Playoff Attendance

[Professor Chaos]

Not a great start but that was kind of expected given how difficult it is to draw on Thanksgiving weekend and all the host schools drew less than 10k fans on average in the regular season this year.

Holy Cross/Monmoth: 2,817 (101.6% of Monmouth's regular season average of 2,774)
CCSU/Albany: 1,660 (39.6% of Albany's regular season average of 4,191)
Furman/Austin Peay: 3,559 (48.6% of Austin Peay's regular season average of 7,317)
Illinois St/Southeast Missouri St: 3,274 (72.8% of SEMO's regular season average of 4,498)
San Diego/UNI: 3,743 (40.6% of UNI's regular season average of 9,213)
UND/Nicholls: 7,569 (112.4% of Nicholls' regular season average of 6,730)
Kennesaw St/Wofford: 1,992 (41.7% of Wofford's regular season average of 4,775)
Villanova/Southeastern Louisiana: 4,173 (59.6% of SLU's regular season average of 7,002)

Nice job by Monmouth and Nicholls to outdraw their regular season averages... that's no easy feat on Thanksgiving weekend.

The average of 3,598 fans comes in 6th out of the last 7 years (since the field expanded to 24 in 2013).

First Round Attendance Averages
2014: 7,297
2018: 6,373
2015: 5,634
2017: 4,958
2013: 4,502
2019: 3,598
2016: 3,408

Things should pick up next week with JMU, Montana, Montana St, and NDSU all hosting.

[Sader87]

I'd bet HC had almost as many fans at Monmouth as the Hawks did.

Those #''s are really plummeting in general though....not good.

[TheRevSFA]

Nicholls is always the highest attended game during round 1. This isn’t a shock

[Professor Chaos]

I'd bet HC had almost as many fans at Monmouth as the Hawks did.

Those #''s are really plummeting in general though....not good.
Those numbers are pretty much in line with normal postseason attendance trends in the first round at about 60% of the regular season averages. I think there's a pretty decent chance that this year's playoffs finish 2nd or 3rd over the last 7 when it's all said and done especially if NDSU and JMU hold serve (or Montana or Montana St host in their place).

[PantherRob82]

The Panthers game against San Diego was the lowest attendance playoff game in our history.

[LetsGoPeay]

So maybe they need to move the playoffs to the weekend after Thanksgiving.

The weather definitely played a factor in the Austin Peay game. It started raining in the early morning, intensified right at game time which caused a late start. Then got delayed again in the 2nd quarter.

[neverobeyed]

The Panthers game against San Diego was the lowest attendance playoff game in our history.

Lowest in the Dome and in FCS. The '75 "Mud Bowl" was a D-II playoff game at O.R. Latham - now a parking lot on the west side of Schnidler Hall - had "2500" in attendance, according to the 2019 UNI Football Media Guide.

Fun fact(s) - there was an indoor dirt running track in the bottom (actually, underground, I think) of the west side grandstand of O.R. Latham. It smelled "earthy" down there. Very dark, had to slow down at the end of the straightaways because the corners were more like square than round. Also, there was once a men's dorm located in the east side grandstand called "Stadium Hall." In '46 the president announced that the the mezzanine level on the east side grandstand would be converted to a dorm for 160 men, in large part to accommodate GIs returning from WWII. Finished in '47, it was in use until 1961.

[marenlee]

So maybe they need to move the playoffs to the weekend after Thanksgiving.

The weather definitely played a factor in the Austin Peay game. It started raining in the early morning, intensified right at game time which caused a late start. Then got delayed again in the 2nd quarter.

That would push the semifinals to in the middle of Xmas break. Probably make things even worse.


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[Hood]

Remembering the leaner years of regular season games lucky to top 2k, it's nice to see Nicholls drawing well for home playoff games that we never thought would happen.

[MTfan4life]

Things should pick up next week with JMU, Montana, Montana St, and NDSU all hosting.

Sac State and Weber should have solid showings as well. Weber pulled in nearly 9,000 for their second round game against SEMO last year. Sac State has been over 11,000 and as high as 19,882 for their final three home games this year. Hard to predict SDSU's playoff attendance, especially after only 7500 showed up on a very warm day when they played UNI in 2017. UCA will probably be around 6000.

[nodak651]

Lowest in the Dome and in FCS. The '75 "Mud Bowl" was a D-II playoff game at O.R. Latham - now a parking lot on the west side of Schnidler Hall - had "2500" in attendance, according to the 2019 UNI Football Media Guide.

Fun fact(s) - there was an indoor dirt running track in the bottom (actually, underground, I think) of the west side grandstand of O.R. Latham. It smelled "earthy" down there. Very dark, had to slow down at the end of the straightaways because the corners were more like square than round. Also, there was once a men's dorm located in the east side grandstand called "Stadium Hall." In '46 the president announced that the the mezzanine level on the east side grandstand would be converted to a dorm for 160 men, in large part to accommodate GIs returning from WWII. Finished in '47, it was in use until 1961.

Wow.. pretty cool info. Found this... https://library.uni.edu/collections/special-collections/university-archives/building-histories/o-r-latham-stadium-stadium

track
https://library.uni.edu/sites/default/files/resize/speccoll/images/lathamstad7-401x267.jpg
stadium resident takes phone call
https://library.uni.edu/sites/default/files/resize/speccoll/images/lathamstad8-400x274.jpg

[Tazman2664]

So maybe they need to move the playoffs to the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Maybe they should reduce the field, I think it should be only 8 teams but most here would say 16. I do not believe that even the 7th or 8th seeded teams have a chance for the natty. So I think only the top six have any chance of making it to the natty game but I really believe it is down to NDSU vs JMU. I would go with 8 just so there is not so much crying about teams not being considered but the truth is other than the top 2 no one has a chance. We will see, if it does end up being NDSU v JMU, then all these other games could go away. Really, 28,000 attended 8 games, that proves those games didn't have much merit. And if all these eight games don't have sell outs, the games merit comes into question. I know people don't like to hear this but it is what it is.

[Professor Chaos]

Maybe they should reduce the field, I think it should be only 8 teams but most here would say 16. I do not believe that even the 7th or 8th seeded teams have a chance for the natty. So I think only the top six have any chance of making it to the natty game but I really believe it is down to NDSU vs JMU. I would go with 8 just so there is not so much crying about teams not being considered but the truth is other than the top 2 no one has a chance. We will see, if it does end up being NDSU v JMU, then all these other games could go away. Really, 28,000 attended 8 games, that proves those games didn't have much merit. And if all these eight games don't have sell outs, the games merit comes into question. I know people don't like to hear this but it is what it is.
If only the top 8 have a chance to win the tournament what's the difference between a 16 and a 24 team field? The format is the same for those top 8 in either case.

With a 24 team field you can give every conference an autobid and if you're of the opinion that weaker conference autobids water down the field the 24 team format is superior to the 16 team format in that those weak autobids don't even make the round of 16.

[LetsGoPeay]

They literally have a 3 week break between the semifinals on Dec 21st, and the Championship game on Jan 11th. That's way too long in my opinion.

If the playoffs started on Dec 7th, the Quarterfinals would take place on Dec 21st. If you want to have the Christmas break, take it, and play the Semifinals on Jan 4th. Then play the Championship on Jan 11th.

If you still want a week in between the Semis and the Championship, play the Championship game on MLK weekend on Jan 18th.

Simple solution.

[Professor Chaos]

They literally have a 3 week break between the semifinals on Dec 21st, and the Championship game on Jan 11th. That's way too long in my opinion.

If the playoffs started on Dec 7th, the Quarterfinals would take place on Dec 21st. If you want to have the Christmas break, take it, and play the Semifinals on Jan 4th. Then play the Championship on Jan 11th.

If you still want a week in between the Semis and the Championship, play the Championship game on MLK weekend on Jan 18th.

Simple solution.
Simple in theory but would be a failure in practice IMO. No offense but the first round games are small potatoes IMO when it comes to prioritizing the structure of the playoffs. Using your format you'd have zero student attendance for the semis since school would be out and you'd have even worse potential weather in outdoor stadiums in this area of the country if those schools were hosting a semi so you go from putting those first round games in a bad scenario to draw fans to putting the semis in an even worse scenario to draw fans in many places. Going into the 3rd weekend of January is too much. Even now players (at NDSU at least) have about a one week break between the end of the season and the beginning of winter workouts if they make it to Frisco... this would eliminate that entirely. Too much wear and tear on bodies IMO.

I can tell you as a fan having that 3 week break between the semis and the championship is invaluable and makes for a better championship atmosphere since fans have ample time to plan travel and secure tickets. Having said that two weeks between the semis and the championship is enough so I'd be fine with the championship being played on 1/4 this year instead of 1/11 (which is what they did in 2013/January 2014 with the exact same calendar unlike this year). I'd be fine with 1/3-1/9 always being the championship window and that would either be a 2 or 3 week break from the semis depending on the year.

The only scenario I'd be on board with to skip Thanksgiving weekend completely is if they went back to a 16 team format, thereby eliminating a week from the playoffs and keeping everything else the same, and seed all 16 teams. I doubt the NCAA would ever go for that given it probably guarantees they make less/lose more on the FCS tournament so, in that case, I'll take this 24 format over the likely 20 team (with 5 seeds) or 16 team (with 4 seeds) format.

[Go Lehigh TU Owl]

Maybe they should reduce the field, I think it should be only 8 teams but most here would say 16. I do not believe that even the 7th or 8th seeded teams have a chance for the natty. So I think only the top six have any chance of making it to the natty game but I really believe it is down to NDSU vs JMU. I would go with 8 just so there is not so much crying about teams not being considered but the truth is other than the top 2 no one has a chance. We will see, if it does end up being NDSU v JMU, then all these other games could go away. Really, 28,000 attended 8 games, that proves those games didn't have much merit. And if all these eight games don't have sell outs, the games merit comes into question. I know people don't like to hear this but it is what it is.


I tend to agree with you! The current playoff situation is way to watered down and filled with games that are meaningless. I think 8 is the most teams you need to ensure the truly best of the best are invited. But as a good compromise I'd be in favor of going back 16 as an improvement over the current system. No question 24 is WAY too many.

[LetsGoPeay]

I agree with the reduced number of teams, but I understand why they expanded the field. Unlike the FBS, who have a ton of bowl games that 50 teams not in the 4 team FBS playoffs can go to, the FCS only have the playoffs and the Celebration Bowl for their postseason.

From a money making standpoint, it wouldn't make much sense for the NCAA to reduce the FCS playoffs to 8 teams, when you can make a lot more money by adding more teams and expanding the playoffs. The expanded playoffs give the FCS the most exposure it has all football year. And it's guaranteed to be a nationwide playoff format.

Here's a few predictions.

- The FCS playoffs in 2024, will expand to 32 teams.
- The FCS playoffs will then go to a basketball March Madness style format, where you'll have 4 sections with 8 seeded teams in each section.
- If they go to this format, they may experiment with playing regional/sectional championship games at a neutral site, before playing a championship game
- The FCS Championship game will be moved to Nashville, TN at the end of Frisco, TX contract, which expires in 2024/2025.

All of this will be in an effort to expand attendance and viewership on the lower division. And it will work.

[Professor Chaos]

I tend to agree with you! The current playoff situation is way to watered down and filled with games that are meaningless. I think 8 is the most teams you need to ensure the truly best of the best are invited. But as a good compromise I'd be in favor of going back 16 as an improvement over the current system. No question 24 is WAY too many.
So you'd want a 16 team playoff with no AQs right?

That's exactly what we have right now isn't it? 16 teams and everyone has earned there way here by their play on the field with no automatic qualifiers (to the round of 16 that is - teams make the playoffs because of their AQ not necessarily the round of 16). I don't see what the problem is with more playoff football between teams that will almost certainly be also-rans especially when it allows every FCS conference (that wants one) to have an AQ.

[Hammerhead]

There is no way neutral site games will regularly draw large crowds unless they happen to be near a team with a large fanbase. It costs a lot of money to travel long distances, especially if you have to fly somewhere with a week's notice so many fans would wait until the championship game to spend that money. You're not going to get local fans to attend an FCS playoff game if they don't go to the bowl games now.


I agree with the reduced number of teams, but I understand why they expanded the field. Unlike the FBS, who have a ton of bowl games that 50 teams not in the 4 team FBS playoffs can go to, the FCS only have the playoffs and the Celebration Bowl for their postseason.

From a money making standpoint, it wouldn't make much sense for the NCAA to reduce the FCS playoffs to 8 teams, when you can make a lot more money by adding more teams and expanding the playoffs. The expanded playoffs give the FCS the most exposure it has all football year. And it's guaranteed to be a nationwide playoff format.

Here's a few predictions.

- The FCS playoffs in 2024, will expand to 32 teams.
- The FCS playoffs will then go to a basketball March Madness style format, where you'll have 4 sections with 8 seeded teams in each section.
- If they go to this format, they may experiment with playing regional/sectional championship games at a neutral site, before playing a championship game
- The FCS Championship game will be moved to Nashville, TN at the end of Frisco, TX contract, which expires in 2024/2025.

All of this will be in an effort to expand attendance and viewership on the lower division. And it will work.

[LetsGoPeay]

I tend to agree with you! The current playoff situation is way to watered down and filled with games that are meaningless. I think 8 is the most teams you need to ensure the truly best of the best are invited. But as a good compromise I'd be in favor of going back 16 as an improvement over the current system. No question 24 is WAY too many.

I think the only people who would be in favor of scaling back the field to 16 teams, are the schools and conferences that are traditionally in the field. In a 16 team field, you'd have conferences ( deserving or not ), that would get 4 teams in based on their perceived conference strength, while every one else would be scrambling just to get 1 in, forget a 2nd team. Expanding the field has truly made this a national playoff that all of FCS can get into.

This is why on the FBS level, they'll eventually go to an 8 team playoff format. If the Pac 10 or Big 12 Champ gets left out of the mix, while the SEC gets 2 teams in ( which would happen if Georgia beats LSU in the SEC title game next week ), all hell will break loose on that level. If the bowl system didn't exist on the FBS level, they'd go to a 16 team or 32 team playoff ASAP.

With no bowl system in place for FCS schools, they may look to expand the playoffs to 32, before they retract to 16. Why? Money.

There are 126 schools in FCS. The 8 Ivy league schools won't participate, as well as the SWAC and MEAC champ. Grambling, Southern, and Alabama St all have regular season games that take place during the 1st round, so they've currently excluded themselves as well. So that's 113 schools that are technically eligible for 24 playoff spots ( 21% of schools ).

Would expansion water the field down? Yes. But expansion could make it a lot more regional, which would increase attendance due to fans having to travel less distance "in theory" to 2nd round and quarterfinal games. It'll also put everyone on equal footing, and take away the advantage the top 8 seeds currently have with the bye they get into the 2nd round. It'll make everyone play 5 games to win the championship.

[Bisonoline]

I think the only people who would be in favor of scaling back the field to 16 teams, are the schools and conferences that are traditionally in the field. In a 16 team field, you'd have conferences ( deserving or not ), that would get 4 teams in based on their perceived conference strength, while every one else would be scrambling just to get 1 in, forget a 2nd team. Expanding the field has truly made this a national playoff that all of FCS can get into.

This is why on the FBS level, they'll eventually go to an 8 team playoff format. If the Pac 10 or Big 12 Champ gets left out of the mix, while the SEC gets 2 teams in ( which would happen if Georgia beats LSU in the SEC title game next week ), all hell will break loose on that level. If the bowl system didn't exist on the FBS level, they'd go to a 16 team or 32 team playoff ASAP.

With no bowl system in place for FCS schools, they may look to expand the playoffs to 32, before they retract to 16. Why? Money.

There are 126 schools in FCS. The 8 Ivy league schools won't participate, as well as the SWAC and MEAC champ. Grambling, Southern, and Alabama St all have regular season games that take place during the 1st round, so they've currently excluded themselves as well. So that's 113 schools that are technically eligible for 24 playoff spots ( 21% of schools ).

Would expansion water the field down? Yes. But expansion could make it a lot more regional, which would increase attendance due to fans having to travel less distance "in theory" to 2nd round and quarterfinal games. It'll also put everyone on equal footing, and take away the advantage the top 8 seeds currently have with the bye they get into the 2nd round. It'll make everyone play 5 games to win the championship.

