UNC home crowd

[UNC-75]

Pitiful home crowd at tonight’s game. Looks like 25% capacity at most on a Saturday beautiful evening. You would think the sororities and fraternities would have shown up at the very least. What is wrong that a home Saturday night game would yield such a small following?

 

[Archer2]

Minimal optimism about the program and NCCU being our opponent.

 

[WoadBlue]

Minimal optimism about the program and NCCU being our opponent.

It was indeed due to both. Only the damned insiders still think that Mack can ver achieve anything. Mack never should have bene hired for anything other than a fundraiser. And now there is no feeling among fans that Mack should stay. All the hoopla backing Mack now falls on closed ears.

Bad attendance will continue and get worse, even when facing good teams or old rivals.

 

[TVJ]

Bad attendance will continue and get worse, even when facing good teams or old rivals.

Until football starts consistently winning titles and bowls. Basketball has proven how our folks rally around a winner and drop mediocrity like a hot potato. (Just let basketball have some consecutive down years and watch what happens.)

 

[NCBlueWonderz]

So, the listed/reported attendance for the game NCCU gam is 45,491. The listed/reported attendance for the game against Charlotte was listed as Attendance: 48,431. Kenan Stadium current configuration has a capacity of 50,500. I doubt that is/was the actual attendance for either game. However, it was well above the estimation of 25% for the NCCU game. I would estimate more than 60% but less than 75% for NCCU.

Saturday was NOT a "beautiful" evening. It turned out to be okay, but their was a chance of rain. Before the game it appeared as though it could rain at any moment. During the first quarter there were a couple of times we had a very brief drizzle.

I have been an usher for UNC football since 2015 and have only missed 3 home games in that span. I was also a "regular attender" from 2010-2014, and had been to one or two games a year at Kenan since the late 90's. I was expecting a MUCH smaller crowd than we had. With the threat of poor weather and the opponent, I think it was a good turnout.

I was also at the Minnesota game in Minneapolis. The listed/reported attendance for this game is/was 50,805 which is also the listed capacity of Huntington Bank Stadium. The place was no where near full.

 

[SoonAmiXXL]

In my opinion, the marketing for UNC athletics in general leaves much to be desired even for the esteemed basketball team. Even as a former student there, you don't feel that there's buzz around campus before the start of a game. No small banners up saying it's a football game week or encouraging the student body to get excited. The occasional cardboard sign knocked over in the main quad but that's it.

Also from what I have heard football tickets are now lottery for students which on it face sounds good, because you would think that means more students want to go, but from what I hear students are getting lottery tickets and not going and we haven't been good enough to make students want to wait in standby lines for football games. Additionally, the ability to get students checked into the game leaves much to be desired.

From the general fan perspective, I don't think football does enough inside the stadium (i.e., quality concessions, any semblance of character in the concourses, and very small Team shops) or in the gameday operations (i.e., sound system, encouraging crowd noise, that terrible 4th quarter thing, or TV timeout engagement) that draws more casual / not big fans to games. You need that type of stuff to help get people interested. It's not the end all be all because you still need to be a winner, but I believe UNC, especially in football, does itself no favors.

Look at South Carolina for example. I wouldn't say they have been a consistent dominant powerhouse, but their environment in Williams Brice is incredible. If Kenan had half of that, it would be an improvement. I'm a 'newer' UNC fan but to me the best environments in Kenan have been 2019 vs Miami and 2023 vs Miami.

 

[Kool1234567]

In my opinion, the marketing for UNC athletics in general leaves much to be desired even for the esteemed basketball team. Even as a former student there, you don't feel that there's buzz around campus before the start of a game. No small banners up saying it's a football game week or encouraging the student body to get excited. The occasional cardboard sign knocked over in the main quad but that's it.

Also from what I have heard football tickets are now lottery for students which on it face sounds good, because you would think that means more students want to go, but from what I hear students are getting lottery tickets and not going and we haven't been good enough to make students want to wait in standby lines for football games. Additionally, the ability to get students checked into the game leaves much to be desired.

