesting: Carson Newman is one of the SAC schools showing a nice increase in enrollment.
      Not all UT home games (most are sold out) are scheduled on the same dates as the Eagles home games.
      If I remember correctly, UT also had home games at the same time as when the Eagles did back in the successful (highly attended) Sparks era.
      Unfortunately, the last time the Eagles competed for a football national championship was in the past century.
      I guess the best way to get the CN seats filled is to become a much more consistent winning program again.
      With that being said, I agree, lots of fans really got spoiled back when Coach Sparks was at the helms of a respected, successful, winning football program.

      Comment


      • #4
        I haven't been to a UVA-Wise game in years, but I don't remember attendance being all that high. Might be due to only having 1 winning season in 13 seasons. Not sure about its enrollment trajectory

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Eagle74 View Post
          Interesting: Carson Newman is one of the SAC schools showing a nice increase in enrollment.
          Not all UT home games (most are sold out) are scheduled on the same dates as the Eagles home games.
          If I remember correctly, UT also had home games at the same time as when the Eagles did back in the successful (highly attended) Sparks era.
          Unfortunately, the last time the Eagles competed for a football national championship was in the past century.
          I guess the best way to get the CN seats filled is to become a much more consistent winning program again.
          With that being said, I agree, lots of fans really got spoiled back when Coach Sparks was at the helms of a respected, successful, winning football program.
          Six points, you're correct on about 1.5 maybe 2.

          Comment


          • #6
            Question for you. If we haven't competed for a title in the last century, what's your definition of compete? Not being rude I'm legit curious. Everyone has different definitions.

            Because if "competing" for a title is only playing in a title game...boy Sparks did absolutely nothing the last 16 years of his career.

            Comment


            • #7
              Not sure there is any relationship between the two at LR. Undergrad enrollment numbers have plateaued around 1750 which seems to be the number that LR wants (good chance graduate students will bring the total enrollment across all three campuses over 3,000 in the next few years). Like I've said in previous posts, it's difficult to truly gauge attendance at football games, but my observation is that the size of the gameday atmosphere (game + tailgate) has increased in leaps and bounds in the 10 or so years I've followed LR.

              Comment


              • #8
                What has disappointed me a little is that I do not see the "attendance" support at LR on Saturdays that they obviously have from the Hickory/Catawba area when raising money for the school.
                I do think the administration has recognized this and are reaching out trying to address this. Inviting area high school bands, making the stadium available for high school games, etc.
                But that process takes time to show up in Saturday attendance.

                Comment


                • #9
                  I also try to bring additional guest with me to LR home games (my brother in law and I have 8 seats) and I have been surprised at how hard I have to work to get people to go with me. I have come to the belief that one of the reasons is the lack of sports coverage in newspapers and on TV. I am not sure how you can build area support if these schools never get any media coverage.

                  I read the Charlotte Observer and the Winston Salem Journal as well as my small home town paper. I can not remember the last time I read a story about Wingate, LR, Queens, etc in the Charlotte Observer except when Wingate baseball won the D2 World Series. No stories up to that time but at least they did do a story after they won.

                  The Winston Salem Journal does do a decent job of covering WS State but no other small schools such as Greensboro College or Guilford College, both D3 schools.

                  A long time ago, I was the Commissioner of our local Little Football Program. (OK, I know but give me a moment) Players were down, cheerleaders were "special" and no one but parents in the stands.

                  So I made a few decisions. One; we would have two squads for each team, a varsity/older players and a jv.

                  2. No more Cheerleader try outs. Every young lady that wanted to cheer could. I said that there would be plenty of opportunity to tell those young ladies they were not "good enough" later in life. But not at 8 to 12 years old. And we would have a cheerleader Super bowl Competition at the end of the season along with the players for the football teams.

                  3. And, most important for purposes of this thread posting, I and I alone provided newspaper coverage for each and every game of the season. So on Saturday afternoons, when I left the games, I went to the local newspaper and wrote the article for the newspaper to publish. I provided the photos of various players in the games so that the moms, and dads, and grandparents, and neighbors could see them.

                  It took exactly one year for us to go from next to no one at the games to have attendance that filled the high school stands where the 3 games on each of those Saturdays were played. In the 11th and final year of my role as Commissioner, the attendance for the Super Bowl Cheerleaders Competition and the Super Bowl Game totaled over 3000 people.
                  When I took over as Commissioner, the League had about $1000 in checking. When I turned the checkbook over 11 years later it had $60,000.

                  All I am saying is the various school administrations and support organizations may really have to get creative (within the rules) to build a larger support base and get attendance up.
                  I wish it was easy. I know it is not.

                  But I also know that Salisbury could and would support Catawba, Kinston could and would support Barton, Hickory and the Unifour Area could and would support LR even better, with the right and creative and determined efforts.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Not really sure what the previous poster is talking about ^^ the Hickory area is 100% behind the Bears. If anything we are too spoiled in our support leading people to spend more time at the tailgate than they do in the stadium itself.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by canadarican View Post
                      Question for you. If we haven't competed for a title in the last century, what's your definition of compete? Not being rude I'm legit curious. Everyone has different definitions.

