Attendance Ideas and Solutions

[ST_Lawson]

Let's see...how about we hold one of the largest Greek events at WIU...off campus...during the football game. That seems smart.

The Frats used to be a huge presence at the games. Long-time Western fans will remember that the TKE's would bring a big bell to the games. Similar to this:

They would set it up in the south endzone. They would ring it after every Western score.

That was back in the days of big crowds when people were standing everywhere or sitting on the hillside.

Illinois State had one near their end zone when we played there. I don't know who rings it/houses it, but it was there and looked very similar to that.
I think if we can figure out a way to get a large part of the greek crowd there, that would go a long way towards increasing the student presence at the games.

[sealhall74]

Macomb has set up a nice RC Racetrack in their park. Maybe some RC races at half-time would work. No banked turns but some cones on the field and maybe a raised platform for the contestants to operate from would be all it takes.

http://www.tspr.org/post/rc-raceway-ope ... ark-macomb

[ST_Lawson]

Could be worse. We could be 7-0, only an hour from a fairly large city, and still drawing fewer than 2k (I'm referring to Colgate, btw)
This was from yesterday:

[Neckfansince71]

And that's where the boys fought the snow and Colgate in the quarter finals of the FCS championship. The year I am not sure of, but the game was played in a blizzard. jc

[ST_Lawson]

And that's where the boys fought the snow and Colgate in the quarter finals of the FCS championship. The year I am not sure of, but the game was played in a blizzard. jc

Yeah...I remember that game. Listened to it on the radio. It was 2003.
BTW, that whole game is actually on Youtube:






Spoiler alert...it was a heartbreaker for Leatherneck fans. Colgate went on to beat Florida Atlantic and then get crushed 40-0 by a phenomenal Delaware team in the championship game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_NCAA ... ff_bracket

[wiu712]

And that's where the boys fought the snow and Colgate in the quarter finals of the FCS championship. The year I am not sure of, but the game was played in a blizzard.

The Western at Colgate "snow game" was a 2003 1-AA Quarterfinal game. Area fans will remember that the game was televised on Quincy television station KHQA. Colgate won that game 28-27.


Colgate had 1,827 at their game on Saturday. But that game was played in the Nor'easter that brought a lot of rain.

Colgate's other home games this year have had crowds of 5,304, 7,753, and 3,112.

In the last 2 weeks, Western has hosted two Top 25 teams. We had 2,709 for the game with #1 North Dakota State and 2,832 for the game with #17 Northern Iowa.

Western football used to get big crowds. Wonder where those people have gone. Saturday's weather was ideal. But still a very disappointing turnout.

[Western_101]

Now it makes sense.

712 is the one that's been doing the head counts at the games.

[ST_Lawson]

A tweet that someone posted after the post about Coach Patterson visiting the team reminded me that Coach P used to have automated messages sent out to all students phone numbers reminding them about the home games a few days beforehand. I don't know if it would be quite as effective now with cell phones, but it might be worth a shot if they're allowed to do it. I know that the messages went out to off-campus students too (I never lived on campus, but I got weekly calls from Coach P back then), so I'd think that cell phone numbers would fall under the same category.