Prepare for lower attendance

T-Dog · Unread post by **T-Dog** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:12 pm

moonshine wrote:Haven't seen all the schedules. What other Sun Belt programs had a home game on Thanksgiving weekend last year and again this year?

Only App and Southern. Subtle "Welcome to FBS" jab from the league offices.

ASUMountaineer · Unread post by **ASUMountaineer** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:13 pm

I'm in the corner by myself being stoked about the schedule! I can't wait for football season!

Wasn't there mention before the release of last year's schedule that our and GS' scheduled were going to be rough the first two years because schedules had already been made and existing members got first priority? Maybe I dreamed that, but seems reasonable to me.

Appersrule · Unread post by **Appersrule** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:15 pm

T-Dog wrote:They need to announce all home game times ASAP. The 12-day things last year didn't work.

Welcome to FBS- that won't change. Game times are decided by the networks 12 days in advance. That is here for infinity and something App fans have to adapt to.

EastHallApp · Unread post by **EastHallApp** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:16 pm

Looking for positives? Here's one:

Teams we play on extra rest

Old Dominion (9/26; follows bye week)
Troy (10/31; follows Thursday game)
Idaho ( 11/14; follows Thursday game)
ULL (11/28; follows bye week)

Teams who get extra rest before playing us

None (Wyoming's schedule TBD)

AppGrad78 · Unread post by **AppGrad78** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:18 pm

Another positive: Halloween night (a Saturday) in Boone.

T-Dog · Unread post by **T-Dog** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:18 pm

Appersrule wrote:
T-Dog wrote:They need to announce all home game times ASAP. The 12-day things last year didn't work.

Welcome to FBS- that won't change. Game times are decided by the networks 12 days in advance. That is here for infinity and something App fans have to adapt to.

Except that everyone else in the Sun Belt announced game times way early last year. We can announce times and if ESPN wants us to move for a TV game, well that's a nice problem to have.

EastHallApp · Unread post by **EastHallApp** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:22 pm

Guys, the Sun Belt is not out to get App (or Southern). Why exactly would they do that? You really think they want to make things tougher on the teams that actually have a chance to break out and make people outside the Sun Belt notice that the Sun Belt exists?

They're not making this schedule for attendance, they're making it for TV. They're trying to put the most appealing matchups in the most favorable television windows. That means weeknights. And maybe Thanksgiving weekend. If App can't figure out how to market around that, we shouldn't have joined the league in the first place.

T-Dog · Unread post by **T-Dog** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:23 pm

EastHallApp wrote:Guys, the Sun Belt is not out to get App (or Southern). Why exactly would they do that? You really think they want to make things tougher on the teams that actually have a chance to break out and make people outside the Sun Belt notice that the Sun Belt exists?

They're not making this schedule for attendance, they're making it for TV. They're trying to put the most appealing matchups in the most favorable television windows. That means weeknights. And maybe Thanksgiving weekend. If App can't figure out how to market around that, we shouldn't have joined the league in the first place.

Marketing Strategy #1 through #100: Win Football Games

EastHallApp · Unread post by **EastHallApp** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:27 pm

^Yep. And winning football games = more weeknight games.

Exhibit A: Six of the seven SBC weeknight games feature App, Southern, ULL and/or A-State.

appgrad · Unread post by **appgrad** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:35 pm

JTApps1 wrote:
T-Dog wrote:
appgrad wrote:
APPARJ wrote:
EastHallApp wrote:Biggest disappointment for me: Bye week on 9/19 + first two SBC games on the road + GSU on 10/22 = just two Saturday home games before Halloween.

So basically, if you're looking to enjoy a football weekend with decent weather, you have two choices - Howard and Wyoming.
How can the biggest disappointment not be having our three BIGGEST home games on dates that will hurt attendance?

Put GaSo on Oct. 24th and there's a chance we shatter the KBS attendance record. Now? No way.
One of our best attended games ever was Wofford on Halloween Night...only missed being the best by 600 fans. If it's a big enough deal, our fans will show. Arky State will be lower, for sure, but I really think that's because it's so close to the other Thursday game.

Do agree that it's BS that we get stuck with a Thanksgiving home game 2 years in a row.
The Wofford Halloween game had the highest student attendance of any App game ever.The entire hill, which is mostly families and non-students, was 100% students for that game. There was a drop in non-student attendance for that game, but made up for and then some in students in costumes.
One big difference with Friday is people off the mountain don't have to worry about being at work or taking a day off the next day. I'll be there for both games, but we all know a lot of our fans won't make that sacrifice twice in one year.

Agree with that...and, of course, people with families have to consider little Billy's school the next day. I will be taking Friday off, and driving up from Atlanta around lunch, hopefully! This gives me an excuse to spend 3-4 days in Boone, which I don't get to do very often, if ever.

App91 · Unread post by **App91** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:53 pm

EastHallApp wrote:Guys, the Sun Belt is not out to get App (or Southern). Why exactly would they do that? You really think they want to make things tougher on the teams that actually have a chance to break out and make people outside the Sun Belt notice that the Sun Belt exists?

They're not making this schedule for attendance, they're making it for TV. They're trying to put the most appealing matchups in the most favorable television windows. That means weeknights. And maybe Thanksgiving weekend. If App can't figure out how to market around that, we shouldn't have joined the league in the first place.

Wow! Someone gets it! This is the truth.