                      Because if "competing" for a title is only playing in a title game...boy Sparks did absolutely nothing the last 16 years of his career.
                      Your own quote: " they got spoiled in the 80's, 90's and 00's when C-N was competing for national championships every year.".
                      The last time CN was competing in a Division 2 National Championship game was 1999 (last century), 23 years ago (what's the average age of High School recruits theses days 17 /18). Based on your response, of course every team in the country competes for the National Championship. but the ultimate goal is actually being in the National Championship Game.

                      Coach Sparks was a great well admired coach which led CN to many SAC titles and D2 Playoff games. While he didn't have any title games in this century to add to his successful resume he was able to have very competitive winning teams on a very consistent basis. Other programs were not scheduling CN as their Homecoming opponent.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Bears posted:
                        Not really sure what the previous poster is talking about ^^ the Hickory area is 100% behind the Bears. If anything we are too spoiled in our support leading people to spend more time at the tailgate than they do in the stadium itself.
                        __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________
                        In the post I acknowledged that Hickory supports the school financially, but how many of our 6 home games so far this year have been sold out? Maybe home coming. No others. I live 1 hour 15 minutes away from Hickory and I said (and do try0 I try to get people to go to LR games with me. Most people do not even know Lenoir Rhyne is a University, much less has a football team. They know little to nothing about the school or its football program.

                        I have made a standing offer to my high school principal and head football coach (in front of his staff) that I would love to have any or all players and/or coaches to be my guest at one or more LR games. So far only 2 players have been my guest. No Coaches. I have had 3 Mt Airy fans as my guest and they posted all over Facebook what a great time they had and how impressed they are. But that is it.

                        When I go to the away games, as I have to every one this year, all but one last year, there are very few non-parent, non-staff Bear fans present. Some but not many.

                        Have you gone to a Wake Forest game, a UNC game, an ECU game, and pray tell an Appalachian Game? Those schools ae examples of community and alumni support that I wish LR and the other SAC schools could develop.

                        That is what I am talking about. My post was not and is not a criticism, it is a hope, a desire, a wish for my school and for others.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by BearFan1 View Post
                          Bears posted:
                          Not really sure what the previous poster is talking about ^^ the Hickory area is 100% behind the Bears. If anything we are too spoiled in our support leading people to spend more time at the tailgate than they do in the stadium itself.
                          __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________
                          In the post I acknowledged that Hickory supports the school financially, but how many of our 6 home games so far this year have been sold out? Maybe home coming. No others. I live 1 hour 15 minutes away from Hickory and I said (and do try0 I try to get people to go to LR games with me. Most people do not even know Lenoir Rhyne is a University, much less has a football team. They know little to nothing about the school or its football program.

                          I have made a standing offer to my high school principal and head football coach (in front of his staff) that I would love to have any or all players and/or coaches to be my guest at one or more LR games. So far only 2 players have been my guest. No Coaches. I have had 3 Mt Airy fans as my guest and they posted all over Facebook what a great time they had and how impressed they are. But that is it.

                          When I go to the away games, as I have to every one this year, all but one last year, there are very few non-parent, non-staff Bear fans present. Some but not many.

                          Have you gone to a Wake Forest game, a UNC game, an ECU game, and pray tell an Appalachian Game? Those schools ae examples of community and alumni support that I wish LR and the other SAC schools could develop.


                          That is what I am talking about. My post was not and is not a criticism, it is a hope, a desire, a wish for my school and for others.
                          I think the problem could be that there's only a small pool of engaged fans within each SAC college. Many people in each respective local community have different priorities than supporting the colleges that they don't have connections to outside of being in the same area.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by cavsfan94 View Post

                            I think the problem could be that there's only a small pool of engaged fans within each SAC college. Many people in each respective local community have different priorities than supporting the colleges that they don't have connections to outside of being in the same area.
                            Right. It’s apples and oranges. For my money when you consider the size of LR the amount of support we have is really unbeatable.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Eagle74 View Post

                              Your own quote: " they got spoiled in the 80's, 90's and 00's when C-N was competing for national championships every year.".
                              The last time CN was competing in a Division 2 National Championship game was 1999 (last century), 23 years ago (what's the average age of High School recruits theses days 17 /18). Based on your response, of course every team in the country competes for the National Championship. but the ultimate goal is actually being in the National Championship Game.

                              Coach Sparks was a great well admired coach which led CN to many SAC titles and D2 Playoff games. While he didn't have any title games in this century to add to his successful resume he was able to have very competitive winning teams on a very consistent basis. Other programs were not scheduling CN as their Homecoming opponent.
                              I know when C-N was competing in a title game. But your quote led me to ask what do you consider as competing? I'm not arguing but like I said, everyone has a different definition. Do playoffs not count as competing or are we solely talking about playing in the title game and nothing else counts as competing? I think you misunderstood my question, that's all. C-N has had -plenty of dang good football teams since 1999, including 3 or 4 regional finalist and a final four appearance. C-N has been competitive on a consistent basis for the most part since 2000. Minus Sparks last year (but come on the dude was doing chemo all day then coaching so I give him a pass for sure, he earned it), and the past 2 years (this included). Yeah this year is no fun but it's freaking Dollywood compared to LY. My point is to say they haven't had a competitive team since then is just not true as a whole.

                              Comment

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