A national tournament shouldnt be regional just so fans can travel. A national tournament is about the best teams playing for the title. Where teams are located should be the least of the worries. You seed your teams 1-16 or what ever number are involved and 1 plays 16 and so forth. Thats a real tournament.

[LetsGoPeay]

There is no way neutral site games will regularly draw large crowds unless they happen to be near a team with a large fanbase. It costs a lot of money to travel long distances, especially if you have to fly somewhere with a week's notice so many fans would wait until the championship game to spend that money. You're not going to get local fans to attend an FCS playoff game if they don't go to the bowl games now.

This was the argument given for years as to why we couldn't have a playoff on the FBS level.

- The fans wouldn't travel to multiple neutral sites
- It cost too much to travel

So first, FBS schools had conference championship games at neutral sites, a week after the regular season was over. The fans showed up.
Then those fans traveled to bowl games 2 - 3 weeks later at neutral sites. The fans showed up.
Then they finally decided to have a 4 team playoff in which the semifinals were played at neutral sites . . sometimes thousands of miles away. The fans showed up for the semifinals
And the championship game is played at a neutral site 8 - 10 days later at a neutral site. The fans showed up again.

I see in your profile that you're a NDSU fan, who is essentially the "Alabama" of the FCS. You're trying to tell me that the "Bison Nation" wouldn't show up in full force to a semifinal game played in St. Louis . . then turn around and show up in full force again for a National Championship game played in Frisco, TX?

I bet $100 you would.

For the record, I'm perfectly fine for playing every round of the championship at the home stadium of the higher seeded or higher bidding site, and keeping the championship game at a neutral location. But to say that fans wouldn't travel to those games is just flat out wrong. You'd save money in preparation to make 2 trips in January. I know I would.

[Bisonoline]

There is no way neutral site games will regularly draw large crowds unless they happen to be near a team with a large fanbase. It costs a lot of money to travel long distances, especially if you have to fly somewhere with a week's notice so many fans would wait until the championship game to spend that money. You're not going to get local fans to attend an FCS playoff game if they don't go to the bowl games now.

You have people who travel to away games during the regular season. We went to Bozeman and Cheney Washington on short notice . The only reason we didnt have thousands of fans there is because there was no ticket allotments at that time and had to go through their ticket office.

[Tazman2664]

Go to 32 for money? How? NO way anyone is making money with an attendance of 4,000. At $20 per ticket that is $80,00 and with all the costs to host a game, to pay the traveling team to come in, no one makes money. And that is if they get 4,000 to attend. Some had less than 2,000. Expand the field and you have more teams traveling and the overall costs go up. And you get more games in which less than 2,000 attend. People will attend if you have a good team that has a chance to win it all. And 16 teams in this playoff have absolutely no chance to even make it to the semis.

Yes the FBS has bowl games but these first 2 round of games are no where close to a bowl game. With 24 teams in, the first round games are a joke, evidence by the attendance. Any good team should be able to draw 10,000, easily. The fact is FCS teams don't have followings because they don't have a chance to win it all, they don't win on a regular basis and do well in the playoffs.

The fact is, you can keep your 24 teams but this playoff is what makes the FCS a joke amongst the FBS. Just how much time did ESPN spend reporting on these games? I bet the Alabama / Auburn game got more attention than all 8 of these games got. Doesn't that tell you something? I know several sportscasters made fun of the Nicholls State issue on Saturday and they spent more time in talking about the tent then they did the game. But I will wait and see, if the top six teams win this weekend my case is made. I don't count the 7th and 8th seed games but in all truth who ever wins those games will have won their last game of the season.

[NY Crusader 2010]

Go to 32 for money? How? NO way anyone is making money with an attendance of 4,000. At $20 per ticket that is $80,00 and with all the costs to host a game, to pay the traveling team to come in, no one makes money. And that is if they get 4,000 to attend. Some had less than 2,000. Expand the field and you have more teams traveling and the overall costs go up. And you get more games in which less than 2,000 attend. People will attend if you have a good team that has a chance to win it all. And 16 teams in this playoff have absolutely no chance to even make it to the semis.

Yes the FBS has bowl games but these first 2 round of games are no where close to a bowl game. With 24 teams in, the first round games are a joke, evidence by the attendance. Any good team should be able to draw 10,000, easily. The fact is FCS teams don't have followings because they don't have a chance to win it all, they don't win on a regular basis and do well in the playoffs.

The fact is, you can keep your 24 teams but this playoff is what makes the FCS a joke amongst the FBS. Just how much time did ESPN spend reporting on these games? I bet the Alabama / Auburn game got more attention than all 8 of these games got. Doesn't that tell you something? I know several sportscasters made fun of the Nicholls State issue on Saturday and they spent more time in talking about the tent then they did the game. But I will wait and see, if the top six teams win this weekend my case is made. I don't count the 7th and 8th seed games but in all truth who ever wins those games will have won their last game of the season.

Why would FCS pillow-fight Saturday ever get more attention than one of the most storied rivalry games in major college football -- a game that in recent years has annually pitted a Top 5 team and a Top 10 team?

Pretty sure the FCS National Championship gets less coverage than the Super Bowl too. Oh the horror!!

But YES I agree with you expanding beyond 24 teams would be stupid. I would prefer to go back to 20 (10 auto / 10 at large) and give the Top 12 byes.

[LetsGoPeay]

A national tournament shouldnt be regional just so fans can travel. A national tournament is about the best teams playing for the title. Where teams are located should be the least of the worries. You seed your teams 1-16 or what ever number are involved and 1 plays 16 and so forth. Thats a real tournament.

I agree.

So why the 400 mile stipulation for travel for 1st round matchups in the FCS?

Also, in a true seeded tournament, 9 - 24 would be seeded and matched up accordingly

- #9 plays #24 . . . . to play #8
- #10 plays #23 . . . to play #7
- #11 plays #22 . . . to play #6
- #12 plays #21 . . . to play #5

- #13 plays #20 . . . to play #4
- #14 plays #19 . . . to play #3
- #15 plays #18 . . . to play #2
- #16 plays #17 . . . to play #1

I would say that they didn't set up the 1st round in this format. No way they deduced that Illinois St was the #9 seed, while SEMO was #24.

[Bisonoline]

I agree.

atchups in the FCS? So why the 400 mile stipulation for travel for 1st round m

Also, in a true seeded tournament, 9 - 24 would be seeded and matched up accordingly



- #9 plays #24 . . . . to play #8
- #10 plays #23 . . . to play #7
- #11 plays #22 . . . to play #6
- #12 plays #21 . . . to play #5

- #13 plays #20 . . . to play #4
- #14 plays #19 . . . to play #3
- #15 plays #18 . . . to play #2
- #16 plays #17 . . . to play #1

I would say that they didn't set up the 1st round in this format. No way they deduced that Illinois St was the #9 seed, while SEMO was #24.

To save money. No Im not ****ting you.

[Professor Chaos]

This was the argument given for years as to why we couldn't have a playoff on the FBS level.

- The fans wouldn't travel to multiple neutral sites
- It cost too much to travel

So first, FBS schools had conference championship games at neutral sites, a week after the regular season was over. The fans showed up.
Then those fans traveled to bowl games 2 - 3 weeks later at neutral sites. The fans showed up.
Then they finally decided to have a 4 team playoff in which the semifinals were played at neutral sites . . sometimes thousands of miles away. The fans showed up for the semifinals
And the championship game is played at a neutral site 8 - 10 days later at a neutral site. The fans showed up again.

I see in your profile that you're a NDSU fan, who is essentially the "Alabama" of the FCS. You're trying to tell me that the "Bison Nation" wouldn't show up in full force to a semifinal game played in St. Louis . . then turn around and show up in full force again for a National Championship game played in Frisco, TX?

I bet $100 you would.

For the record, I'm perfectly fine for playing every round of the championship at the home stadium of the higher seeded or higher bidding site, and keeping the championship game at a neutral location. But to say that fans wouldn't travel to those games is just flat out wrong. You'd save money in preparation to make 2 trips in January. I know I would.
That was not the primary argument against an FBS playoff, the primary was always that it would devalue the regular season and, for those who enjoyed bull****ting, that it would be too much of a strain on the student-athletes academically to play extra games in December.

NDSU fans would show up to a neutral site semifinal but a lot less than how many show up to Frisco these days. In turn less fans would go to Frisco because those who went to the semifinal might not have the time or the dough to make two of those trips. NDSU is also a massive outlier in terms of traveling fan support when it comes to FBS. Playoff attendance at home venues is pretty poor (and not just on Thanksgiving weekend) for the vast majority of FCS schools... neutral sites would be even worse.

[Hood]

With all due respect to the fans of University of North Dakota, I would have LOVED to have had Nicholls meet up with the SWAC champ in round 1 of the playoffs (their house or ours, doesn't matter). The travel for either visitor would have been minimal and the attendance would have been out of this world.

You don't know eye popping numbers at the FCS level until your historically low attendance stadium hosts Grambling, Southern, Texas Southern, and similar conference members show up with tens and thousands of students and alumni injecting your local economy with more money than you can imagine for a small town like Thibodaux.

You fan bases with historically winning traditions take your sell outs for granted. Nab a home and home with a university rich in tradition like our SWAC neighbors, or secure a home playoff game with them as the visitor (in the context of this debate) and that less than 8,000 in Thibodaux suddenly becomes "Nicholls had to get the portable bleachers out of the mothballs to accommodate the visiting fans."

I don't even care that Grambling whooped our butts in '01. Short of McNeese visiting, we've never had a visiting crowd as large since we played Southern in '96.

The NCAA works out a logistical way for the Classics to happen AND allow the SWAC and MEAC become autobid, we'll really see some fun matchups AND cash infusion in many communities should our proposed new playoff members have to go on the road.

Jokes, passive aggressiveness, or whatever other negativity that posters choose to lobby at proposed head to head matchups won't mean a thing once the whistle blows and its 11 student athletes against 11 student athletes.

But I'm not a decision maker, I just want to see everyone to be happy, and well for me more football makes me happy.

[Hammerhead]

FBS teams have fans across the country who may not have to travel far for playoff games.

[Blue Waves Crest]

Yes the FBS has bowl games but these first 2 round of games are no where close to a bowl game. With 24 teams in, the first round games are a joke, evidence by the attendance. Any good team should be able to draw 10,000, easily. The fact is FCS teams don't have followings because they don't have a chance to win it all, they don't win on a regular basis and do well in the playoffs.

Don’t you think the teams that are drawing less than 10K are doing so because the schools themselves are tiny and the stadiums are tiny, not because the games have no championship implication? Take a look around the landscape, most FCS schools are not large-enrollment state universities, they’re small private schools ballin on a budget lol

Someone correct me if I’m wrong with stats on enrollment and public/private. For us in NJ when Rutgers doesn’t draw well we know it’s because they suck and the fans aren’t interested, not because they’re a little private school just trying to have sports teams. This isn’t FBS so don’t treat it like FBS and have FBS-like expectations

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[LetsGoPeay]

Don’t you think the teams that are drawing less than 10K are doing so because the schools themselves are tiny and the stadiums are tiny, not because the games have no championship implication? Take a look around the landscape, most FCS schools are not large-enrollment state universities, they’re small private schools ballin on a budget lol

Someone correct me if I’m wrong with stats on enrollment and public/private. For us in NJ when Rutgers doesn’t draw well we know it’s because they suck and the fans aren’t interested, not because they’re a little private school just trying to have sports teams. This isn’t FBS so don’t treat it like FBS and have FBS-like expectations

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This is exactly right. There's no way people should be expecting smaller schools to be drawing 10,000+ to football games. The most important thing that should be happening, is figuring out ways to maximize attendance. Eventually, the NCAA will have to determine how fair it is to these schools playing in the playoffs, to hold 1st round games on the biggest travel weekend of the year. They're undercutting themselves by doing this.

[LetsGoPeay]

To save money. No Im not ****ting you.

Exactly. To save money.

That's why they may expand the playoffs, before they will contract.

Here's how an 4 quadrant playoff may look. The goal is to at least put 2 of the top 8 seeded teams in each quadrant, and stage the rest of the teams in that quadrant as regional as possible. I don't believe that Montana should've been seeded, after getting waxed by Montana St. So I'm knocking them out, and giving a top 8 seed to Monmouth.

First, I have to add 8 more teams to the mix, to get to 32 teams: ( in no particular order )

- S. Illinois
- E. Washington
- South Carolina St.
- UT Martin
- Sam Houston St
- N. Hampshire
- Bethune-Cookman
- E. Kentucky

Quad #1

- James Madison ( 1 seed )
- Holy Cross ( 8 )
- Central Conn ( 4 )
- Albany ( 5 )

- Villanova ( 3 )
- E. Kentucky ( 6 )
- Monmouth ( 2 )
- N. Hampshire ( 7 )


Quad #2

- S. Dakota St ( 1 )
- Bethune-Cookman ( 8 )
- Wofford ( 4 )
- Kennesaw St ( 5 )

- C. Arkansas ( 2 )
- SC State ( 7 )
- Austin Peay ( 3 )
- Furman ( 6 )


Quad #3

- NDSU ( 1 )
- UT Martin ( 8 )
- Illinois St ( 4 )
- SEMO ( 5 )

- Montana St ( 2 )
- S. Illinois ( 7 )
- N. Iowa ( 3 )
- Nicholls ( 6 )


Quad #4

- Weber St ( 1 )
- San Diego ( 8 )
- SELA ( 5 )
- N. Dakota ( 4 )

- Sacramento St ( 2 )
- E. Washington ( 7 )
- S. Houston St ( 6 )
- Montana ( 3 )


While there are some outliers, this is a much more doable setup that attempts to keep the teams somewhat together regionally through the first 3 rounds.

It'll probably never happen . . . but it should.

[Bisonoline]

Exactly. To save money.

That's why they may expand the playoffs, before they will contract.

Here's how an 4 quadrant playoff may look. The goal is to at least put 2 of the top 8 seeded teams in each quadrant, and stage the rest of the teams in that quadrant as regional as possible. I don't believe that Montana should've been seeded, after getting waxed by Montana St. So I'm knocking them out, and giving a top 8 seed to Monmouth.

First, I have to add 8 more teams to the mix, to get to 32 teams: ( in no particular order )

- S. Illinois
- E. Washington
- South Carolina St.
- UT Martin
- Sam Houston St
- N. Hampshire
- Bethune-Cookman
- E. Kentucky

Quad #1

- James Madison ( 1 seed )
- Holy Cross ( 8 )
- Central Conn ( 4 )
- Albany ( 5 )

- Villanova ( 3 )
- E. Kentucky ( 6 )
- Monmouth ( 2 )
- N. Hampshire ( 7 )


Quad #2

- S. Dakota St ( 1 )
- Bethune-Cookman ( 8 )
- Wofford ( 4 )
- Kennesaw St ( 5 )

- C. Arkansas ( 2 )
- SC State ( 7 )
- Austin Peay ( 3 )
- Furman ( 6 )


Quad #3

- NDSU ( 1 )
- UT Martin ( 8 )
- Illinois St ( 4 )
- SEMO ( 5 )

- Montana St ( 2 )
- S. Illinois ( 7 )
- N. Iowa ( 3 )
- Nicholls ( 6 )


Quad #4

- Weber St ( 1 )
- San Diego ( 8 )
- SELA ( 5 )
- N. Dakota ( 4 )

- Sacramento St ( 2 )
- E. Washington ( 7 )
- S. Houston St ( 6 )
- Montana ( 3 )


While there are some outliers, this is a much more doable setup that attempts to keep the teams somewhat together regionally through the first 3 rounds.

It'll probably never happen . . . but it should.

JFC nobody like regionalization now and its what we want to get away from. Not make it bigger. Youve already got teams in the playoff that shouldnt be there.

[JMU2K_DukeDawg]

Don’t you think the teams that are drawing less than 10K are doing so because the schools themselves are tiny and the stadiums are tiny, not because the games have no championship implication? Take a look around the landscape, most FCS schools are not large-enrollment state universities, they’re small private schools ballin on a budget lol

Someone correct me if I’m wrong with stats on enrollment and public/private. For us in NJ when Rutgers doesn’t draw well we know it’s because they suck and the fans aren’t interested, not because they’re a little private school just trying to have sports teams. This isn’t FBS so don’t treat it like FBS and have FBS-like expectations

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Sort of depends on the conference. Most CAA schools (exceptions are W&M, Villanova, UR) are in the 15-30K range (largest is Stony Brook at 27K enrollment; Delaware and JMU also quite large). MVFC also has enrollments in the teens mostly, but 26K for Missouri State, no schools <10K enrollment. In the Big Sky, UC-Davis has nearly 40K enrollment. Southland has SELA and SHSU with 15K and over 20K respectively. Definitely more public institutions that private as well. In year's past Marshall, Boise St., UMass, UConn, UCF, USF, along with the more recent FBS joiners made the FCS even more split between medium- and small-sized schools.