Its time to grow up, the Thanksgiving weekend issue is an FCS thing. The rest of the free (FBS)world plays football t-giving weekend and approximately half those games are home games for someone and people show up. Have to get over that.

moehler · Unread post by **moehler** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:59 pm

I happy that we have our 3 biggest games in mid to late season, should be a real advantage for us, but, lets be honest, they did us no favors in 2 Thursday night games and Thanksgiving weekend, we are going to have alot of fans who would like to attend, but cant, because of how the schedule was set up. I cant imagine we will be coming close to setting any attendance records this season, hope Im wrong.

EastHallApp · Unread post by **EastHallApp** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 1:10 pm

App91 wrote:
EastHallApp wrote:Guys, the Sun Belt is not out to get App (or Southern). Why exactly would they do that? You really think they want to make things tougher on the teams that actually have a chance to break out and make people outside the Sun Belt notice that the Sun Belt exists?

They're not making this schedule for attendance, they're making it for TV. They're trying to put the most appealing matchups in the most favorable television windows. That means weeknights. And maybe Thanksgiving weekend. If App can't figure out how to market around that, we shouldn't have joined the league in the first place.
Wow! Someone gets it! This is the truth.

Its time to grow up, the Thanksgiving weekend issue is an FCS thing. The rest of the free (FBS)world plays football t-giving weekend and approximately half those games are home games for someone and people show up. Have to get over that.

Also, wasn't it just last week that people were saying how the Sun Belt better schedule us a late-season game with one of the other contenders if they knew what they were doing? A potential de facto conference championship game?

Well, here you go. For all we know, App-ULL could decide the conference title. And we've got it at home, on Rivalry Weekend, with an extra week for the team to prepare (ETA: and with a good shot at national TV coverage).

MountainMan · Unread post by **MountainMan** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 1:31 pm

App91 wrote:
Its time to grow up, the Thanksgiving weekend issue is an FCS thing. The rest of the free (FBS)world plays football t-giving weekend and approximately half those games are home games for someone and people show up. Have to get over that.

Agree. I think the poor attendance on Thanksgiving weekend in FCS was largely two-fold: 1) Not a game that was scheduled/known for sure until the end of the regular season and thus difficult to plan for as well as blend into a family weekend at Thanksgiving, and 2) the view by lots of fans that there would probably be multiple additional playoff games in FCS and they would skip the first one (Thanksgiving) and then catch the others when they were more important and didn't interfere with a holiday (If I can't afford to go to all of them, I want to wait and be sure to go to the later ones.)

JTApps1 · Unread post by **JTApps1** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 1:39 pm

EastHallApp wrote:Guys, the Sun Belt is not out to get App (or Southern). Why exactly would they do that? You really think they want to make things tougher on the teams that actually have a chance to break out and make people outside the Sun Belt notice that the Sun Belt exists?

They're not making this schedule for attendance, they're making it for TV. They're trying to put the most appealing matchups in the most favorable television windows. That means weeknights. And maybe Thanksgiving weekend. If App can't figure out how to market around that, we shouldn't have joined the league in the first place.

I'm sure most of us realize it is all about TV, but that doesn't remove the fact that our attendance will be negatively impacted by having our top home conference games on Thursdays and Thanksgiving. Having good match ups on TV helps the conference in ratings which will hopefully help us down the line, but it will hurt us in the short term in ticket sales.

I am thankful we aren't playing either of the Tuesday games though!

Hopefully the schedule change next year will balance our home-road games out so that our marquee games aren't all at home in the same year which is the biggest reason for these dates.

3rd · Unread post by **3rd** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 1:50 pm

Could we have requested these 3 big games on Thursdays and Thanksgiving Weekend to make sure we do not have a Tuesday night game?

AppinATL · Unread post by **AppinATL** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 2:09 pm

T-Dog wrote:
Appersrule wrote:
T-Dog wrote:They need to announce all home game times ASAP. The 12-day things last year didn't work.

Welcome to FBS- that won't change. Game times are decided by the networks 12 days in advance. That is here for infinity and something App fans have to adapt to.
Except that everyone else in the Sun Belt announced game times way early last year. We can announce times and if ESPN wants us to move for a TV game, well that's a nice problem to have.

What's the point of announcing game times if half of them will change?

Eagle22 · Unread post by **Eagle22** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 2:10 pm

HighlandsApp wrote:Is GaSo schedule this unpleasant?

IMO it is. Back to back road trips to Idaho and ULM to start conference play isn't ideal at all.

Second thing I'm not fond of is finishing up with Georgia State. It's not like they'd bring much of a crowd anyways, but the few they might have brought will be in basketball mode by December.

hapapp · Unread post by **hapapp** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 2:13 pm

AppinATL wrote:
T-Dog wrote:
Appersrule wrote:
T-Dog wrote:They need to announce all home game times ASAP. The 12-day things last year didn't work.

Welcome to FBS- that won't change. Game times are decided by the networks 12 days in advance. That is here for infinity and something App fans have to adapt to.
Except that everyone else in the Sun Belt announced game times way early last year. We can announce times and if ESPN wants us to move for a TV game, well that's a nice problem to have.
What's the point of announcing game times if half of them will change?

How many changed last year?

hapapp · Unread post by **hapapp** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 2:16 pm

Bottom line, it is the schedule we have to play. Most everyone else in the SBC has complaints about their schedules as well. There is no perfect schedule. I do agree that I miss having more home games in the warmer temps, especially with the 3:30 starts. However, minus the potential attendance concerns, it is likely an advantage to play some of the pivotal games later than earlier.

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