What is the Jacks football fan base

[HoboD]

This is a spin off of the attendance thread. What do you think the optimum fan base breakdown is for football.

My thoughts on getting 10,000 and 15,000 respectfully:

Students: With about 9,000 full time students. I would think a turnout of 3,000-4,000 is a good number. To break 10,000 you need 3,000
To break 15,000 you need 4,000

Brookings residents. Is 3,000-4,000 men women and children realistic?
To break 10,000 you need 3,000
To break 15,000 you need 4,000

1 hour radius. Thats probably close to 300,000. (Half the population of SD lives within 20 miles of the Minn border) This has got to be the area where big numbers come from. If there isnt a string of cars coming in from Sioux Falls, Watertown, Huron, Madison, and points in between, then they will not break 10,000.
To break 10,000 you need 3,000
To break 15,000 you need 4,000

1-3 hour plus radius. You dont pick up that much more population and the trip and time committment gets longer/bigger.
To break 10,000 you need 750
To break 15,000 you need 2,000

3 hour plus radius. This is the group Im in. Its a BIG committment to come in for a game, ESPECIALLY a night game. By the time you get out of town its 10:30 or 11:00 with a LONG drive ahead or you have to invest the time and money in staying over nite. Only serious fans will do either.
To break 10,000 you need 250
To break 15,000 you need 1,000

Questions:
Have I over/under estimated any group?
Which group(s) are we falling short in?
How do you attract a particular group?
Does the athletic dept. data break this out?

[22jack]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

Your count for student is a little high. For Hobo Day with a crowd of 15K+ there were only about 3000 students. I am not sure we have ever hit 4000 students. 3000 students is about one third of full time students on campus. I wonder how 33% compares to other campuses?

[Jacks15]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

Do we have any deals with the hotels to get a discount for a room for one night if you present a game ticket or anything? i don't know the answer because i live within 10 minutes of Brookings and never need a hotel room.

[HoboD]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

Do we have any deals with the hotels to get a discount for a room for one night if you present a game ticket or anything? i don't know the answer because i live within 10 minutes of Brookings and never need a hotel room.

None that Im aware of.

[Jack4Life]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

Do we have any deals with the hotels to get a discount for a room for one night if you present a game ticket or anything? i don't know the answer because i live within 10 minutes of Brookings and never need a hotel room.

I doubt the motels/hotels would do anything. Anythime I have tried to get a room for after a game, they are hard to find. I never try to pay their asking price, but have never been able to negotiate a better rate. I think they are usually full after the night games.

[Nidaros]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

I doubt the motels/hotels would do anything. Anythime I have tried to get a room for after a game, they are hard to find. I never try to pay their asking price, but have never been able to negotiate a better rate. I think they are usually full after the night games.

I think the motels or the lack of them is part of the problem. Its not only on game days that they fill up as during the summer times just one reunion of any sort seems to fill them up. With more motels, we could draw more to the fan base and maybe put the current motel owners in a negotiating (sp) mood. There was some talk about an American Inn coming but have not heard anything concrete about that possibilty.

I think some of the HPER staff need to look at the hotel situation and see what they could do to help bring more people to town.

Hobo D, I would tend to concur with your numbers, but something tells me we are not at the break point.

[State_fan]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

To increase the regional fan base, I think that we need to do all that we can to get games televised regionally, as NDSU has done. I realize the argument against it; it takes away from the gate. But one has to think of it as an investment. The best way to increase fan base is to pipe in the game to people's homes. And I don't think the America channel or whatever its called is the answer. It needs to be either FSN or something local (KELO or whatever) that a majority of people can actually watch.

If we can't play them live because it hurts the gate, here's another idea... Every week on channel 10 with mediacom I can watch the replay of the UNI football games. Why can't this at least be done with some local cable outlet from Sioux Falls? Maybe the 'SDSU Channel' here on campus could do something like this? I don't know personally whats involved with all this, I'm just throwing ideas out there. Heck, why stop there, go replay all SDSU sporting events... Then after replaying these events, promote the hell out of the live events. Make people want to be there. Show people that don't normally go that these events are actually entertaining and worth the time to go.