There's a reason for basketball many of these schools/conferences are considered mid-major. The schools are not necessarily tiny; priorities with funding are just different. And like all things in life, priorities can change (or not) over time.

Sorry for any defensiveness - I guess it's just frustrating have the "small school" label when your institution has won NCAA Division I championships, or come close (e.g., College World Series), and when I tell people JMU has over 20K undergrad students I get this "whoa" expression from those not from VA. Regional university? Yes. Small school? Not really. Believe me, when a letter about COA leaked from JMU pre-maturely that listed a bunch of private schools and smaller public institutions as peers, our alumni that donate to sports were quite spun up and it made it clear where our future football aspirations lie (i.e., not with FBS).

Re: Original Topic - for JMU, as much as it pains me to admit it, the colder weather affects attendance for playoffs. Also, although we do extremely well for the regular season in filling our 25K stadium, the fact that students must pay for playoff tickets keeps the casual college students from attending (especially given the usually colder temps in Dec). After years of moderate success (nothing like NDSU's run mind you) I think the overall event has lost some of its shine, though nationally televised games always bring out more students if/when we get to the semi finals. We have a fan base that can rival UVA and VT - it's a sleeping giant mostly located in the DC area - look at our recent ESPN GameDay participation as proof. However, unlike UVA and to a lesser degree VT, I find our more passionate fans are from Richmond/Va Beach or other regional mid-Atlantic areas without as much of a professional sports presence.

Oh - and the budget thing - yeah, those private schools usually have damn fine endowments. JMU's is frankly pathetic and exhibit A for why the school is still a FCS school. One of the great mysteries in life - how our students and alumni love our alma mater so passionately yet give back so little. It's dumbfounding really.

[Anthony215]

The numbers will all drastically increase this week with games at JMU, NDSU, SDSU and Montana. Thanksgiving weekend is always poor attendance for FCS, D2 and D3 playoff games.

[Professor]

Does anyone know what these school bid to have home games?

Did anyone make money or break even this weekend

[Outsider1]

Don’t you think the teams that are drawing less than 10K are doing so because the schools themselves are tiny and the stadiums are tiny, not because the games have no championship implication? Take a look around the landscape, most FCS schools are not large-enrollment state universities, they’re small private schools ballin on a budget lol

Someone correct me if I’m wrong with stats on enrollment and public/private. For us in NJ when Rutgers doesn’t draw well we know it’s because they suck and the fans aren’t interested, not because they’re a little private school just trying to have sports teams. This isn’t FBS so don’t treat it like FBS and have FBS-like expectations

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Yes and no... ACU is only 5k students. We can draw 10-12k at a football game occaisionally. Our brand new stadium holds 12k. Our average attendance is around 8-9k now that the newness of the stadium is worn off. Still, IF we advertised well and offered incentives, we could still fill the stadium depending on WHEN the game was held. I think being Thanksgiving weekend did have a lot to do with lower numbers, but this coming weekend will tell more.

**I would add that performance does affect attendance, but making it to the playoffs would make a positive impact on that.**

[Grizzlies82]

Does anyone know what these school bid to have home games?

Did anyone make money or break even this weekend

Teams seeded 1 thru 8 are given a home game. The amount they bid doesn’t matter.
If they hadn’t received seed then their bid amounts would determine if they host a game.

I believe Montana typically makes a small amount hosting games (NCAA takes most of it). Yet with 15,000 to 20,000 fans there the town greatly benefits since half are from outside of Missoula

[Professor]

Teams seeded 1 thru 8 are given a home game. The amount they bid doesn’t matter.
If they hadn’t received seed then their bid amounts would determine if they host a game.

I believe Montana typically makes a small amount hosting games (NCAA takes most of it). Yet with 15,000 to 20,000 fans there the town greatly benefits since half are from outside of Missoula

OK cool

I was moreso interested in the teams that hosted this past weekend

[Panther88]

OK cool

I was moreso interested in the teams that hosted this past weekend

The silence of responses is quite deafening and VERY telling, imho.

So, what are the profitable hosting #s from this past weekend's first round games? I'm highly curious.

[MSUBobcat]

OK cool

I was moreso interested in the teams that hosted this past weekend

Minimum bid for 1st round is $30,000. 2nd round is $40,000 (which is completely unnecessary, as there is no possible way for 2 unseeded teams to play this weekend). It is $50,000 for a quarterfinal and $60,000 for a semifinal, but a QF or semi between 2 non-seeded teams is highly unlikely. Seeded teams always get the home field, regardless of how much they bid prior to finding out their fate on Selection Sunday.

[JayJ79]

Minimum bid for 1st round is $30,000. 2nd round is $40,000 (which is completely unnecessary, as there is no possible way for 2 unseeded teams to play this weekend). It is $50,000 for a quarterfinal and $60,000 for a semifinal, but a QF or semi between 2 non-seeded teams is highly unlikely. Seeded teams always get the home field, regardless of how much they bid prior to finding out their fate on Selection Sunday.
I believe that seeded teams still have to meet the minimum "bid". And teams have to bid (with a separate bid amount for each round) before they know whether they are seeded, or who they are matched up with, or even if they made the tournament for sure.
Obviously some teams know that they will get a seed prior to the bid deadline, but that's not always the case.

I do think that if a seeded team hadn't submitted a bid for a particular round in which they would host due to being the higher seed, then they are offered the chance to make the minimum "bid" for that round.

But seeded teams still have to pay that minimum amount (or ~75% of the gate revenue, whichever is higher) to be able to host.

[JayJ79]

The silence of responses is...
due to bid amounts not generally being announced to the public.
Not sure if that sort of thing would be subject to FOIA or whatever, but that's more hassle than I'm willing to go through for silly internet argueing

[MSUBobcat]

I believe that seeded teams still have to meet the minimum "bid". And teams have to bid (with a separate bid amount for each round) before they know whether they are seeded, or who they are matched up with, or even if they made the tournament for sure.
Obviously some teams know that they will get a seed prior to the bid deadline, but that's not always the case.

I do think that if a seeded team hadn't submitted a bid for a particular round in which they would host due to being the higher seed, then they are offered the chance to make the minimum "bid" for that round.

But seeded teams still have to pay that minimum amount (or ~75% of the gate revenue, whichever is higher) to be able to host.

Apologies if that was unclear, but, yes, seeded teams still have to pay the minimum for the round to host and I believe they pay the GREATER of their bid or 75% of estimated NET receipts as submitted on their proposed budget. That still basically leaves teams only competing in the first round for higher bids. A team that is assured of a seed, a la NDSU and JMU, can submit the minimum for all rounds. A team that is not assured a bid needs to bid high for the 1st round to host the game in case they don't get a seed, but 99 times out of 100, bidding more than the minimum on the other rounds would be pissing in the wind since the higher seed would always host as long as they've bid the minimum for the round. Doesn't hurt to throw out bids for those rounds on the minute chance that 2 unseeded teams make the QF and/or semis, but it likely won't matter.

[Professor]

I'm wondering is it better to just play a road game and not bid due to the historical low attendance in the 1st round. Because it doesn't look like the schools are getting a return on investment

[Professor Chaos]

Does anyone know what these school bid to have home games?

Did anyone make money or break even this weekend
Only bid I heard reported was UND's bid of $75K which was apparently outbid by Nicholls (who I heard bid $80K on their first round game last year).

I'm pretty sure most schools are fairly conservative with their bids because the NCAA takes the bid amount or 75% or the gate receipts (whichever is higher). Assuming UND sold tickets for an average of $25 per ticket they'd have to sell 4,000+ to get that 75% of gate receipts up above their bid amount... that's pretty conservative since they averaged over 9k in the regular season and, according to their AD, that $75k bid was "very aggressive".

I would guess that all the schools that hosted last weekend sent that 75% gate receipt number to the NCAA not their bid number but I don't think any of that is made public (although you could probably get it through a FOI request for any public schools if you really wanted).

[Chalupa Batman]

The numbers will all drastically increase this week with games at JMU, NDSU, SDSU and Montana. Thanksgiving weekend is always poor attendance for FCS, D2 and D3 playoff games.

I doubt SDSU will help with the attendance numbers this weekend, but Montana State also hosting will.

[MSUBobcat]

I doubt SDSU will help with the attendance numbers this weekend, but Montana State also hosting will.

Central Arkansas and SDSU seem to be the weak link for attendance this week. Central Arkansas had a nice start to the year, averaging about 10k, but in the 2 games in November it dropped to 5,900. I'd hope they get close to the season average of 8,500.
SDSU had only 3k in Round 2 last year but 7,300 against this week's foe UNI just 2 weeks ago. Hopefully they can at least replicate that number.
Weber had 9k in this round last year, so I imagine that will be matched or exceeded this year.
Sac State is in a nice climate, large metro area and enjoying unprecedented success. They've had 10k+, with 20k for the Causeway Classic. I think they'll be in the teens.
JMU got 16,500 in 2017, so I'm guessing they'll be around 18k in their 25k seat stadium.
I expect NDSU, UM and MSU will be near capacity (MSU's visitor/suite side is virtually sold out already only 3 hours in).

Overall attendance should be in the 110k-120k range. NCAA has to be pretty happy that Colgate (6,400), KSU (3,500), Maine (6,100), EWU (5,200) and, less so Davis (8,300) have been replaced by JMU, UM, MSU, Sac State, and less so Central Arkansas. UM alone should out-attend the Colgate, KSU, Maine and EWU attendances combined.

[Chalupa Batman]

Central Arkansas and SDSU seem to be the weak link for attendance this week. Central Arkansas had a nice start to the year, averaging about 10k, but in the 2 games in November it dropped to 5,900. I'd hope they get close to the season average of 8,500.
SDSU had only 3k in Round 2 last year but 7,300 against this week's foe UNI just 2 weeks ago. Hopefully they can at least replicate that number.
Weber had 9k in this round last year, so I imagine that will be matched or exceeded this year.
Sac State is in a nice climate, large metro area and enjoying unprecedented success. They've had 10k+, with 20k for the Causeway Classic. I think they'll be in the teens.
JMU got 16,500 in 2017, so I'm guessing they'll be around 18k in their 25k seat stadium.
I expect NDSU, UM and MSU will be near capacity (MSU's visitor/suite side is virtually sold out already only 3 hours in).

Overall attendance should be in the 110k-120k range. NCAA has to be pretty happy that Colgate (6,400), KSU (3,500), Maine (6,100), EWU (5,200) and, less so Davis (8,300) have been replaced by JMU, UM, MSU, Sac State, and less so Central Arkansas. UM alone should out-attend the Colgate, KSU, Maine and EWU attendances combined.

I would say your estimate for SDSU's attendance this week should be pretty close. It appears that students will be able to get in free this week, hopefully they get a nice boost from that as well.

https://twitter.com/GoJacksSDSU/status/1201528707912912896

Last years attendance for SDSU wasn't going to approach 7300 again, but it was hurt by 2 things. One, the men's basketball team was playing Northern Iowa at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis that same night. That game was announced in late August I believe and I'm guessing a good number of fans made plans to attend that game far ahead of time. Also there was a pretty good snowstorm that came through that day that likely deterred a lot of fans that might have still attended from travelling.

2017 against UNH was 5,500 and 2016 against Villanova was 6,100, I'd say those figures would be the normal expectation in Brookings for non-MVFC opponents.

[neverobeyed]

Only bid I heard reported was UND's bid of $75K which was apparently outbid by Nicholls (who I heard bid $80K on their first round game last year).

I'm pretty sure most schools are fairly conservative with their bids because the NCAA takes the bid amount or 75% or the gate receipts (whichever is higher). Assuming UND sold tickets for an average of $25 per ticket they'd have to sell 4,000+ to get that 75% of gate receipts up above their bid amount... that's pretty conservative since they averaged over 9k in the regular season and, according to their AD, that $75k bid was "very aggressive".

I would guess that all the schools that hosted last weekend sent that 75% gate receipt number to the NCAA not their bid number but I don't think any of that is made public (although you could probably get it through a FOI request for any public schools if you really wanted).

Which might explain why they use turnstyle count as opposed to regular season games, which may include all ticket sales (including those bought but not used, season ticket seats ... are comps in that number as well?).

And, don't programs take at least some of the concessions and other game day revenue (foam fingers, parking, etc.)?

[Professor Chaos]

Which might explain why they use turnstyle count as opposed to regular season games, which may include all ticket sales (including those bought but not used, season ticket seats ... are comps in that number as well?).

And, don't programs take at least some of the concessions and other game day revenue (foam fingers, parking, etc.)?
Exactly why they use turnstile counts rather than tickets sold. That way 100% of a ticket that is sold but not used goes to the host school rather than only 25% of it.

I'm fairly certain that all concessions, parking, and any other gameday revenue goes to the host school like it would for a regular season game. There was an article back in January 2013 that said that the 3 NDSU home playoff games that previous December upped the Fargodome's budget surplus by $65-$75K: https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/2186214-bison-push-fargodome-deeper-black

[BEAR]

Central Arkansas and SDSU seem to be the weak link for attendance this week. Central Arkansas had a nice start to the year, averaging about 10k, but in the 2 games in November it dropped to 5,900. I'd hope they get close to the season average of 8,500.


https://i.imgflip.com/3i7h36.jpg



Nearly half a million hunters will go afield today in hopes of bagging a whitetailed deer during opening day of modern gun deer season.


https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2019/nov/09/modern-gun-deer-season-hits-state-20191-1/

[Kabooom]

https://i.imgflip.com/3i7h36.jpg



xsmiley_wixThink I'll pass on the drama side, and settle for the lap-cat on the right...

[neverobeyed]

Exactly why they use turnstile counts rather than tickets sold. That way 100% of a ticket that is sold but not used goes to the host school rather than only 25% of it.

I'm fairly certain that all concessions, parking, and any other gameday revenue goes to the host school like it would for a regular season game. There was an article back in January 2013 that said that the 3 NDSU home playoff games that previous December upped the Fargodome's budget surplus by $65-$75K: https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/2186214-bison-push-fargodome-deeper-black

Thank you, Professor.

[Tazman2664]

The process is bids are taken between the penultimate and last Saturday's of the regular season (thus the opponent against which a team is bidding is not known at the time the bid is submitted and further teams on the bubble do not know if they will make the playoffs). The minimum bid is $30,000 and only a single bid can be made by each team and it is placed without knowledge of what any other team will bid. The NCAA takes between 75% of paid attendance or the bid, which ever is the larger one. The NCAA reimburses teams for travel expenses to and from the game for the players and the coaching staff.

It is estimated that a game has to have at least 7500 in attendance to breakeven. Thus, I would believe that all of the first round games lost money for their schools. So complaining about not getting a bid might be that a school did not want to place a big enough bid for fear they would loose money on the deal. Would you rather breakeven with travel costs or loose money hosting a game? And there could very well be multiple games this Saturday that do not take in 7500.

Most of the schools in the FCS cannot loose money on such endeavors. There is a rumor that JMU is looking to move up to FBS because of this. The TV money for an FCS game is very little when sharing amongst the FCS schools while playing at the FBS level you get a share of their TV revenue and they play more than 100's times more games on TV, in both football and basketball, so that revenue could be lucrative for such a school like JMU. Basically, this is why teams have moved from the FCS to the FBS.

[Professor Chaos]

The process is bids are taken between the penultimate and last Saturday's of the regular season (thus the opponent against which a team is bidding is not known at the time the bid is submitted and further teams on the bubble do not know if they will make the playoffs). The minimum bid is $30,000 and only a single bid can be made by each team and it is placed without knowledge of what any other team will bid. The NCAA takes between 75% of paid attendance or the bid, which ever is the larger one. The NCAA reimburses teams for travel expenses to and from the game for the players and the coaching staff.

