The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...plus comments...Charleston Souther!

[BlackNGold]

The Good

Wins are always good!!! The running game was good, The defense played well in the second half. It was nice that Sefo got the reps.

The Bad

I was very disappointed with the defense in the first half. charleston Southern was a one dimensional team and we still did not stop them very well on defense. It was obvious they were trying to consume the clock.

CU still does not get much push from the dline.

The Ugly

The attendance was announced as over 36,000. I estimate the stadium was only about half full. Student section did not have 2000 in it. It was a beautiful fall day in Boulder - great day to take in a college football game. I know I am the only one worried about the continued erosion of fan base.

Comments

Charleston Southern did not belong in that game - we might as well have been playing Northern Colorado. They were small, slow, and one of the worst tackling teams I have ever observed.

I wish they would of done more with Sefo passing yesterday.

 

[CUFan]

Worse at tackling than a Squawk team?

I am am very worried about the erosion of the fan base. I believe it has been happening for well over a decade. It's just part of the school's tremendous underinvestment and neglect of of its most visible asset over that time. I also don't think much has changed up there even with the cash thrown at MikeMac and George. They probably think that is more than enough.

 

[Quattro]

The hell were people expecting attendance wise against a no name team in a makeup game that was recently announced?


Sent from a red light

 

[Duff Man]

It's the trend that is troubling, not one game.

 

[Deleted member 807]

. I know I am the only one worried about the continued erosion of fan base.

You are not alone.

I don't know what the projected lifetime giving amount will be from students who attended CU at some point between 2002 to 2013. But it's a safe bet that this lost generation will contribute less revenue in donations and season ticket sales than those who were on campus at some point between 1990 - 2001.

It's a gigantic negative reinforcement loop. Thanks DiStephano for emphasizing NCAA compliance and APR above excellence on the field and throughout the facilities.

 

[Quattro]

It's the trend that is troubling, not one game.

I think Arizona will be much more telling. Thus far we've played two FCS teams and no one expected over 38K for those and then of course Oregon. If we are real low on attendance for Arizona then I'll agree that it's troubling. If we are at least competitive in the remaining home games I bet we see a decent attendance spike up each game.


Sent from a red light

 

[lawdogg]

We are a fair-weather fan base, at least the students at present. Not a knock on the tinis and sliders of the world, but we've shown that we will support a winner as evidenced by our basketball program and how packed CEC is. For football though, most of our current students haven't seen anything but us getting our teeth kicked in on a weekly basis; plenty more attractive things to do on a beautiful fall Saturday in Boulder than possibly sitting through that. If Big Mac gets this thing turned around, the attendance will start to improve again.

 

[BlackNGold]

The hell were people expecting attendance wise against a no name team in a makeup game that was recently announced?


Sent from a red light

It shows a trend of disinterest when people who have ticket do not come to the game. In the past teams like Montana State still drew 45,000. As a note - your red light joke is not funny.

 

[Quattro]

We are a fair-weather fan base, at least the students at present. Not a knock on the tinis and sliders of the world, but we've shown that we will support a winner as evidenced by our basketball program and how packed CEC is. For football though, most of our current students haven't seen anything but us getting our teeth kicked in on a weekly basis; plenty more attractive things to do on a beautiful fall Saturday in Boulder than possibly sitting through that. If Big Mac gets this thing turned around, the attendance will start to improve again.

This

No offense either, it's true. Students are crazy excited about bball, but fball is pretty much a forgotten thing right now. A noon game didn't help either.


Sent from a red light

 

[BinaryBuff]

You reap what you sow. It's been said a hundred times, but the lack of leadership and disinvestment in the football program is really starting to pay dividends. Showing commitment like sticking with Hawkins to save a buck, hiring an unexperienced HC because he was cheap, charging out of state tuition for all scholarship athletes, crappy customer service all around, antagonistic behavior by the SID, .... It's all helped to result in fans that appear to have finally given up and checked out. Maybe they'll come back, but the point is, they aren't showing up now and haven't been for years (Bohn was virtually giving tickets away with 4/$40 deals just to get bodies into the stadium).

