LIKE IT IS

College football better start tuning in to fans

Fans at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium call the Hogs during a football game Sept. 25, 2010 against Alabama. The attendance was announced at a record-setting 76,808.
Fans at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium call the Hogs during a football game Sept. 25, 2010 against Alabama. The attendance was announced at a record-setting 76,808.

For the most part, the Arkansas Razorbacks athletic department does pretty good by the fans.

Sure, most fans would like to have better parking, but that’s the same at all schools.

Walk through the crowd before a football game and it is mostly a happy party, more so when the Hogs are winning of course.

Yet, from coast to coast there is a concern that the drops in attendance are a trend.

If any conference would seem immune to declining attendance it would be the SEC, which starts its media football days today in Hoover, Ala.

But each of the past four years has seen a small decrease in attendance.

No doubt part of it is the recession.

You’re looking at about $200 for a family of four to get in the gate of a non-conference game - and that’s not counting money spent on gas, concessions, souvenirs, possibly a hotel, not to mention the donation to the school’s athletic scholarship program - and you see a big part of the problem.

Consider that stadium seats are small, getting bumped in the back is inevitable, concessions are not cheap and TV timeouts create about an hour of dead time for fans, and it is easy to see why some would rather buy a big screen and watch the game in high definition.

At home there are no long lines for the rest rooms, the seat is as comfortable as you want and you can move around during the long TV timeouts.

Mostly, though, fans in the stands have not been a priority because the goose that was laying the golden eggs was, and is, TV.

The dips in attendance are being noticed.

A story in last week’s Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald quoted several athletic directors who were trying to address the in-game fan experience to make it more enjoyable.

And these were athletic directors from programs such as Michigan State and Oregon State.

These guys have been watching carefully how the numbers are slipping.

If they don’t know, they should, that ESPN doesn’t care about attendance; in fact, every person in a stadium is a person not watching a TV.

“Nobody who sits in our stands should be taken for granted,” Michigan State’s Mark Hollis told the World-Herald. “We, as an industry, have done that a little bit in lieu of the rising TV revenues. We’ve put our focus on TV.

“We need to get back to re-energizing the value of the men and women sitting in the stands cheering on their teams.”

Hollis pointed out another problem, one he faced last year when he saw a group of students who were not attending the game.

The reason: They couldn’t text because it was raining.

If he can figure out how to get young people to talk to each other instead of texting he will be named athletic director of the century.

Still, there is a growing concern for the fans, and there should be.

If there has been a constant in the Razorbacks program it is the fans.

They constantly surprise bowl officials with their support.

They come in big numbers even during a season like last year’s that was a huge disappointment.

They write checks, too.

When Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long needed more funding his “Answer the Call” campaign netted an additional $6 million in revenue.

And for the most part, they buy tickets.

But fans are demanding more bang for their buck - this economy thing isn’t getting better - and some don’t want a transition year. But that’s what this season is going to be.

A team rarely loses eight starters on offense and improves.

The fans need to be patient, and to know that there is more concern for them today than there was four years ago.

Sports, Pages 15 on 07/16/2013

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