It is estimated that a game has to have at least 7500 in attendance to breakeven. Thus, I would believe that all of the first round games lost money for their schools. So complaining about not getting a bid might be that a school did not want to place a big enough bid for fear they would loose money on the deal. Would you rather breakeven with travel costs or loose money hosting a game? And there could very well be multiple games this Saturday that do not take in 7500.

Most of the schools in the FCS cannot loose money on such endeavors. There is a rumor that JMU is looking to move up to FBS because of this. The TV money for an FCS game is very little when sharing amongst the FCS schools while playing at the FBS level you get a share of their TV revenue and they play more than 100's times more games on TV, in both football and basketball, so that revenue could be lucrative for such a school like JMU. Basically, this is why teams have moved from the FCS to the FBS.
How do you figure you need 7500 to break even on a $30K bid? A school would only need to generate $40k of ticket revenue to do that. So you're saying schools on average are charging about $5 per ticket? That's not even possible for rounds past the first round unless a school had face value for a regular season game at that same price. I doubt any host school lost money submitting the minimum bid. Even Wofford only drawing 2k would've made the minimum bid charging $20 per ticket on average.

Also, at the FBS level (and FCS level for that matter) you get a share of your conference's TV contract not the entire subdivision's TV contract. TV contract money in the G5 isn't very much. MAC schools get less than $200K per year from their TV deals and I'd bet Sun Belt and CUSA aren't too far ahead of that.

[Tazman2664]

How do you figure you need 7500 to break even on a $30K bid? A school would only need to generate $40k of ticket revenue to do that. So you're saying schools on average are charging about $5 per ticket? That's not even possible for rounds past the first round unless a school had face value for a regular season game at that same price. I doubt any host school lost money submitting the minimum bid. Even Wofford only drawing 2k would've made the minimum bid charging $20 per ticket on average.

Also, at the FBS level (and FCS level for that matter) you get a share of your conference's TV contract not the entire subdivision's TV contract. TV contract money in the G5 isn't very much. MAC schools get less than $200K per year from their TV deals and I'd bet Sun Belt and CUSA aren't too far ahead of that.

That is assuming they got it for the minimum bid. Thus, if you get a bid of $30,000 and you get 2,000 to attend the ticket costs would have to be $15 per, just to cover the bid. Then there is the facility costs, like staffing it and all the upkeep. For example, in Montana and SD there has to be the costs associated with cleaning the snow out of the stands and off the field, costs to staff the facility, costs to pay grounds keepers for the game, etc. The facility has to be kept in running condition to use when talking about outside facilities. Someone said last year Nicholls bid $80,000 to get their game. At 3,000 attendance that means the ticket costs would have to be over $26 per to cover just the bid and then who pays for the facility staff and up keep? I don't think you get the bid at $30,000.

The 7500 number was floated some years back when NDSU was hosting a playoff game and the person in charge with running the facility was interviewed. He talked about what it took to cover the costs associated with the game and the amount was like $150,000, was much higher than I had thought it would cost and the number of attendees needed was 7500. But he talked about a lot of costs that I had never thought about, like security. He had said that the contract for security was like $10,000. They have to handle the tailgaters outside and then all the people inside. Now I know for NDSU it might cost more than most since their crowd is over 15,000 but still, I never even thought about that cost. And there where many more costs.

[Professor Chaos]

That is assuming they got it for the minimum bid. Thus, if you get a bid of $30,000 and you get 2,000 to attend the ticket costs would have to be $15 per, just to cover the bid. Then there is the facility costs, like staffing it and all the upkeep. For example, in Montana and SD there has to be the costs associated with cleaning the snow out of the stands and off the field, costs to staff the facility, costs to pay grounds keepers for the game, etc. The facility has to be kept in running condition to use when talking about outside facilities. Someone said last year Nicholls bid $80,000 to get their game. At 3,000 attendance that means the ticket costs would have to be over $26 per to cover just the bid and then who pays for the facility staff and up keep? I don't think you get the bid at $30,000.

The 7500 number was floated some years back when NDSU was hosting a playoff game and the person in charge with running the facility was interviewed. He talked about what it took to cover the costs associated with the game and the amount was like $150,000, was much higher than I had thought it would cost and the number of attendees needed was 7500. But he talked about a lot of costs that I had never thought about, like security. He had said that the contract for security was like $10,000. They have to handle the tailgaters outside and then all the people inside. Now I know for NDSU it might cost more than most since their crowd is over 15,000 but still, I never even thought about that cost. And there where many more costs.
Fair enough, I see where you're coming from. Although in Nicholls case they drew 9,500 the year before on Thanksgiving so they had reason to believe they could draw enough to make that $80k an arbitrary amount since 75% of the gate was likely to exceed that.

Facility costs do add up though I bet. I'd be interested to see an interview with an admin at one of these schools to get an idea of whether 25% of the gate plus concessions, parking, etc covers the cost it takes to operate the whole facility when they have 5k or less in attendance. I'd guess the answer would depend on the facility.

[ElCid]

This is exactly right. There's no way people should be expecting smaller schools to be drawing 10,000+ to football games. The most important thing that should be happening, is figuring out ways to maximize attendance. Eventually, the NCAA will have to determine how fair it is to these schools playing in the playoffs, to hold 1st round games on the biggest travel weekend of the year. They're undercutting themselves by doing this.

Well, the last we hosted in the first round in 16 we drew more than 10k. We are pretty small. About 2400 undergrad.

[Tazman2664]

Well, the last we hosted in the first round in 16 we drew more than 10k. We are pretty small. About 2400 undergrad.

Understood, what was your bid for that year and the price of a ticket? But this years average was 3500, so what would you think about getting that to cover your bid? I think if everyone could draw 10K, then this whole topic would not be issue but from what is being posted, it is appearing that most, if not the vast majority, of the schools in FCS would probably draw 3500 so I am thinking a bid of say $75,000 probably would be a bid that looses money.

Here in ND, NDSU is a draw and I think that is because we don't have the Alabama's, Clemson's, Florida's, Penn State, Ohio State, USC, etc. to take away the attention. We have Minnesota. They are doing good but nothing that will take the attention away form NDSU. I know SDSU played them this year but the last time NDSU played Minnesota, NDSU beat them so they will not schedule them. Heck SDSU played them really well this year so I think they will not schedule SDSU any time soon. Thus, most FCS schools struggle with attendance because of the lack of focus on them which creates a huge problem with bidding on these types of games.

[Tazman2664]

Well, the last we hosted in the first round in 16 we drew more than 10k. We are pretty small. About 2400 undergrad.

Understood, what was your bid for that year and the price of a ticket? But this years average was 3500, so what would you think about getting that to cover your bid? I think if everyone could draw 10K, then this whole topic would not be issue but from what is being posted, it is appearing that most, if not the vast majority, of the schools in FCS would probably draw 3500 so I am thinking a bid of say $75,000 probably would be a bid that looses money.

Here in ND, NDSU is a draw and I think that is because we don't have the Alabama's, Clemson's, Florida's, Penn State, Ohio State, USC, etc. to take away the attention. We have Minnesota. They are doing good but nothing that will take the attention away form NDSU. I know SDSU played them this year but the last time NDSU played Minnesota, NDSU beat them so they will not schedule them. Heck SDSU played them really well this year so I think they will not schedule SDSU any time soon. Thus, most FCS schools struggle with attendance because of the lack of focus on them which creates a huge problem with bidding on these types of games. I will be very interested to see what the attendance is for this weekend. How many will get over 10K?

[ElCid]

Understood, what was your bid for that year and the price of a ticket? But this years average was 3500, so what would you think about getting that to cover your bid? I think if everyone could draw 10K, then this whole topic would not be issue but from what is being posted, it is appearing that most, if not the vast majority, of the schools in FCS would probably draw 3500 so I am thinking a bid of say $75,000 probably would be a bid that looses money.

Here in ND, NDSU is a draw and I think that is because we don't have the Alabama's, Clemson's, Florida's, Penn State, Ohio State, USC, etc. to take away the attention. We have Minnesota. They are doing good but nothing that will take the attention away form NDSU. I know SDSU played them this year but the last time NDSU played Minnesota, NDSU beat them so they will not schedule them. Heck SDSU played them really well this year so I think they will not schedule SDSU any time soon. Thus, most FCS schools struggle with attendance because of the lack of focus on them which creates a huge problem with bidding on these types of games. I will be very interested to see what the attendance is for this weekend. How many will get over 10K?


Actually my bad. It was second round that year. Not sure of bid. I am thinking most reserved seats were $40. And you are right, every time SC or Clemson are at home, we have to compete. In 15 in round one, we were at CCU and had shy of 7K but we made up at least half of crowd. I am not sure that size of school matters entirely. Fan support is good at a few smaller schools.

[Blue Waves Crest]

Sort of depends on the conference. Most CAA schools (exceptions are W&M, Villanova, UR) are in the 15-30K range (largest is Stony Brook at 27K enrollment; Delaware and JMU also quite large). MVFC also has enrollments in the teens mostly, but 26K for Missouri State, no schools <10K enrollment. In the Big Sky, UC-Davis has nearly 40K enrollment. Southland has SELA and SHSU with 15K and over 20K respectively. Definitely more public institutions that private as well. In year's past Marshall, Boise St., UMass, UConn, UCF, USF, along with the more recent FBS joiners made the FCS even more split between medium- and small-sized schools.

There's a reason for basketball many of these schools/conferences are considered mid-major. The schools are not necessarily tiny; priorities with funding are just different. And like all things in life, priorities can change (or not) over time.

Sorry for any defensiveness - I guess it's just frustrating have the "small school" label when your institution has won NCAA Division I championships, or come close (e.g., College World Series), and when I tell people JMU has over 20K undergrad students I get this "whoa" expression from those not from VA. Regional university? Yes. Small school? Not really. Believe me, when a letter about COA leaked from JMU pre-maturely that listed a bunch of private schools and smaller public institutions as peers, our alumni that donate to sports were quite spun up and it made it clear where our future football aspirations lie (i.e., not with FBS).

Re: Original Topic - for JMU, as much as it pains me to admit it, the colder weather affects attendance for playoffs. Also, although we do extremely well for the regular season in filling our 25K stadium, the fact that students must pay for playoff tickets keeps the casual college students from attending (especially given the usually colder temps in Dec). After years of moderate success (nothing like NDSU's run mind you) I think the overall event has lost some of its shine, though nationally televised games always bring out more students if/when we get to the semi finals. We have a fan base that can rival UVA and VT - it's a sleeping giant mostly located in the DC area - look at our recent ESPN GameDay participation as proof. However, unlike UVA and to a lesser degree VT, I find our more passionate fans are from Richmond/Va Beach or other regional mid-Atlantic areas without as much of a professional sports presence.

Oh - and the budget thing - yeah, those private schools usually have damn fine endowments. JMU's is frankly pathetic and exhibit A for why the school is still a FCS school. One of the great mysteries in life - how our students and alumni love our alma mater so passionately yet give back so little. It's dumbfounding really.

I get that funding is ultimately the difference maker (ie Notre Dame has like 7K undergrad and they are who they are), but generally speaking there’s a pretty good correlation between your school’s enrollment, the skill of its sports teams, the size of its stadium, and the amount of money they spend on sports. Suggesting that enrollment doesn’t really play a role in skill/attendance/$ is focusing on the outliers instead of the overall trend.

The bar that was set at “anything under 10K is pathetic” is what I’m referring to specifically. The schools that hosted that we’re talking about are actually small schools, because if they were bigger schools they would likely have bigger stadiums and thus higher attendance generally. But my point is that with the FCS level we kind of need to have some self awareness here.

I don’t mean this as an insult but it is NOT major college sports, regardless of the ambitions that we all may have for our respective schools. If you catch FCS games on ESPN Goal Line half the time you literally can’t even hear the crowd, and then they swap over to a Big Ten or American or ACC game and the sound blows out your eardrums because you were just listening for a pin drop at an NEC game (or Big South, not trying to throw stones lol). Believe me I have delusions of grandeur for what Monmouth can be like I’m sure the rest of you do about your programs. But it’s kinda foolish to be like “if you can’t get 10K for a playoff game you shouldn’t waste your time”

Again, I get that there are outliers. I get that there are some MVFC and Big Sky teams that are run like FBS programs and could be FBS programs if the nearest FBS conference thought the television money was there. And I understand that a school like Monmouth with 6K undergrads is well within the bottom percentile of the FCS in terms of enrollment, but the FCS in general has smaller schools than FBS. Even if it’s a school with 15K student that doesn’t necessarily mean they have that many seats in their stadium. This is football for programs that aren’t earning considerable television money but still want to play highly competitive ball.

One of the things about FCS that has attracted me is the simplicity of it all. I live in an area with 9 big four pro sports teams and I’m surrounded by the bull****. Watching my tiny alma mater go out and kick some ass in football and not have all the other bull**** that comes with on-field success is so refreshing.

Even when you get to a level like JMU the fact that it’s FCS still keeps that simplicity, am I right? From what I understand the CAA has a dog**** TV contract so it it wouldn’t appear to me that there’s this ulterior motive involved in their existence and their rise to prominence. Once you move to FBS it becomes about the money, and unless you’re NDSU who could probably be a top 3 team in the Mountain West right now it kinda makes no sense to move up. FBS mediocrity can’t be as good as FCS dominance. I guess it also depends who you ask.

Also, just to address your point about JMU RE “small school” reputation, I think under-informed people tend to use “small” as a substitute for “I don’t know much about it”, I’ve heard/seen several people say “isn’t UCF a small school?”, not realizing they’re the largest university in the country by enrollment. You’re in good company there lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Blue Waves Crest]

The bar that was set at “anything under 10K is pathetic” is what I’m referring to specifically.

But it’s kinda foolish to be like “if you can’t get 10K for a playoff game you shouldn’t waste your time”


It won’t let me edit my post, clarifying that the original claim was “any good team should be able to draw 10K”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ElCid]

It won’t let me edit my post, clarifying that the original claim was “any good team should be able to draw 10K”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Actually, you can edit if you change to desktop view, if you have that option. I had same issue. It doesn't edit in standard phone view.

[Panther88]

I'm wondering is it better to just play a road game and not bid due to the historical low attendance in the 1st round. Because it doesn't look like the schools are getting a return on investment

It makes more sense and CENTS for a squad and its associated contingent to travel to another who will take the financial loss in their bid of 30K-40K hosting while having a factual attendance of (avg) 1500-2000 at most lol. Very compelling.

I look at the highest attended FCS games fall 2019 and this thing, it's quite comical lol.

2019 Top-10 Attended HBCU Football Games (as of 12/3/2019):
========================================
1) Bayou Classic (Southern U. vs. Grambling) 68,314
2) Florida Classic (Florida A&M vs Bethune Cookman 55,730
3) Magic City Classic (Alabama A&M vs Alabama State) 53,217
4) State Fair Classic (Grambling vs Praire View A&M) 52,315
5) Southern Heritage (Jackson State vs Tennessee State) 48,347
6) Southern U. vs. Jackson State 40,085
7) Fort Valley vs. Albany State 37,000
8) Capital City Classic (Alcorn vs. Jackson State) 35104
9) Alabama State vs Jackson State 35,013
10) Grambling vs Jackson State 32,265

HBCUs have 2 more games to go in their seasons... The SCG and the CB. For all of FCS, only the Butler/NDSU (35,544) and Harvard/Yale (44,989) games cracked the top-10 highest attended FCS games w/ 8 of the above top-10 for 2019. Obviously all know where the "FCS fans" actually dwell. Has to suck having an alleged "great product" yet mainstream america is highly uninterested in looking at it in person. lol xlolx

[MSUBobcat]

It makes more sense and CENTS for a squad and its associated contingent to travel to another who will take the financial loss in their bid of 30K-40K hosting while having a factual attendance of (avg) 1500-2000 at most lol. Very compelling.

I look at the highest attended FCS games fall 2019 and this thing, it's quite comical lol.

