Football Attendance

[sealhall74]

Two nautical things come to mind right now:

1) Loose lips sink ships
2) We are gong to need a bigger boat.

[Tere North]

Heard today at the gym that Charlie Fisher has his house up for sale. Reportedly he has said that he does not like Macomb.

His wife indicated they are just downsizing, not leaving.

[leatherface]

I have no idea what's going on,however, that does sound pretty lame.

[ST_Lawson]

There could be plenty of reasons they could be selling their house (if they are, in fact, selling their house) and most of them don't involve Coach Fisher going anywhere. Unfortunately there are a lot of homes for sale in the Macomb area right now, so it's entirely possible they spotted something for sale that fit their lifestyle better than where they're currently at and are just moving to another part of town.

[wiu712]

Our game at Illinois State is a sell-out (13,391). They are selling "Lawn" (standing room) in the north endzone. This is their Family Weekend game.

Western sold all of the tickets in their allotment. So there should be a big Western crowd at the game.

Family Weekend games at Western used to bring in big crowds. But we only had 3,217 at this year's Family Weekend. Last year's Western Family Weekend game had 6,732.

The smaller Freshmen class of recent years is probably the reason for the decrease in attendance for Family Weekend.

[sealhall74]

Our game at Illinois State is a sell-out (13,391). They are selling "Lawn" (standing room) in the north endzone. This is their Family Weekend game.

Western sold all of the tickets in their allotment. So there should be a big Western crowd at the game.

Family Weekend games at Western used to bring in big crowds. But we only had 3,217 at this year's Family Weekend. Last year's Western Family Weekend game had 6,732.

The smaller Freshmen class of recent years is probably the reason for the decrease in attendance for Family Weekend.

I wonder if you can bring your own lawn chair for the lawn. That is always my preferred option to view any sporting event.

[LocalYokelFan]

Coach Fish lives out the by MCC. His house has been for sale for awhile now, good luck to him selling it in this local market! I've always thought of WIU as a stepping stone for him - but that's really up to him and his family - not my business to try and foresee his view of WIU or Macomb long-term. I'd love a great coach to stick around here for decades, but I'm also realistic and know that this doesn't happen much in D1 athletics these days.

Back to attendance, not sure if this has been brought up yet or not, but part of the problem is the population center your pulling from:
Bloomington-Normal - 190k
Cedar Falls - Waterloo - 170k
Springfield, MO - 167k
Fargo - 120k (and growing)
Youngstown, OH - 64k (but in a much bigger metro area)
Terre Haute - 60k
Carbondale - 26k (Include nearby Marion and Murphysboro and its twice that)
Brookings SD - 24k (and growing)
Macomb - 18k (2016 estimate, 2010 census had us at 21.5k, so declining significantly)
Vermillion, SD - 11k (Which is tough to believe, seeing as though USD enrolls nearly 10k)

We're in the 2nd smallest market in the conference - HUGE disadvantage right off the bat. Add in an apathetic alumni base (harsh but true), declining student population, a murky (at best) state and local economy and its quite easy to see why attendance stinks.

I get that Hanson Field needs help, students need to be persuaded away from their TVs, and more "buzz" needs to be created in general. But the underlying demographics/economics need to be fixed first - better enrollment, better local economy, more people with higher disposable incomes within a half hour of Macomb. That's the way to fix attendance and it takes an army greater than this message board.

I'm seeing some signs of the local economy improving, and here's hoping that helps. Time will tell, it certainly won't happen over night.

[leatherface]

Nice post- seems a very accurate reflection regarding a number of points.

[ST_Lawson]

LocalYokel, you're definitely right on the local population issue. A few years back, me and another guy on AGS put together a bunch of numbers relating to things like location, enrollment, stadium size, local population, etc. for all the FCS schools. Our basis of local population was a 20 mile ring around the school (or stadium, if the stadium is not on campus). Out of all FCS teams, here's the "bottom" 10 in that ranking:

1. Alcorn State, 28,060
2. South Dakota, 28,690
3. Southern Utah, 29,955
4. South Dakota State, 34,387
5. Northwestern State, 42,440
6. Western Illinois, 43,629
7. VMI, 52,861
8. Montana State, 56,875
9. Morehead State, 58,250
10. Grambling State, 65,397

For MVFC teams, those same numbers are:
South Dakota, 28,690
South Dakota State, 34,387
Western Illinois, 43,629
Southern Illinois, 141,073
Northern Iowa, 162,573
Illinois State, 163,061
North Dakota State, 167,177
Indiana State, 172,226
Missouri State, 311,815
Youngstown State, 613,208

Now, for the South Dakota schools, there's a couple of things there that are working in their favor. South Dakota is a small enough state that USD and SDSU are the state's "flagship" universities and are the only DI schools in the state. By SD standards, they are actually fairly large towns...Brookings is the 4th largest town (and it's barely larger than Macomb) and Vermillion is the 11th largest (and it's about the size of Monmouth). Because of this, they get much more focus from the state government in terms of funding. They are also both an hour (or less) away from the largest metro area in South Dakota (by far)...Sioux Falls. So, where do the majority of college educated alumni go to get jobs once they've graduated...cities...metro areas, etc.

