$10 Homecoming tickets

[Affirm]

And yet we continue to disincentivize folks from coming to campus by televising our games for next to nothing (ESPN+) or free (Channel 62), the latter of which is the height of utter stupidity IMO and just so our league can say it has a TV package. ETSU maybe put 150 fans in seats. Let’s see, I can stay home and watch the game for free or shell out $75 (plus parking, plus concessions) for my family of three. Uhm? Next time your favorite act comes to the Peace Center or BSW, screw the $75-100 ticket price and just sit home at watch the free live broadcast that’s not an option. Also, stadium capacity was built for another era and well before TV was there every game. Need to get it down to 10-11K max. There’s a reason every new or redone facility (name the sport) cuts capacity, including Yankee Stadium, home to one of the richest franchises in the world in a city of 12 million folks. Richmond’s still relatively new stadium is 10K; Elon with 2x the student body as FU, seats about 10K; Citadel at one time had 22K, now about 15K. I could go on and on. Bottom line is there are many factors that are driving down attendance across the board, not just at FU. Free TV is one of them. Schools have sold their souls to that medium, which I’m not denying has its benefits in terms of exposure, but it is doing a good job helping crush attendance.

I believe a good contingency plan should be drawn up for demolishing at least 50% of the visitors side.
See how much it would cost.
Get an architectural/engineering plan.
Carry out the plan when financially feasible.
The purpose would be for (1) better game atmosphere (fewer empty seats at game) and (2) campus beautification.
(I do not like the idea of mass distribution of free tickets, unless it’s some situation in which we know most of the recipients would actually show up and actually support Furman and enhance game atmosphere by their attendance, but would otherwise choose to not attend. I cannot think of any such situation. I would not be in favor of busing in prison inmates, for example.)

[Flagman]

Last year, and a couple of years before that, we roped off the end sections with narrow Ingle’s banners which were somewhat tacky. A banner large enough to cover the entire seating area would probably be too costly, but would look better than what we did, especially if it had a giant diamond F in the middle of it. (But, please!, not that knight’s head.)

[FUBeAR]

My first Furman game was RA day back in the early 60's. Got me hooked. We need those Southern Baptists back in the stands!

As a Player, RA Day was the best! I think we always won & we’d sign autographs for 1/2 hour after the game & those kids were always happy & enthused. Lots of fun & we felt like ‘Big-Time” Players for at least 1 Saturday every season.

[FUpaladin08]

The University has shown the ability to be creative in the past with the free concessions at basketball games. Not feasible for football, but doing nothing and hoping the fans will come is not working. Plenty of good ideas on here, new and old. Just hope Furman will see the benefits of spending a little to boost the home game experience.

[DungeonRealm]

We know VMI will bring nobody Nov. 9th, we know there will be 5,800 empty seats on the visitor side, how about whoever is in charge get out and do all of these things right NOW for that game

Go downtown to give out tickets, give out tickets to Greenville schools, have a tobacco free kids day, give out tickets at all the local churches, ect. ect. ect. ect.

I will not except any excuses as to why we can't get people to Paladin Stadium ie. TV ect. until we at least try these things, and certainly don't want to have a defeatist attitude about suggesting stadium downsizing until more things are attempted. We are likely a top 10 program again, let's strike while the iron is hot and see what we actually can do!

Do these things NOW for Nov. 9th and lets see the results

[fufanatic]

The University has shown the ability to be creative in the past with the free concessions at basketball games. Not feasible for football, but doing nothing and hoping the fans will come is not working. Plenty of good ideas on here, new and old. Just hope Furman will see the benefits of spending a little to boost the home game experience.

I just think we are all being a little egotistical to think that Furman hasn't thought of the pretty basic ideas suggested here and is just sitting on its hands waiting for people to magically show up. It's a multi-layered, very complicated issue that some have covered on here from TV to cost of attendance to time commitment to other local activities to losing a decades worth of alums due to awful on-the-field product to losing big public schools from the SoCon and replacing them with schools with tiny fan bases ... and maybe even the rise of Clemson. I guarantee you they've gained a lot of neutral and new to the area fans over the last 5 years or so.

I don't like the idea of just giving away 5,000 tickets like the free circus tickets you could pick up at the grocery store back in the day. It really cheapens the product. I do think there are ways to give out free/discounted tickets to select groups though, which I'm sure Furman is exploring fully. Just a couple of random thoughts from a person that is not a marketing guru ... Maybe the players give a free ticket to every child in the classroom every time they volunteer. Or maybe it's a little packet of info that gives discounted tickets to the child's guardians or a discounted package for food and drink. Or maybe offer discounted football tickets for sale at every non-athletics event on campus in the week leading up to a game.

If I won the lottery among other things I would tear down the visitor's side and build something more modern and smaller (2-3K seats).

Lastly, be kind to DC. He's a good man who works hard and cares deeply about Furman. I would never put the attendance problems in his lap and I think it's unfair for others to do that as well.

[DungeonRealm]

The University has shown the ability to be creative in the past with the free concessions at basketball games. Not feasible for football, but doing nothing and hoping the fans will come is not working. Plenty of good ideas on here, new and old. Just hope Furman will see the benefits of spending a little to boost the home game experience.

I just think we are all being a little egotistical to think that Furman hasn't thought of the pretty basic ideas suggested here and is just sitting on its hands waiting for people to magically show up. It's a multi-layered, very complicated issue that some have covered on here from TV to cost of attendance to time commitment to other local activities to losing a decades worth of alums due to awful on-the-field product to losing big public schools from the SoCon and replacing them with schools with tiny fan bases ... and maybe even the rise of Clemson. I guarantee you they've gained a lot of neutral and new to the area fans over the last 5 years or so.

