No Spring Game in 2018
- Thread starter uncboy10
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I'm guessing the expected lack of fans showing up had something to do with not having it.
I'm sure it was a factor at some level, but Fed emphasized not being able to get as many reps as they can get out of a regular scrimmage. And they only get a limited number of spring scrimmages so they want to take full advantage of them. I'm sure they'll end up doing some kind of open practice at some point for the hardcore fans.
My first thought was injuries though. Just trying to keep guys healthy and eliminate risk. But they've gotta hit each other at full speed at some point...
It isn't winning over any fans, so it kinda puts even more pressure to win in 2018. I'd trade a spring game for a win over Cal for sure ;-)
I would too blazers but I think it's a bad look. Got the stadium project to take part of the blame this year but going forward I don't think we need to do things like that. If anything, we need to find ways to make the spring game bigger and generate more excitement/attendance.
Double agree. I think it actually shows commitment to winning this year, but going forward we need more fan support and excitement
Is the renovation still going on? I was just in there the other day, some youth lacrosse team was playing on the field. All of the seat backs were in on the northeast sideline (not sure if they are putting in any more).
attendance at spring games is mostly correlated with the previous year's record. rough guess:
7 wins: 10,000
8 wins: 15,000
9 wins: 20,000
the whole stadium is getting seatbacks.
After our 2015 run to the ACCCG, I don't think we had anywhere close to 10k at the Spring Game.
are you saying that the previous year's record has no impact on spring game attendance?
To be fair our spring games haven't pulled in good crowds. Could be many reasons - fickle fans, mediocre teams, lack of marketing... I'm hoping they can find a way to make the event bigger and more exciting and we can get a good number of fans out to support the spring game. The crowd should have been good after 2015 - coming off a good season and having a good team set for 2016. I don't know what the number were but if there wasn't an uptick it's disappointing.
I don't have an exact number, but I am pretty sure it was less than 5k fans. That was coming off our best year in almost 2 decades and Trubisky coming in as the new starter.
what's your point? are you saying that fan interest e.g. spring game attendance is unrelated to wins/losses, or carolina fans are such bad football fans that even a winning season won't get them excited?
Yes, this. The 2016 home attendance bore this out.
After going 7-5, UGA put 93,000 fans in the stands for their spring game last season, and they charge admission.
You surmised that more wins would equal a better turnout. You even offered a metric showing how many fans per win. I just pointed out that it’s not about the wins.
In general, we have a fickle fan base. They aren’t diehards. Even in basketball, we almost never sellout home games. Fans constantly question Roy Williams and he wins at the highest level. Our fans expect that same product on the football field and pout when we can’t produce it. Home games, let alone Spring games, will suffer in attendance until we have sustained success and a winning culture. But that is many years away and it will never be like Clemson or the SEC big boys.
Not a direct "comparison" just providing context. No, UNC's fan base will never be like UGA's football fan base. Yes, UGA is a much bigger school than UNC. But, in a lot of ways, UGA is similar to UNC in the fact that it produces a lot of rich, successful, well-rounded alumni who do well in the workforce (UGA is a vastly different school than it was 25 years ago... the HOPE scholarship has transformed UGA into one of the best public state universities in the Eastern half of the U.S.).
And, UGA hasn't won a national title since 1980, and at the time of last year's spring game, hadn't won a conference title since 2005. Yet their new coach asked them to get 93,000 to their spring game and they did. Like it or not, UNC would never be able to do 75% of that, even if we played a basketball game in the middle of Kenan Stadium, we wouldn't be able to get 70,000 people to it. As @ticket2ride04 correctly states: our fanbase is fickle and whining and complaining pervades our fanbase like a sickness. Even though we are truly one of the three elite programs in college basketball, we do not 100% fill our basketball stadium ever, unless it's a Duke game. It's just a part of our fanbase and it won't ever change.
Key words there, new coach. There was a lot of excitement around him and that contributed a lot to the attendance. And so what if they haven't won a championship since 1980? UGA was very successful during the Richt era. They are a football school. People show up because of tradition as well. Same reason UNC fans show up for Late Night with Roy.
100% agree. Kenan doesn't hold 70,000 people.
I agree with this. You and I have had several conversations about how UNC's fan base has expectations that are too high because of our success in other sports. Hell, we've even got fans who complain about the best baseball coach we've ever had.
What's your point? No program that has a stadium our size does. They may sell out, but none of them are ever filled to capacity. And our fan base shows up for more than the duke game. It's full for high profile games, but just like every other team in the nation it won't be full on a Wednesday night gave verses directional state college.
One thing no one here has mentioned yet is the support that was lost over how we handled the Butch situation. Many people stopped showing up for games and/or giving money because of that. It took a lot of the air out of the program and Fedora hasn't produced the kind of results needed to bring a lot of those people back.
I recognize this happened but I do not personally understand this response to fans. And in fact, it points right to the heart of what I'm talking about: our fanbase is fickle, whiny, and front-running. As soon as we hit a little bit of adversity and challenge, our fans flung themselves from the bridge, so to speak, and abandoned ship on the football program as well as the athletic department as a whole. How our fanbase handled the Butch Davis / football post-season ban fallout shows our fanbase's true colors.
I mean, our football stadium is in the process of being downsized by 12,000 seats, and it still won't be full on September 15th of this year. So.
It's pretty easy to understand. The general consensus was that Butch had us going in the right direction. We were even being picked as a "dark horse" contender for the ACC the year that everything went to hell. Even when everything came out, Butch still had a huge backing and the athletic department fired him right after sending him to media day and publicly supporting him. They just gave a big middle finger to a majority of the fan base by doing that. You can't honestly understand why some people would be upset about that?
