FCS playoff attendance

[JCPanthers]

Re: FCS playoff attendance

any word on how many tickets have been sold for Saturday??

I was up there today and the sales have been very steady.....should be a very good crowd on Saturday.

[UNI MadCat]

Re: FCS playoff attendance

Well, its Friday morning and I just got 4 tickets on the 40 yard line. To me that's not a really good sign. Hope I'm wrong...

[UNIAlum95]

Re: FCS playoff attendance

Well, its Friday morning and I just got 4 tickets on the 40 yard line. To me that's not a really good sign. Hope I'm wrong...

I've been hearing rumors of the same thing. I'll be surprised (pleasantly) if we have more than 12K...

[BCPanther]

Re: FCS playoff attendance

I think we are in for some pretty disappointing numbers come Saturday. Its really too bad. It will be ok as long as the 11K that are there are as in to it as last weeks crowd...

[UNI MadCat]

Re: FCS playoff attendance

Can we safely say that this is a direct result of the economic conditions we are currently in and not just that our fans aren't 'doing their part'? Because I'll be honest, there wasn't much that would have me miss this game but even I had to be like, "my gawd this is a lot of money" before pushing 'submit' when I ordered today.

Also, what were the prices last year? I dont recall.

[BCPanther]

Re: FCS playoff attendance

Tickets were $20 last year if I remember correctly...

I don't think it has much to do with the economy. I think it is a direct correlation with Iowa's football success. Our crowds tend to be bigger when they are down. I think the big difference is that there are 40,000 football fans in this state that are saving their monry for a January trip to Tampa and can't justify paying $100 to see UNI when they are going to plop down $1500 to go see Iowa...

[Panther-Sheik]

Re: FCS playoff attendance

Tickets were $20 last year if I remember correctly...

I don't think it has much to do with the economy. I think it is a direct correlation with Iowa's football success. Our crowds tend to be bigger when they are down. I think the big difference is that there are 40,000 football fans in this state that are saving their monry for a January trip to Tampa and can't justify paying $100 to see UNI when they are going to plop down $1500 to go see Iowa...

I agree...Gas prices have dropped significantly, which was the major reason many were using at the beginning of the year, and validly so...
I don't think it is just people saving their money for an Iowa bowl game, though...I just think they are now back on the Hawkeye bandwagon again to the detriment of the UNI bandwagon. Unfortunately, people in Iowa are fickle and especially when it comes to Iowa and UNI athletics. They only have enough time to focus on / discuss over coffee / read up on etc. one of the teams. When Iowa stinks, people put that time into UNI and it becomes "cool" to back the Panthers. When Iowa is "good", most just revert back to the old standby. I don't think we see the tug and pull with ISU athletics, but there sure seems to be a direct and opposite correlation between UNI and U of I athletics.

[jegbomb52]

Re: FCS playoff attendance

No, we see the tug and pull, its just that they haven't pulled yet...

[Panther-Sheik]

Re: FCS playoff attendance

No, we see the tug and pull, its just that they haven't pulled yet...

Good point Actually, they just don't have the success that would raise any need for a bandwagon at all. You can't jump off if you were never on.

[UNI MadCat]

Re: FCS playoff attendance

I agree...Gas prices have dropped significantly, which was the major reason many were using at the beginning of the year, and validly so...
I don't think it is just people saving their money for an Iowa bowl game, though...I just think they are now back on the Hawkeye bandwagon again to the detriment of the UNI bandwagon. Unfortunately, people in Iowa are fickle and especially when it comes to Iowa and UNI athletics. They only have enough time to focus on / discuss over coffee / read up on etc. one of the teams. When Iowa stinks, people put that time into UNI and it becomes "cool" to back the Panthers. When Iowa is "good", most just revert back to the old standby. I don't think we see the tug and pull with ISU athletics, but there sure seems to be a direct and opposite correlation between UNI and U of I athletics.

I agree to some extent though if you read and follow the financial news, the drop in gas prices isn't exactly leading to people racing back out to get in their cars and travel. It took a long period of time for people to shift their mentality to saving/planning and it doesnt just switch back overnight. Plus, while gas prices have gone down, everything else is still really expensive -- just go grocery shopping for a real downer. So I would argue that the economy definitely is having a huge effect.

I'm sure Iowa's success does have something to do with it but lets not forget that Iowa was on a pretty impressive run of New Year's Day bowls when we had our run to the title in '05 and the support down in Chatty was amazing even though many dual fans also had to plan for a trip to Tampa as well.

And maybe some of it to is many of our fans have experienced how awesome a trip down to TN can be (and others have heard about it and want to go 'next' time) and are saving up for it.

In reality its probably a combo of all of these things but IMHO, the 'hype' for this Iowa team isn't like the hype from '02-'06... of course, we were getting sucky crowds for the playoffs then too.

Oh well.

I guess I'll also be happy with 12K+ that are frenzied and raucous too.

[Panther-Sheik]

Re: FCS playoff attendance

Just a theory to ponder out there...
Last week we had no T.V. to try to boost attendance, and I was definitely an advocate of this choice. However, it didn't work and we still ended up with 8,000 and change. I think we all felt that it had more to do with the holiday, no classes etc., but this week is looking much the same...slightly better attendance, but still far from capacity (anticipated as of now).
Question: Would T.V. last week have helped with the hype for this week and possibly gotten a better turn out for Saturday? I know it is an unanswerable question, but just got me thinking when I heard that numbers were lackluster again for this week. Discuss among yourselves...