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Football Attendance

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2019 8:19 pm
by wiu712
The crowd for Saturday's game with Illinois State was under 3,000 (2,984). Games with Illinois State used to bring large crowds to Hanson Field. But attendance has been trending downwards.

The attendance for the 2016 home game with ISU was 3,581. And the attendance for the 2014 home game with ISU was 4,641.

Football attendance at Hanson Field now ranges from 2,000 to 5,000.

Given that fact, perhaps we need to re-think building a new west side grandstand. There is already a huge surplus of seats that now go empty at every game.

Maybe a better idea would be to add a Press Box level to the east side and make that the seating for Western fans (move the team back to the east sideline). Then the current west side stands could be removed and replaced with a smaller grandstand (1,000 seats) for visiting fans.

With the new concessions and bathrooms being on the east side, that is a good reason for making the east side the "home side".

Indiana State is planning on a new 8,000 seat capacity on-campus football facility. The USD Dakota Dome will have approx 9,000 seats when its renovation into a football-only facility has been completed.

I saw several people stumble and fall trying to go down the stairs on the west grandstand. Lots of safety concerns in having people trying to use those stairs when there are no handrails.

Re: Football Attendance

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 9:21 am
by Tere North
wiu712 wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2019 8:19 pm The crowd for Saturday's game with Illinois State was under 3,000 (2,984). Games with Illinois State used to bring large crowds to Hanson Field. But attendance has been trending downwards.

The attendance for the 2016 home game with ISU was 3,581. And the attendance for the 2014 home game with ISU was 4,641.

Football attendance at Hanson Field now ranges from 2,000 to 5,000.

Given that fact, perhaps we need to re-think building a new west side grandstand. There is already a huge surplus of seats that now go empty at every game.

Maybe a better idea would be to add a Press Box level to the east side and make that the seating for Western fans (move the team back to the east sideline). Then the current west side stands could be removed and replaced with a smaller grandstand (1,000 seats) for visiting fans.

With the new concessions and bathrooms being on the east side, that is a good reason for making the east side the "home side".

Indiana State is planning on a new 8,000 seat capacity on-campus football facility. The USD Dakota Dome will have approx 9,000 seats when its renovation into a football-only facility has been completed.

I saw several people stumble and fall trying to go down the stairs on the west grandstand. Lots of safety concerns in having people trying to use those stairs when there are no handrails.

I have been waiting for the west side to be condemned. Unsafe stairs, broken seats, etc. The east side looks much better, and is ADA accessible, but does have the disadvantage of looking into the sun.

Re: Football Attendance

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 9:29 am
by wiu712
Tere North wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 9:21 amThe east side looks much better, and is ADA accessible, but does have the disadvantage of looking into the sun.
The sun comes in to play with games starting at 3PM. It is not so much a problem with the 1PM start times.

When Illinois State updated Hancock Stadium, they moved the "home" side over to the east.

Re: Football Attendance

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 10:21 am
by sealhall74
There is an old fishing adage I always went by growing up.:

When the wind's from the east, they bite like a beast.
When the wind's from the west, fishing is best.
When the wind's from north, the lunkers come forth.
When the wind's from the south, it blows the lures into their mouth.

I briefly sat on the east side during Saturday's game before watching most of the game pressed up against the fence in the north end zone.
Short walk to the pisser and concession stand.

Without a doubt, the west side is going to need some attention in the future.

Re: Football Attendance

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 10:36 am
by GV Dad
This was my first Western v ISU game. I also expected larger attendance numbers. But what really surprised me was the small number of ISU fans that made the drive. Your team is #10 in the country, playing a struggling Rival on the road; probably the closest drive of your road games. I expected a couple thousand from them. I think we had more fans at Indiana St than ISU had yesterday.

Re: Football Attendance

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 11:14 am
by leatherneckcountry
GV Dad wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 10:36 am This was my first Western v ISU game. I also expected larger attendance numbers. But what really surprised me was the small number of ISU fans that made the drive. Your team is #10 in the country, playing a struggling Rival on the road; probably the closest drive of your road games. I expected a couple thousand from them. I think we had more fans at Indiana St than ISU had yesterday.
Yeah we would have actually been there second closest behind EIU but ISU never really brings much when they play here.

Re: Football Attendance

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 5:13 pm
by meganeck
I'm not saying attendance would be greatly improved this year, but how many home games have had good weather?

Re: Football Attendance

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 7:11 pm
by leatherneckcountry
meganeck wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 5:13 pm I'm not saying attendance would be greatly improved this year, but how many home games have had good weather?
The ISU game had really good weather but the forecast didn’t look great that morning.

Re: Football Attendance

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 8:10 pm
by ST_Lawson
meganeck wrote:I'm not saying attendance would be greatly improved this year, but how many home games have had good weather?
Montana State was ok, but a bit warm, at least in the first half.

Tennessee Tech and Missouri State (Homecoming) were both delayed by storms and then had rain off and on the rest of the time.

Illinois State was nice, but yeah, as of that morning it was supposed to rain throughout much of the second half of the game.

I don't think attendance would be great if we had perfect weather, but we might be averaging 750-1000 more per game at this point.


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Re: Football Attendance

Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2019 8:15 pm
by wiu712
2019 Home Football Attendance:

September 14 vs Montana State (Family Weekend) = 4,728.

September 21 vs Tennessee Tech = 1,594.

October 5 vs Missouri State (Homecoming) = 3,149.

October 19 vs Illinois State = 2,984.

November 2 vs South Dakota = 1,728.

November 16 vs Southern Illinois = 1,739.