I have no answers but a good first step would be for DiStephano to publicly apologize for being a dip**** and step the **** down.

 

[Quattro]

Fwiw, college football attendance is down nationwide this year


Sent from a red light

 

[buffaholic]

Fans will follow a competitive program, if it gets to that point. I think we can compete vs. Arizona and I'll be disappointed if it's not a good crowd. I'm a hell of a lot less worried about our eroding fan base over the last decade than I am about our eroding play.

 

[BuffNut99]

This was a bye week initially. Lots of people made plans to do otherwise this weekend months ago. Still, lots of no shows. The Arizona game will be better, and any sort of roll will get everyone coming back.

 

[OUBuff]

It will be interesting to see what kind of attendance they have for the Cal game if they are competitive in the next few weekends. That is when you may be able to make any real conclusions regarding fan base erosion.

If the keep getting their "teeth kicked in" in the next weeks, the only fans you will see are those buying the $5 dollar ticket deals and those that are pissed they paid full price months ago.

 

[tante]

I love the excuses. If we were a top 10 team people would suddenly have less things to do. The buffs are not fun to watch right now or people would still be showing up.

 

[SJBuff]

This was a bye week initially. Lots of people made plans to do otherwise this weekend months ago. Still, lots of no shows. The Arizona game will be better, and any sort of roll will get everyone coming back.

I don't know if it will be that much better. We still suck, at least that's what everyone believes, and not many want to show up just to see us get beat down. Add to that the fact that U of A doesn't have the same starpower draw that SC, Cal and Oregon have so I won't be surprised if a lot of people find other things to do. I expect next week to be slightly better than yesterday but the Cal and SC games to be significantly better.

If we beat UA, then the Cal and SC attendance will jump even more since people will believe we have a chance at winning.

 

[Buffnik]

You are not alone.

I don't know what the projected lifetime giving amount will be from students who attended CU at some point between 2002 to 2013. But it's a safe bet that this lost generation will contribute less revenue in donations and season ticket sales than those who were on campus at some point between 1990 - 2001.

It's a gigantic negative reinforcement loop. Thanks DiStephano for emphasizing NCAA compliance and APR above excellence on the field and throughout the facilities.

Basketball donors

 

[Mick Ronson]

imo the Colorado sports fan mentality has always been a bit bandwagon. and this includes the Broncos. we always show up for the donkeys but the casual fan is out in full force with the undefeated start. Nuggets, Avs, Rockies, same. for people living in the Denver area, Sunday is the sports day not Sat much. mountains with the fam instead of Folsom.

CU fan has been different some...at the end of the day, we aren't very good and our core fan base came of age in the McCartney years and is used to winning and is of the age that has kids and stuff on the weekends.

minivans to drive. soccer games to go.

as a long longtime CU hoops guy i never thought i'd see the day we were a basketball school....on campus at least. but, easy to draw 10000 for a 2 hour game than 60000 for 4 hours.

 

[Deleted member 807]

Basketball donors

Hope you are right. Folsom seats a lot more than the keg. And Basketball just started getting hot in 2009. Tad wasn't around during the first millennial decade.

Those who were on the subsidized $50 trips to LA and ABQ are likely to have a strong emotional bond that will last a lifetime.





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[Mick Ronson]

maybe we are in a period of transition....Big 8 and Big XII were really football conferences....the Pac is more rounded.
revenue issue is the thing.

we all saw what a non-player Kansas was in the conference realignment and they are one of the top 5 hoops programs of all-time and an AAU university. the Big Ten didn't even sniff them with all their gots to be AAU bluster....they took the bugeaters who lost their AAU status....no one cared.

 

[Quattro]

It shows a trend of disinterest when people who have ticket do not come to the game. In the past teams like Montana State still drew 45,000. As a note - your red light joke is not funny.