I'm convinced that getting SDSU events on TV for kids to watch at home on there own is a great way to increase future fan base. I'm a testament for that. Nobody in my household growing up was an SDSU fan. But I still remember watching SDSU games as a kid, which were on local channels (Kelo I believe). And SDSU had some guy named Ranek who kept breaking long runs... That was fun to watch! Think how cool that would have been for some kid to watch Koenig run all over Cal Poly Saturday night? Reminded me of Ranek. Now I realize Koenig had the game of his career and Ranek had 5-6 games like that every season, but its just a comparison.

What does everyone think about this? Would it help to increase awareness of SDSU athletics by running replays of sporting events (or at the least, the major events)? Or would it end up hurting the potential gate by letting people be lazy and skip the game and just catch the replay? What would be involved with pulling off a venture such as this? Is it even possible to do, and if not, then why?

[CatchEmAll]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

Questions:
Have I over/under estimated any group? Students - die-hards about 1,000, big game 3,000-3,500
Which group(s) are we falling short in? Students; 1 hour radius non-alums
How do you attract a particular group? Consistent winning product
Does the athletic dept. data break this out? Not this specific, although with the ticket software they are running zip code data is probably collected on pre-sales, but not on walk up ticket sales which are a significant number for the early season games. Also, I doubt any cross reference is done of ticket buyers versus alum/non-alum. Student ID's are swiped giving a count each game. Theoretically they could target those students who are repeat to multiple games with further incentives to keep attending (wait, tried that in the past).

Just my opinion.

[CatchEmAll]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

To increase the regional fan base, I think that we need to do all that we can to get games televised regionally, as NDSU has done. I realize the argument against it; it takes away from the gate. But one has to think of it as an investment. The best way to increase fan base is to pipe in the game to people's homes. And I don't think the America channel or whatever its called is the answer. It needs to be either FSN or something local (KELO or whatever) that a majority of people can actually watch.

If we can't play them live because it hurts the gate, here's another idea... Every week on channel 10 with mediacom I can watch the replay of the UNI football games. Why can't this at least be done with some local cable outlet from Sioux Falls? Maybe the 'SDSU Channel' here on campus could do something like this? I don't know personally whats involved with all this, I'm just throwing ideas out there. Heck, why stop there, go replay all SDSU sporting events... Then after replaying these events, promote the hell out of the live events. Make people want to be there. Show people that don't normally go that these events are actually entertaining and worth the time to go.

I'm convinced that getting SDSU events on TV for kids to watch at home on there own is a great way to increase future fan base. I'm a testament for that. Nobody in my household growing up was an SDSU fan. But I still remember watching SDSU games as a kid, which were on local channels (Kelo I believe). And SDSU had some guy named Ranek who kept breaking long runs... That was fun to watch! Think how cool that would have been for some kid to watch Koenig run all over Cal Poly Saturday night? Reminded me of Ranek. Now I realize Koenig had the game of his career and Ranek had 5-6 games like that every season, but its just a comparison.

What does everyone think about this? Would it help to increase awareness of SDSU athletics by running replays of sporting events (or at the least, the major events)? Or would it end up hurting the potential gate by letting people be lazy and skip the game and just catch the replay? What would be involved with pulling off a venture such as this? Is it even possible to do, and if not, then why?

I would have to agree that this is a good concept if someone was willing to pull it off.

[Nidaros]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

To increase the regional fan base, I think that we need to do all that we can to get games televised regionally, as NDSU has done. I realize the argument against it; it takes away from the gate. But one has to think of it as an investment. The best way to increase fan base is to pipe in the game to people's homes. And I don't think the America channel or whatever its called is the answer. It needs to be either FSN or something local (KELO or whatever) that a majority of people can actually watch.

If we can't play them live because it hurts the gate, here's another idea... Every week on channel 10 with mediacom I can watch the replay of the UNI football games. Why can't this at least be done with some local cable outlet from Sioux Falls? Maybe the 'SDSU Channel' here on campus could do something like this? I don't know personally whats involved with all this, I'm just throwing ideas out there. Heck, why stop there, go replay all SDSU sporting events... Then after replaying these events, promote the hell out of the live events. Make people want to be there. Show people that don't normally go that these events are actually entertaining and worth the time to go.

