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Topic:  OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country

Topic:  OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
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Tyler
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  Message Not Read  OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 12:12:59 PM 
http://www.ohio.com/news/local/university-of-akron-footba...
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Pataskala
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 1:40:44 PM 
MAC attendance wasn't that great overall last year. (Go to Misc Reports at http://stats.ncaa.org/rankings?sport_code=MFB&division=11)

The MAC had the bottom two (BSU was #128 and Akron #129) and three of the bottom four (NIU was #126). In fact only two MAC schools -- Ohio (#96) and Buffalo (#98) -- were among the top 100. Toledo was #102, then CMU #109, UMass #111, Fiami #113, BG #116, Kent #119, WMU #121 and EMU #123.

Last Edited: 6/29/2015 1:41:50 PM by Pataskala

We will get by.
We will get by.
We will get by.
We will survive.
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The Optimist
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 1:48:42 PM 
I take it this was a Pepsi year for EMU?

If you could take that kind of creative accounting and pair it with a reasonable underlying product, boy you'd really have something.

I've seen crazier things happen.

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L.C.
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 2:10:07 PM 
Build it, and they will come. Or, maybe not.

Akron did get screwed last year with 3 Tuesday night games, and they get a make-up this year with only one mid-week game, so their numbers will look a lot better in 2015. Even then, at 9,000 a game last year they were not really the worst in the country. EMU actually gets about 4,000 a game, but reported 15k last year because they counted their Pepsi licensing revenue as ticket sales so that they could meet the NCAA requirement of averaging 15k a game every few years. They will mostly likely be back to reporting 4k a game this year.

In the time I've been watching, Akron has been an example of how not to run a football program. There have been some people not thrilled with the expenses of the Ohio IPF, or the new Academic Center at Ohio, but they both enhance multiple sports, not just football, and both have been paid for with contributions before being built. By contrast Akron has to make payments of $4.3 million/year on the stadium, or $720k per game. At 9,000 fans, that figures to $80 per ticket. If they sell tickers for an average of $15, that means they are taking in negative $65 per ticket. They would have been a lot better off to just play the games in their nice IPF, and not have fans at the games... Just kidding, but still, these economics are a mess.

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” ― Epictetus

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GoCats105
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 2:21:29 PM 
L.C. wrote:


In the time I've been watching, Akron has been an example of how not to run a football program. There have been some people not thrilled with the expenses of the Ohio IPF, or the new Academic Center at Ohio, but they both enhance multiple sports, not just football, and both have been paid for with contributions before being built. By contrast Akron has to make payments of $4.3 million/year on the stadium, or $720k per game. At 9,000 fans, that figures to $80 per ticket. If they sell tickers for an average of $15, that means they are taking in negative $65 per ticket. They would have been a lot better off to just play the games in their nice IPF, and not have fans at the games... Just kidding, but still, these economics are a mess.


That's not really a football problem. That's the former president Proenza's fault for getting them into that cash-strapped situation. Actually, the whole university is.

Imagine if that happened in Athens! The faculty would have a field day.

Last Edited: 6/29/2015 2:22:11 PM by GoCats105
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Recovering Journalist
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 2:54:09 PM 
Akron's attendance is indisputably putrid, but it is by no means the worst in the nation. It's not even the worst in the MAC, as others have pointed out. Perhaps it's worst in terms of tickets sold, but we all know how easy it is to fudge numbers, and we also know that some schools count tickets sold and others count actual warm bodies coming through the turnstile. The "worst" moniker would carry more meaning if everyone counted the same way.

All that said, the debt load on that stadium (and other campus improvements) is staggering. Suddenly the fetid urinal troughs of Peden are looking charming and prudent.
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TheBobcatBandit
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 3:25:59 PM 
Idk whose attendance is more embarrassing Akron, EMU, or NIU. Akron at least has a semi decent history and has had some good teams. EMU definitely gets the least in terms of actual attendance but I can't blame people for not going they're terrible. NIU I think is the worst because they are by far the best team in the MAC and still get no one. If OU ever made a BCS bowl, we would have a sell out every week easy.
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Deciduous Forest Cat
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 3:53:14 PM 
TheBobcatBandit wrote:
Idk whose attendance is more embarrassing Akron, EMU, or NIU. Akron at least has a semi decent history and has had some good teams. EMU definitely gets the least in terms of actual attendance but I can't blame people for not going they're terrible. NIU I think is the worst because they are by far the best team in the MAC and still get no one. If OU ever made a BCS bowl, we would have a sell out every week easy.