2019 Top-10 Attended HBCU Football Games (as of 12/3/2019):
========================================
1) Bayou Classic (Southern U. vs. Grambling) 68,314
2) Florida Classic (Florida A&M vs Bethune Cookman 55,730
3) Magic City Classic (Alabama A&M vs Alabama State) 53,217
4) State Fair Classic (Grambling vs Praire View A&M) 52,315
5) Southern Heritage (Jackson State vs Tennessee State) 48,347
6) Southern U. vs. Jackson State 40,085
7) Fort Valley vs. Albany State 37,000
8) Capital City Classic (Alcorn vs. Jackson State) 35104
9) Alabama State vs Jackson State 35,013
10) Grambling vs Jackson State 32,265

HBCUs have 2 more games to go in their seasons... The SCG and the CB. For all of FCS, only the Butler/NDSU (35,544) and Harvard/Yale (44,989) games cracked the top-10 highest attended FCS games w/ 8 of the above top-10 for 2019. Obviously all know where the "FCS fans" actually dwell. Has to suck having an alleged "great product" yet mainstream america is highly uninterested in looking at it in person. lol xlolx

xblahxxboringx

[Professor Chaos]

It makes more sense and CENTS for a squad and its associated contingent to travel to another who will take the financial loss in their bid of 30K-40K hosting while having a factual attendance of (avg) 1500-2000 at most lol. Very compelling.

I look at the highest attended FCS games fall 2019 and this thing, it's quite comical lol.

2019 Top-10 Attended HBCU Football Games (as of 12/3/2019):
========================================
1) Bayou Classic (Southern U. vs. Grambling) 68,314
2) Florida Classic (Florida A&M vs Bethune Cookman 55,730
3) Magic City Classic (Alabama A&M vs Alabama State) 53,217
4) State Fair Classic (Grambling vs Praire View A&M) 52,315
5) Southern Heritage (Jackson State vs Tennessee State) 48,347
6) Southern U. vs. Jackson State 40,085
7) Fort Valley vs. Albany State 37,000
8) Capital City Classic (Alcorn vs. Jackson State) 35104
9) Alabama State vs Jackson State 35,013
10) Grambling vs Jackson State 32,265

HBCUs have 2 more games to go in their seasons... The SCG and the CB. For all of FCS, only the Butler/NDSU (35,544) and Harvard/Yale (44,989) games cracked the top-10 highest attended FCS games w/ 8 of the above top-10 for 2019. Obviously all know where the "FCS fans" actually dwell. Has to suck having an alleged "great product" yet mainstream america is highly uninterested in looking at it in person. lol xlolx
I'll take the bait I guess.

HBCUs, in general, have a much better following than any other FCS conference. Good for you guys... you make game day an experience more than just a game and there's all sorts of lessons that can be learned there by other FCS schools/conferences.

That said, "mainstream American" isn't any more interested in HBCU football than they are in the FCS playoffs. I also don't understand where this notion is coming from that schools lose money hosting. I haven't seen anything indicating that has happened. Your statement that 1500-200 average at most is also blatantly false. You only need to look at the OP to see that. And that is "factual attendance" in that it's a turnstile count. Regular season attendance numbers pretty much everywhere, including your listed HBCU classics, bloat attendance figures by counting distributed but unused tickets in those attendance figures. Those are not counted in the FCS playoffs. I can even recall a few years back where it was initially reported that Celebration Bowl attendance was somewhere in the 17-18k range and then an hour or two later it was upped to around 25k. I'm pretty sure there was an HBCU poster on this very board that said the first number reported was the turnstile count.

[Panther88]

xblahxxboringx

Congratulations on your numerous individual and conference attendance titles. I'm sure your school is one of those ----> "mainstream america is highly uninterested in looking at it in person" xlolx. "blah blah blah blah blahhhhhhhhhhhhh" Truth hurts your soul. lol

Sincerely, University of Alabama, THE Ohio State University, Michigan, Auburn University, ... and... :D

[Catbooster]

A couple random thoughts as I read through this thread...

There was a story on the local tv news I recently saw, but unfortunately just barely caught the end of the story as I was flipping channels. They gave an estimate of $120,000 for the costs of hosting a football game here. I think that was the total cost (security, prep, cleanup, logistics, etc.) but I just caught the end of the story. I also think it was in reference to the Cat/Griz game, but again, I'm not positive. Cat/Griz would be the most expensive game for us - largest crowd, likely highest security costs, etc. I have no doubt that it could be done for significantly less if the crowd is 3,000 instead of 25k-30k (not attendance but including the crowd in the tailgates, etc. that couldn't get tickets), if you don't have a military jet flyover, etc.

I think it would be very conservative to assume $100,000 to $200,000 to host a playoff game, including a decent bid. If a school really cares about football and having success in the playoffs, I suspect most good AD's can make that happen. It is a very small percentage of a multi-million dollar athletic budget. Additionally, even if you only get 3,000 attendance for the game, you will cover $60,000 of that cost at $20 per ticket. If need be, this is 1/10 to 1/4 of what you can get for one FBS game.

Regardless, there are probably a few schools that have a hard time making that work. Half the teams have to travel, so unfortunately those schools may have to be the visitors (for whom travel costs are covered). Like Professor Chaos, I'm not convinced that teams lose money by participating in the playoffs.

And all of that is only looking at the situation from the perspective of expenses and revenue for the athletic budget. The playoffs can be a windfall for the community (hotels, restaurants, etc.), the university's PR, fundraising, etc.

[MSUBobcat]

Congratulations on your numerous individual and conference attendance titles. I'm sure your school is one of those ----> "mainstream america is highly uninterested in looking at it in person" xlolx. "blah blah blah blah blahhhhhhhhhhhhh" Truth hurts your soul. lol

Sincerely, University of Alabama, THE Ohio State University, Michigan, Auburn University, ... and... :D

Congratulations on your self-pitying butthurt.

[Panther88]

I'll take the bait I guess.

HBCUs, in general, have a much better following than any other FCS conference. Good for you guys... you make game day an experience more than just a game and there's all sorts of lessons that can be learned there by other FCS schools/conferences.

That said, "mainstream American" isn't any more interested in HBCU football than they are in the FCS playoffs. I also don't understand where this notion is coming from that schools lose money hosting. I haven't seen anything indicating that has happened. Your statement that 1500-200 average at most is also blatantly false. You only need to look at the OP to see that. And that is "factual attendance" in that it's a turnstile count. Regular season attendance numbers pretty much everywhere, including your listed HBCU classics, bloat attendance figures by counting distributed but unused tickets in those attendance figures. Those are not counted in the FCS playoffs. I can even recall a few years back where it was initially reported that Celebration Bowl attendance was somewhere in the 17-18k range and then an hour or two later it was upped to around 25k. I'm pretty sure there was an HBCU poster on this very board that said the first number reported was the turnstile count.

False. False. More false.

Look at the 1st round #s from X-giving w/e that substantiate my case.

Team "A" hosts team "B" where team "A" has an attendance head-count of ~1500-2000 or so doesn't cover the bid amount used to fund team "B's" travel contingent ("N" football student-athletes, coaching staff, cheer folk?). If so, those are some mighty expensive tickets going for upwards of ~20-25+$ JUST to cover the visiting school while game-day expenses/operations/salaries are in the negative. Great business model.

xlolx

[Panther88]

Congratulations on your self-pitying butthurt.

Repeated, VERBATIM: "Truth hurts your soul."

Swallow. It goes down easier when you swallow it. lol You have a product that no one on god's great planet wants to witness, face to face. Make it NOT make any sense. :D

[GAD]

I'll take the bait I guess.

HBCUs, in general, have a much better following than any other FCS conference. Good for you guys... you make game day an experience more than just a game and there's all sorts of lessons that can be learned there by other FCS schools/conferences.

That said, "mainstream American" isn't any more interested in HBCU football than they are in the FCS playoffs. I also don't understand where this notion is coming from that schools lose money hosting. I haven't seen anything indicating that has happened. Your statement that 1500-200 average at most is also blatantly false. You only need to look at the OP to see that. And that is "factual attendance" in that it's a turnstile count. Regular season attendance numbers pretty much everywhere, including your listed HBCU classics, bloat attendance figures by counting distributed but unused tickets in those attendance figures. Those are not counted in the FCS playoffs. I can even recall a few years back where it was initially reported that Celebration Bowl attendance was somewhere in the 17-18k range and then an hour or two later it was upped to around 25k. I'm pretty sure there was an HBCU poster on this very board that said the first number reported was the turnstile count.
I can't speak for the other games, but as for the Bayou Classic those numbers are what they are. The schools don't count the attendance the event staff at the Super Dome covers all of that

[MSUBobcat]

Repeated, VERBATIM: "Truth hurts your soul."

Swallow. It goes down easier when you swallow it. lol You have a product that no one on god's great planet wants to witness, face to face. Make it NOT make any sense. :D

Just because you repeat something doesn't make it any more true. My soul is quite pain free, thanks for your concern. I don't give 2 ****s if fans of HBCU's want to watch FCS playoffs. You watch whatever football you want to watch, we'll watch what we want to watch. We'll have a near capacity stadium Saturday, playing a game that actually matters for proving who the best teams in the nation are on the field, not a game played because of some historical context.

Not sure why FCS attendance and/or it's "business model" matters to you so much, since you have your vastly superior Magic City Classic.xrolleyesx

[Panther88]

Just because you repeat something doesn't make it any more true. My soul is quite pain free, thanks for your concern. I don't give 2 ****s if fans of HBCU's want to watch FCS playoffs. You watch whatever football you want to watch, we'll watch what we want to watch. We'll have a near capacity stadium Saturday, playing a game that actually matters for proving who the best teams in the nation are on the field, not a game played because of some historical context.

Not sure why FCS attendance and/or it's "business model" matters to you so much, since you have your vastly superior Magic City Classic.xrolleyesx

Look at the wishful hopes here ^^^^. "We'll have a near capacity stadium Saturday" :D xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx

Good luck w/ all that, alley cat. Troll troll troll your boat, gently below the 30 degree temps, merrily merrily merrily fcs football life is but a dream. :D

Edit: Parting slap to your face :D

Bayou Classic attendance of 2 conference members 68,000+
1st round fcs playoff att (8 game total): 28,777


Hast to seeeee-yuck, doesn't it? Having a product that mainstream america isn't interested in. No one wants to see your shi**y *****, guy. Not even your own alums. xsmhx

[Professor Chaos]

False. False. More false.

Look at the 1st round #s from X-giving w/e that substantiate my case.

Team "A" hosts team "B" where team "A" has an attendance head-count of ~1500-2000 or so doesn't cover the bid amount used to fund team "B's" travel contingent ("N" football student-athletes, coaching staff, cheer folk?). If so, those are some mighty expensive tickets going for upwards of ~20-25+$ JUST to cover the visiting school while game-day expenses/operations/salaries are in the negative. Great business model.

xlolx
The host team doesn't pay for the visiting team's travel, the NCAA does. The NCAA is not hurting for money. Like I said in the other thread it's been reported that the NCAA Playoffs cost the NCAA more to operate than they get in ticket sale revenue and money from Frisco to host the championship but they don't factor in any TV money from the $500M 12 year TV contract the NCAA championships have with ESPN. The FCS Playoffs are one of 24 NCAA championships tied to that contract but I'd guess they're one of the 5 most valuable ones in terms of TV ratings. I'd guarantee the FCS Playoffs holds their own weight better than the D2 or D3 playoffs do.

Beyond that the only school to draw less than 2k last weekend was Wofford/Kennesaw who drew 1,992. In order to cover the minimum bid of $30k with 75% of tickets sales they'd have to sell tickets for an average of $20.08. That's pretty reasonable. As far as the costs associated with gameday operations I'm genuinely curious to know what those are and how schools do with those in the playoffs because I've never seen it. Assuming Wofford sold tickets for $20 a piece that means they'd have about $10k left for themselves in terms of gate revenue but they also get concessions, parking, unused ticket money, and any other gameday revenue. I don't think you can assume that they lose money on that since the NCAA is picking up the big part of the expenses.

[Panther88]

The host team doesn't pay for the visiting team's travel, the NCAA does. The NCAA is not hurting for money. Like I said in the other thread it's been reported that the NCAA Playoffs cost the NCAA more to operate than they get in ticket sale revenue and money from Frisco to host the championship but they don't factor in any TV money from the $500M 12 year TV contract the NCAA championships have with ESPN. The FCS Playoffs are one of 24 NCAA championships tied to that contract but I'd guess they're one of the 5 most valuable ones in terms of TV ratings. I'd guarantee the FCS Playoffs holds their own weight better than the D2 or D3 playoffs do.

Beyond that the only school to draw less than 2k last weekend was Wofford/Kennesaw who drew 1,992. In order to cover the minimum bid of $30k with 75% of tickets sales they'd have to sell tickets for an average of $20.08. That's pretty reasonable. As far as the costs associated with gameday operations I'm genuinely curious to know what those are and how schools do with those. Assuming Wofford sold tickets for $20 a piece that means they'd have about $10k left for themselves in terms of gate revenue but they also get concessions, parking, unused ticket money, and any other gameday revenue. I don't think you can assume that they lose money on that since the NCAA is picking up the big part of the expenses.

I'm aware that the ncaa covers the cost for the visiting team's travel. My point is that ticket sales from a 1500-2000 attended game won't cover the travel party for the visiting team, unless their ticket prices are outrageous. Naturally, gameday operations like security, parking personnel, officials, score related/medical related, et al shouldn't be factored into that since the university will take the financial "hit" (loss), right?

lol

[MSUBobcat]

Look at the wishful hopes here ^^^^. "We'll have a near capacity stadium Saturday" :D xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx xlolx

Good luck w/ all that, alley cat. Troll troll troll your boat, gently below the 30 degree temps, merrily merrily merrily fcs football life is but a dream. :D

https://ticketswestmsu.evenue.net/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/SEGetEventInfo?ticketCode=GS%3AMSU%3AFB19P%3AECAT1 207%3A&linkID=twmsu Take a gander at how many seats are left, Scooter... the sideline seats are going for $40 and the endzone is $120. My school is going to make a mint hosting the game, not to mention a nice boost in the local economy before ski season really ramps up.

EGADS!!! 30 degree temps!?! That's great news!! I can just wear a sweatshirt instead of a jacket! Cuz we're not pussies and shut down the whole ****ing state when there's a snowflake.

Again.... if you hate FCS football so much, why the **** are you here on a site dedicated to discussing that very topic? Surely there's a forum somewhere discussing the awesomeness of the Southern Heritage game between powerhouses Jackson State and Tennessee State, no? You know, the one Mainstream America follows heavily... xlolx

[Professor Chaos]

I'm aware that the ncaa covers the cost for the visiting team's travel. My point is that ticket sales from a 1500-2000 attended game won't cover the travel party for the visiting team, unless their ticket prices are outrageous. Naturally, gameday operations like security, parking personnel, officials, score related/medical related, et al shouldn't be factored into that since the university will take the financial "hit" (loss), right?

lol
That depends on the situation. Is $30K enough to bus 100 people the 400 mile round drip from Kennesaw to Wofford and back, pay for meals for those 100 people, and pay for 60 hotel rooms for a night? I'd bet it's pretty close.

Now if they have to take a charter flight that obviously comes nowhere close but I can play that game with a one game sample size as well. Last year in the semifinals the NCAA bused SDSU the 200 miles to Fargo to play NDSU. Attendance for that game was 18,286. Sideline tickets were $40, endzone tickets were $30, and student tickets were $5 so let's assume the average ticket sold was $30. 75% of the ticket sales for that game, which would've been sent to the NCAA, would've been north of $400k. Pretty good considering travel expenses that the NCAA picked up for SDSU and the officiating crew was probably 10% of that or less.

I think things even out pretty well by the end of the playoffs and if the NCAA is left with a few hundred thousand that has to come out of their coffers I won't feel sorry for them considering the TV money they have coming from the ESPN contract for the NCAA Championships and from CBS/Turner for the men's basketball tourney.

[JayJ79]

so the "Classics" or whatever draw alot of fans. Great, congratulations, good for y'all.
so do nascar races and taylor swift concerts.
none of which has anything to do with playoff football.

[Catbooster]

I'm aware that the ncaa covers the cost for the visiting team's travel. My point is that ticket sales from a 1500-2000 attended game won't cover the travel party for the visiting team, unless their ticket prices are outrageous. Naturally, gameday operations like security, parking personnel, officials, score related/medical related, et al shouldn't be factored into that since the university will take the financial "hit" (loss), right?

lol
From your comments it seems you agree:

1. The travelling teams do not lose money since the NCAA covers their costs.

2. The NCAA likely has to subsidize those travel costs with income from other sources to offset the shortfall from bids from poorly attended sites.

3. Hosts at poorly attended sites probably lose money on their bids based purely on gate receipts but not factoring in concessions, parking fees, advertising, etc.

I don't think anyone is arguing against you about those points. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.

