CFB is dead! Our attendance problem isn’t just a MSU problem!**
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That's why I want to concentrate NIL on basketball and baseball.
Our fanbase, first of all, is small and spread out all over MS and everywhere else. Like I said the other day, we don't really have an urban area to draw from to get 60K on the regular. Secondly, we don't understand how to commit to football. Third, look at our competition. So why swim upstream?
Our fanbase, first of all, is small and spread out all over MS and everywhere else. Like I said the other day, we don't really have an urban area to draw from to get 60K on the regular. Secondly, we don't understand how to commit to football. Third, look at our competition. So why swim upstream?
We've got an awful home schedule and low expectations. Next year we should see a nice bump in attendance if things go well with the new offense.
Positive momentum puts butts in seats.
Maybe there's more optimism in those programs this year???
That's the dumbest ****. We had little trouble filling the stadium when Mullen was winning. Baseball is a don't give a **** sport except a handful of SEC and ACC teams. Basketball will be fine regardless and Jans is already signing big talent, as we're projected top 25 and a NCAA team next season. We've got a dumbazz, sheety fan base problem. 2/3s of this board alone are offended by NIL and the portal. Just a bunch of dumbassery!
Our entire football future depends on our head coach AND if we ever land a good one, keeping him. If we spend our wad on football a large part of it has to be on a good HC IMO.
Do you have French Ancestry?
Winning consistently would fix a lot of this. Another string of 8 and 9 win seasons with an occasional surprise upset here and there would be awesome to see again.
"Fan base small and spread out" So is Auburn's and Northern MS Black Bears
"We don't have an urban area to draw from" Neither does Auburn or Northern MS
When the going gets tough, the weak quit.
Didn't we have a couple of years' long streaks of sell-outs during the Mullen era? It's not like it can't be done.
Also, Tennessee is a year removed from their best season in nearly 20 years that included a win over Bama and bludgeoning a Big Ten team in the Orange Bowl. Ole Miss just had their best season ever. Auburn doesn't have a lot to crow about, but they believe in Freeze. If he doesn't deliver a step forward this season, I think you're going to see them fall off as well.
If Lebby starts winning, the sell-outs will come.
Auburn is 1 hour from Montgomery, and 1.5 hours from Birmingham and uh, ATLANTA. Their fanbase is likely double the size of ours.
Ole Miss is less than an hour from Memphis and has a slightly bigger fanbase than us.
Both of those programs are SIGNIFICANTLY more financially dedicated to the cause.
We are 2 hours from.....Jackson. And 2.5 from Birmingham/Memphis.
Being boring on offense since 2017 doesn’t help things either.
I’ll agree with Oxford, but people don’t realize how big the Auburn/Opelieka area is.
Lee county has 183,000 people Oktibehha county has a population of 52,000.
Wait til next year
I’ll add, my original post isn’t a shot at our current state. I get we are trying to climb out of the mess we’ve created for ourselves since Mullen left (hopefully Lebby is a good coach!). If Lebby puts a good product on the field, fans better show up.
My post is more directed at the last several years - 2022 in particular when we won 9 games (85bears favorite season of all time) and we struggled to get butts in seats. I brought this issue up numerous times during that year and was told attendance was down everywhere and we are beginning to see a decline in CFB attendance because of TV packages, etc. I said it then and I’ll say it now: we need to get our head out of our *** and support football. The only school in the SEC that struggles with attendance is Vandy. CFB attendance & investment with our peers in the SEC is as good as ever.
Obviously, most of this depends on Lebby as a HC. Fingers crossed.
My post is more directed at the last several years - 2022 in particular when we won 9 games (85bears favorite season of all time) and we struggled to get butts in seats. I brought this issue up numerous times during that year and was told attendance was down everywhere and we are beginning to see a decline in CFB attendance because of TV packages, etc. I said it then and I’ll say it now: we need to get our head out of our *** and support football. The only school in the SEC that struggles with attendance is Vandy. CFB attendance & investment with our peers in the SEC is as good as ever.
