CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => Big Ten => Topic started by: medinabuckeye1 on June 03, 2019, 03:36:12 PM
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Over on @Cincydawg (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=870) 's thread about tough 2019 Football schedule @MichiFan87 (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=24) made a comment about the two extra conference games involved in going to 20 conference games mostly displacing crappy guarantee games.
It got me thinking about what the scheduling priority SHOULD be for AD's. I don't mean the question here to be what would we as fans like it to be in a perfect world, I mean to ask what it should be for the AD's in the real world.
I made this chart using the following four links:
https://www.onthebanks.com/2016/7/17/12208322/ranking-the-big-ten-stadiums-michigan-penn-state-ohio-state-rutgers-maryland-iowa-wisconsin
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketball_RB/Reports/attend/2017.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_Division_I_basketball_arenas
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/Attendance/2017.pdf
| School | 2017 avg | Cap | % | 2017 avg | Cap | % | Football-BB % |
| Penn State | 106,707 | 106,572 | 100.13% | 6,991 | 15,261 | 45.81% | 54.32% |
| Ohio State | 107,495 | 104,944 | 102.43% | 12,324 | 18,809 | 65.52% | 36.91% |
| Rutgers | 39,749 | 52,454 | 75.78% | 4,679 | 8,000 | 58.49% | 17.29% |
| Minnesota | 44,358 | 50,805 | 87.31% | 10,308 | 14,625 | 70.48% | 16.83% |
| Michigan | 111,589 | 107,601 | 103.71% | 11,121 | 12,707 | 87.52% | 16.19% |
| Iowa | 66,337 | 70,585 | 93.98% | 12,547 | 15,500 | 80.95% | 13.03% |
| Nebraska | 89,798 | 86,047 | 104.36% | 15,427 | 15,147 | 101.85% | 2.51% |
| Wisconsin | 78,824 | 80,321 | 98.14% | 17,286 | 17,249 | 100.21% | -2.08% |
| Michigan State | 72,485 | 75,005 | 96.64% | 14,797 | 14,797 | 100.00% | -3.36% |
| Illinois | 39,429 | 60,670 | 64.99% | 11,381 | 16,618 | 68.49% | -3.50% |
| Purdue | 47,884 | 57,236 | 83.66% | 13,819 | 14,848 | 93.07% | -9.41% |
| Indiana | 43,953 | 52,929 | 83.04% | 16,363 | 17,472 | 93.65% | -10.61% |
| Maryland | 39,643 | 51,082 | 77.61% | 16,628 | 17,950 | 92.64% | -15.03% |
| Northwestern | 35,853 | 47,330 | 75.75% | 7,008 | 7,039 | 99.56% | -23.81% |
My thinking on this is mostly for schools like PSU, tOSU, M, and IA where football attendance is already at-or-near capacity while BB attendance lags significantly. In that case I think those schools should pursue a policy of having fewer but better basketball games to get closer to capacity.
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It depends on various factors, but for Michigan.....
Football - As I've said before, keep getting a top non-con series (Washington, UCLA, Texas, and Oklahoma are upcoming) for each year and get the best guarantee games possible instead of settling for MAC games. Unfortunately, Michigan's big non-con game options for 2028 and beyond are increasingly limited the longer they wait, and it appears that they're reverting to scheduling MAC games instead of the like of Oregon State, Colorado, UCF, SMU, BYU, UNLV, Hawaii, Air Force, and Army.
Basketball - Get in the best non-con tournaments possible, which Michigan generally has (Atlantis this and previous years, along with Maui, and games in NYC.... Last year was an exception), schedule another high-profile non-con series aside from the ACC Challenge, especially in years not in the Gavitt Games (under Beilein, they got series with Kansas, Arizona, Texas, Arkansas, SMU, Connecticut, South Carolina, UCLA, Utah, Iowa State, and even Duke outside the Challenge.... Oregon starting next year, too), and fill out the schedule with decent guarantee games (Michigan is still bad at avoiding 250+ RPI teams unfortunately).