I'm convinced that getting SDSU events on TV for kids to watch at home on there own is a great way to increase future fan base. I'm a testament for that. Nobody in my household growing up was an SDSU fan. But I still remember watching SDSU games as a kid, which were on local channels (Kelo I believe). And SDSU had some guy named Ranek who kept breaking long runs... That was fun to watch! Think how cool that would have been for some kid to watch Koenig run all over Cal Poly Saturday night? Reminded me of Ranek. Now I realize Koenig had the game of his career and Ranek had 5-6 games like that every season, but its just a comparison.

What does everyone think about this? Would it help to increase awareness of SDSU athletics by running replays of sporting events (or at the least, the major events)? Or would it end up hurting the potential gate by letting people be lazy and skip the game and just catch the replay? What would be involved with pulling off a venture such as this? Is it even possible to do, and if not, then why?

At one time, I would have said that TV steals from the gates, but got into a real rubbarb about this on D2Football.com some years back. I too have Mediacom and have watched the UNI games. I like your ideas, and this may be what we have to do. Koenig no doubt put on a great show, but also as in the Ranek days, the fat guys as Coach Stig calls his OL often made the long runs possible in the Ranek days and again Saturday night. None the less, the fans including myself like to see those runs.

[Jacks#1Fan]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

Without getting into a long-winded discussion of the pros and cons of televising games (which I know the department has looked at hard and long), the sale of online game watching for various sports is a new revenue stream for the league and for the institution. I'm sure it will be watched closely by the department. NDSU has a football culture and sell-out crowds for football and can afford a different approach on televising games. But, as I said on an earlier post on a different thread, televising the NDSU game on November 17, with the possibility of bad weather, and certainly fair-weather fans, both here and in Fargo (not talking about the hardcore) is not the way to go (IMHO). That's just one example, but there are other scenarios that are much the same. Longer than I thought to post...but suffice it to say, again IMHO, shelling out money for a free ride for fans who would rather stay home and watch just doesn't make sense to me.

[joeboo22]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

The problem I see is what station would cover the most people... KSFY (ABC affiliate) would cover both ND and SD but doesn't cover West River.... KELO land covers all of south dakota but I don't think it covers to much of North Dakota.... If North Dakota wants this game televised so much they can pay the 30,000 to get it on to FSN North....

[JimmyJack]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

The problem I see is what station would cover the most people... KSFY (ABC affiliate) would cover both ND and SD but doesn't cover West River.... KELO land covers all of south dakota but I don't think it covers to much of North Dakota.... If North Dakota wants this game televised so much they can pay the 30,000 to get it on to FSN North....

No, actually, the problems are exactly what Jacks#1Fan said they are.

The television venue issue comes after those problems have been resolved. KELO is clearly the most attractive option since they're statewide, can produce a quality telecast, and their local programming ratings are about double everybody else's combined.

[CatchEmAll]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

the sale of online game watching for various sports is a new revenue stream for the league and for the institution.

If hiccups like Saturday night don't get fixed, or at least acknowledged with some sort of apology from the athletic department, it won't be a very good revenue stream for long. I know the technology is new for us and I'm probably over-reacting a little bit, but I'm still frustrated over Saturday night's silent video feed. (for those that don't know, Saturday's "Extra" video feed had no audio and those of us outside of WNAX's radio area had to choose between a silent video or WNAX online. I was told during the game that they were working to fix it, but it was four quarters of silence)

I would agree that getting games on TV is a sticky proposition (from a coverage stand point and revenue stand point). I do think though that as others have alluded to, if people see the games on TV and it's a good product they may be more likely to want to experience the games in person in the future.

[collegewatcher]

Re: What is the Jacks football fan base

I know we have talked about this before, but since someone brought up tv.......

So many of you keep harping on having a "big time" atmosphere and facilities, but it seems some of you keep thinking "small time" when it comes to media. Online viewing and listening should supplement the actual broadcast package that the large majority of fans should be able to see or hear. MJA or some of you other out of staters should be the only ones who need the online service, except for some of the away games. A game that is televised is a 3 hour commercial for your team. The more games that are broadcast the better. Football, mens and womens basketball, and select volleyball games should be broadcast on television on a regular basis. You have no idea how many potential fans, and even potential donors, there may be out there tuning in and starting to root for the Jacks. Maybe some alums have lost touch with the school and would never think about driving to Brookings, but see them on tv and remember the fans they used to be before kids and other obligations came along.

Also, SDSU needs a radio network. WNAX provides great coverage for one station, but a network of stations is needed for better coverage and more of a "big time" feel.