The MSU game also came on the back of winning the division four out of the previous five years so there was still excitement amongst the fanbase and we had a new coach in his first game. Those games were also known months in advance, not just a few weeks where many probably planned other things expecting a bye week for October 19th.

Fans will follow a competitive program, if it gets to that point. I think we can compete vs. Arizona and I'll be disappointed if it's not a good crowd. I'm a hell of a lot less worried about our eroding fan base over the last decade than I am about our eroding play.

This. Just look at basketball. We had zero fan support just five years ago, now we are selling out season tickets and ticket prices for some individual games are $200+ (at least). Yes it's different filling a 55K stadium vs. a 11K arena but football when we are at least competitive at home will have a larger following. Show that you can be competitive at home this year and fans will start to show up again in good numbers.

This was a bye week initially. Lots of people made plans to do otherwise this weekend months ago. Still, lots of no shows. The Arizona game will be better, and any sort of roll will get everyone coming back.

A bye week initially + a FCS team is not going to end well for a fanbase that has been getting their teeth kicked in on the regular for the past three seasons (eight years in total but the last three have been bad)/

Basketball donors

Yup

You reap what you sow. It's been said a hundred times, but the lack of leadership and disinvestment in the football program is really starting to pay dividends. Showing commitment like sticking with Hawkins to save a buck, hiring an unexperienced HC because he was cheap, charging out of state tuition for all scholarship athletes, crappy customer service all around, antagonistic behavior by the SID, .... It's all helped to result in fans that appear to have finally given up and checked out. Maybe they'll come back, but the point is, they aren't showing up now and haven't been for years (Bohn was virtually giving tickets away with 4/$40 deals just to get bodies into the stadium).

Not sure how valid the bolded is regarding the attendance. If CU is one of the few schools in the PAC 12/BCS doing that, then sure but I'd be willing to bet lots of schools do that now, especially since attendance is down nationwide. Hell, just two years ago we averaged over 50K.

 

[BinaryBuff]

Not sure how valid the bolded is regarding the attendance. If CU is one of the few schools in the PAC 12/BCS doing that, then sure but I'd be willing to bet lots of schools do that now, especially since attendance is down nationwide. Hell, just two years ago we averaged over 50K.

Discounting tickets that usually go for $40-50 each down to $10-20 was nothing more than a way to get butts in the seats. I'm fine with that approach if that's what it takes since I'd rather have 50k fans in folsom than 40k, but, the administration has to realize that it means something fundamental when you have to virtually give your product away to get fans in that used to be willing to pay much closer to full price. And it sure means something when even giving your product away doesn't work to get fans in the door.

I don't really care about any program other than CU or how their ticket sales are going. I'm aware of the trend of fans in general not going to as many sporting events but that is not the reason why only 36k fans showed up on Saturday.

 

[DBT]

It's the trend that is troubling, not one game.

I don't think it's a trend that a decent product won't fix.

 

[MtnBuff]

The attendance is troubling but not unexpected after last years disaster.

People have options for where to spend their entertainment dollars, especially in a market like Colorado. Fans can decide between an NFL team that has a record setting offense and a good chance to get to the super bowl, an NBA team that has been in the playoffs for a number of consecutive years and is consistently close to the best home record in the league, a young and improving NHL team, along with a bunch of other activities including skiing, fishing, cultural events, etc. In addition for the cost of a season ticket you can get a quality HD television, enjoy most games from home, and change the channel whenever you like without giving up your investment of time or money.

For most fans going to Folsom last year wasn't fun. The Buffs not only didn't win a home game but didn't even keep most competitive in the first quarter. They made it easy for people to look for other options and people found those options. Now they have to bring people back.

The good news is that when the Buffs are winning the experience in Boulder is a good value. The sight lines in the stadium are almost all very good, the energy can be invigorating, and sharing the experience with other fans who care about the team and the school is a much different thing than the sterility and forced energy of a pro sports venue.