What do you have within...say, an hour of:
Vermillion - Sioux Falls (metro area population ~250k), Sioux City IA (~168k), Norfolk NE (~24k), Yankton (~14k)
Brookings - Sioux Falls (~250k), Watertown (~21k)
Macomb - Quincy (~40k), Galesburg (~32k), Burlington (~25k), Canton (~14k), Monmouth (~9k)

The total population of all the cities larger than like 10k people within an hour of WIU...including Macomb...is barely 150k. Sioux Falls alone has ~100k people more than that in their metro area, plus an airport, as well as being the headquarters of Sanford Health (280 locations, 27k employees, heavily involved in investing in healthy living and exercise...hence the Denny Sanford Premier Center, the Sanford Pentagon, Sanford Fieldhouse, USD's Sanford Coyote Sports Center, and SDSU's Sanford-Jackrabbit Athletic Complex, for example).

So, when USD students graduate, where do they go...Sioux Falls, Sioux City...both an hour or less away...an easy drive up and back for a Saturday football game.

When WIU students graduate, where do they go...Peoria, Quad Cities, Chicago...all further away. I'm sure we have a few die-hard fans that can make it back from QC and Peoria on a regular basis, but I highly doubt we see too many Chicago-area alumni coming back for more than a game or two each season.

Really, it's all about location. We just don't have large enough population centers nearby to draw alumni who are close enough come back to the majority of games.

[sealhall74]

LocalYokel, you're definitely right on the local population issue. A few years back, me and another guy on AGS put together a bunch of numbers relating to things like location, enrollment, stadium size, local population, etc. for all the FCS schools. Our basis of local population was a 20 mile ring around the school (or stadium, if the stadium is not on campus). Out of all FCS teams, here's the "bottom" 10 in that ranking:

1. Alcorn State, 28,060
2. South Dakota, 28,690
3. Southern Utah, 29,955
4. South Dakota State, 34,387
5. Northwestern State, 42,440
6. Western Illinois, 43,629
7. VMI, 52,861
8. Montana State, 56,875
9. Morehead State, 58,250
10. Grambling State, 65,397

For MVFC teams, those same numbers are:
South Dakota, 28,690
South Dakota State, 34,387
Western Illinois, 43,629
Southern Illinois, 141,073
Northern Iowa, 162,573
Illinois State, 163,061
North Dakota State, 167,177
Indiana State, 172,226
Missouri State, 311,815
Youngstown State, 613,208

Now, for the South Dakota schools, there's a couple of things there that are working in their favor. South Dakota is a small enough state that USD and SDSU are the state's "flagship" universities and are the only DI schools in the state. By SD standards, they are actually fairly large towns...Brookings is the 4th largest town (and it's barely larger than Macomb) and Vermillion is the 11th largest (and it's about the size of Monmouth). Because of this, they get much more focus from the state government in terms of funding. They are also both an hour (or less) away from the largest metro area in South Dakota (by far)...Sioux Falls. So, where do the majority of college educated alumni go to get jobs once they've graduated...cities...metro areas, etc.

What do you have within...say, an hour of:
Vermillion - Sioux Falls (metro area population ~250k), Sioux City IA (~168k), Norfolk NE (~24k), Yankton (~14k)
Brookings - Sioux Falls (~250k), Watertown (~21k)
Macomb - Quincy (~40k), Galesburg (~32k), Burlington (~25k), Canton (~14k), Monmouth (~9k)

The total population of all the cities larger than like 10k people within an hour of WIU...including Macomb...is barely 150k. Sioux Falls alone has ~100k people more than that in their metro area, plus an airport, as well as being the headquarters of Sanford Health (280 locations, 27k employees, heavily involved in investing in healthy living and exercise...hence the Denny Sanford Premier Center, the Sanford Pentagon, Sanford Fieldhouse, USD's Sanford Coyote Sports Center, and SDSU's Sanford-Jackrabbit Athletic Complex, for example).

So, when USD students graduate, where do they go...Sioux Falls, Sioux City...both an hour or less away...an easy drive up and back for a Saturday football game.

When WIU students graduate, where do they go...Peoria, Quad Cities, Chicago...all further away. I'm sure we have a few die-hard fans that can make it back from QC and Peoria on a regular basis, but I highly doubt we see too many Chicago-area alumni coming back for more than a game or two each season.

Really, it's all about location. We just don't have large enough population centers nearby to draw alumni who are close enough come back to the majority of games.

All valid points but these population demographics were the same 30 years ago when when we would draw considerably more fans for football and basketball games. So I disagree that it is all about location. I think what has changed ALOT is the diversity of the student population. Not saying it is a bad thing but kids today are into their own things and sports is just not a big priority for most of them when they have all of the modern-day toys to play with. Hell, last night I damn near ran over some HS age kids who were out trick-or-treating on their motorbikes and ATVs (damn things had no lights).