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The Steady Erosion of the Gameday Experience
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:11 pm
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:11 pm
As attendance figures at college football venues across the country continue to decline, administrators are trying to figure out why fans aren't coming. As the great Yogi Berra once said, "If people don't want to come to the ball park, how are you going to stop them?"
Athletic directors point to high definition television and the fact that nearly every game is televised, but that's only part of the problem. The source of the problem are the AD's themselves--the pursuit of the next buck at the expense of the gameday experience. The gameday experience is no longer about the game or the university, it's about money, and the replacement of the university by the dollar as the object of admiration bleeds from every aspect of the modern college gameday experience. In their ruthless pursuit to monetize every aspect of the game, AD's will ultimately end up homogenizing it, and in the process trading away what makes each university experience unique for 30 pieces of silver.
Increasingly, universities no longer even control their own stadium experiences. Many universities have sold the rights to control the stadium experience to media companies. IMG and CBS dominate the industry, representing nearly every university in major college athletics. These advertising firms put their own "gameday coordinators" in the stadiums to control the gameday experience. They control what is shown on the jumbotron, when the band plays, what cheers are done, what music is blasted over the speakers, and what stream of ads will come at you.
Bands, cheerleaders, drill teams, those things aren't controlled by IMG or CBS and can't drive their profits. The solution--minimize them as much as possible. Basically, the university agrees to cannibalize itself. No pushback will be tolerated. After taking his concerns about the contant rise of canned music public, Tennessee's band director, Dr. Gary Sousa, was reassigned for pushing back against the profit monster.
Tennessee isn't alone. It's everywhere, and the SEC is making it easier than ever to inundate fans with canned music and a tidal wave of advertisements. Before last season, the SEC relaxed the rules for when music and advertising can be played between plays. Now, the home team can play this stuff until the QB is over the ball. The SEC, at the urging of Georgia, adopted the rule because the ACC has something similar, probably to paper over terrible gameday atmospheres.
These media conglomerates don't make money by making each stadium experience unique; they make money by using the same stuff everywhere, which lowers the cost to deliver it. The necessary result is that the gameday experience is being homogenized--making the experience at any particular stadium much like the experience anywhere else. What makes the college football experience great is its uniqueness from venue to venue; where we're heading is an NFL-type of experience so bland it could be Anywhere, USA.
This doesn't even reach the constant barrage of sponsorships and advertising fired from every corner of the stadium. It's really an insult to the average fan. Basically, the universities and media companies think that our attention spans are so tiny that we need constant amusement, served up with a side of banking, car dealerships, and Coke. All of this brought to you with long delays for TV timeouts, so that the university can rake in that money, too. Considering the spiraling costs of tickets, it's not hard to figure why people are staying home.
"Upgrades" like concessions and Wi-Fi aren't the answer; they're the problem in a new and shiny form. These are just new ways to reach into the fans' wallets. Paying for premium Wi-Fi will be the new frontier once they upgrade what they've got. Concessions prices are already out of control.
If this sounds like a rant, well, I guess it is. Sort of. I realize that the universities need to make money, but we're rapidly reaching a point where the universities will not have a unique experience or product to offer. If that's true, why go there? Why go anywhere? And if the universities think they can build loyalty through a television, they're fooling themselves. If I can watch anyone in America on TV, what makes you special? The next generation, deprived of any reason to consider the local universities unique, will be free to follow any other school in America, 24 hours a day.
These universities are turning themselves into snowflakes--unique, just like everyone else.
Athletic directors point to high definition television and the fact that nearly every game is televised, but that's only part of the problem. The source of the problem are the AD's themselves--the pursuit of the next buck at the expense of the gameday experience. The gameday experience is no longer about the game or the university, it's about money, and the replacement of the university by the dollar as the object of admiration bleeds from every aspect of the modern college gameday experience. In their ruthless pursuit to monetize every aspect of the game, AD's will ultimately end up homogenizing it, and in the process trading away what makes each university experience unique for 30 pieces of silver.