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I'm not sure what you are after here, but the Husker's AD knows that 7 home games is an absolute must as a revenue generator in Football. So you pay/schedule schools like Akron if needed to get to 7
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I view it roughly the same way for Ohio State. Ohio State does have a slight advantage as compared to Michigan for Basketball scheduling because the school is located IN a large city which *SHOULD* help in selling tickets. We aren't seeing much of that in the stats I posted above but part of that is that I think 2017 was a particularly bad year for tOSU BB.
What I think is practical and I would like to see as a fan is this:
In football:
1) Accept playing "only" 6.5 home games per year in football.
2) Every year's OOC schedule should be made up of one road or neutral and two home games
3) Continue playing a "marquee" OOC opponent every year
4) Fill in the rest of the OOC road games with two-for-one deals with decent opponents preferably in locations where either there are a lot of tOSU alums or in fertile recruiting areas.
In Basketball:
1) Add at least one additional high-quality H&H series each year, preferably two more (one home, one away game per year).
2) Get into more of the tournaments referenced by @MichiFan87 (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=24) above. The Buckeyes have been in a few, but not enough.
3) Consider playing one game a year in Cleveland during the student's winter break.
I think that scarcity is a huge asset in marketing. The steps outlined above would decrease the quantity and increase the quality of tickets availability this contributing to scarcity and sales.
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I'm not sure what you are after here, but the Husker's AD knows that 7 home games is an absolute must as a revenue generator in Football. So you pay/schedule schools like Akron if needed to get to 7
From the above chart, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Michigan State are near capacity in both sports so you really can't question what they are doing. We have seven schools with at least 90% capacity in football:
- Penn State
- Ohio State
- Michigan
- Iowa
- Nebraska
- Wisconsin
- Michigan State
Then we have seven schools with at least 90% capacity in basketball:
- Northwestern
- Maryland
- Indiana
- Purdue
- Michigan State
- Wisconsin
- Nebraska
As mentioned: Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Michigan State are on both lists. Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and Iowa are on for football but not basketball. Purdue, Indiana, Maryland, and Northwestern are on for basketball but not football. That leaves Rutgers, Minnesota, and Illinois on neither list.
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for most fan bases.... putting a winning product on the field and/or the court will solve the attendance issue
regardless of schedule
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It depends on various factors, but for Michigan.....
Basketball - fill out the schedule with decent guarantee games (Michigan is still bad at avoiding 250+ RPI teams unfortunately).
This is the key that I do not get why teams can't figure out. You generally can't control if a team you schedule is a decent or blah MAC team. But you should never be scheduling these SWAC/MEAC/Southland games against teams where best case they are right around #200
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I want to see 10 P5 games on the football slate each year. I have a notion that a "down and out program" like say UNC should step it up to 11, and one pastry. Sign'em up and play serious P5 teams. It would help attendance and help getting noticed and might help recruiting. Yes, you might miss out going 6-6, but so what?
Imagine UNC played Oregon and Wisconsin and Texas A&M OOC one year. Excitement.
The top level teams have to consider whether an additional P5 would knock them out of the top four.
But play ten anyway. That only means one more for the B1G.
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Okay, so take all of that into consideration, and then imagine if you're a school with an annual neutral-site game. There's another monkey in your wrench.
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FYI - with Iowa's recent rebuild of its north endzone seating in 2018, the official capacity for Iowa's football stadium is now only 69,250.
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I want to see 10 P5 games on the football slate each year. I have a notion that a "down and out program" like say UNC should step it up to 11, and one pastry. Sign'em up and play serious P5 teams. It would help attendance and help getting noticed and might help recruiting. Yes, you might miss out going 6-6, but so what?
Imagine UNC played Oregon and Wisconsin and Texas A&M OOC one year. Excitement.
The top level teams have to consider whether an additional P5 would knock them out of the top four.
But play ten anyway. That only means one more for the B1G.
I have to disagree with you here a little.
Simply put, there's not much excitement in losing. There is excitement in a big win, but not in bad records. If UNC played that schedule, we'd talk about it all offseason. Tar Heel fans would grow tired of hearing about it. And if they went 0-3, no one would care about the team the rest of the year. If they went 1-2, there'd be some hope because the ACC is drek. If they go 2-1, well, they were a good team all along.
I've watched this sport for a long time, and it's dawned on me that as much as more nuanced fans such as those on here might appreciate the joys of a hard fought loss to a good team, more folks want wins and a team that feels like it has hope. And an understated part of the structure of college football is that hope gets drawn out a little bit longer.