I wish it were that "easy", but it's just not. If we made a BCS bowl, we'd still struggle to fill all the seats on a butt-cold Tuesday in November. We had nice weather, a blackout, and a title on the line in 2011 and we still had, what, 13-15k in the stadium? Maybe?
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L.C.
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 4:32:36 PM 
TheBobcatBandit wrote:
Idk whose attendance is more embarrassing Akron, EMU, or NIU. Akron at least has a semi decent history and has had some good teams. EMU definitely gets the least in terms of actual attendance but I can't blame people for not going they're terrible. NIU I think is the worst because they are by far the best team in the MAC and still get no one. If OU ever made a BCS bowl, we would have a sell out every week easy.

I'm sure NIU fans would have never guessed that would happen. That whole situation is very puzzling.

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” ― Epictetus

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TheBobcatBandit
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 5:15:53 PM 
Deciduous Forest Cat wrote:
TheBobcatBandit wrote:
Idk whose attendance is more embarrassing Akron, EMU, or NIU. Akron at least has a semi decent history and has had some good teams. EMU definitely gets the least in terms of actual attendance but I can't blame people for not going they're terrible. NIU I think is the worst because they are by far the best team in the MAC and still get no one. If OU ever made a BCS bowl, we would have a sell out every week easy.


I wish it were that "easy", but it's just not. If we made a BCS bowl, we'd still struggle to fill all the seats on a butt-cold Tuesday in November. We had nice weather, a blackout, and a title on the line in 2011 and we still had, what, 13-15k in the stadium? Maybe?


I disagree, I could be wrong but I believe with a BCS bowl on the line in November and a undefeated season going we would have a sell out. Also if that were the case I would be embarrassed we got anything less than a packed house
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perimeterpost
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 8:41:57 PM 
L.C. wrote:
...Akron did get screwed last year with 3 Tuesday night games, and they get a make-up this year with only one mid-week game, so their numbers will look a lot better in 2015...


Akron played 3 Tuesday games, but only 2 of those were at home, and only 1 of those home games had attendance below the season average. Take out the two Tuesday home games and the average attendance increases by just 605. Playing on Tuesdays wasn't the problem.

MY STATE. MY TEAM.
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Mark Lembright '85
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 9:11:07 PM 
I would have to think that if there were a ranking for filling the capacity of its stadium on a weekly basis Ohio would rank higher than 96th. Even on the coldest of late season Tuesday games Ohio at least fills 50% of Peden Stadium (one advantage of having a small stadium I suppose). The only games where a very small portion of Peden was ever filled were the Friday games after Thanksgiving when all the students were already home. Those games drew crickets (and understandably so). Overall Ohio does a good job of filling Peden Stadium for its games.

Edit: I'm referencing of the attendance in the first half of games @ Peden, not the 2nd half when students leave en masse after the Marching 110 performs at halftime.

NIU is puzzling. And they want to pump upwards of $100 million into their athletic facilities? Good luck with that!

Last Edited: 6/29/2015 9:22:02 PM by Mark Lembright '85
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Deciduous Forest Cat
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 10:42:20 PM 
Mark Lembright '85 wrote:
I would have to think that if there were a ranking for filling the capacity of its stadium on a weekly basis Ohio would rank higher than 96th. Even on the coldest of late season Tuesday games Ohio at least fills 50% of Peden Stadium (one advantage of having a small stadium I suppose). The only games where a very small portion of Peden was ever filled were the Friday games after Thanksgiving when all the students were already home. Those games drew crickets (and understandably so). Overall Ohio does a good job of filling Peden Stadium for its games.

Edit: I'm referencing of the attendance in the first half of games @ Peden, not the 2nd half when students leave en masse after the Marching 110 performs at halftime.

NIU is puzzling. And they want to pump upwards of $100 million into their athletic facilities? Good luck with that!


