I apologize for slacking off and not driving in from St. Louis, 360 miles each way, for every Miami athletic event. I must endeavor to do better!
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@Bluesman I think the weak point in our support is from the 10s of thousands of Miami folks who live within 15-40 miles of campus and don’t make it a tradition to drive to Oxford for Saturday football games.
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Actually, you have been around a lot more this year. Your daughter choosing Miami has been a boon for attendance.
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Honestly, I don’t even unpack my bags we have been there so much!!
Your daughter must be thrilled.
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Were your arms tired? Sorry, couldn’t resist. 
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Not bad. Not bad at all. I have a friend who is a comedian and takes 1950’s jokes with predictable endings and makes them totally raunchy. It’s pretty great.
Nothing says MiamiHawkTalk more than an attendance discussion right after winning a division championship.
Congratulations to everyone involved with the program. This is well-deserved.
I thought Smith looked his best, arguably his best game in his Miami tenure. And he’s doing a great job of making good decisions and taking care of the ball. Going into the year, I thought the offensive line and the secondary were our swing variables. Those groups would determine if we could have a year like this or another average year. The secondary swung positively by the end of non-conference. The offensive line is a big reason why we’ve been able to keep this going after losing Gabbert. Other teams know we want to run the ball, but yet we’re still finding ways to churn out big plays in the running game.
This group can beat Toledo. Let’s get to 10-2 first next week.
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The sparse turnout for what was a championship clinching game on national TV diminishes our value to the better bowl games we might qualify for with double digit wins.
The Miami fan base and the Oxford-based university community doesn’t seem to understand this - or more likely doesn’t care. That’s a disservice to the football program, the players, the band and cheerleaders and to the university coffers.
What a shame!
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I was in Laws Hall in 77-78 and the client that year was Wendy’s. Our team’s proposal and presentation centered around expanding the menu with chicken sandwiches and salads. We lost because the middle level corporate reps of Wendy’s who were the judges rejected anything outside of Dave Thomas vision as a hamburger emporium. (Thomas had started his career with KFC but started Wendy’s because he was a hamburger guy)
Within three years, Wendy’s was offering chicken sandwiches and salads!
As a marketing major, I also did an independent study for the Athletic Department in early 78 that was focused on how to increase attendance, particularly at basketball games. I did a campus wide survey which covered a lot of the ideas that have been tossed around here for years involving communicating and promoting the upcoming game to both students and surrounding Butler County community, the game day experience etc. We also proposed changing game times where possible on Saturday’s to allow for more evening start times that would lead to easier transition to Uptown or Greek parties after the game. This was done in the context of the times. Thursday night Uptown was the big night at the time and Thursday mid week games rather than Wednesday could have had a huge impact, but that scheduling was dictated by the conference and outside of the A D control. And so 45 years later, nothing has really changed. Luckily I spent 40 years in finance, not marketing.
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To follow up JDad, conference games were always Wednesday nights and Saturday. If nothing else, the schedule was predictable and students didn’t need to hunt or be told when upcoming games were.
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That’s the beauty of half your athletics budget being student fees! They don’t have a choice!
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Better bowls pay more money. That’s what we’re potentially leaving on the table by exhibiting anemic fan and student support. That’s money for an improved press box, better assistant coaches salaries, etc.
Sorry not sorry, the athletic department does not market well, and as I said before, there is nothing around either stadium to draw and keep foot traffic
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Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner
If you’d been to as many stadiums as I’ve been to you’d realize there isn’t much to draw foot traffic other than the stadium on the overwhelming majority of campuses. Lol
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Bowl payouts are pooled and distributed among all MAC teams participating in a bowl, so it doesn’t really end up making that much difference.
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It does if one of the bowls pays 1.5 million instead of $500k. It makes the pool bigger. These numbers are nearly 10 years old. Having NIU in the Orange Bowl and WMU in the Cotton certainly had to sweeten the pot in those years.
Athens must have a big Kroger.
I agree with that math. But does it really matter anymore whether a team travels well? With so many bowls owned by espn, isn’t it more about viewers? And do the bowls care with the mandatory ticket buy by both teams?
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