I do think that some of the fan base has been lost forever, not coming back. At the same time put a good, winning, fun product on the field and people can be brought into the fold. It isn't going to be instant and it won't happen unless CU puts a consistent, quality team on the field.

 

[BlackNGold]

The MSU game also came on the back of winning the division four out of the previous five years so there was still excitement amongst the fanbase and we had a new coach in his first game. Those games were also known months in advance, not just a few weeks where many probably planned other things expecting a bye week for October 19th.

Look at the Oregon game...in 2011 CU was 1-6 going into the game and 52,000 showed up to see the game - Oregon was #9 at that time. CU has always gotten a better walkup crowd when a good team comes to town. This year only 46000 showed up for #2 Oregon. That is over a 10 % decline - any business that loses 10% of their customers has a problem. Football is where the main donor base comes from...lose that and you have problems.

 

[Liver]

We need more signs of hope. The suckitude has run for so long that the fan base is deteriorating. We need the facilities upgrade to start. We need recruiting to pickup. And we need a big upset win this year.

 

[Dark Bohner]

I hate seeing the attendance trend, especially since the fanbase stayed so strong through the Hawkins year and Embree years. Sucks that MM isn't getting that kind of support out of the gate. But I agree that the attendance will be fine once the product improves. Even transplant people who are sports fans but aren't CU fans will typically come for a big game in Boulder to enjoy the event and post facebook pictures to up their "like" count. Being completely outclassed in every conference game just does no good.

 

[Shldr2Shldr]

If we hadn't gotten our asses handed to us by the scumdevils, there would have been more people at Folsom. We looked good against Oregon for a quarter, which is more than can be said for most of their opponents. If we had showed some competitiveness against ASU, then there would have been some excitement and some momentum building. That loss was crushing and it showed we are still no where ready to be competing with the upper tier of the Pac-12. A win against zona, and a win against Cal would I think have the fan base feeling pretty good going into the offseason.

 

[absinthe]

Look at the Oregon game...in 2011 CU was 1-6 going into the game and 52,000 showed up to see the game - Oregon was #9 at that time. CU has always gotten a better walkup crowd when a good team comes to town. This year only 46000 showed up for #2 Oregon. That is over a 10 % decline - any business that loses 10% of their customers has a problem. Football is where the main donor base comes from...lose that and you have problems.

BnG -

Serious question for you as I don't really know the answer, but how much of this would you attribute to different styles of running the AD? As noted above Mike was game to drop ticket prices significantly to get people in the seats. I also know from my connections that he gave way stacks of tickets to sponsors, incidents of him just calling some of our name sponsors and giving them 100, 200 or more GA tickets the week of the game were fairly common the past 2 years. Do you think that approach is contributing to the numbers difference you see in a game like Oregon?

 

[BlackNGold]

BnG -

Serious question for you as I don't really know the answer, but how much of this would you attribute to different styles of running the AD? As noted above Mike was game to drop ticket prices significantly to get people in the seats. I also know from my connections that he gave way stacks of tickets to sponsors, incidents of him just calling some of our name sponsors and giving them 100, 200 or more GA tickets the week of the game were fairly common the past 2 years. Do you think that approach is contributing to the numbers difference you see in a game like Oregon?

Not really much difference. The AD gave away alot of tickets to schools kids for the Charleston Southern game. Games like Oregon in the past always had good attendance and give aways were not as important. Historically you have 12000 student tickets, 25000 season ticket holders, and usually about 10,000 t0 15000 walk up crowd. The give aways were to counter act a drop in the walk up crowds...usually when uninteresting opponents were coming to town. You still have the 12000 student tickets and probably about 22000 season ticket holders (not sure because they have been hiding the numbers for awhile). The walk up crowd is probably now running 5000 to 10000. People could not give away ticket to Charleston Southern, I know people who tried.

I think some of the core fans and many of the more casual fans have lost interest. CU is not very competitive, Watching us beat Charleston Southern was not very exciting.