Allow me to explain.
If my team is a so-so P5, I might still get a 2-1 or 2-2 start. This might just be inflating things, but one third of the way through the season, I'm more engaged. If I have a 1-3 squad or 0-4, might as well start basketball. And if I root for a G5, I might start 1-2 or 0-3, but I have the hope of my team playing more teams at its level.
As a TV watcher, I wouldn't mind more P5 vs P5, but frankly, I have a remote and can only watch five or so things at once anyway. As an in-stadium attendee, I don't necessarily mind the idea of seeing a team I like do good things.
Finebaum had a kind of loaded question after some rumbling about the South Carolina schedule. He asked if fans would rather have a soft 9-3 or a hard 7-5. Maybe the erudite fan wants the latter, but most would take the former. A 9-3 team has more buzz than a 7-5 one, in recruiting, in attendance, all that. Shoot, Clemson had one big non-conference and whipped a lot of soft underbelly of the ACC for a few years, and you know what we called them, 10- or 11-win teams.
One thing that is interesting is we'll have an experiment of this. WVU has 11 P5 games through 2024.
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This is partly a scheduling response, partly not. Iowa has mostly been a great basketball school going back to the 1940s until about 1999.
In the 1970s when Lute Olson coached Iowa, Hawkeye basketball came back from a brief dead zone that lasted about 5-6 years. As the Hawkeyes became great and greater, and the mothers swooned over Lute, an Iowa television network formed. We knew the times and days of the week when games would be on television. And, I had season tickets.
Now there is different time and day of the week for each game. It makes following the games difficult.
When Tom Davis was ousted, which was 20-years ago, about half the fanbase here was pissed, and never got over how you can fire the winningest basketball coach in the hx of Iowa basketball and replace him with Boy Wonder, i.e. Robin, who was a despised Indiana player angling to coach the Hoosiers. This was very upsetting to view. And Boy Wonder had a reputation of being arrogant in Iowa City.
To get back to scheduling, I would say make the times and days of the week for basketball the same day and time each week. This may require going back to regional or state-wide television networks to accomplish predictable scheduling, supplemented by some Big Ten or ESPN coverage. We are busy working. The schedule is too hard to follow. Many of us oldsters are still holding the University of Iowa responsible for what it did 20-years ago.
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As for football at Iowa, I would like to see Iowa delete Iowa State from its schedule about 1 year out of 3 and replace ISU with Iowa's traditional nonconference rival, Notre Dame. Well, not going to happen. Just today it was announced the Iowa State - Iowa series is extended through 2025.
The Iowa - Notre Dame series, up until 1968 or 69, when it ended, was usually scheduled in rivalry week in the 1950s and 1960s. I wonder what on earth these people are thinking who run the show at Iowa. Appeasing Iowa State should not be a Hawkeye goal to accomplish, but the administration does a pretty good job of appeasement.
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The state of your program should dictate your scheduling practices. The Alabamas and Georgias and Texas' and Ohio States should schedule these h&h big-boy games every year. Because they can. Because it's not damning.
But also, just as truthfully, if you're a program like Kansas State in 1988, you should schedule as many wins as humanly possible. I don't care if you're scheduling deaf & blind schools (no offense) for easy Ws, you need to get in the practice of feeling what it's like to win. Iowa shouldn't drop ISU in order to go bite of ND, ISU should be the one to drop Iowa in order to go out and schedule a win instead.
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UNC fans complain about their scheduling and say they don't want to pay to watch them play Bill and Mary, which I get. So, my notion is to sign up the Big Boys to generate excitement, at least initially. Play UGA again in ATL Game One and get a paycheck. A program like ND or Texas would likely sign up (not for Maryland), and then they'd have at least some notice. Now, the obvious downside is going 1-3 OOC when they might have been 3-1. Snaggle 3-4 more ACC wins and go to some minor bowl game, again with sparse attendance and perhaps a negative payout.
Dunno, just a wild thought. UNC needs to try something, like say hiring an aging coach with a name.
UGA has scheduled 11 P5 teams for three years running 2026-2028 or so. FSU/Texas, Clemson, and GT. Maybe GT won't be P5 by then though.