In general, universities don't field football teams for the financial profits. There are numerous intangible benefits of having a successful team for the universities and their communities. I think hosting a playoff game is similar and most institutions factor that into their bids.

I don't think most AD's (and those above them in the hierarchy) are idiots. If they are submitting a bid they know whether they are likely to take a "loss". But they think the intangible benefits are worth it to help the profile of the school.

[Panther88]

That depends on the situation. Is $30K enough to bus 100 people the 400 mile round drip from Kennesaw to Wofford and back, pay for meals for those 100 people, and pay for 60 hotel rooms for a night? I'd bet it's pretty close.

Now if they have to take a charter flight that obviously comes nowhere close but I can play that game with a one game sample size as well. Last year in the semifinals the NCAA bused SDSU the 200 miles to Fargo to play NDSU. Attendance for that game was 18,286. Sideline tickets were $40, endzone tickets were $30, and student tickets were $5 so let's assume the average ticket sold was $30. 75% of the ticket sales for that game, which would've been sent to the NCAA, would've been north of $400k. Pretty good considering travel expenses that the NCAA picked up for SDSU and the officiating crew was probably 10% of that or less.

I think things even out pretty well by the end of the playoffs and if the NCAA is left with a few hundred thousand that has to come out of their coffers I won't feel sorry for them considering the TV money they have coming from the ESPN contract for the NCAA Championships and from CBS/Turner for the men's basketball tourney.
That 18K attendance figure is impressive for fcs.

However, that is not an actual 1st round playoff game attendance #. First round fcs just did 28K total among 8 games. Correct? Avg of 3.*K or so. The best move the ncaa selection committee could've made was to regionalize match-ups to minimize travel distance.

[Panther88]

From your comments it seems you agree:

1. The travelling teams do not lose money since the NCAA covers their costs.

2. The NCAA likely has to subsidize those travel costs with income from other sources to offset the shortfall from bids from poorly attended sites.

3. Hosts at poorly attended sites probably lose money on their bids based purely on gate receipts but not factoring in concessions, parking fees, advertising, etc.

I don't think anyone is arguing against you about those points. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.

In general, universities don't field football teams for the financial profits. There are numerous intangible benefits of having a successful team for the universities and their communities. I think hosting a playoff game is similar and most institutions factor that into their bids.

I don't think most AD's (and those above them in the hierarchy) are idiots. If they are submitting a bid they know whether they are likely to take a "loss". But they think the intangible benefits are worth it to help the profile of the school.

That in bold above is a conflict w/ what I'm in the middle of. When you're smack-dab in the middle of powerhouse SEC & Bix XII country, it's a conflict of sorts because they are true revenue generators. It's hard to maintain an "fcs" thought process when there are a ton of SEC and Big XII schools locally who harbor a differing mindset influencing everything about the area. FBS rocks the cradle. It's the proverbial little fish(fcs), bigger fish(fbs), big pond (P5) debacle.

[Professor Chaos]

That 18K attendance figure is impressive for fcs.

However, that is not an actual 1st round playoff game attendance #. First round fcs just did 28K total among 8 games. Correct? Avg of 3.*K or so. The best move the ncaa selection committee could've made was to regionalize match-ups to minimize travel distance.
Yep, which is the main reason why we'll never see a completely seeded field IMO. Many accuse the NCAA of penny pinching when they don't have to which isn't completely out of bounds but until the playoffs start drawing more fans or until they containerize the TV money for the FCS playoffs apart from the rest of the championships the regionalization in the early rounds won't be going away.

[walliver]

Actually my bad. It was second round that year. Not sure of bid. I am thinking most reserved seats were $40. And you are right, every time SC or Clemson are at home, we have to compete. In 15 in round one, we were at CCU and had shy of 7K but we made up at least half of crowd. I am not sure that size of school matters entirely. Fan support is good at a few smaller schools.

Second round games usually draw about the same as regular season games. In 2016, it helped that South Carolina's regular season had ended, and your opponent was within easy driving distance and looking for revenge.

A Citadel first round game might do somewhat well since so many alumni are local, but all the cadets would be home.

[ElCid]

Second round games usually draw about the same as regular season games. In 2016, it helped that South Carolina's regular season had ended, and your opponent was within easy driving distance and looking for revenge.

A Citadel first round game might do somewhat well since so many alumni are local, but all the cadets would be home.

Yup. I think The Citadel does about the best for home games for its size as anyone in FCS. But even we have dropped off. Hopefully we get our visitors side built soon. May generate for traffic. As far as the Cadets go, a first round game would probably be like a couple weeks ago against y'all. Not great.

[Tazman2664]

I know there has been talk about the regionalization of the first round playoff games, but the question I have is just how many of those that attended where there because of the traveling team? When the attendance is, on average, 3500 I would think not many traveled from out of town except for family members of the traveling team. Can someone tell me how many were from the opposing team?

[JayJ79]

the NCAA doesn't "regionalize" their tournaments for fans. they do it to reduce the costs they have to pay for the road team's travel. cheaper to bus a whole team than to fly them.
sure, making it easier for fans of the road team to make the trip is a bonus, but most of the time these schools are struggling to get their fans to show up to their home games, let alone traveling, so those visiting fans aren't really gonna move the needle much with a few exceptions

[Tazman2664]

the NCAA doesn't "regionalize" their tournaments for fans. they do it to reduce the costs they have to pay for the road team's travel. cheaper to bus a whole team than to fly them.
sure, making it easier for fans of the road team to make the trip is a bonus, but most of the time these schools are struggling to get their fans to show up to their home games, let alone traveling, so those visiting fans aren't really gonna move the needle much with a few exceptions

So what you are saying is that this is all about the NCAA and not about making the FCS more interesting. Kind of funny, the NCAA makes millions every year and something like this is done to save money. Why? IF they were able to help make FCS more interesting it might just mean more money from FCS division. I could see if they were close to losing money but that is not the case. To me it says they put no merit in the FCS and this is all just bothersome to them. I now know why they don't run companies.

[JayJ79]

even if the FCS bracket was seeded top to bottom with no regionalization, do you really think the overall attendance would rise that much? I doubt it.

[Professor Chaos]

So what you are saying is that this is all about the NCAA and not about making the FCS more interesting. Kind of funny, the NCAA makes millions every year and something like this is done to save money. Why? IF they were able to help make FCS more interesting it might just mean more money from FCS division. I could see if they were close to losing money but that is not the case. To me it says they put no merit in the FCS and this is all just bothersome to them. I now know why they don't run companies.
Chicken and egg. You're saying the NCAA needs to spend more money to drum up interest but the reality is the NCAA will not spend more money until the interest increases.

The NCAA does what's best for their membership. There are 353 NCAA D1 universities and only 124 of them play FCS football, they'd be going down a slippery slope with those other 229 schools if they started dumping money into an FCS playoff system that already struggles to break even most years.

[Tazman2664]

I think it would rise if it was GOOD football. There were a few close games this past weekend, but were they good football games? Which is why I am for cutting the number of teams making the playoffs. Interest always increases when you put a good team on the field / court. When the teams are subpar the interest wanes. Thus, cut the number of teams making the playoffs forcing teams to get better and the interest will come from that. But keep putting so many teams in the playoffs there is no incentive to get better. HC jobs are saved because they made the playoffs, yet they didn't win anything. Just because a team made the playoffs does not mean it is good football, see this past weekend.

[Sader87]

It basically boils down to, for attendance #'s, that the only schools that draw15K+ for the playoffs are mainly the state schools in regions where they are basically the only show in town.

NDSU fans (not all, but many here) bemoan the fact that some schools (usually smaller, private schools) draw in the 5K range or lower...but in reality, that's more the norm in FCS football today....NDSU, the Montana etc are the outliers.

[Tazman2664]

It basically boils down to, for attendance #'s, that the only schools that draw15K+ for the playoffs are mainly the state schools in regions where they are basically the only show in town.

NDSU fans (not all, but many here) bemoan the fact that some schools (usually smaller, private schools) draw in the 5K range or lower...but in reality, that's more the norm in FCS football today....NDSU, the Montana etc are the outliers.

I guess I understand this. But those schools should then never complain because they will more than likely always play an away playoff game. I also believe those schools can pretty much anticipate that they very likely will not have a championship caliber team. If you have the chance to play for a school that has about 15,000 in to watch a game or a school that has 3,000, just where would you want to play, given the opportunity? Plus, you probably have a chance to play for the title at the 15,000 school than at a 3,000 school. I would believe the writing is on the wall for those smaller schools. I would ask, why not go Division II instead? Those smaller FCS schools are offering some scholarships to players that probably would not start on the Division II level. I would think they would want to move down to Division II.

[LetsGoPeay]

I think it would rise if it was GOOD football. There were a few close games this past weekend, but were they good football games? Which is why I am for cutting the number of teams making the playoffs. Interest always increases when you put a good team on the field / court. When the teams are subpar the interest wanes. Thus, cut the number of teams making the playoffs forcing teams to get better and the interest will come from that. But keep putting so many teams in the playoffs there is no incentive to get better. HC jobs are saved because they made the playoffs, yet they didn't win anything. Just because a team made the playoffs does not mean it is good football, see this past weekend.

So this is easy to look up. I would consider a game in which the team lost by 14 or less points, to be competitive. In last week's 1st round, you had 3 out of 8 games that had a final score margin of 14 points or less.
So let's see how many of these Round of 16 games over a 15 year span, have been competitive. ( 8 games played in Rd of 16 )

( 24 team playoff - 2nd rd scoring margin )

2018: 3
2017: 3
2016: 4
2015: 5
2014: 3
2013: 3

( 20 team playoff - 2nd round )

2012: 5
2011: 6
2010: 1

( 16 team playoff - 1st round )

2009: 5
2008: 3
2007: 4
2006: 4
2005: 4
2004: 4
2003: 3
2002: 4
2001: 7
2000: 3

So in the last 19 seasons, we've only had 5 playoff seasons in which over 1/2 of the Round of 16 games were competitive. If you really look at it, your higher seeded teams SHOULD blow people out, whether it's a #1 vs #16 matchup or a #9 vs #24 matchup.

[Professor Chaos]

I think it would rise if it was GOOD football. There were a few close games this past weekend, but were they good football games? Which is why I am for cutting the number of teams making the playoffs. Interest always increases when you put a good team on the field / court. When the teams are subpar the interest wanes. Thus, cut the number of teams making the playoffs forcing teams to get better and the interest will come from that. But keep putting so many teams in the playoffs there is no incentive to get better. HC jobs are saved because they made the playoffs, yet they didn't win anything. Just because a team made the playoffs does not mean it is good football, see this past weekend.
The "watered down" 24 team field trims the fat a round earlier than a 16 team field would. I'd contend that the 16 teams playing this Saturday are less watered down than a 16 team only playoff field would be. Case in point with a 16 team field all one would've had to do this year is beat Holy Cross to make the quarters.

[LetsGoPeay]

So in this 24 team playoff the past 7 years, how many of the 1st round games have been competitive? I'll use the same 14 point margin.

2019: 3
2018: 5
2017: 5
2016: 5
2015: 5
2014: 3
2013: 2

I don't know. Maybe the 2019 1st round was a victim of the weather, more than anything else. The APSU - Furman game looked like it would be a low scoring, nail biter . . until the Govs came out like a buzzsaw. But the weather conditions weren't helping anybody that day. I think APSU was better than Furman . . but not 39 points better. North Dakota flat out laid a dud at Nicholls. Surely "the tent" wasn't that much of a factor. They beat 2 ranked teams this season, but looked worse than Furman this weekend.

To me, whether it's 16 or 32, you're going to have 1/2 of the games be blowouts, while the other 1/2 be competitive.

[cx500d]

So in this 24 team playoff the past 7 years, how many of the 1st round games have been competitive? I'll use the same 14 point margin.

2019: 3
2018: 5
2017: 5
2016: 5
2015: 5
2014: 3
2013: 2

I don't know. Maybe the 2019 1st round was a victim of the weather, more than anything else. The APSU - Furman game looked like it would be a low scoring, nail biter . . until the Govs came out like a buzzsaw. But the weather conditions weren't helping anybody that day. I think APSU was better than Furman . . but not 39 points better. North Dakota flat out laid a dud at Nicholls. Surely "the tent" wasn't that much of a factor. They beat 2 ranked teams this season, but looked worse than Furman this weekend.

To me, whether it's 16 or 32, you're going to have 1/2 of the games be blowouts, while the other 1/2 be competitive.


Furman Sucks

[Sader87]

I guess I understand this. But those schools should then never complain because they will more than likely always play an away playoff game. I also believe those schools can pretty much anticipate that they very likely will not have a championship caliber team. If you have the chance to play for a school that has about 15,000 in to watch a game or a school that has 3,000, just where would you want to play, given the opportunity? Plus, you probably have a chance to play for the title at the 15,000 school than at a 3,000 school. I would believe the writing is on the wall for those smaller schools. I would ask, why not go Division II instead? Those smaller FCS schools are offering some scholarships to players that probably would not start on the Division II level. I would think they would want to move down to Division II.


Kids choose to go to schools not only to play football.

Believe it or not, but HC a school of 3K has both a bigger stadium and a better practice facility than NDSU...so it's not always school size either.

[LetsGoPeay]

The "watered down" 24 team field trims the fat a round earlier than a 16 team field would. I'd contend that the 16 teams playing this Saturday are less watered down than a 16 team only playoff field would be. Case in point with a 16 team field all one would've had to do this year is beat Holy Cross to make the quarters.

That's an excellent point.

It's like in the NCAA basketball tournament. You have teams from lower level conferences that have the AQ bids, who are #15 and #16 regional seeds. In that 64 team format, they don't normally get to the 2nd round, let alone the Sweet 16.

So what would a 16 team bracket for this year's FCS look like?

AQ teams:

- NDSU
- JMU
- Weber St
- Monmouth
- Austin Peay
- CCSU
- Holy Cross
- San Diego
- Wofford
- Nicholls

6 at- large teams ( and what's crazy is that 5 of the 6 at large would receive top 8 seeds )

- Montana St
- Montana
- Sac State
- SDSU
- UNI
- Central Ark

Using the top 8 seeds, maybe the bracket looks like this in a 16 team field.

#1 NDSU vs #16 Holy Cross
#8 Central Ark vs #9 UNI

#4 Sac St vs #13 CCSU
#5 Montana St vs #12 Nicholls

#3 Weber St vs #14 Albany
#6 Montana vs #11 Austin Peay

#2 JMU vs #15 San Diego
#7 SDSU vs #10 Wofford

Are these 1st round matchups in a 16 team playoff really better than what we see in this 2nd round?

[Professor Chaos]

That's an excellent point.

It's like in the NCAA basketball tournament. You have teams from lower level conferences that have the AQ bids, who are #15 and #16 regional seeds. In that 64 team format, they don't normally get to the 2nd round, let alone the Sweet 16.

So what would a 16 team bracket for this year's FCS look like?

AQ teams:

- NDSU
- JMU
- Weber St
- Monmouth
- Austin Peay
- CCSU
- Holy Cross
- San Diego
- Wofford
- Nicholls

6 at- large teams ( and what's crazy is that 5 of the 6 at large would receive top 8 seeds )

- Montana St
- Montana
- Sac State
- SDSU
- UNI
- Central Ark

Using the top 8 seeds, maybe the bracket looks like this in a 16 team field.

#1 NDSU vs #16 Holy Cross
#8 Central Ark vs #9 UNI

#4 Sac St vs #13 CCSU
#5 Montana St vs #12 Nicholls

#3 Weber St vs #14 Albany
#6 Montana vs #11 Austin Peay

#2 JMU vs #15 San Diego
#7 SDSU vs #10 Wofford

Are these 1st round matchups in a 16 team playoff really better than what we see in this 2nd round?
It's an NCAA rule that at least half the teams in a championship field have to be at-large selections so the NEC (CCSU) and Pioneer (San Diego) would likely lose their autobids. Using the AGS Poll as a guide (since we don't have the committee's rankings beyond the last 4 in alphabetically) these are the 8 that would've been left out of a 16 team field that made this year's field:

13. Illinois St
15. Central Connecticut St
17. Furman
18. UND
20. Albany
22. Southeastern Louisiana
23. Kennesaw St
27. San Diego

On top of that the reality is they're not going to seed the entire field and I'd say it's likely that if the playoffs were contracted to 16 teams they'd go back to 4 seeds so a theoretical 16 team field would've looked something like this:

1) NDSU vs Nicholls
SEMO vs Central Arkansas
Montana vs SDSU
4) Sac St vs Austin Peay
3) Weber St vs Wofford
Montana St vs UNI
Villanova vs Holy Cross
2) JMU vs Monmouth

[Hammersmith]

It would help a lot if some of you would realize that the NCAA takes 75% of the NET, not the gate.