I don't like the idea of just giving away 5,000 tickets like the free circus tickets you could pick up at the grocery store back in the day. It really cheapens the product. I do think there are ways to give out free/discounted tickets to select groups though, which I'm sure Furman is exploring fully. Just a couple of random thoughts from a person that is not a marketing guru ... Maybe the players give a free ticket to every child in the classroom every time they volunteer. Or maybe it's a little packet of info that gives discounted tickets to the child's guardians or a discounted package for food and drink. Or maybe offer discounted football tickets for sale at every non-athletics event on campus in the week leading up to a game.

If I won the lottery among other things I would tear down the visitor's side and build something more modern and smaller (2-3K seats).

Lastly, be kind to DC. He's a good man who works hard and cares deeply about Furman. I would never put the attendance problems in his lap and I think it's unfair for others to do that as well.

If its discounted tickets great, I am all for trying anything and everything!

But I would like to say, when you have 5,000 people in a 16,000 seat venue, you are not cheapening the product, you've got 11,000 empty seats, that's what is cheapening the product. I would rather give out TONS of free tickets than spend money to demolish the stands just to make them half the size lol
And its not a long term thing, you run things this way for a few years in hopes that people like the product and want to keep coming back, and if FU football stays top 15 - top 10 that is a real possibility

When you have a crowd of 5,000 that is basically saying the season ticket holders that would be there no matter what showed up, the few students that would be there no matter what showed up, the few visiting fans that would be there no matter what showed up, and the player parents that would be there no matter what showed up, WE NEED TO DO MORE

[FUpaladin08]

The University has shown the ability to be creative in the past with the free concessions at basketball games. Not feasible for football, but doing nothing and hoping the fans will come is not working. Plenty of good ideas on here, new and old. Just hope Furman will see the benefits of spending a little to boost the home game experience.

I just think we are all being a little egotistical to think that Furman hasn't thought of the pretty basic ideas suggested here and is just sitting on its hands waiting for people to magically show up. It's a multi-layered, very complicated issue that some have covered on here from TV to cost of attendance to time commitment to other local activities to losing a decades worth of alums due to awful on-the-field product to losing big public schools from the SoCon and replacing them with schools with tiny fan bases ... and maybe even the rise of Clemson. I guarantee you they've gained a lot of neutral and new to the area fans over the last 5 years or so.

I don't like the idea of just giving away 5,000 tickets like the free circus tickets you could pick up at the grocery store back in the day. It really cheapens the product. I do think there are ways to give out free/discounted tickets to select groups though, which I'm sure Furman is exploring fully. Just a couple of random thoughts from a person that is not a marketing guru ... Maybe the players give a free ticket to every child in the classroom every time they volunteer. Or maybe it's a little packet of info that gives discounted tickets to the child's guardians or a discounted package for food and drink. Or maybe offer discounted football tickets for sale at every non-athletics event on campus in the week leading up to a game.

If I won the lottery among other things I would tear down the visitor's side and build something more modern and smaller (2-3K seats).

Lastly, be kind to DC. He's a good man who works hard and cares deeply about Furman. I would never put the attendance problems in his lap and I think it's unfair for others to do that as well.

Agreed on all points. I guess I’m just wondering what happened to the promotions. I grew up with each home game promoting a specific group and part of that was offering free or discounted tickets. Why did that stop (or scale back) and why isn’t it in full force today?

Obviously we occupy two home games with Homecoming and Senior Day. But what about these other ones we used to all enjoy?

[Bootie]

I agree with DR on the point that it would be better to give away tickets that would otherwise go unsold to get some butts in seats than to remove some seating. At least you'll get some concessions revenue from it and possibly some return, paying customers.

[cavedweller2]

Exactly.

[apaladin]

The only thing that looks worse than empty seats is no seats. Keep the seats. The Citadel reduced their seating because they had to. The visitors side was torn down due to being condemned. They have plans to rebuild the visitors side and when completed will seat 15,500 which is just under PS capacity.

[paladinduece]

I agree with DR on the point that it would be better to give away tickets that would otherwise go unsold to get some butts in seats than to remove some seating. At least you'll get some concessions revenue from it and possibly some return, paying customers.

I think of the environment a recruit sees as well. Empty stands don't equate to helping that.

[apaladin]

I agree with DR on the point that it would be better to give away tickets that would otherwise go unsold to get some butts in seats than to remove some seating. At least you'll get some concessions revenue from it and possibly some return, paying customers.

I think of the environment a recruit sees as well. Empty stands don't equate to helping that.

Really don't see having less seats would make a recruit think any different. Don't see having one thousand fans in 3,000 seats vs. 6,000 seats improves the environment at all. If anything it would have a negative effect if you have a smaller stadium. At least the recruit might think it is possible to have a big crowd.

[fufanatic]

I agree with DR on the point that it would be better to give away tickets that would otherwise go unsold to get some butts in seats than to remove some seating. At least you'll get some concessions revenue from it and possibly some return, paying customers.

That's also assuming the people you give tickets to have any interest in attending a college football game. Just because we give out 5,000 tickets, doesn't mean 5,000 people will attend. And how bad would it look if we gave out 5,000 tickets and only 200 people used them? It's an awful look all around to give away mass quantities of tickets to a paid event. It does cheapen the product. There's a reason why a team like the Marlins would rather have empty seats than to open up the outfield for anyone to walk through for free. Donate some to a boy scout troop or youth group, sure. Handing them out like Halloween candy in downtown Greenville, no.

[apaladin]

You can tell it's an off week, lol. Let's leave it up to our new AD JD to come up with a good plan to get peeps in the stands. I'm sure he is working on it as we speak.