I will try and put some numbers on what the MU administration is facing. Feel free to correct any errors I make. I had to make some guesses but I feel like I am direction ally correct. I like to think about solving messes and we are in one, hence this post.
I believe at our peak, attendance for mu football averaged around 62k. Of that number we averaged around 45k in season ticket holders. This means that on average 17k fans showed up who are not considered "died hard" fans, which is what I call season ticket holders.
This year, season ticket sales dropped by 5k according to the last estimate I remember. This means that 11% of the die hards left. If Gabe would share his subscriber stats we maybe able to confirm that if they dropped by 10%. If students are part of that 45k it is my guess that 60% of those who dropped (5k *.6=3k) were freshman who never made it to campus due to our declining enrollment this year. Of that number, I am guessing those freshman who were out of state were most likely to buy season tickets and that group may have declined dramatically this year. So I am assuming 3k of the attendance decline is related to last years turbulence. The other 2k decline is from pissed off die hard fans who are non student. That churn factor of 4.4% (2/45) would be a respectable decline in die hards for what happened last year.
The more concerning part is next. I will assume we average 48k in fans for this year. At best it appears we have a baseline of 50k right now. If we had 17k a year (62-45) in non die hards that number appears to be dropping dramatically. If we have 40k in season ticket holders and we average 48k in attendance for this year, it appears that we now only have 8k of non die hards showing up. This is a 47% drop (8k/17k) in fans who are casual fans. This is a huge erosion in support in a very short period of time. I am going to guess based on how MU was giving tickets away to the Georgia game that there was a huge swing factor in disgust with the program/university long before we got to MTSU and losing. Without the last minutes sales push the Georgia game would have been under 50k. The Georgia game attendance and the lack of a sell out (70k) was a huge sign of what was coming.
What more disconcerting is that of the 40k in season ticket holders there were only 20k of them left by the end of the 3rd quarter yesterday. This indicates that half of your base is not interested in watching a high scoring game in perfect weather. Mu was losing by only 3 at the time. What this tells me is that fan disgust is very very high. What I cant tell is exactly why. The weather was perfect, the game was close and there was lots of offense. There fore I can guess that last year had an effect on some or all of those 20k die hard fans who left. It was NOT the game, weather or that it was boring
If I am in Mu's athletic department I would be thinking I lost 3k in new students, 8k in casual fans and I have 20k in die hards who are drifting on me. This works out to half of my base attendance in the peak years. So what do you do?
Winning helps but I dont think thats the solution TO THIS problem. It appears you have an image problem more than a winning problem. The loss of fan support before the Georgia game (we were down 13k from 4 years ago) was the sign this problem runs deeper than winning and losing this year. mu was one and one entering that game. You need to hire a polling firm to dig deep into the disgust and see what those 31k are thinking. From there you need to become extremely visible in the community to change the perception of the University. You are behind in fixing this problem. WAY BEHIND. Attendance woes go deeper than wins and losses in sports based on what I wrote above. Consider sending out numerous groups from all of the departments, drama, speech, communications, sports , agriculture etc to stem the perception of what you are. If you dont, you will see this problem get worse in attendance at sports which is the canary in the mine shaft. Sport attendance is the early warning signal.
You can argue that I am wrong by citing money giving statistics last year. I think that covers those with money but not those with passion for the university. Some of that money was before the turmoil so its going forward that you will see trouble. The lack of passion for the univiersity shows up in the decline in die hards at games and freshman attendance.Money giving will follow those two stats.
The university must change the perception from the ground up, not through commercials. This takes time but it will fix the issue. Dont assume throwing money at a PA firm will help in the short term. Get active in the state by helping others who will then help you. If you dont, you are playing with fire because you have waited to long already. Firing coaches, cutting ticket prices, giving speeches about inclusion wont be of much help. This one needs more than that. They need to actually see you rather than hear you or read it on a blog. good luck
I believe at our peak, attendance for mu football averaged around 62k. Of that number we averaged around 45k in season ticket holders. This means that on average 17k fans showed up who are not considered "died hard" fans, which is what I call season ticket holders.
This year, season ticket sales dropped by 5k according to the last estimate I remember. This means that 11% of the die hards left. If Gabe would share his subscriber stats we maybe able to confirm that if they dropped by 10%. If students are part of that 45k it is my guess that 60% of those who dropped (5k *.6=3k) were freshman who never made it to campus due to our declining enrollment this year. Of that number, I am guessing those freshman who were out of state were most likely to buy season tickets and that group may have declined dramatically this year. So I am assuming 3k of the attendance decline is related to last years turbulence. The other 2k decline is from pissed off die hard fans who are non student. That churn factor of 4.4% (2/45) would be a respectable decline in die hards for what happened last year.
The more concerning part is next. I will assume we average 48k in fans for this year. At best it appears we have a baseline of 50k right now. If we had 17k a year (62-45) in non die hards that number appears to be dropping dramatically. If we have 40k in season ticket holders and we average 48k in attendance for this year, it appears that we now only have 8k of non die hards showing up. This is a 47% drop (8k/17k) in fans who are casual fans. This is a huge erosion in support in a very short period of time. I am going to guess based on how MU was giving tickets away to the Georgia game that there was a huge swing factor in disgust with the program/university long before we got to MTSU and losing. Without the last minutes sales push the Georgia game would have been under 50k. The Georgia game attendance and the lack of a sell out (70k) was a huge sign of what was coming.
What more disconcerting is that of the 40k in season ticket holders there were only 20k of them left by the end of the 3rd quarter yesterday. This indicates that half of your base is not interested in watching a high scoring game in perfect weather. Mu was losing by only 3 at the time. What this tells me is that fan disgust is very very high. What I cant tell is exactly why. The weather was perfect, the game was close and there was lots of offense. There fore I can guess that last year had an effect on some or all of those 20k die hard fans who left. It was NOT the game, weather or that it was boring
If I am in Mu's athletic department I would be thinking I lost 3k in new students, 8k in casual fans and I have 20k in die hards who are drifting on me. This works out to half of my base attendance in the peak years. So what do you do?
Winning helps but I dont think thats the solution TO THIS problem. It appears you have an image problem more than a winning problem. The loss of fan support before the Georgia game (we were down 13k from 4 years ago) was the sign this problem runs deeper than winning and losing this year. mu was one and one entering that game. You need to hire a polling firm to dig deep into the disgust and see what those 31k are thinking. From there you need to become extremely visible in the community to change the perception of the University. You are behind in fixing this problem. WAY BEHIND. Attendance woes go deeper than wins and losses in sports based on what I wrote above. Consider sending out numerous groups from all of the departments, drama, speech, communications, sports , agriculture etc to stem the perception of what you are. If you dont, you will see this problem get worse in attendance at sports which is the canary in the mine shaft. Sport attendance is the early warning signal.
You can argue that I am wrong by citing money giving statistics last year. I think that covers those with money but not those with passion for the university. Some of that money was before the turmoil so its going forward that you will see trouble. The lack of passion for the univiersity shows up in the decline in die hards at games and freshman attendance.Money giving will follow those two stats.
The university must change the perception from the ground up, not through commercials. This takes time but it will fix the issue. Dont assume throwing money at a PA firm will help in the short term. Get active in the state by helping others who will then help you. If you dont, you are playing with fire because you have waited to long already. Firing coaches, cutting ticket prices, giving speeches about inclusion wont be of much help. This one needs more than that. They need to actually see you rather than hear you or read it on a blog. good luck
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