The equation for the NCAA's cut basically works out to be:

.75(revenue-expenses) or the bid, whichever is greater.

To use the example of UND's bid(which we have from FOI requests), they bid $75,003.75 and budgeted expenses at $50,000($32k for Alerus rental and $18k for other expenses). There is no minimum ticket price for first round games, and regular season UND tickets cost $25, so we'll go with $20 tickets for round one. To see when UND would match their bid, we can do a little algebra(and you said in middle school that you'd never use it in real life...).

x=tickets sold
NCAA's 75% * ((ticket price * tickets sold) - expenses) = NCAA revenue(or the school's bid)
0.75(20x-50000)=75003.75
15x-37500=75003.75
15x=112503.75
x=7500.75

This ignores student tickets that would likely be priced at $5. Obviously, 4 student tickets would equal 1 regular ticket in this example.

Another note is that UND's expenses are likely far greater than most FCS schools' because of the rental fees for the Alerus. Still, it should be clear by this that the NCAA almost certainly loses money on most first round games. And definitely loses money on any first round games where a team has to fly.

[Professor Chaos]

It would help a lot if some of you would realize that the NCAA takes 75% of the NET, not the gate.

The equation for the NCAA's cut basically works out to be:

.75(revenue-expenses) or the bid, whichever is greater.

To use the example of UND's bid(which we have from FOI requests), they bid $75,003.75 and budgeted expenses at $50,000($32k for Alerus rental and $18k for other expenses). There is no minimum ticket price for first round games, and regular season UND tickets cost $25, so we'll go with $20 tickets for round one. To see when UND would match their bid, we can do a little algebra(and you said in middle school that you'd never use it in real life...).

x=tickets sold
NCAA's 75% * ((ticket price * tickets sold) - expenses) = NCAA revenue(or the school's bid)
0.75(20x-50000)=75003.75
15x-37500=75003.75
15x=112503.75
x=7500.75

This ignores student tickets that would likely be priced at $5. Obviously, 4 student tickets would equal 1 regular ticket in this example.

Another note is that UND's expenses are likely far greater than most FCS schools' because of the rental fees for the Alerus. Still, it should be clear by this that the NCAA almost certainly loses money on most first round games. And definitely loses money on any first round games where a team has to fly.
Interesting, good call out. I've been calculating it wrong then. That was a very aggressive bid by UND then because I don't think they would've gotten anywhere close to 7500 tickets sold last Saturday and I'm sure Chaves could've guessed that if he was being honest. So they were willing to take a loss to host a game.

In a case like Wofford's assuming they'd have minimal game expenses of say 10k they'd have to hit 50k in ticket revenue to cover that minimum bid ($25 per ticket with only 2,000 tickets sold). If their expenses were 20k they'd have to hit 60k in ticket revenue ($30k per ticket sold). Seems more likely this would lead to them losing money even with the minimum bid.

I wonder what happens if neither school in a particular first round matchup submits a minimum bid? In the championship handbook all I can find is they say that the NCAA will offer the previous rounds minimum financial guarantee but in the case of the first round there is no previous round. I guess at some point they just take what they can get??? It would be interesting to see what the bids/proposed budgets were for everyone and which schools didn't submit a bid/proposed budget.

EDIT: I guess there is always the possibility that the school is ok with sending 100% of the net receipts to the NCAA if their expenses are already taken out since they'd theoretically break even (or even come out slightly ahead if they get to keep 100% of the other net revenue that is generated from things like concessions, parking, advertising, etc). So in UND's case they would've only had to sell 6250 tickets to get there and in Wofford's case they would've needed an average ticket sale price of $20 for only 10k in expenses or $25 with only 20k in expenses (assuming they made the minimum bid).

[Hammersmith]

Interesting, good call out. I've been calculating it wrong then. That was a very aggressive bid by UND then because I don't think they would've gotten anywhere close to 7500 tickets sold last Saturday and I'm sure Chaves could've guessed that if he was being honest. So they were willing to take a loss to host a game.


Word out of GF was that the UND admin was only willing to authorize a $50k bid. Chaves was able to secure a pledge of $25k from outside sources which was rumored to be the REA. Only seems fair considering the REA receives 52% of all UND football ticket revenue. No word about where the extra $3.75 came from. lol

[LetsGoPeay]

It's an NCAA rule that at least half the teams in a championship field have to be at-large selections so the NEC (CCSU) and Pioneer (San Diego) would likely lose their autobids. Using the AGS Poll as a guide (since we don't have the committee's rankings beyond the last 4 in alphabetically) these are the 8 that would've been left out of a 16 team field that made this year's field:

13. Illinois St
15. Central Connecticut St
17. Furman
18. UND
20. Albany
22. Southeastern Louisiana
23. Kennesaw St
27. San Diego

On top of that the reality is they're not going to seed the entire field and I'd say it's likely that if the playoffs were contracted to 16 teams they'd go back to 4 seeds so a theoretical 16 team field would've looked something like this:

1) NDSU vs Nicholls
SEMO vs Central Arkansas
Montana vs SDSU
4) Sac St vs Austin Peay
3) Weber St vs Wofford
Montana St vs UNI
Villanova vs Holy Cross
2) JMU vs Monmouth

So Wofford, in South Carolina, has to go all the way to the West Coast? And Austin Peay, the OVC champ in Tennessee, has to go too, instead of SEMO or Central Arkansas? That's the biggest issue with 16 teams, and probably why they expanded to 20, and then to 24. You're shipping teams cross country for a 3 hour game. LOL . . and what if they win? Does that team stay out West for a week in a hotel, or do they come back home for 4 days, just to fly back out West? It'll be very interesting to see what Austin Peay does, if they pull off the upset at Sac State. They'll be rooting hard for Kennesaw St to pull off the upset as well, so that both teams will only have a 4 hour bus ride to whomever gets the home game, instead of another 2,000 mile plane trip.

To me, going back to 16 will be out of the question. They're better off expanding to 32, and having a "West region" made up of the top Big Sky teams + the top western most at-large teams. At least then, you're not asking a team to make a 2,000 mile plane trip until at least the semifinals.

[Professor Chaos]

So Wofford, in South Carolina, has to go all the way to the West Coast? And Austin Peay, the OVC champ in Tennessee, has to go too, instead of SEMO or Central Arkansas? That's the biggest issue with 16 teams, and probably why they expanded to 20, and then to 24. You're shipping teams cross country for a 3 hour game. LOL . . and what if they win? Does that team stay out West for a week in a hotel, or do they come back home for 4 days, just to fly back out West? It'll be very interesting to see what Austin Peay does, if they pull off the upset at Sac State. They'll be rooting hard for Kennesaw St to pull off the upset as well, so that both teams will only have a 4 hour bus ride to whomever gets the home game, instead of another 2,000 mile plane trip.

To me, going back to 16 will be out of the question. They're better off expanding to 32, and having a "West region" made up of the top Big Sky teams + the top western most at-large teams. At least then, you're not asking a team to make a 2,000 mile plane trip until at least the semifinals.
Yep, regionalization was actually less prevalent in a 16 team field since rematches weren't possible until the quarters. More bus trips was the price for more teams and more seeds in the playoff field.

[Tazman2664]

Kids choose to go to schools not only to play football.

Believe it or not, but HC a school of 3K has both a bigger stadium and a better practice facility than NDSU...so it's not always school size either.

OK, I get this, you only have a student body of 3k and you have a bigger stadium and better practice facilities, how many natty's have you won? Kind of getting off the point here with these comments. So your players go to HC for something other than football, with only 5 or 6 NDSU players having a chance at being drafted for any pro team, don't you think a lot of NDSU players come for something other than just football? Have you seen NDSUs dome or practice facilities, how do you know yours are better? And why would you want a bigger stadium or better practice facility if you will always be traveling for the playoffs, not having a chance at a natty and you don't attract like 10k for attendance? Any school that builds a bigger stadium and better practice facilities does so to attract the better players, build a better program. From what you are saying that is not why HC did it, then what for? Why spend the money if you don't plan on making a better program from it? Basically, you are going to travel for every playoff game you get into while you bigger stadium sits idle and makes no money to pay for it. Sorry, doesn't make any sense to me. And I never said a player goes to a school because of the size of it, I talked about attendance numbers. Thus, I think HC would be better served going to DII.

[Professor]

Chicken and egg. You're saying the NCAA needs to spend more money to drum up interest but the reality is the NCAA will not spend more money until the interest increases.

The NCAA does what's best for their membership. There are 353 NCAA D1 universities and only 124 of them play FCS football, they'd be going down a slippery slope with those other 229 schools if they started dumping money into an FCS playoff system that already struggles to break even most years.

Great Point

[Professor]

I'll take the bait I guess.

HBCUs, in general, have a much better following than any other FCS conference. Good for you guys... you make game day an experience more than just a game and there's all sorts of lessons that can be learned there by other FCS schools/conferences.

That said, "mainstream American" isn't any more interested in HBCU football than they are in the FCS playoffs. I also don't understand where this notion is coming from that schools lose money hosting. I haven't seen anything indicating that has happened. Your statement that 1500-200 average at most is also blatantly false. You only need to look at the OP to see that. And that is "factual attendance" in that it's a turnstile count. Regular season attendance numbers pretty much everywhere, including your listed HBCU classics, bloat attendance figures by counting distributed but unused tickets in those attendance figures. Those are not counted in the FCS playoffs. I can even recall a few years back where it was initially reported that Celebration Bowl attendance was somewhere in the 17-18k range and then an hour or two later it was upped to around 25k. I'm pretty sure there was an HBCU poster on this very board that said the first number reported was the turnstile count.

Not bait just discussion. And the thought that the NCAA is losing money on FCS comes for a lot of sources .

http://www.college-sports-journal.com/the-real-problem-with-the-fcs-playoffs/ is one.

A google search shows a thread on here from 2010 which everyone is talking about the money lost yearly

[Professor]

even if the FCS bracket was seeded top to bottom with no regionalization, do you really think the overall attendance would rise that much? I doubt it.

I doubt it as well

[Professor Chaos]

Not bait just discussion. And the thought that the NCAA is losing money on FCS comes for a lot of sources .

http://www.college-sports-journal.com/the-real-problem-with-the-fcs-playoffs/ is one.

A google search shows a thread on here from 2010 which everyone is talking about the money lost yearly
The point of contention I have is not whether the NCAA loses money it's whether the host schools lose money. Like I've said a few times counting just their cut of net receipts from each host school and the money they get from Frisco to host the title game as revenue they probably don't make money most years. However, I bet they get pretty close (within a million) to breaking even almost every year and they're getting $40M+ annually from ESPN for the NCAA Championships TV contract that the FCS playoffs are a part of and they're also swimming in cash from the CBS/Turner Sports contract for the NCAA men's basketball tourney. They can handle it.

I am curious though to see any info anyone has found/heard on whether host schools typically lose money if they draw poorly. I do know that schools that draw well, especially if they're seeded, make money on each playoff game they play.

[GAD]

The point of contention I have is not whether the NCAA loses money it's whether the host schools lose money. Like I've said a few times counting just their cut of net receipts from each host school and the money they get from Frisco to host the title game as revenue they probably don't make money most years. However, I bet they get pretty close (within a million) to breaking even almost every year and they're getting $40M+ annually from ESPN for the NCAA Championships TV contract that the FCS playoffs are a part of and they're also swimming in cash from the CBS/Turner Sports contract for the NCAA men's basketball tourney. They can handle it.

I am curious though to see any info anyone has found/heard on whether host schools typically lose money if they draw poorly. I do know that schools that draw well, especially if they're seeded, make money on each playoff game they play.
Old Domionion made money according to one of there posters on here they sold out every playoff game they hosted

[Sader87]

OK, I get this, you only have a student body of 3k and you have a bigger stadium and better practice facilities, how many natty's have you won? Kind of getting off the point here with these comments. So your players go to HC for something other than football, with only 5 or 6 NDSU players having a chance at being drafted for any pro team, don't you think a lot of NDSU players come for something other than just football? Have you seen NDSUs dome or practice facilities, how do you know yours are better? And why would you want a bigger stadium or better practice facility if you will always be traveling for the playoffs, not having a chance at a natty and you don't attract like 10k for attendance? Any school that builds a bigger stadium and better practice facilities does so to attract the better players, build a better program. From what you are saying that is not why HC did it, then what for? Why spend the money if you don't plan on making a better program from it? Basically, you are going to travel for every playoff game you get into while you bigger stadium sits idle and makes no money to pay for it. Sorry, doesn't make any sense to me. And I never said a player goes to a school because of the size of it, I talked about attendance numbers. Thus, I think HC would be better served going to DII.

This basically gets to the heart of "why" the FCS level exists in the first place...that is, there are different goals/outcomes for many schools playing at this level.

In reality, there are only a handful of schools who play at this level that feel winning a national title is a realistic goal, NDSU obviously being one of those. This isn't to say that HC isn't trying to put forth the best team it can at this level...just that its goals for its program are more aligned with having a program that can be competitive/successful against its historic rivals in the Northeast. If we happen to put together a team some season that is nationally competitive, more's the better, but it isn't the overarching goal of the program.

[MSUBobcat]

The point of contention I have is not whether the NCAA loses money it's whether the host schools lose money. Like I've said a few times counting just their cut of net receipts from each host school and the money they get from Frisco to host the title game as revenue they probably don't make money most years. However, I bet they get pretty close (within a million) to breaking even almost every year and they're getting $40M+ annually from ESPN for the NCAA Championships TV contract that the FCS playoffs are a part of and they're also swimming in cash from the CBS/Turner Sports contract for the NCAA men's basketball tourney. They can handle it.

I am curious though to see any info anyone has found/heard on whether host schools typically lose money if they draw poorly. I do know that schools that draw well, especially if they're seeded, make money on each playoff game they play.

I think it's commonly understood that many schools lose money ON THE GATE on the Thanksgiving week game. I'd be curious to see how many schools do as UND apparently did and bid as high as $75k. Knowing what we know about Nicholls' ability to draw for that game, pairing UND and Nicholls may have pit the 2 highest bidders against each other this year. But just as a hypothetical, let's assume that all winning bids were $50k (I'd guess more were in the $30-40k range, but I want to be conservative), facility costs were $20k and average ticket prices are $20. A school would have to sell 3,500 to break even on the gate. Using the attendance numbers listed in the OP:
Monmouth lost - $13,660
Albany lost - $36,800
APSU MADE - $1,180
SEMO lost - $4,520
UNI MADE - $4,860
Nicholls MADE - $32,845 **It should be noted that under these assumptions, a school would switch to the 75% of net gate rule on the 4,334th ticket sold; .75(20x-20000)>50,000 where x=tickets sold, $20k represents the school's expenses and $50k is the bid, so Nicholls would send the NCAA an additional $48,535 over and above its $50k bid (obviously we can infer that Nicholls bid more than $75,004, but to keep the hypothetical constant, I continued with the $50k bid assumption).
Wofford lost $30,160
SELA MADE - $13,460

Monmouth would need only net revenue from concession, T-shirts, parking, etc. of $4.85/person to offset the gate loss, and SEMO would only need $1.38/person, so one could reasonably conclude (using these hypothetical assumptions) that Monmouth and SEMO either turned a profit or lost very little. Albany and Wofford need a more substantial $22.17 and $15.14/person, respectively, and likely lost $20k or more. However, how much do you value the intangibles of 1) having your school/stadium in the spotlight 2) the boost to the local economy and most importantly 3) the benefit of having home field advantage and a slightly easier path to a 2nd playoff game, which provides further opportunity to showcase their "brand"? I'd concede that there were probably very few eyeballs of casual fans that just happened upon the CCSU-Albany or KSU-Wofford games, nor much boost to the local economy, Albany would have likely beat CCSU in New Britain, and Wofford lost on their home field anyway so none of those intangibles would have much value in those specific instances. But how much was home field worth to UNI in 2018, for instance, who beat Lamar by 3 points at home last year? How many people would be OK with their school taking a $20k loss for homefield advantage in a playoff game? Honestly, with how much most other sports LOSE money for their athletic departments every year, I don't have a problem with my school's AD allowing the FB team to take a minor loss to host the game.

