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Wall Street Journal: Schools have no idea what students want at CFB games
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:30 am
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:30 am
quote:
The most powerful people in college football are desperate to figure out what the millennials on their campuses actually want.
They thought they knew. To stop the puzzling decline of student attendance at football games, schools across the country have taken numerous steps in recent years. The most radical was upgrading cellular reception and installing wireless networks around their stadiums—a multimillion-dollar endeavor for a service that may only be used a handful of times each year.
Now, though, schools have more data than ever on their fans and especially their student fans. That new information has them rewriting their old theories. Their most startling finding challenges the one thing they thought they knew about today’s 18-to-22-year-olds: It turns out that students may not want to be on their phones all game long.
The most recent support for this surprising result comes from a new survey by the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators and Oregon’s sports marketing center. It asked almost 24,000 students across the country to rank the factors that influenced their decision to attend games. By far the most important was a student’s interest in that sport. By far the least important was a stadium’s cellular reception or wireless capability.
The study is so counterintuitive that it seems like it must be an outlier—except that it is supported by similar polls in places where college football is massively popular.
At Michigan, when the student government asked undergraduates why they go to football games, what they found clashed with conventional wisdom: Michigan’s students simply didn’t care that much about mobile connectivity. In-game Wi-Fi wasn’t as essential as lower ticket prices or better seat locations. Among the seven possible improvements to the game-day experience, in fact, students ranked cell reception last.
One of the shocking things that schools have learned is that football fans, including students, currently care more about clean restrooms than fast Internet. In the recently released Oregon study, which surveyed students across all five power conferences, fans ranked cellular connectivity last on their wish list.
“The nuts and bolts,” Stricklin said. “They still want the basics.”
Today’s fans seem interested in the same amenities that have always interested football fans. At Ole Miss, one of the first schools to survey its supporters, Rebels fans said before last season that mobile web, apps and email access were the three least important of 53 elements of a live game, according to the school’s summary of the study. Last year, though, Ole Miss installed a new wireless network in its football stadium for about $5 million, in part because students said cellular reception was a priority, athletic director Ross Bjork said.
“I don’t think it’s on the forefront of the broad fan base yet,” he said. “The key is preparing for the future. We know this is going to be a part of the fan experience, and we know fans will continue to evolve.”
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This post was edited on 7/17/15 at 8:35 am
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:32 am to Bench McElroy
quote:
It asked almost 24,000 students across the country to rank the factors that influenced their decision to attend games.
quote:
the most important was a student’s interest in that sport
well no shite
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:36 am to Bench McElroy
Easy.
Students are "What have you done for me lately"
Don't expect 20,000 students to show up unless you're playing a big opponent, winning, or have won recently.
It's not damn rocket science.
Students are "What have you done for me lately"
Don't expect 20,000 students to show up unless you're playing a big opponent, winning, or have won recently.
It's not damn rocket science.
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:39 am to dhuck20
quote:
Don't expect 20,000 students to show up unless you're playing a big opponent, winning, or have won recently.
Unless you're Texas A&M. Then you can expect at least 30K no matter what.
This post was edited on 7/17/15 at 8:40 am
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:41 am to Bench McElroy
Kids these days (grumpy old man voice) are just ADD freaks who can't sit still or pay attention to anything for 4-5 hours at a time.
Even at Bama in the great run we're having under Saban there's so much fan apathy, people show up late, leave early, spend half the game looking at their phone.
It's just a plague nationwide.
Even at Bama in the great run we're having under Saban there's so much fan apathy, people show up late, leave early, spend half the game looking at their phone.
It's just a plague nationwide.
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:42 am to Bench McElroy
I want my friggin phone to work at the game
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:43 am to Bench McElroy
It seems to me like Student sections are rising; maybe it's just the SEC
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:43 am to Old Sarge
There's also way too many creampuff games. You play like 7-8 home games a year and 3-4 of them, roughly half, are tomato can games, just a gigantic waste of time.
There should be 1-2 of those games a year max.
There should be 1-2 of those games a year max.
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:43 am to dhuck20
quote:
Students are "What have you done for me lately"
maybe the turds that sit in the west endzone who show up in the 2nd quarter. Many, many students go because they love going to football games.
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:44 am to Bench McElroy
I don't get it. I think I only missed two home games in 4+ years as a student. And I am probably a bigger football fan now than I was then.
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:45 am to Bench McElroy
quote:
Schools dont care what students want at CFB games
FIFY, Students dont make much money for the schools for sporting events. They get cheep tickets, dont pay donation fees, dont spend as much on concessions, etc..., its simply not the main priority.
This post was edited on 7/17/15 at 8:45 am
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:45 am to Old Sarge
The only reason I want my phone to work is because I like to see the stats.
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:45 am to Bench McElroy
You can't fight technology. Home watching or bar watching is so advanced now, sometimes the in game experience is just a hassle.
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:46 am to WG_Dawg
quote:That was who I was referring to. Unfortunately we have to allot that many seats for their asses because they want to come to the Alabamas and LSUs but not the Charlestons or NW Idahos
maybe the turds that sit in the west endzone who show up in the 2nd quarter
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:48 am to Bench McElroy
better televisions to watch games on at home, multiple tvs for multiple games, increased interest in gambling on collegiate football, oh and beer...college kids love beer
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:49 am to SwaggerCopter
I like taking/face booking pics of my kids having fun. I also like following on Texags, you get injury updates and explanations on calls that otherwise you'd have to either wait til you got home to figure out. Or have headphones on during the game listening to Dave South.....never doing that
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:55 am to Old Sarge
I want to to be able to get score updates of other games, especially the ones I am betting on. The ribbon board will update the hell out of the North Texas -UTEP game but will refuse to show Top 25 updates. Then when they do update the score, it's the score from 30 minutes ago.
I want a freaking real time, continuous score update for every game in the country.
And short lines at concession stands.
I want a freaking real time, continuous score update for every game in the country.
And short lines at concession stands.
This post was edited on 7/17/15 at 8:58 am
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:56 am to dhuck20
quote:
Unfortunately we have to allot that many seats for their asses because they want to come to the Alabamas and LSUs but not the Charlestons or NW Idahos
I know we try to be all hip with the times and do all the student tix electronically, but it would solve sooooooooo many problems to just go back to straight paper tickets. It'd be so much easier if one of those punks didn't want to go to a game to just take their ticket and sell it to someone, whereas now you have to transfer some shite to someone else's ID or whatever new fangled nonsense they do.
Posted on 7/17/15 at 8:58 am to Bench McElroy
Let students resell their student tickets to the general public for a profit. Allow the general public to sit in the student section without a student ID. Seat filled. Problem solved.
Posted on 7/17/15 at 9:00 am to RECConspiracy
quote:
Allow the general public to sit in the student section without a student ID.
frick.no.
That is awful. The student section should be that...a place for students. If I was in the student section and was surrounded by adults telling people to sit down and quit spilling whiskey on everyone and to stop cussing I'd be irate.
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