From the general fan perspective, I don't think football does enough inside the stadium (i.e., quality concessions, any semblance of character in the concourses, and very small Team shops) or in the gameday operations (i.e., sound system, encouraging crowd noise, that terrible 4th quarter thing, or TV timeout engagement) that draws more casual / not big fans to games. You need that type of stuff to help get people interested. It's not the end all be all because you still need to be a winner, but I believe UNC, especially in football, does itself no favors.

Look at South Carolina for example. I wouldn't say they have been a consistent dominant powerhouse, but their environment in Williams Brice is incredible. If Kenan had half of that, it would be an improvement. I'm a 'newer' UNC fan but to me the best environments in Kenan have been 2019 vs Miami and 2023 vs Miami.

Everything you said is on the administration and the want to be good in football…You have to invest and UNC has been unwilling to do that in their history….From running off Bill Dooley and then letting Dean Smith put little dickie in as AD and telling Mack Brown that he would never be paid more than the Head Basketball Coach at UNC…Then firing Butch Davis over the AFAM scandal something that Dean created for basketball…

A lot of the Football struggles lay at the feet of Dean and Bill Friday…2 people that have buildings named after them….

 

[bluetoe]

In my opinion, the marketing for UNC athletics in general leaves much to be desired even for the esteemed basketball team. Even as a former student there, you don't feel that there's buzz around campus before the start of a game. No small banners up saying it's a football game week or encouraging the student body to get excited. The occasional cardboard sign knocked over in the main quad but that's it.

Also from what I have heard football tickets are now lottery for students which on it face sounds good, because you would think that means more students want to go, but from what I hear students are getting lottery tickets and not going and we haven't been good enough to make students want to wait in standby lines for football games. Additionally, the ability to get students checked into the game leaves much to be desired.

From the general fan perspective, I don't think football does enough inside the stadium (i.e., quality concessions, any semblance of character in the concourses, and very small Team shops) or in the gameday operations (i.e., sound system, encouraging crowd noise, that terrible 4th quarter thing, or TV timeout engagement) that draws more casual / not big fans to games. You need that type of stuff to help get people interested. It's not the end all be all because you still need to be a winner, but I believe UNC, especially in football, does itself no favors.

Look at South Carolina for example. I wouldn't say they have been a consistent dominant powerhouse, but their environment in Williams Brice is incredible. If Kenan had half of that, it would be an improvement. I'm a 'newer' UNC fan but to me the best environments in Kenan have been 2019 vs Miami and 2023 vs Miami.

too bad you missed the 2004 Miami game at Kenan. Night game, packed house, rowdy no-cheese-no how crowd...and we beat the fourth-ranked team in the country on a last second field goal. It was quite a game. It doesn't get much better than that one, probably my favorite in-attendance game. And the RB's-gone-wild shellacking we gave them at their place in '20 was probably my favorite TV game to watch.

 

[TVJ]

Of course - playing the #4-ranked team will get even casual fans excited. I'll never forget that night when we froze our anterior subterior spines off because we thought we had a chance to beat top-ranked Florida State. Top-rated teams playing top-rated teams will cure a lot of our ills. We just haven't had much of either in Kenan in a long time.

 

[bluetoe]

Of course - playing the #4-ranked team will get even casual fans excited. I'll never forget that night when we froze our anterior subterior spines off because we thought we had a chance to beat top-ranked Florida State. Top-rated teams playing top-rated teams will cure a lot of our ills. We just haven't had much of either in Kenan in a long time.

true that, but regarding the Miami game I think the even bigger factor was that it was a night game and the crowd was heavily alcohol-fueled. I wish every game could be a night game for that reason (although I no longer attend games due to medical constraints). I'm not encouraging the consumption of alcohol as much as encouraging the sort of fan to attend who doesn't mind letting his/her hair down in support of our football team.

When I first started going to Carolina football games way back when, it was a party. Not just before the game but during it as well. Somewhere along the way, the party atmosphere was discouraged. That isn't entirely a bad thing given the traffic leaving a game, but it's also not conducive to providing the kind of atmosphere that makes a fan become a 'rabid' one.