Obviously, most of this depends on Lebby as a HC. Fingers crossed.
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2 years of JoeMo, 2.5 yrs of Leach (.5 being COVID yr), 1 yr of Arnett, and now an unknown in Lebby. Not that hard to see why folks are hesitant to shell out season ticket money. Give the fanbase a positive product on the field and the seats will fill up again.
2023 FBS Attendance Trends | D1 ticker
A look at FBS attendance for the 2023 season compared to year-over-year and five-year-over-year averages. | Data through Week 13.
www.d1ticker.com
What can we do to “support football” that will put more butts in the seats? I’m genuinely asking. I don’t think people are going to all of the sudden show up for LED lights.
Donate all your money and your kids college fund to buy a 3star WR from Kosciusko.
I imagine we are doing what we can on that front. I don’t think other sports are hurting our football efforts. What hurts us is our fanbase doesn’t want to win as much as others.
I’m asking mainly about the school/AD
What hurts us is our fanbase is one where alumni and fans don't have as much discretionary $ to donate to football NIL as others do. Don't tell me that I don't want to win as much as others. Every fan wants their team to win. Just because Benedict Vanlandingham the Twelvth can donate $100,000 to Ole Miss and I can only donate $500, he wants to win more than I do? His daddy's daddy's cotton plantation money is bigger, that's it. If we had his $, we'd donate like he does.
Please stop with the "our fanbase doesn't want to win" BS. We don't stupidly spend $ on a 3 star WR from Kosciusko who will transfer to Georgia in a year.
Agreed. I'm trying to remember a big home game in the past 5 years. Obviously 2020 doesn't count. But..... I'd say Florida in 2018? Is the last time we had a big hype game at home.
Moorhead hired after Mullen and tears down everything built to that point to ashes. Complete rebuild 2 years from a team that could have been NY6 with competent leadership.
Get a nationally beloved coach and things look up.
Nationally beloved coach dies in the offseason after converting the entire team to Air Raid that no one can now run.
Have to scramble and promote a dud from within.
Next season is a disaster.
End of next season we fire a coach who lasted one season and was awful in recruitment leaving us in the 50’s.
Fans want a home run hire to heal the wounds.
Fans get a coach who is more than likely as good as or better than young Mullen, and has shown flashes of good recruiting, but fans are underwhelmed and stuck in a “wait and see” attitude.
Picked next to last…. Above an absolutely terrible Vandy.
Yea… I think ticket sales may suffer a lil this year.
Get a nationally beloved coach and things look up.
Nationally beloved coach dies in the offseason after converting the entire team to Air Raid that no one can now run.
Have to scramble and promote a dud from within.
Next season is a disaster.
End of next season we fire a coach who lasted one season and was awful in recruitment leaving us in the 50’s.
Fans want a home run hire to heal the wounds.
Fans get a coach who is more than likely as good as or better than young Mullen, and has shown flashes of good recruiting, but fans are underwhelmed and stuck in a “wait and see” attitude.
Picked next to last…. Above an absolutely terrible Vandy.
Yea… I think ticket sales may suffer a lil this year.
It’s as if losing games might bring down attendance. Who would have ever thought that.**
It seemed to me. The excitement around The Leach era was very flat at MSU. I don't know exactly why......Covid didn't help, maybe the schedule. Maybe the timing of when we won and lost games leading up to the next home game.... I'm not sure. But it will be interesting to see if Lebby can reignite the fan base, similar to Mullen.
What hurts us most is that a lot of our alumni that are in fields where they make enough money to regularly go to games and donate to our athletic programs can't find employment in the state. Combine that with there being no even medium sized metro within an hour or so of Starkville and it is what it is. People have to have that extra excitement to make the longer drives. We have priced a lot of what locals did go out of going too.
Leach did not have a great offense at MSU. He also didn't win as much as BOTH of his predecessors. Not beating Ole Miss in at least one of his first two years hurt too. He also was not as universally loved as this board thinks he was.
Concentrating NIL on anything other than football is the dumbest thing an AD can do in today's college athletics landscape.
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