Increasingly, universities no longer even control their own stadium experiences. Many universities have sold the rights to control the stadium experience to media companies. IMG and CBS dominate the industry, representing nearly every university in major college athletics. These advertising firms put their own "gameday coordinators" in the stadiums to control the gameday experience. They control what is shown on the jumbotron, when the band plays, what cheers are done, what music is blasted over the speakers, and what stream of ads will come at you.
Bands, cheerleaders, drill teams, those things aren't controlled by IMG or CBS and can't drive their profits. The solution--minimize them as much as possible. Basically, the university agrees to cannibalize itself. No pushback will be tolerated. After taking his concerns about the contant rise of canned music public, Tennessee's band director, Dr. Gary Sousa, was reassigned for pushing back against the profit monster.
Tennessee isn't alone. It's everywhere, and the SEC is making it easier than ever to inundate fans with canned music and a tidal wave of advertisements. Before last season, the SEC relaxed the rules for when music and advertising can be played between plays. Now, the home team can play this stuff until the QB is over the ball. The SEC, at the urging of Georgia, adopted the rule because the ACC has something similar, probably to paper over terrible gameday atmospheres.
These media conglomerates don't make money by making each stadium experience unique; they make money by using the same stuff everywhere, which lowers the cost to deliver it. The necessary result is that the gameday experience is being homogenized--making the experience at any particular stadium much like the experience anywhere else. What makes the college football experience great is its uniqueness from venue to venue; where we're heading is an NFL-type of experience so bland it could be Anywhere, USA.
This doesn't even reach the constant barrage of sponsorships and advertising fired from every corner of the stadium. It's really an insult to the average fan. Basically, the universities and media companies think that our attention spans are so tiny that we need constant amusement, served up with a side of banking, car dealerships, and Coke. All of this brought to you with long delays for TV timeouts, so that the university can rake in that money, too. Considering the spiraling costs of tickets, it's not hard to figure why people are staying home.
"Upgrades" like concessions and Wi-Fi aren't the answer; they're the problem in a new and shiny form. These are just new ways to reach into the fans' wallets. Paying for premium Wi-Fi will be the new frontier once they upgrade what they've got. Concessions prices are already out of control.
If this sounds like a rant, well, I guess it is. Sort of. I realize that the universities need to make money, but we're rapidly reaching a point where the universities will not have a unique experience or product to offer. If that's true, why go there? Why go anywhere? And if the universities think they can build loyalty through a television, they're fooling themselves. If I can watch anyone in America on TV, what makes you special? The next generation, deprived of any reason to consider the local universities unique, will be free to follow any other school in America, 24 hours a day.
These universities are turning themselves into snowflakes--unique, just like everyone else.
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:12 pm to NaturalStateReb
This is to fricking long so I didn't read it.
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:13 pm to NaturalStateReb
too many words
got bored and went to a game instead
got bored and went to a game instead
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:15 pm to SwayzeBalla
LSU at Night for a big game is still the greatest atmosphere in the country. period.
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:15 pm to ButchItUp
quote:
This is to fricking long so I didn't read it.
Words can be pretty hard, especially when you're not used to them.
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:18 pm to NaturalStateReb
Ahhhh a Mississippi fan making an education joke.......
lol
lol
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:18 pm to NaturalStateReb
I know people in the sports properties industry, and many of the points you make in this rant are incorrect and have no factual basis.
The IMG or CBS model works in conjunction with the university athletic marketing departments to run game operations. They don't come in and take over like you say. The school hires these gameday operations coordinators, not the media properties rights holder, because the gameday experience has evolved into a production unlike we saw 30 years ago. Yes, there are videoboard features with a sponsor on it, but there is more use of the ribbon and videoboards than ever before, the speaker systems in the stadiums have never been of more high quality, and the individual cheers or chants have never been more organized.
All properties are maintained individually to preserve the uniqueness of each school.
In summation, you are wrong. The gameday experience has never been better for the fan, and college athletics has never been more exciting than right now. Period.
The IMG or CBS model works in conjunction with the university athletic marketing departments to run game operations. They don't come in and take over like you say. The school hires these gameday operations coordinators, not the media properties rights holder, because the gameday experience has evolved into a production unlike we saw 30 years ago. Yes, there are videoboard features with a sponsor on it, but there is more use of the ribbon and videoboards than ever before, the speaker systems in the stadiums have never been of more high quality, and the individual cheers or chants have never been more organized.
