Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

[BJ Hawk]

Some fairly good numbers with all the weather in the area, but how do you only get 544 to a D2 college football game? Also a roll up for the home games through four weeks.

[Javelina Alum]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

Nice Job Hawk!

[BJ Hawk]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

Nice Job Hawk!

Thank you, Sir.

[Packfootball]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

Some fairly good numbers with all the weather in the area, but how do you only get 544 to a D2 college football game? Also a roll up for the home games through four weeks.

737 in the stands! 6,000 stayed home because of the rain at Commerce or were they expecting to win by a blow out?

[texcap]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

737 in the stands! 6,000 stayed home because of the rain at Commerce or were they expecting to win by a blow out?

Which brings up an interesting point. i know that there are some stretches when putting attendance numbers in most sporting events. Many times they report "paid attendance" whether the ticket holders show up or not. Some report students, others do not. But I think those numbers are not very reliable, to the point of being almost useless.

The below anecdote relates to a crowd size from two years ago at Midwestern, but I am not trying to accuse them of anything, I just happen to have some pictures that show the actual crowd there that night and compare it, based on stadium capacity, to what was reported.

Two years ago (October 15, 2016) when ASU played at Midwestern, the reported attendance in the box score was 8,211. At the time I looked back at a picture of that game that I took at the 10:20 mark of the 2nd quarter of the press box side of the stands from the ASU sidelines. While there is a good sized crowd in that picture, if you were to look closely you can see a lot of empty seats (I would put the picture on here but I have no clue how to do that since the picture is not on a website but is just a jpeg file on my computer).

The capacity of Memorial Stadium is listed at 14,500, and the stadium is split evenly between both sides with I assume 7,250 seats on one side and the other 7,250 seats on the other side of the stadium. The side behind the ASU bench had probably 350 to 500 people, but even stretching that to 1,000, that meant that the home side would of have to had 7,211 people, which is about 99.5% of capacity for that side of the stadium. There is no way they had even close to that number on that side of the stadium, so the overall number that was reported was highly inflated and had nothing to do with those in attendance. My guess is that the actual attendance was around 5,000 + or - 500.

[Casual_Observer]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

Which brings up an interesting point. i know that there are some stretches when putting attendance numbers in most sporting events. Many times they report "paid attendance" whether the ticket holders show up or not. Some report students, others do not. But I think those numbers are not very reliable, to the point of being almost useless.

The below anecdote relates to a crowd size from two years ago at Midwestern, but I am not trying to accuse them of anything, I just happen to have some pictures that show the actual crowd there that night and compare it, based on stadium capacity, to what was reported.

Two years ago (October 15, 2016) when ASU played at Midwestern, the reported attendance in the box score was 8,211. At the time I looked back at a picture of that game that I took at the 10:20 mark of the 2nd quarter of the press box side of the stands from the ASU sidelines. While there is a good sized crowd in that picture, if you were to look closely you can see a lot of empty seats (I would put the picture on here but I have no clue how to do that since the picture is not on a website but is just a jpeg file on my computer).

The capacity of Memorial Stadium is listed at 14,500, and the stadium is split evenly between both sides with I assume 7,250 seats on one side and the other 7,250 seats on the other side of the stadium. The side behind the ASU bench had probably 350 to 500 people, but even stretching that to 1,000, that meant that the home side would of have to had 7,211 people, which is about 99.5% of capacity for that side of the stadium. There is no way they had even close to that number on that side of the stadium, so the overall number that was reported was highly inflated and had nothing to do with those in attendance. My guess is that the actual attendance was around 5,000 + or - 500.

While I agree that the numbers sometimes do not look like they match (Basketball especially), I know that they use electronic scanning for basketball. Midwestern's problem (atleast in 2016) was that students were still allowed to tailgate during the game. So students would enter the stadium and get a ticket to use the bathroom and then would go back out to tailgate.

-My roommates told me they only came in to use the bathroom and only watched 3 plays while I played at MSU.

Not really sure why a Univeristy would lie about their attendance figures.

[Turbonium]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

While I agree that the numbers sometimes do not look like they match (Basketball especially), I know that they use electronic scanning for basketball. Midwestern's problem (atleast in 2016) was that students were still allowed to tailgate during the game. So students would enter the stadium and get a ticket to use the bathroom and then would go back out to tailgate.

-My roommates told me they only came in to use the bathroom and only watched 3 plays while I played at MSU.

Not really sure why a Univeristy would lie about their attendance figures.

