Football's most fanatical cities

[oldguystudent]

, the Cowboys do have [snip] the highest winning percentage in NFL history. (Actually tied with Chicago on that one at .575, booo)

I remember when the Raiders held that distinction among all major professional sports teams. Then came along a greedy, senile owner who would slice off his nose with a paper clip just to spite his face.

[Quoner]

My point is that it's not really appropriate to compare the Texans & Cowboys because you have 40 years of history to draw off of, we have 10. It's still sad that people in Texas just can't root for each other, I'd rather the Cowboys in the SB than anyone else, but, hey, Dallas's inferiority complex is outrageous so whatever. I rooted for the Rangers and the Mavs. Not like the Texans and Cowboys are rivals.

I don't care about the Cowboys (although prefer to see the local team make good) - I root for a non-Texas team and rarely bring it up. But, big news, I am specifically rooting against *you* this weekend because you are terrible (at least in regards to this crap.) Funny how we rarely heard about the inferiority complex here for years until America's #1 bad boy of in-game cussing showed up and learned us a lesson or two about sports rootin'? I also blame you for Cougar King.

[UNTexas]

Who is America's #1 bad boy of in-game cussing?

[JesseMartin]

Stadium capacity places an upper limit on attendance but I believe excess capacity deflates attendance. Too many empty seats gives a depressing feel to a game and excess capacity reduces the pressure to buy a season ticket knowing one is always available. A person with a season ticket is more likely to use it than let it "go to waste" if the weather isn't perfect or the team is a little (or a lot) disappointing this year, while the walk-up buyer just doesn't bother to come out at all. The season ticket holder is more likely to schedule other events around a game, the walk-up buyer is more likely to come if it doesn't conflict.

See, now we're talking about reasonable statistical analysis (though partially qualitative). You're delving into more specifics than I was, i.e. season tickets vs. single-game tickets, but the rationale is still based upon the fact that attendance has a ceiling, and percentage of capacity retained is a subset of that argument. The guy who wrote the article has no clue, and the divergence of this topic into who likes which team better doesn't change that. Yes, football is exciting and people love and hate teams. Oh, hey, look, math!

[Arkstfan]

See, now we're talking about reasonable statistical analysis (though partially qualitative). You're delving into more specifics than I was, i.e. season tickets vs. single-game tickets, but the rationale is still based upon the fact that attendance has a ceiling, and percentage of capacity retained is a subset of that argument. The guy who wrote the article has no clue, and the divergence of this topic into who likes which team better doesn't change that. Yes, football is exciting and people love and hate teams. Oh, hey, look, math!

A perfect example of the effects of capacity.

The Memphis Tigers had a long waiting list for tickets at Mid-South Coliseum (just under 11,000 seats). Good years, bad years the only difference was the length of the waiting list. Then they moved to the Pyramid with 20,000 seats, large enough to accomodate the waiting list. Then some bad years hit and people figured out with no waiting list they didn't have to buy season tickets and could go to the few games they wanted without a season ticket. Attendance fell below what it had been at Mid-South by several thousand. The program improved but the attendance climb took some time. Now they are the slightly smaller FedEx Forum and average about 2,000 below capacity.

Arkansas had a similar experience in basketball routinely selling out the roughly 9,800 seat Barnhill, moved to the 19,300 seat Bud Walton. Barnhill was always sold out because it was so hard to get tickets, you held on and hoped for the best in down years. Last year they averaged 11,300 and look to be down quite a bit this year.

[oldguystudent]

So the solution is that Apogee should have been built with a capacity of 15,000 rather than the 50,000 people clamored for?

[meangreener]

I don't care about the Cowboys (although prefer to see the local team make good) - I root for a non-Texas team and rarely bring it up. But, big news, I am specifically rooting against *you* this weekend because you are terrible (at least in regards to this crap.) Funny how we rarely heard about the inferiority complex here for years until America's #1 bad boy of in-game cussing showed up and learned us a lesson or two about sports rootin'? I also blame you for Cougar King.

Well, I think it's quite obvious you are lacking in brain cells by your serious lack of reading comprehension, so I guess bygones will be bygones.

Edited January 9, 2013 by meangreener

[JesseMartin]

So the solution is that Apogee should have been built with a capacity of 15,000 rather than the 50,000 people clamored for?

That may be what he would say but I wouldn't. I say go ahead and plan for the future. But the study (wrongly) makes it appear that if your home area has a population of 6 million and through the season only 500,000 people go to the game, then your fanbase is only 8.5%, since people who don't have/can't get tickets aren't counted if your media market is freaking huge but your stadium is normal size. It's a completely idiotic conclusion and I don't understand why they published it without making him edit and either omit or rewrite a substantial portion of it.

[Quoner]

Well, I think it's quite obvious you are lacking in brain cells by your serious lack of reading comprehension, so I guess bygones will be bygones.

Now we're really getting after it. We should host ESPN First Take together.

[Arkstfan]

Maybe more like 24,000 - 26,000 but designed to easily expand. But the problem is stadiums aren't cheap, nor is expanding stadiums if you remain within the design elements. That almost certainly far outweighs any benefit of trying to be fluid with capacity. You have to strike when the funds are available rather than monkeying with perfect economic alignment.

[greenminer]

There's a lot of nothing between Seattle and Minneapolis. Is that hockey country?

[JesseMartin]

I noticed that as well. First, even the largest cities in there are still pretty small in comparison to most of the nation, so even though some spots that got mentioned like Oxford and College Station are fairly small, they are still relatively close (within reasonable driving distance) to larger population centers. Additionally, though there are some schools in the Dakotas and such that have a decent draw regardless of their size, it still doesn't compare to being pretty much everywhere else as far as attendance draw. With no pro teams and generally small colleges with teams in the midst of a lot of farm and forest and ranch areas, the few small towns scattered within a reasonable distance don't provide a significant enough commuting population draw to increase the attendance to even moderate levels.