All properties are maintained individually to preserve the uniqueness of each school.
In summation, you are wrong. The gameday experience has never been better for the fan, and college athletics has never been more exciting than right now. Period.
This post was edited on 1/30/15 at 1:23 pm
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:19 pm to DingDongEddieStrong
Maybe at VHS or similar high school stadiums
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:20 pm to Serraneaux
I'm still on the same waiting list I have been for 6 years to get season tickets at Alabama.
People don't seem to have any issues with the Gameday Experience here.
People don't seem to have any issues with the Gameday Experience here.
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:21 pm to NaturalStateReb
quote:
The Steady Erosion of the Gameday Experience
You could've typed one fricking sentence and just ended it at that. Here you go:
"The steady erosion of the gameday experience can be attributed to high cost of attendance and HDTV. The end."
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:21 pm to Serraneaux
Of course you're going to get shitty numbers and not going to be able to compete with other superior SEC programs when your stadium holds 40 thousand less than other SEC stadiums.
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:21 pm to Serraneaux
quote:
Maybe at VHS or similar high school stadiums
Talk to me when you can beat Ole Miss and sell out your stadium.
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:24 pm to DingDongEddieStrong
quote:
Talk to me when you can beat Ole Miss and sell out your stadium.
I'm talking now :)
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:24 pm to DingDongEddieStrong
quote:
talk to me when you can beat Ole Miss
here
quote:
and sell out your stadium.
That picture is from a season where the team went 7-6.Attendence at games isn't a problem for Tennessee football.
This post was edited on 1/30/15 at 1:25 pm
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:27 pm to SwayzeBalla
It's not about the music piped in
Only valid point here is cost, now on top of the price of your ticket, you have to pay fees to buy the tickets, fees to park, fees to tailgate, restrictions on how to tailgate, ridiculous concession prices.
College football used to be a bargain for the whole family but now it's become like professional sports in cost and that's why they are losing fan attendance.
As a family of four I still have season tickets but in order to attend half the schedule I now sell the other half.
I have baseball tickets as well and I split that with another fan. They raised my donation fees for baseball too even though the tickets are still pretty cheap but LSU even charges for baseball premium parking
Only valid point here is cost, now on top of the price of your ticket, you have to pay fees to buy the tickets, fees to park, fees to tailgate, restrictions on how to tailgate, ridiculous concession prices.
College football used to be a bargain for the whole family but now it's become like professional sports in cost and that's why they are losing fan attendance.
As a family of four I still have season tickets but in order to attend half the schedule I now sell the other half.
I have baseball tickets as well and I split that with another fan. They raised my donation fees for baseball too even though the tickets are still pretty cheap but LSU even charges for baseball premium parking
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:28 pm to NaturalStateReb
To me, it's the crappy OOC games that cost just as much to attend as the SEC games. I am reconsidering whether I want to spend the substantial amount of money for essentially 4 games per year. I do enjoy the campus on game day but I have an HDTV 5 minutes from campus. I could stubhub a couple of games that I really wanted to see and save a bundle.
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:36 pm to NaturalStateReb
Good post OP! Worth an upvote!
This is exactly why we defend our A&M gameday traditions (yes like the dudes). Even if they are dumb to you they are different, and different is good.
This is exactly why we defend our A&M gameday traditions (yes like the dudes). Even if they are dumb to you they are different, and different is good.
Posted on 1/30/15 at 1:42 pm to NaturalStateReb
I was UV #3.
Don't know if all that is said is so but I fully agree that the gameday experience is deteriorating. Lot of factors and it always makes for a flurry of off-season threads on TigerRant.
CFB withohut tradition is . . . just B-grade NFL at best.
Don't know if all that is said is so but I fully agree that the gameday experience is deteriorating. Lot of factors and it always makes for a flurry of off-season threads on TigerRant.
CFB withohut tradition is . . . just B-grade NFL at best.
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