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I want to see 10 P5 games on the football slate each year. I have a notion that a "down and out program" like say UNC should step it up to 11, and one pastry. Sign'em up and play serious P5 teams. It would help attendance and help getting noticed and might help recruiting. Yes, you might miss out going 6-6, but so what?
Imagine UNC played Oregon and Wisconsin and Texas A&M OOC one year. Excitement.
The top level teams have to consider whether an additional P5 would knock them out of the top four.
But play ten anyway. That only means one more for the B1G.
I see what you are saying but playing all of those teams might be TOO much for a program of UNC’s stature. Your coach might not appreciate that schedule if he has a contract that has some incentives tied to bowl appearances, ranked finishes, etc.
I think with attendance becoming more an issue each year we are going to see AD’s start bumping up schedules somewhat. As someone mentioned previously WVU has 11 P5 games scheduled through 2024 and they are mostly against old regional rivals (Pitt, Penn St, Maryland, VT). Those games will be sellouts and generate huge buzz among the fanbase. We miss playing those schools. Now, does new HC Neal Brown love that schedule? Maybe not, but those games were scheduled in advance of him coming.
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I'm starting to think the AD's don't much care about attendance anymore. They are more interested in broadcast monies.
Lots of places are starting to serve alcohol. That might help attendance, but what does it say for the health of the sport itself?
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Well, I'm far from convinced of my "plan". But I think a program like UNC (not WVU) needs to try something.
They should have some excitement this season, but it likely will diminish as reality sets in.
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ADs are more interested in money, yes indeed. Alcohol is a part of that, a minor part I presume.
When I attended UNC I was shocked at the lack of interest in football (relative to UGA). It seemed to be a sidelight, a thing that happened each fall, but there was not much fervor or enthusiasm or attendance. It's trite to note it's not a football school, but that has a lot of relevance I think.
I imagine were they able to get to 8-9-10 wins their attendance would improve of course, but it still would be so-so. Kentucky usually sells out the football stadium, last I checked, and South Carolina fans support their team seriously. NCSU is more of a football school. UNC isn't.
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selling alcohol won't help attendance, but it generates revenue
winning helps attendance
fans would rather watch Iowa win vs Iowa State and UNI than lose to Notre Dame
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I'm starting to think the AD's don't much care about attendance anymore. They are more interested in broadcast monies.
Lots of places are starting to serve alcohol. That might help attendance, but what does it say for the health of the sport itself?
The theory about alcohol is part money, part reducing in-Stadium alcohol issues.
I love a good game day, but I think the appeal of standing outside for 3.5 hours in oft-unpleasant elements has waned to a degree. Plus, people are concerned about watching a good product rather than just a gameday, and irrational standards just keep rising.
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At least around heah, the "elements" are usually very nice in the Fall, at least until late November.
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Quote from: Cincydawg 6/4/2019, 5:51:29 AM
UNC fans complain about their scheduling and say they don't want to pay to watch them play Bill and Mary, which I get. So, my notion is to sign up the Big Boys to generate excitement, at least initially. Play UGA again in ATL Game One and get a paycheck. A program like ND or Texas would likely sign up (not for Maryland), and then they'd have at least some notice. Now, the obvious downside is going 1-3 OOC when they might have been 3-1. Snaggle 3-4 more ACC wins and go to some minor bowl game, again with sparse attendance and perhaps a negative payout.
Dunno, just a wild thought. UNC needs to try something, like say hiring an aging coach with a name.
UGA has scheduled 11 P5 teams for three years running 2026-2028 or so. FSU/Texas, Clemson, and GT. Maybe GT won't be P5 by then though.
UNC non-conference P5 of late:
2018 - Cal, UCF was there but I’m sure that doesn’t count
2017 - Cal, ND
2016 - UGA, Illinois
2015 - South Carolina, Illinois
2014 - Notre Dame
2013 - South Carolina
2012 - Louisville
My rule of thumb is this. Most people who are fans of a team care very little about the opponent beyond the name. Bill and Mary might be better than some bad P5 they face, but it gets an eyeroll. And in the past, I bet Illinois and Cal did too.
And if you only don’t roll eyes at teams that beat your brains in, you’re gonna end up leaving the stadium rolling your eyes at the team you care about.