Same reason a president would? :)

[TexanFan]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

I was thinking about town size and comparing this to the attendance.

San Angelo 100,000
Portales 12,000
Wichita Falls 105,000
Commerce 9,000
Kingsville 26,000
Stephenville 21,000
Odessa 118,000
Silver City 10,000
Canyon (Amarillo) 15,000 (200,000)

I get we are talking about D2 football, but I am wondering about the marketing of some of our schools. Winning makes people come, but come on. My biggest disappointment based on population numbers is Angelo.

[Turbonium]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

Some fairly good numbers with all the weather in the area, but how do you only get 544 to a D2 college football game? Also a roll up for the home games through four weeks.

By living in a town of 10k with a program that doesn't win? Midwestern barely drew 1500 fans to a cold home playoff game when they were the #1 seed. That's with a local population 10x the size of Silver City.

[Casual_Observer]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

It's crazy that Midwestern doesn't have over 10K at every home game.

I think the MSU athletic/Marketing department believes the same thing you just said TexanFan "Winning makes people come". This is not true in Wichita Falls, most people do not even know there is a game, much less how the team is doing.

It's not like there is anything else to do within 2 hours of here, so not sure what people are doing in town on a Saturday night.

[Casual_Observer]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

By living in a town of 10k with a program that doesn't win? Midwestern barely drew 1500 fans to a cold home playoff game when they were the #1 seed. That's with a local population 10x the size of Silver City.

That game was cold, my wife told me I was on my own for that game. I regretted my decision as soon as I walked in the stadium that day.

[Turbonium]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

That game was cold, my wife told me I was on my own for that game. I regretted my decision as soon as I walked in the stadium that day.

Yes, cold indeed. It was more of how does one call out a school in a town of 10k for having 550 fans when a town much bigger doesn't throw some jackets on for a playoff game.

[ASURAM2010]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

I was thinking about town size and comparing this to the attendance.

San Angelo 100,000
Portales 12,000
Wichita Falls 105,000
Commerce 9,000
Kingsville 26,000
Stephenville 21,000
Odessa 118,000
Silver City 10,000
Canyon (Amarillo) 15,000 (200,000)

I get we are talking about D2 football, but I am wondering about the marketing of some of our schools. Winning makes people come, but come on. My biggest disappointment based on population numbers is Angelo.

I would agree with this. We draw well for every other sport and are consistently in the top of the attendance figures with volleyball, basketball, softball & baseball. Hmmm....I wonder what is different about those sports?

[BJ Hawk]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

Not calling them out, in any bad light. Same was said a few weeks ago when the defending champs came to town at William Jewel and only 650 showed up. One of the D2 writers mentioned it. Its just hard to believe not more showed up, is all. I was sitting there in the stands that cold day as well, a few years ago. I would think the potential for more ice had more to do with it then the cold... it was a long game, that's for sure. I could be wrong. I feel with a good part of WF being a military population (Shepard AFB), that has some affect on attending local events (not just MSU football). If something is around a holiday, the military is on a 4 day weekend, those folks are on the road somewhere else. The younger ones are headed to the "BIG" cities when they are off. Then MSU has a pretty large commuter population and they all head home to mom and dad as soon as class ends for the week. I agree with you whole heartily, you would or should expect 10-12K at every home game.

[Turbonium]

Re: Week 4 - Attendance Numbers

Not calling them out, in any bad light. Same was said a few weeks ago when the defending champs came to town at William Jewel and only 650 showed up. One of the D2 writers mentioned it. Its just hard to believe not more showed up, is all. I was sitting there in the stands that cold day as well, a few years ago. I would think the potential for more ice had more to do with it then the cold... it was a long game, that's for sure. I could be wrong. I feel with a good part of WF being a military population (Shepard AFB), that has some affect on attending local events (not just MSU football). If something is around a holiday, the military is on a 4 day weekend, those folks are on the road somewhere else. The younger ones are headed to the "BIG" cities when they are off. Then MSU has a pretty large commuter population and they all head home to mom and dad as soon as class ends for the week. I agree with you whole heartily, you would or should expect 10-12K at every home game.

Don't get me wrong, when I attended Pueblo playoff games and the weather was fantastic for Nov/Dec in CO it was always baffling that 3k would show up to watch. Even the regular season attendance there is poor considering the success. One must realize that 90+% will never care about, or maybe even be aware of D2 football. It's why I stick around now without supporting a team, I appreciate watching small time football and the quality it can put on the field.