2009 Fb Schedule Negotiations Ohio Bobcats, Mid American

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

I agree, our students would turn out better with Tx State or Sam Houston....they know about these schools and possibly have friends that go to them.

---It is not just students, even in the work place people like to "kid " each other about games between schools they attended. Sort of hard to do when we play an Ohio college. I think it is good to get out of the region for at least one game but for home games it is better to play teams that are somewhat local or big name programs, better interest and attendance. With rather close ones there is a good chance of fans from the opponent attending as well. When NT plays TxTech, I am going, only 120 miles plus wife is Tech grad.

[Cowtown]

There is a big difference between the folks in the North East and Central.

Ohio natives seemed kind of gruff and a little depressed. But they didnt have that impatient, verbal agressiveness that you get from people in Boston, Philly, New York, etc. When in just having a normal conversation with them your hackles go up and you feel like you are about to get into a fist fight.

That's odd. I grew up in the north (NY and PA, so pretty close to OH) and I didn't meet many nice people in those 18 years. Maybe they all lived in Akron.

[GrandGreen]

Why would it be impossible to average over 20K at Fouts? Interest was pretty high last year. If we didn't have the freezing-monsoon-day-after-Thanksgiving game last year, we would have been pretty darn close.

First 4 games:

20479

18973

18181

26012

Avg: 20911

Add game 5

5027

Avg: 17734

I don't think it is all unlikely that we can average 20K at Fouts this year, especially with a good Tulsa crowd and a few wins in the Belt.

Now if you meant that we can't average 20K paying fans then I might agree. That would be much harder. But I am confident we can average 20K total including students.

Yes it is possible to average 20,000 at Fouts assuming you are referring to announced attendance and have good weather for all games. I just don't see NT ever selling many of the end zone tickets for anything but marque match ups like Navy or Baylor. The 20,000 in my example did refer to all attended including students. Winning is obviously the key to attendance. Last year, NT had the excitement of a new coach and attendance was far above what would be expected with a 2-10 record. Hopefully, that can be improved substantially with a wining program. One way to exceed the 20,000 might be to limit student side lines seats to a lower number (perhaps 5,000) and late comers would have to use the end zones, therefore increasing the number of public side line tickets.

[VideoEagle]

Yes it is possible to average 20,000 at Fouts assuming you are referring to announced attendance and have good weather for all games. I just don't see NT ever selling many of the end zone tickets for anything but marque match ups like Navy or Baylor. The 20,000 in my example did refer to all attended including students. Winning is obviously the key to attendance. Last year, NT had the excitement of a new coach and attendance was far above what would be expected with a 2-10 record. Hopefully, that can be improved substantially with a wining program. One way to exceed the 20,000 might be to limit student side lines seats to a lower number (perhaps 5,000) and late comers would have to use the end zones, therefore increasing the number of public side line tickets.

The drop for the last game was primarily because the game was scheduled the Saturday after Thanksgiving when the majority of our non-season ticket holding fans could not attend. By avoiding this weekend and scheduling earlier in the season, we would have acceded the 20K average attendance. As Arkstate Fan pointed out, scheduling for non-BSC schools is a challenging art.

By the way, what I heard RV say was if we could get the average attendance to 20K, not 25K, then we could eliminate most, in not all, of the money games. This was back in 2002, 2003 or 2004. Back then we played two or three a year. Plus the payouts were in the $250,000 to $325,000 back then. There are a LOT of variable in that!

[JesseMartin]

Interesting...I wonder if, as FBS teams get closer to a level of parity and don't NEED money games as badly, prices of money games go up. Does anybody think that maybe that's why we're getting more now? Non-BCS schools are bringing in more fans, more money, and more good players, so the big boys have to *ahem* "pony up" more cash for us to play them?

[UNTFan23]

Interesting...I wonder if, as FBS teams get closer to a level of parity and don't NEED money games as badly, prices of money games go up. Does anybody think that maybe that's why we're getting more now? Non-BCS schools are bringing in more fans, more money, and more good players, so the big boys have to *ahem* "pony up" more cash for us to play them?

That's already happening now. "Money" games are starting to go for 1 million a game since the sheep have gotten wise.