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Yeah, as I said, I'm not sure it's a good tactic, but would it help recruiting some? Is that a recruiting angle?
Imagine looking 2-3 years out and seeing OOC games versus South Carolina, Notre Dame, and Texas ....????
The ACC right now isn't providing much by way of marquis opponents.
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I wonder what on earth these people are thinking who run the show at Iowa. Appeasing Iowa State should not be a Hawkeye goal to accomplish, but the administration does a pretty good job of appeasement.
I'm guessing these people are more about appeasing the state government than their peers in Ames.
Keeping a P5 game of high interest in the state generates much more revenue than playing in South Bend
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As for football at Iowa, I would like to see Iowa delete Iowa State from its schedule about 1 year out of 3 and replace ISU with Iowa's traditional nonconference rival, Notre Dame. Well, not going to happen. Just today it was announced the Iowa State - Iowa series is extended through 2025.
The Iowa - Notre Dame series, up until 1968 or 69, when it ended, was usually scheduled in rivalry week in the 1950s and 1960s. I wonder what on earth these people are thinking who run the show at Iowa. Appeasing Iowa State should not be a Hawkeye goal to accomplish, but the administration does a pretty good job of appeasement.
I mean this nicely, this is a very college football sentiment.
Maintaining a rivalry that simply should exist for logical regional reasons is appeasement. It's a funny bit of provincialism. Of course I want my brother to move out of the house, better roommates would kill to live with me.
Anyway, if they want to schedule ND, they should just do it. Call ND, negotiate schedule a home-and-home opposite ISU and be done with it. (Iowa's non-conf history is kinda fascinating. Outside ISU a lot of teams like UW in the mid-2000s got at P5 foes. Arizona, Arizona State, Syracuse and so. Much. Pitt)
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Okay, so take all of that into consideration, and then imagine if you're a school with an annual neutral-site game. There's another monkey in your wrench.
Unlike a lot of people on here, I don't have anything against neutral site games. In fact, I REALLY like the traditional neutral site games like the WLOCP, Red River, etc.
I don't know much about the financial angle. How does the revenue for Florida and Georgia compare in playing two years in Jacksonville as opposed to one home game each?
Over a two year period Florida has seven SEC home games, seven SEC road games, two neutral site SEC games, one home game with FSU, one road game at FSU, and room to schedule six more games. If the revenue is about equal or better (it might be better) then I see the neutral site game as largely irrelevant.
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FYI - with Iowa's recent rebuild of its north endzone seating in 2018, the official capacity for Iowa's football stadium is now only 69,250.
The figures I posted were for 2017 so it should still be right for that. That was the most recent I saw in a quick search.
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I think with attendance becoming more an issue each year we are going to see AD’s start bumping up schedules somewhat. As someone mentioned previously WVU has 11 P5 games scheduled through 2024 and they are mostly against old regional rivals (Pitt, Penn St, Maryland, VT). Those games will be sellouts and generate huge buzz among the fanbase. We miss playing those schools. Now, does new HC Neal Brown love that schedule? Maybe not, but those games were scheduled in advance of him coming.
This experiment is just fascinating to me.
I get that people are excited about the big regional games, but I have to wonder about overall success. People seemed generally down on Holgo. He fielded mostly successful teams, but there was a sense there was not enough. That came after the schedule got harder with the Big 12 move.
Making the schedule another level harder likely again puts a dent in the quality of the team. If Brown fields a lot of 7-8 win teams and misses bowls some years, I assume that will further depress enthusiasm. Granted, it's all kind of relative.
WVU managed three sellouts in four in the best Big 12 year of the Holgo era. Weirdly, it could not sell out games when the team was 6-1 (granted coming off the first loss) and 9-2. They had one sellout in 2017, vs Texas Tech and coming off a loss, and then managed 2-3 last year, vs. TCU when the team was 7-1 off the Texas win and 8-2 playing for a spot in the conference title game.
Anyway, I like Brown, but I get the sense that's a harder job than ever and don't know anyone really treats it as such.
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I'm starting to think the AD's don't much care about attendance anymore. They are more interested in broadcast monies.
Lots of places are starting to serve alcohol. That might help attendance, but what does it say for the health of the sport itself?