Really? You mean to tell me that it won't be packed after going 3-9 and having a coach that inspires little confidence? Who would have thought that?
I understand being pissed. I understand using all leverage you have with the Rams Club, athletic department, and university and calling and bit*hing and making your views heard. I even understand threatening to curtail your donations. I do not understand bailing on the football program and/or athletic department altogether.... especially after Baddour and Thorp was ousted. New, competetent leadership was brought in and yet many fans stayed away and still do. I do not understand that. Them, what I really don't understand is why, years after the Davis fallout when the NCAA investigation into academic irregularities was in its heyday, why fans cited the NCAA cloud as the reason they stopped attending games. That makes zero sense to me. You're gonna bail on UNC student-athletes because of mistakes made decades ago? I hope those folks are more loyal to their loved ones than they are/were to UNC sports.
That right there. I know you're not necessarily one of those "show me and then I'll show up" types, but it's so pervasive in our 'fan culture' that it even affects more hardcore fans. Yes, I know last year was bad. But, football fan attendance seems to be unaffected by previous year W/Ls. During the 2015 run, home attendance only spiked modestly, and then during the 2016 season, the year after, attendance was just as bad as ever, even BEFORE the loss to Duke.
We will have to win multiple Coastal Divisions in a row to ever expect even a modest increase in consistent fan attendance. And that blows.
Well, you kind of have to give them a reason to come back. A lot of trust was lost and if you don't do anything to gain that trust back or at least a reason to support the team again they won't come back. Fedora wasn't the big name hire that could have done that (although he was probably the best we could do at the time given the circumstances) and his results have been uninspiring except for one year.
I'm definitely not one of those types. I was at every single home game during the Bunting era. Even went to some away games to watch us get destroyed. And I would still be going to games if I was in NC. This is the same conversation we've had before about our fans. We've consistently achieved so much in most every other sport we participate in and that has created an entitlement attitude among the fan base. I'm not sure how you could ever get rid of that. It's a good problem to have though because that means you're winning a lot.
Would it be nice to fill it up without winning? Sure, but our "hardcore" football fans aren't large enough to fill the stadium when we aren't winning. We depend largely on bandwagon and show me results fans. That's not just UNC football though. That's every school. If the tradition and winning isn't there, then most won't care. It's human nature to want to pull for a winner.
I think we're stuck in no where land with football. On one hand you do minimum enhancements to the facilities, pay so so dollars for coaches, and try to make the game a fun event. Show up with little thought of winning and just have fun. Not going to fill the stadium but with a reduction in ticket prices and marketing, maybe get good crowds. On the other hand you make many enhancements to the facilities, raise the dollars for coaches and make the game a winning event. Need quality home opponents and wins. Still needs marketing and some of that must come from the coach. We don't have either of those right now.
Butch made us feel like we were going somewhere, interest picked up and then the bottom dropped out. The university and sports program didn't handle things well at all and interest really dropped. Along comes Larry. He says some good things, excitement picks up - maybe we're going to get back on track. Then the results didn't keep the momentum. We had some exciting football and I think many wanted to believe but we were so bad on defense that most everyone knew we weren't going to be relevant. Then 15 came along - more excitement, ACC CG appearance, good team coming back for 16. 2nd half of 16 and all of 17 just killed anything we had going (and people will forget about injuries long before forgetting the 3-9 record).
We need something to build excitement. Season opener wins, bowl game wins, Coastal champs or at least challenger until the last week. Marketing of some sort followed by wins. With the NCAA mess behind us maybe we get on track, I don't know but hope so. I do know folks aren't going to just start showing up if something doesn't change. I will be there for every home and probably an away game or two, win or lose. But most will not. We are a fickle fan base with high expectations, but the fans aren't the main reason we consistently struggle in football IMO.
Butch made us feel like we were going somewhere, interest picked up and then the bottom dropped out. The university and sports program didn't handle things well at all and interest really dropped. Along comes Larry. He says some good things, excitement picks up - maybe we're going to get back on track. Then the results didn't keep the momentum. We had some exciting football and I think many wanted to believe but we were so bad on defense that most everyone knew we weren't going to be relevant. Then 15 came along - more excitement, ACC CG appearance, good team coming back for 16. 2nd half of 16 and all of 17 just killed anything we had going (and people will forget about injuries long before forgetting the 3-9 record).
We need something to build excitement. Season opener wins, bowl game wins, Coastal champs or at least challenger until the last week. Marketing of some sort followed by wins. With the NCAA mess behind us maybe we get on track, I don't know but hope so. I do know folks aren't going to just start showing up if something doesn't change. I will be there for every home and probably an away game or two, win or lose. But most will not. We are a fickle fan base with high expectations, but the fans aren't the main reason we consistently struggle in football IMO.
100% agree. Kenan doesn't hold 70,000 people.
If it were a duke game they'd find a way to fit
Wine and cheese is the main culprit. UNC has been attracting an ever larger number students over the past 40 years or so who are inclined to be wine and cheese in attitude.
A large % of alums living out of state and at least a 5 hour drive from campus is another issue.
Word. It would be ridiculous to charge, but for some reason I always thought UGA charged. I *think* Alabama charges $10.
Uga also had a new coach. When Mark was there they were doing spring games in front of 3/4 empty stands as well. For instance FSU had 60,000 fans in Doak Campbell this yr. The previous yr they had a top three pre season team opened against Alabama, and had the spring game in Orlando. They attracted a grand of about 15,000, and that was with all kinds of push in marketing and making it a huge event. A change in coaches alsways causes and uptick in crowds at spring games
we also have a large percentage of students on campus who think a football is round.
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