Last season (unseasonably bitter cold, granted) against NIU was a friends and family crowd. The smallest I'd seen at Peden in ages. You could count the crowd on your fingers. We've had some pathetic crowds even in the Solich era. Halloween against Louisiana a few years ago comes to mind too. We're still a long way from saying an OHIO Football ticket is a hard ticket to come by.
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OhioCatFan
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 6/29/2015 11:43:16 PM 
That NIU game last year was the worst game weather I can remember ever at Peden. The wind chills were in the negative numbers. It's the first game I've missed totally because of the weather in the last 30+ years. Interestingly enough, if that game had been played the next Saturday, the sun would have been shining and it would have been tolerable football weather. The MAC is shooting itself in the foot with these weekday night games in November. Getting rid of these awful November night games is one reason I'd prefer to be in C-USA. Two years ago we had one of these horrible self-induced bad weather games on a weekday night that I went to (and stayed to the end as I always do). I came back with hands that were red as beet, even with a hand warmer. A few days later on the next Saturday, we went down to Huntington to see Marshall play. Again, with the sun shining it was chilly but not bone-cold. If God had intended for us to play night football games in December in Athens, Ohio, He would have brought the Gulf Stream up the Hocking River! ;-)

The only BLSS Certified Hypocrite on BA

"It is better to be an optimist and be proven a fool than to be a pessimist and be proven right."

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Mike Coleman
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 7/10/2015 1:02:03 PM 
Zips eliminate baseball among $40 million in cuts.

http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/university-of-akron-t...
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Mark Lembright '85
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 7/10/2015 2:36:10 PM 
Mike Coleman wrote:
Zips eliminate baseball among $40 million in cuts.

http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/university-of-akron-t...




Yikes! I hate to see that happen. Say what you will, Ohio's measured approach now to spending for athletics seems financially prudent.
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TWT
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 7/12/2015 2:44:26 PM 
Tyler wrote:
http://www.ohio.com/news/local/university-of-akron-footba...


Its also the worst city in the country so it should come as no surprise.

Most Memorable Bobcat Events Attended
2010 97-83 win over Georgetown in NCAA 1st round
2012 45-13 victory over ULM in the Independence Bowl
2015 34-3 drubbing of Miami @ Peden front of 25,086

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Alan Swank
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 7/13/2015 9:14:48 AM 
Uncle Wes wrote:
Tyler wrote:
http://www.ohio.com/news/local/university-of-akron-footba...


Its also the worst city in the country so it should come as no surprise.


I guess you haven't traveled much.
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akroncat
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 7/13/2015 4:18:33 PM 
For some of us who live here, Akron is not a bad town. It has its problems like every Midwest city. It has lots of very nice and reasonable priced golf courses. Just got home an hour ago from a nice round. The University of Akron has real financial problems and dropping attendance. I wish them well but they are definitely in big trouble.
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Mark Lembright '85
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 7/13/2015 8:58:09 PM 
Akron is AOK, it's a nice city. Not only are there worse cities, there are worse cities in Ohio, and by a mile.
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The Optimist
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 7/13/2015 9:06:17 PM 
Oxford comes to mind.

I've seen crazier things happen.

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Mark Lembright '85
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 7/13/2015 9:24:39 PM 
The Optimist wrote:
Oxford comes to mind.


Well done!!!!! :)
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Alan Swank
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 7/14/2015 8:34:39 AM 
akroncat wrote:
For some of us who live here, Akron is not a bad town. It has its problems like every Midwest city. It has lots of very nice and reasonable priced golf courses. Just got home an hour ago from a nice round. The University of Akron has real financial problems and dropping attendance. I wish them well but they are definitely in big trouble.


Did you really have to rub that one in Akroncat - that's tough on those of us down here in the golf ghetto.
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ShoreCat
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 7/15/2015 1:18:55 PM 
Akron Faculty Senate president recommends Akron drop down from Division I

http://www.cleveland.com/akron/index.ssf/2015/07/universi...
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L.C.
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  Message Not Read  RE: OT: Akron football attendance is the worst in the country
   Posted: 7/15/2015 3:38:15 PM 
It is doubtful they would do that, or that they give football up altogether, as UAB did (for awhile). What would they do with indecision Stadium, without football?

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” ― Epictetus

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