I definitely agree, the AD's care more about broadcast money than attendance but I think that is a mistake because, as we have discussed ad-nauseam today's no-shows are tomorrow's no-views.
My underlying theory on this is that maintaining at least the illusion of "scarcity" is important. That is why I was mostly looking at percentage of capacity as opposed to raw attendance. Ie, if Iowa puts 70k in their 70k stadium that would be better than Michigan, Penn State, or Ohio State putting 90k in their 105-108k stadiums.
When I was a kid, Ohio State tickets were a rare find. You were lucky if you got to go to an Ohio State game. The tickets were sold to alumni and the wait-list to buy season tickets was years and years long. That helps sell tickets because people don't want to miss an opportunity to go. Nobody turned down Ohio State tickets to mow the lawn.
Some of the change is due to the electronic secondary market. Now anybody can get a ticket it is just a question of cost. Still, I think that keeping the stadium at or near capacity needs to be a priority.
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The quality and size of pictures available at home are also intriguing.
I know in my waning years of attending every game, it got to be a chore, and combining this with changing schedules (UW went from 2009 to 2017 without Michigan coming to Madison, for example) made it really challenging to get up for home games.
You get up there the night before, and you're in the parking lot by 6AM at the latest. Then you wait and wait and wait. Then you are back at the hotel for another night. Then home Sunday morning.
That got old really fast for us, especially given the "quality" of games we'd get to see. The big screen was looking better and better all the time, and it's much more economical.
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I want to focus on BB and specifically my school for a minute.
Over the last two years Ohio State's BB schedule (regular season only, includes pre-season tournaments but not B1G Tournament or NCAA Tournament games) has consisted of:
- 19 B1G Home games (10 in 2017-18 and nine in 2018-19)
- 18 B1G Road games (nine each year)
- 1 B1G neutral site game (IL in the United Center)
- 3 pre-season tournament games (Gonzaga, Stanford, and Butler in the 2017 PK80)
- 2 B1G/ACC Challenge home games (Clemson, Syracuse)
- 2 neutral site OOC games (UNC in NOLA, UCLA in Chicago)
- 2 OOC road games (Cincy, Creighton)
- 15 OOC home games (Robert Morris, Radford, TxSo, Northeastern, Bill&Mary, ApSt, Citadel, Miami-OH, Pur-Ft Wayne, ScST, Samford, CSU, Bucknell, YSU, High Point).
Those 15 OOC games are just pathetic especially for a school that has the largest arena in the B1G yet has average attendance in the bottom half of the league. Per the Worldwide leader, here are the attendance figures for those 15 games:
- 11,128 Robert Morris
- 10,425 Radford
- 9,984 TxSO
- 10,779 Northeastern
- 11,158 Bill&Mary
- 12,616 ApSt
- 10,752 Citadel
- 15,131 Miami, OH
- 12,040 Purdue Fort Wayne
- 10,935 ScST
- 10,725 Samford
- 13,276 CSU
- 14,241 Bucknell
- 12,637 YSU
- 14,264 High Point
None of those 15 OOC home games had attendance of much more than 80% of Ohio State's capacity.
My thinking is that the Buckeyes should have given up at least four of those crappy home games in exchange for two decent OOC home games and two decent OOC road games. I would prefer if they would give up eight of those 15 crappy home games in exchange for four decent OOC home games and four decent OOC road games.
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I might go to one game a year now, maybe, though we're traveling some. As noted, the TV is excellent, as is the couch, and the fridge is just over there.
I paid nearly $300 for a nosebleed seat in the SEC CG, partly to see the new stadium, and the wife encouraged me to go alone. I could get there easily, no parking to worry about, so I went. Ended badly.
Anyway, I was noodling about the Vandy game (up there). Cheapest tickets were $90 X 2.
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I know in my waning years of attending every game, it got to be a chore
I know this feeling exactly. We had season tickets for a number of years and it was great to watch the Buckeyes play Michigan, Texas, Oklahoma, USC, Wisconsin, Penn State, etc.
