Crowd At Kent...

Just a quick note, the team drew just a bit over 16,000 for the game against Kent on Saturday.  It is a shame...all the elements were there, including a Saturday game and good weather and not "even" conflicting with Ohio State.  In fact, Kent brought a pretty large crowd, without them it would have been even worse.

To some extent, I have mostly given up worrying about it.  Over the 4 decades I have been attending games at the Doyt, this has been pretty much the norm. I don't blame any group of marketing people because no marketing efforts have been able to alter the general trend, which is that BG draws for Toledo and for big name opponents and when Game Day is here, and that is pretty much it.

The student section was mostly full but I think we are gaming that a little bit because the student section is pretty small.  FWIW, Michigan is having a problem filling their student section as well.  Students pick up the tickets and then never leave their tailgate, or so I heard on the radio.

We've had coupons on cans of pepsi, price promotions, flexible ticket options, seat backs...many things have been tried over the years and mostly things are the same, year in and year out.

I don't think it is a price or promotion thing.  I think there's an OSU loyalty element, particularly once fans are off campus. I think there is a home for the weekend thing.  I think there is a game day atmosphere thing for older fans (concessions, mostly).  And there hasn't been a championship team on the field since the 1990s.

There's also a small pool to draw from, as compared to, for example, Toledo.

As I said, I don't know what to say, the Kent game had no obstacles and every enticement and yet we drew a very average crowd.

Finally, I was very much against the "Black Friday Bash," but the Kent game clearly shows why we felt we had to try something different.  We might not get much in Columbus, but we know what we would have gotten in BG and it would not have been good.