To me one way to look at the possibilities for better attendance is to reflect upon our best hoops and football teams since the 90’s for a measuring stick.
With Wally’s Sweet Sixteen hoops team in 98-99 we averaged 6400 a game in home attendance. In Big Bens 2003 football season we averaged 25,000 per game. Those are the pinnacles but give you something that has transpired and can be a goal of sorts.
The last couple of years before COVID the students section at hockey games was decent, but rarely completely full from what I saw. This year the student section has been completely full more often than not at the games I’ve attended (not counting the J-Term of course). A couple of games they actually overflowed the student section and had to come over to search for empty seats among the season ticket holders.
So essentially, we sold out every football home game in 2003?
I only asked it from a marketing standpoint. Ie, you do a direct mail campaign of a million people and look to get 4-5% engagement. Of that you might get 2.5% activation. But again, I’d love to know the formula a successful athletic dept uses to measure surrounding population vs attendance potential (again assuming the product, pricing and promotions are in line with fan needs.)
Capacity was higher in 2003 I believe because we had end zones but we had 3 virtual sellouts vs BG-Marshall-UC plus 23K for Buffalo and 20k for Akron
By the next year we were back to 8k for homecoming vs ucf (it was a night game)
As a thought exercise, think about the last time Miami basketball played a home game at night on the weekend with a pep band.
And then think about how often that happens across college basketball.
Yeah in 2003 we had those ugly temporary stands in the corners to achieve a 30,000 seat capacity. In those days NCAA had a stupid rule that if you had 30,000 seats, to maintain Division IA status, you only needed to average 15K in home attendance once every four years to avoid going on probation. That rule is gone now but in essence we sold out our capacity for our permanent seating as Yager’s prior capacity was 25,183 as I recall.
Let’s reset. WMU is a horrible, horrible excuse for a team. We are 11.5 pt favorites on the road.
If this isn’t light work, Jack should be left in Kalamazoo.
Didn’t Western just fire Steve Hawkins? Their basketball hasn’t been good lately
Maybe he meant Western Kentucky?
Indeed you are correct. My mistake!
Breakdown of Miami 2003 home football attendance:
UC: 27,512
Akron: 20,157
Buffalo: 23,683
BG: 28,023
Marshall: 26,286
Average: 25,132
These are not today’s mythical attendance figures…these were butts in seats.
Moral: win and they will come out…really win and they will really come out!
Same was true for hockey in our glory years…
I do believe it is still that way.
Of course there’s a way. Offer a free beer to everyone who shows up. If you buy season tickets offer free food and drink (with a per game cap). Heck, you could hide this in the ticket prices. Years ago, the reds used to offer one hell of a deal for top 6 seats: ticket was ten bucks but you got a free hot dog, drink and small bag of peanuts. They didn’t do it all the time but enough that my friends and I redeemed it quite a bit.
Butler County is close to 400,000. Add in the areas in Preble County, some Indiana and just beyond Butler Co into Hamilton and Warren counties - somewhere between 400-500K. If extending to 45 minutes, definitely 500K+
Oxford to downtown Cincinnati is exactly 45 minutes if you drive the speed limit.
Honestly, the way urban sprawl is beginning to disease Butler county from the south, Oxford will eventually be a decent rural/urban area…the housing prices are Ross are hilariously over priced.
Maybe at 4:00 a.m. but even then I bet you can’t do that. I live in western Cincinnati, so I’m closer than downtown. From my driveway to Millett is one hour and I’m known to drive fast.
Ross is heaven on earth. No such thing as overpriced. Whatever the price is to live there, you just pay it and say a prayer of thanksgiving!