The thing is that the average year also included a number of duds. I'm roughly two hours from Columbus and that is without considering gameday traffic. I rarely stayed in a hotel like what you talked about but it still blows a whole day unless it is a night game but that blows half of the next day. Typical schedule:
Noon game (11 to you CST folks):
Leave home by 6am to get there and beat the traffic. Get to Columbus and parked by around 9am. Tailgate or go to Skull Session then the game. Get out of the game at ~3:30. Stop for dinner and to watch some of the later games on the way home. Get home at 8-9.
3:30 game (2:30 to you CST folks):
Leave later so you MIGHT be able to get something done before you leave. Get to the Columbus and parked by around noon. Tailgate or go to Skull Session then the game. Get out of the game at ~7. Stop for dinner and to watch some of the night games on the way home. Get home around midnight.
8pm game (7pm to you CST folks):
Leave much later so you can actually get some things done before you leave. Get to Columbus and parked by around 4pm. Tailgate or go to Skull Session then the game. Get out of the game near midnight. Stop for a snack on the way home and get home around 4am. Sleep all morning the next day.
All of that is fine for a good game but not worth it every single weekend for crappy games.
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The main reason for me to go to an actual game would be the tailgating, which can be something to enjoy. But, once you've seen it, it's not as if it really changes the next time. I took the daughter to the Tech game in Athens and it was cold and drizzly so the tailgating was almost shut down.
I think it was 38°F game time, and was colder than Columbus, Ohio that day. The drizzle was off and on, mostly off.
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If the Ohio State AD put me in charge of scheduling Ohio State's OOC BB games my thought would be to first avoid the REALLY bad match-ups. Second, I'd look to add some additional decent OOC match-ups and the schools I would look to schedule would be those schools, like Ohio State, that are good at both BB and FB. Here are the top-35 at both sports as compiled by me from the AP's top-100 BB and FB program lists that came out a while back:
| School | BB | FB | Total |
| Ohio State | 12 | 1 | 13 |
| Michigan | 14 | 6 | 20 |
| Notre Dame | 18 | 4 | 22 |
| Oklahoma | 20 | 3 | 23 |
| Alabama | 30 | 2 | 32 |
| Michigan State | 13 | 21 | 34 |
| Florida | 28 | 10 | 38 |
| North Carolina | 2 | 37 | 39 |
| Texas | 36 | 8 | 44 |
| Iowa | 23 | 25 | 48 |
| Syracuse | 9 | 40 | 49 |
| Tennessee | 38 | 14 | 52 |
| Arkansas | 31 | 22 | 53 |
| USC | 50 | 5 | 55 |
| Duke | 3 | 53 | 56 |
| LSU | 47 | 11 | 58 |
| Maryland | 17 | 41 | 58 |
| Pitt | 35 | 24 | 59 |
| Wisconsin | 37 | 23 | 60 |
| Purdue | 24 | 37 | 61 |
| Illinois | 11 | 51 | 62 |
| Arizona | 8 | 54 | 62 |
| Mizzou | 29 | 35 | 64 |
| Louisville | 7 | 58 | 65 |
| Kansas | 5 | 64 | 69 |
| Kencucky | 1 | 68 | 69 |
| Washington | 52 | 18 | 70 |
| Stanford | 40 | 31 | 71 |
| GaTech | 45 | 27 | 72 |
| FSU | 64 | 9 | 73 |
| West Virginia | 42 | 32 | 74 |
| OkSU | 34 | 42 | 76 |
| NCST | 22 | 56 | 78 |
| Indiana | 6 | 73 | 79 |
| Minnesota | 43 | 39 | 82 |
So if I were scheduling Ohio State's OOC BB games I would look to schedule:
Notre Dame
Oklahoma
Alabama
Florida
North Carolina
Texas
Syracuse
Tennessee
Arkansas
USC
Duke
LSU
Pitt
Arizona
Mizzou
Louisville
Kansas
Kentucky
Washington
Stanford
GaTech
FSU
WVU
OkSU
NCST
Clemson (#36, not listed above)
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The quality and size of pictures available at home are also intriguing.
I know in my waning years of attending every game, it got to be a chore, and combining this with changing schedules (UW went from 2009 to 2017 without Michigan coming to Madison, for example) made it really challenging to get up for home games.
You get up there the night before, and you're in the parking lot by 6AM at the latest. Then you wait and wait and wait. Then you are back at the hotel for another night. Then home Sunday morning.
