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Subject: Attendance Author: voy vey [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 10:19:08 10/21/24 Mon Average attendance for the 8 league games played thus far, by year: 2024: 6,228 2022: 6,816 2018: 7,659 2016: 7,721 Down about 20% from 2016 and 2018, down 8.6% from two years ago. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: bulldog10jw [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 11:11:47 10/21/24 Mon Wait until the old guard dies off. There are not many young fans to take their place and the students seem to have better things to do. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: ivy guy [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 11:29:39 10/21/24 Mon The attendance for the Brown/Harvard Game in Providence this season was 10,753 (according to the official game summary). I was there--the largest crowd I have seen in a long time. ## [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: observer [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 11:35:36 10/21/24 Mon And more or less, the weather has been pretty good in the Northeast this fall. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: M3 [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 11:42:45 10/21/24 Mon And lack of attendance accentuated by playing in big stadiums like Franklin Field and Yale Bowl Sad situation Hard to imagine it ever getting better [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: Old Lion (ColumbiaPenn) [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 11:43:21 10/21/24 Mon Coach’s letter said the Franklin Field crowd on Saturday was only 3,000, despite perfect weather and two good teams. This has to be a downer for the players. I wonder what kinds of students the admissions officers are selecting, where there are bigger crowds for protests than there are for football games. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: M3 [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 12:20:53 10/21/24 Mon Numbers of interest https://aac.csnbbs.com/printthread.php?tid=991044 [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: SpuytenDuyvil76 (verily) [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 12:51:21 10/21/24 Mon Ya heard it here first! I predict a record attendance for Homecoming at Wien Stadium on October 26. Go Lions! [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: If so, people are in for a treat Author: Go Green [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 15:40:59 10/21/24 Mon I attended a D-C game on Columbia's homecoming about 10 years ago or so in perfect weather. Columbia throws a nice show. Dartmouth won, but game went down to the wire. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: RedWin [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 15:18:13 10/21/24 Mon No doubt students have other interests but there is practically zero promotions and marketing of Ivy League football games. At Cornell our athletic department staff do a great job with Homecoming as this year we drew over 12,000 fans, even despite wet weather. I have always thought we should play the Cornell vs. Columbia game in NYC every year as both schools have a huge alumni base in the metro area. Columbia is almost like a home game for Cgiven Cornell Tech and the medical school are both located in the City. I think we could sell out that game every year and it would tie in well with the Big Apple Classic hockey game over Thanksgiving weekend. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: Bob S [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 16:44:47 10/21/24 Mon I highly recommend Matt Brown's Extra Points blog which is excellent if you want to stay on top of college athletics info. He had an interview with University of North Carolina Professor who had done research on collegiate sports attendance. The Prof said one cannot depend on students or alums for attendance and that most of a teams's fan support comes from the local community. Can we surmise that Ivy League football does not get local fan support? [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: Bull Dog Fan [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 20:18:11 10/21/24 Mon In New Haven, Yale has done everything in its power to turn off interest in football in the local community, particularly in the Reno regime. This includes obstacles to enjoyable days for fans and families at the Bowl, reduced coverage of games on radio, and virtually non-existent coverage on the Yale Sports website. Three weeks ago, Yale posted the announcement of their Saturday football game on Friday with no “notes” or 2-deep; two weeks ago it was posted on Saturday morning with no notes or 2-deep, and this week there was no mention of the game at all before the game! Local fans of many decades of Yale football have sounded the alarm. Football is endangered. If not for the Yale Bowl’s protected status, its under utilization could be its demise. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: I gave up on attendance in 2018 Author: Go Green [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 15:30:32 10/21/24 Mon When only 9K showed up for undefeated Dartmouth v. undefeated Princeton. Yep-- homecoming and/or parents weekend will draw well. H-Y will draw well. The rest of the slate, however.... :( [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: Boston Lion [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 16:48:39 10/21/24 Mon Acknowledging right up front that I recognize that I may be completely wrong about this, and at the risk of being thrown off of this board and probably out of polite society as well, I'll lob in the guess that the qualities that are valued and engendered by some sports, and especially football, are becoming less and less in the strike zone for an increasingly large slice of young people in today's culture. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but ... [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Your comment is too broad Author: Go Green [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 17:16:59 10/21/24 Mon Interest in "football" is doing just fine in many parts of the country in all demographics. Interest in "Ivy" football or "Northeastern" football is another story. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: An Observer [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 19:18:01 10/21/24 Mon "Less and less in the strike zone." That's the kind of careful language that will take you far, BL. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: Boston Lion [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 19:36:49 10/21/24 Mon AO: Thanks. GG: Good point. I fully agree. Just want to clarify that my comment was not about interest in football; it was about the qualities (personal qualities) that are valued and engendered by football. While those two things are related, I see a distinction there. To my mind, no matter how popular the sport of football may remain in parts of the country, modern culture seems to this humble observer to be moving away from the qualities I mentione, and doing so at a pretty head-snapping rate. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: NY times take on football rivalries Author: Lion Rooter [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 10:03:49 10/22/24 Tue interesting article about conference realignment and the lopsided side of it all, eg, they quote Oregon vs Oregon state - long time matchup that might not happen any more the author quotes a Univ. of SC prof - "Imagine a world without Harvard playing Yale. ... the essence of college football is fading - if it's not gone already. It's about money and TV and putting yourself on a national stage." That about sums it up I guess - reminds of the Daily Penn paper and the quitter Dingle of their hoops team saying he knows how he will "fix" Ivy athletics -- lol the arrogance of youth ! [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: LawrenceBourneIII [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 21:59:27 10/21/24 Mon Two cents from a non-Ivy alum but recently self-minted fan of Ivy League football. My football school and alma mater is a lesser power conference school that has been corrupted by the recent realignments and media influence to the point I no longer care about it. I came to discover the Ivy League is one of the only conferences that is what college football should be, and what I impractically wish college football would return to. I dived in and can't get enough. I watch all of the games on ESPN+ (so I guess the media throws us a few bones amongst their carnage). I'm not in the northeast or I would be going to a handful of games each year in person, I promise you. If the league and its athletic departments were serious about promotion on two fronts, promoting its better players and facilitating a great tailgating and pre-game culture, I'm confident the downward attendance trend would be reversed within a couple of seasons at most, because let me tell you, there are a ton of people like me out there with an appetite for what this league has. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Welcome, and Loved Your Work in "Volunteers" Author: An Observer [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 11:00:42 10/22/24 Tue LBIII, thanks very much for your kind words. We on this board often say that it's the rest of the college sports world which is losing its mind and we're among the few Division I conferences still doing it "right." Sometimes it feels like our board is an echo chamber, as we try to reassure ourselves that we're on the right path as everybody else moves in a different direction. It's gratifying to hear your words. I grieve for American college sports. Athletic departments were and are the "front porch" of American universities, the crown jewel of the world's higher education institutions. I've said on this board many times that paying college athletes is good for a tiny fraction of athletes, bad for the student bodies and colleges at large, and terrible for America. Competitive sports will go from being unambiguously good for our society to a negative influence. When you trade a positive development for maybe 1,000 college athletes nationwide against a terrible development for 345 million Americans, you get a tragedy. Having said that, welcome to our little board, Lawrence. It's a pleasure to have newcomers. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: Attendance Author: Eleazar [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 15:34:12 10/22/24 Tue I posted about this when it happened but the Dartmouth-Harvard game in Cambridge last year drew 22,515 (largest for a non Yale game there since 2009). The atmosphere has been great for this game in Cambridge the last few times and the tailgate scene in particular this last time was outstanding. Now as GG noted, there are a lot of contributing factors. For one thing the teams have been competitive in League play. The Dartmouth game has been Harvard’s parents weekend the last few years (I think), and they have a “fan fest” going which has family friendly activities. But worth noting Dartmouth has a TOTAL of roughly 7,000 alumni in all of eastern MA (including the grad schools). So it definitely helps having those bus loads of…enthusiastic…undergrads come down, throw in some big marketing efforts, and get the local alumni boosters/clubs to spread the word on tailgating. Also, the weather was perfect. But my optimistic takeaway is that it can be done even with a small liberal arts school in the 21st century! A lot of things have to work out to make for a great game day atmosphere nowadays but we might hope some of these excellent weather games should still be 10k+. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Gotta Start The Season The Saturday After Labor Day Author: An Observer [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 15:55:25 10/22/24 Tue Eleazar, your point is another reason to start the Ivy football season the Saturday after Labor Day. I know that some alumni seem to think that The Game **NEEDS** to be on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Why? Because it always has been? No, it has not always been. The Princeton game was the season finale for the first half-century of college football. Harvard was the weekend before. The earth kept spinning. Start the Saturday after Labor Day. Get more games with good weather and all the attendant benefits on the game day experience thereof. Get two more games in before we lose Daylight Savings Time, helping us start games at 1:00 or 3:00, which makes it easier for local families to attend after Junior finishes his or her Saturday youth soccer game. It's much easier to schedule OOC games before other conferences get into the heart of the league schedule. Finish on the second Saturday of November, helping all of us to avoid season finales in the snows of Hanover or Ithaca, thank you very much. Last but not least, this allows all of our football teams to start camp earlier in August. This allows student-athletes to attend more classes when the other kids show up on campus right after Labor Day. Remember going to class? [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> Subject: And add an 11th game Author: bulldog10jw [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 20:19:54 10/22/24 Tue [ Post a Reply to This Message ]