That got old really fast for us, especially given the "quality" of games we'd get to see. The big screen was looking better and better all the time, and it's much more economical.
My dad missed exactly two Michigan games from 1965-2015. One was when his father passed the night before in 1982, one was when we went to Chicago for my other grandfather's 75th birthday in 2000. He sat through mostly good teams, but some not so good ones too. He sat through meaningless games in bad weather, when a 7-3 Michigan was playing a 3-6 Purdue or whatever. Over the past 4 years, he's gone to probably half the games. He lives in Ann Arbor, so it's not even an overnight thing, it's just a matter of being able to see more on TV at this point, and how small the seats are at Michigan Stadium.
That's the issue, is not convenience, that's always been a thing. Basically every game has been on at least locally for 20 years now. But the quality of presentation has spoiled us to the point now I feel like I end up missing too much being there. I do enjoy the experience, so I wish I could go more often, at least once a year, but I wouldn't pick the biggest game, I'd pick a meh Big Ten opponent, so at least it's not total dregs, but it's not a game where I want to make sure I see everything. I think the last three games I went to were a pair of games against Minnesota and one against Illinois.
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yup, I used to go to all the games when I was young
now, I skip the home opener, because regardless of opponent, everyone seems to want to attend that game. Drives up prices and clogs up the city. Besides, that's some good golf weather.
I also skip the cupcake games such as Bethane-Cookman. Unless my brother comes to town. He likes the cupcake games, cheap tickets and most times a "W".
I also usually skip the marquee game such as Ohio St. this season. Tickets will be high and the Huskers haven't shown they can compete in that game.
I also skip the Day after Thanksgiving game because of the timing and the holiday and many times the weather is rough. (getting old)
so, this season, I plan to attend Husker games vs N. Illinois, Northwestern, Minnesota(on the road), and Wisconsin. Possibly Indiana, maybe not.
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I also usually skip the marquee game such as Ohio St. this season. Tickets will be high and the Huskers haven't shown they can compete in that game.
With, of course, the notable exception of my one and only trip to Lincoln. :(
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hey, if any good people plan a trip to Lincoln, I'll adjust my schedule, meet them there early, stay late, and try to be a good host.
Nubbz has a chance at winning the hotel/lodging lottery for the Bucks/Huskers game
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selling alcohol won't help attendance, but it generates revenue
winning helps attendance
fans would rather watch Iowa win vs Iowa State and UNI than lose to Notre Dame
If you were from Dubuque -- you wouldn't post this; Iowa had some success against Notre Dame. Some success being defined as success better than Iowa's success had been against Michigan, Ohio State, Purdue, Illinois, Minnesota, and Nebraska.
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I'm just saying that strength of programs being considered, Notre Dame would probably fare better than Iowa State vs the Hawks these days or the past couple decades
Hayden Fry was the guy that taught Bill Snyder to "never schedule a loss"
but, you're right, Sewer City is about as far from Dubuque as one can get. The only thing we share is Hwy 20 and a mighty river.
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Unlike a lot of people on here, I don't have anything against neutral site games. In fact, I REALLY like the traditional neutral site games like the WLOCP, Red River, etc.
I don't know much about the financial angle. How does the revenue for Florida and Georgia compare in playing two years in Jacksonville as opposed to one home game each?
Over a two year period Florida has seven SEC home games, seven SEC road games, two neutral site SEC games, one home game with FSU, one road game at FSU, and room to schedule six more games. If the revenue is about equal or better (it might be better) then I see the neutral site game as largely irrelevant.
I think revenue is a bigger issue for local merchants than it is for the schools when discussing neutral-site vs. home-and-home games.
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it's a very big issue - $$$
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UGA and UF are having "discussions" about the WLOCP apparently, though this happens fairly often. Both home stadia are larger in capacity than the one in J-ville.
I'm pretty sure the NS games in ATL or Big D pay a lot more to the team that plays than they earn at home, but the local merchants of course don't.
My guess is the primary job of any AD is to raise as much money as possible. It would be interesting to see a typical breakdown of income:
Ticket sales
Donations
TV
League portions
Booze and food concessions
Whatever else.
I guess the TV thing is dominant.