[Professor Chaos]

I think it's commonly understood that many schools lose money ON THE GATE on the Thanksgiving week game. I'd be curious to see how many schools do as UND apparently did and bid as high as $75k. Knowing what we know about Nicholls' ability to draw for that game, pairing UND and Nicholls may have pit the 2 highest bidders against each other this year. But just as a hypothetical, let's assume that all winning bids were $50k (I'd guess more were in the $30-40k range, but I want to be conservative), facility costs were $20k and average ticket prices are $20. A school would have to sell 3,500 to break even on the gate. Using the attendance numbers listed in the OP:
Monmouth lost - $13,660
Albany lost - $36,800
APSU MADE - $1,180
SEMO lost - $4,520
UNI MADE - $4,860
Nicholls MADE - $32,845 **It should be noted that under these assumptions, a school would switch to the 75% of net gate rule on the 4,334th ticket sold; .75(20x-20000)>50,000 where x=tickets sold, $20k represents the school's expenses and $50k is the bid, so Nicholls would send the NCAA an additional $48,535 over and above its $50k bid (obviously we can infer that Nicholls bid more than $75,004, but to keep the hypothetical constant, I continued with the $50k bid assumption).
Wofford lost $30,160
SELA MADE - $13,460

Monmouth would need only net revenue from concession, T-shirts, parking, etc. of $4.85/person to offset the gate loss, and SEMO would only need $1.38/person, so one could reasonably conclude (using these hypothetical assumptions) that Monmouth and SEMO either turned a profit or lost very little. Albany and Wofford need a more substantial $22.17 and $15.14/person, respectively, and likely lost $20k or more. However, how much do you value the intangibles of 1) having your school/stadium in the spotlight 2) the boost to the local economy and most importantly 3) the benefit of having home field advantage and a slightly easier path to a 2nd playoff game, which provides further opportunity to showcase their "brand"? I'd concede that there were probably very few eyeballs of casual fans that just happened upon the CCSU-Albany or KSU-Wofford games, nor much boost to the local economy, Albany would have likely beat CCSU in New Britain, and Wofford lost on their home field anyway so none of those intangibles would have much value in those specific instances. But how much was home field worth to UNI in 2018, for instance, who beat Lamar by 3 points at home last year? How many people would be OK with their school taking a $20k loss for homefield advantage in a playoff game? Honestly, with how much most other sports LOSE money for their athletic departments every year, I don't have a problem with my school's AD allowing the FB team to take a minor loss to host the game.
Good post. It is tough to speculate without bid amounts but it's safe to say that Wofford and Albany very likely lost some money hosting a playoff game last Saturday. I still wonder what would happen if two schools were matched up where neither wanted to submit a minimum bid. An example that comes to mind is Western Illinois and Dayton in 2015. WIU has never hosted when they haven't been seeded so it's safe to say they didn't bid but I'd be hard pressed to imagine Dayton bid over the minimum if at all themselves. They only drew 997 fans to that game in Dayton. If neither school really wants a home game does the NCAA just say "Fine, School A you can host and we'll take 75% of the net receipts with no minimum guarantee"? Maybe that situation doesn't come up often enough for it to be an issue but, given that schools need to generate $40-50k at least in gate receipts just to cover that mininmum bid, it would be pretty shady if the NCAA stuck a school that doesn't want it with that $30k bill and say "it's your problem" just because their football team was good enough to make the playoffs.

EDIT: Another revenue stream that I think schools take advantage of is sold but unused tickets. I know I've seen purchased NDSU playoff tickets (I've bought a few myself) go unused because of last minute changes and no one able/willing to take them. I'm pretty sure schools don't report that in the attendance so even if there was only 100 sold but unused tickets at $20 a piece that's an extra $2k the schools can pocket without sharing any with the NCAA.

[MSUBobcat]

Good post. It is tough to speculate without bid amounts but it's safe to say that Wofford and Albany very likely lost some money hosting a playoff game last Saturday. I still wonder what would happen if two schools were matched up where neither wanted to submit a minimum bid. An example that comes to mind is Western Illinois and Dayton in 2015. WIU has never hosted when they haven't been seeded so it's safe to say they didn't bid but I'd be hard pressed to imagine Dayton bid over the minimum if at all themselves. They only drew 997 fans to that game in Dayton. If neither school really wants a home game does the NCAA just say "Fine, School A you can host and we'll take 75% of the net receipts with no minimum guarantee"? Maybe that situation doesn't come up often enough for it to be an issue but, given that schools need to generate $40-50k at least in gate receipts just to cover that mininmum bid, it would be pretty shady if the NCAA stuck a school that doesn't want it with that $30k bill and say "it's your problem" just because their football team was good enough to make the playoffs.

EDIT: Another revenue stream that I think schools take advantage of is sold but unused tickets. I know I've seen purchased NDSU playoff tickets (I've bought a few myself) go unused because of last minute changes and no one able/willing to take them. I'm pretty sure schools don't report that in the attendance so even if there was only 100 sold but unused tickets at $20 a piece that's an extra $2k the schools can pocket without sharing any with the NCAA.

My assumption in the case of no qualifying bid is that the NCAA would contact the schools and allow them to make a bid that doesn't meet the minimum and award the game to the higher bid (which would then also be subject to the greater of bid amount or 75% of net gate rule). If the NCAA just said, "School A, you're hosting" it would smack of favoritism.

As for the "edit" does anyone have it definitively that the NCAA takes 75% of actual tickets USED and not SOLD? In the regular season, season ticket holders (and others) often have unused tickets, but it has no financial bearing for the NCAA as they have no right to any of the revenue. Since even season ticket holders have to fork over additional money for an NCAA-sanctioned playoff game, I would assume that they want 75% of every playoff ticket SOLD, because that is money the school would not have gotten if not for the playoff game. I can't see the NC$$ saying, "oh, you sold 100 tickets that didn't get used? Go ahead and keep that money." That flies in the face of everything we know about the sports monopoly that is the NC$$.

[ASU33]

Is regionalization of the FCS playoffs possible? It seems like that would help attendance particularly in the early rounds.

[Grizalltheway]

Is regionalization of the FCS playoffs possible? It seems like that would help attendance particularly in the early rounds.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/687/666/e11.jpg

[Professor Chaos]

My assumption in the case of no qualifying bid is that the NCAA would contact the schools and allow them to make a bid that doesn't meet the minimum and award the game to the higher bid (which would then also be subject to the greater of bid amount or 75% of net gate rule). If the NCAA just said, "School A, you're hosting" it would smack of favoritism.

As for the "edit" does anyone have it definitively that the NCAA takes 75% of actual tickets USED and not SOLD? In the regular season, season ticket holders (and others) often have unused tickets, but it has no financial bearing for the NCAA as they have no right to any of the revenue. Since even season ticket holders have to fork over additional money for an NCAA-sanctioned playoff game, I would assume that they want 75% of every playoff ticket SOLD, because that is money the school would not have gotten if not for the playoff game. I can't see the NC$$ saying, "oh, you sold 100 tickets that didn't get used? Go ahead and keep that money." That flies in the face of everything we know about the sports monopoly that is the NC$$.
I don't think they'd award a home site to a school just because they liked the AD or something but they'd to through the criteria listed in the handbook beyond bidding:


When determining host institutions for playoff games when both teams are unseeded, criteria shall apply as follows: (1) quality of facility, (2) revenue potential plus estimated net receipts, (3) attendance history and potential, (4) team’s performance (e.g., conference place finish, head-to-head results and number of Division I opponents), and (5) student-athlete well-being (e.g., travel, missed class time).
For unsold tickets the reason I have that theory is attendance is always much less in the playoffs than in the regular season at most places and that seems plausible to me in that in the regular season most schools report it as tickets sold because they want to look better with higher attendance number whereas in the playoffs they use turnstile count because they (usually) have to send the NCAA a bigger check with each number added to that attendance total. I kind of doubt the NCAA has the organization or initiative to audit that type of stuff because it's probably not going to be a big chunk of change by their standards.

Additionally, I've came up with that theory because I've seen numerous playoff games at NDSU that had tickets completely sold out before the game but announced attendance was only in the low 18,000s. For instance last year announced attendance for the NDSU/SDSU semifinal was 18,286. The Fargodome seats 18,700 and they sold a few hundred standing room tickets as well (the record regular season Fargodome attendance is about 19,200). The only seats that I'm aware of taken by non-paying attendees would be the band and that's a lot less than 700+ seats they take up so I'd guess for games like that NDSU/SDSU semi last year they sold between 18,500 and 19,000 tickets. So my suspicion is that those extra few hundred were tickets that were sold but not used.

[PAllen]

Good post. It is tough to speculate without bid amounts but it's safe to say that Wofford and Albany very likely lost some money hosting a playoff game last Saturday. I still wonder what would happen if two schools were matched up where neither wanted to submit a minimum bid. An example that comes to mind is Western Illinois and Dayton in 2015. WIU has never hosted when they haven't been seeded so it's safe to say they didn't bid but I'd be hard pressed to imagine Dayton bid over the minimum if at all themselves. They only drew 997 fans to that game in Dayton. If neither school really wants a home game does the NCAA just say "Fine, School A you can host and we'll take 75% of the net receipts with no minimum guarantee"? Maybe that situation doesn't come up often enough for it to be an issue but, given that schools need to generate $40-50k at least in gate receipts just to cover that mininmum bid, it would be pretty shady if the NCAA stuck a school that doesn't want it with that $30k bill and say "it's your problem" just because their football team was good enough to make the playoffs.

EDIT: Another revenue stream that I think schools take advantage of is sold but unused tickets. I know I've seen purchased NDSU playoff tickets (I've bought a few myself) go unused because of last minute changes and no one able/willing to take them. I'm pretty sure schools don't report that in the attendance so even if there was only 100 sold but unused tickets at $20 a piece that's an extra $2k the schools can pocket without sharing any with the NCAA.

The Dayton bid was a conference bid. I have no idea what W. Ill. bid, but the Dayton bid was a play by the conference to get to host a game and prove that they belonged in the playoffs.

[Professor Chaos]

The Dayton bid was a conference bid. I have no idea what W. Ill. bid, but the Dayton bid was a play by the conference to get to host a game and prove that they belonged in the playoffs.
Makes sense then. I highly doubt WIU put in a bid at all.

[MSUBobcat]

I don't think they'd award a home site to a school just because they liked the AD or something but they'd to through the criteria listed in the handbook beyond bidding:


For unsold tickets the reason I have that theory is attendance is always much less in the playoffs than in the regular season at most places and that seems plausible to me in that in the regular season most schools report it as tickets sold because they want to look better with higher attendance number whereas in the playoffs they use turnstile count because they (usually) have to send the NCAA a bigger check with each number added to that attendance total. I kind of doubt the NCAA has the organization or initiative to audit that type of stuff because it's probably not going to be a big chunk of change by their standards.

Additionally, I've came up with that theory because I've seen numerous playoff games at NDSU that had tickets completely sold out before the game but announced attendance was only in the low 18,000s. For instance last year announced attendance for the NDSU/SDSU semifinal was 18,286. The Fargodome seats 18,700 and they sold a few hundred standing room tickets as well (the record regular season Fargodome attendance is about 19,200). The only seats that I'm aware of taken by non-paying attendees would be the band and that's a lot less than 700+ seats they take up so I'd guess for games like that NDSU/SDSU semi last year they sold between 18,500 and 19,000 tickets. So my suspicion is that those extra few hundred were tickets that were sold but not used.

That's my point. Why would the NC$$ allow a school to sell tickets to THEIR product, which is the playoff game, but only collect from the school if the ticket is USED? I just don't see them saying, "oh you sold $100,000 worth of tickets but only $95,000 worth of tickets were used? Go ahead an keep our share of that $5,000." That sounds way more generous than the NCAA that I'm familiar with... In the regular season, a school can say they sold 1M tickets to a game and the NCAA still gets the same amount of money, zilch. Reporting tickets sold as the attendance during the regular season has no monetary effect on anyone. For the playoffs, it benefits the SCHOOL to have the lower actual tickets used number, whereas it benefits the NCAA to use the higher actual tickets sold. When the NCAA made its bylaws, whose financial interests do you think they were looking out for? Logic dictates that they want 75% of the larger number and they make the rules.

[Professor Chaos]

That's my point. Why would the NC$$ allow a school to sell tickets to THEIR product, which is the playoff game, but only collect from the school if the ticket is USED? I just don't see them saying, "oh you sold $100,000 worth of tickets but only $95,000 worth of tickets were used? Go ahead an keep our share of that $5,000." That sounds way more generous than the NCAA that I'm familiar with... In the regular season, a school can say they sold 1M tickets to a game and the NCAA still gets the same amount of money, zilch. Reporting tickets sold as the attendance during the regular season has no monetary effect on anyone. For the playoffs, it benefits the SCHOOL to have the lower actual tickets used number, whereas it benefits the NCAA to use the higher actual tickets sold. When the NCAA made its bylaws, whose financial interests do you think they were looking out for? Logic dictates that they want 75% of the larger number and they make the rules.
Can't really argue with any of what you're saying but I'm just saying the numbers don't add up. The only school I follow closely enough to bother doing that arithmetic for is NDSU and they don't add up when I see reported attendance figures for games that were completely sold out seats plus standing room.

So the question is why would schools deliberately report the lower turnstile count for the playoffs rather than tickets sold? The only logical answer I can think of is because it saves them money.

[Tazman2664]

This basically gets to the heart of "why" the FCS level exists in the first place...that is, there are different goals/outcomes for many schools playing at this level.

In reality, there are only a handful of schools who play at this level that feel winning a national title is a realistic goal, NDSU obviously being one of those. This isn't to say that HC isn't trying to put forth the best team it can at this level...just that its goals for its program are more aligned with having a program that can be competitive/successful against its historic rivals in the Northeast. If we happen to put together a team some season that is nationally competitive, more's the better, but it isn't the overarching goal of the program.

Basically, HC will just put a team out there and hope everyone has fun. Thus, no HC fan should ever complain about having to travel for a playoff game and the money spent on a big stadium and new practice facilities should be paid off in about 80 years. To be honest, then this is not a team I would want to pick for the playoffs, they will play the game just to have fun. And people wonder why the FCS isn't respected. HC should be playing DIII football if this is their attitude. St. John's and St. Thomas in Minnesota say hi.

[Sader87]

Basically, HC will just put a team out there and hope everyone has fun. Thus, no HC fan should ever complain about having to travel for a playoff game and the money spent on a big stadium and new practice facilities should be paid off in about 80 years. To be honest, then this is not a team I would want to pick for the playoffs, they will play the game just to have fun. And people wonder why the FCS isn't respected. HC should be playing DIII football if this is their attitude. St. John's and St. Thomas in Minnesota say hi.

Untrue and no one here from HC was complaining having to play at Monmouth...we actually probably had as many HC fans there as Monmouth did as HC has many alumni in the NYC-area.

HC and NDSU are playing at the same level...but in many ways exist in different worlds when it comes to what their reasons are for playing at the FCS-level.

[MSUBobcat]

Can't really argue with any of what you're saying but I'm just saying the numbers don't add up. The only school I follow closely enough to bother doing that arithmetic for is NDSU and they don't add up when I see reported attendance figures for games that were completely sold out seats plus standing room.

So the question is why would schools deliberately report the lower turnstile count for the playoffs rather than tickets sold? The only logical answer I can think of is because it saves them money.

You have more faith in the NCAA's generosity than I do, good sir! I tried to peruse the bidding portal, but the bastahds require a login! However, as a CPA, when I read "estimated net receipts", I read that as total revenue earned less total expenses incurred. To be honest the "as submitted on the proposed budget" part of the bylaw almost sounds like there is no "bid amount or 75%, whichever is greater" rule, but more of a hard number that the school has committed to. E.g. School A submits a "proposed budget" of 4000 tickets @ $20 average, with costs to host of $20,000. 75% of that proposed budget is $45,000. That's their bid and it's a qualifying bid because it meets the minimum. Any variance in the tickets sold, the average price or the costs to host would be irrespective of the PROPOSED BUDGET submitted, of which the NCAA claims 75%. To be sure, the term "greater of" doesn't appear in the Pre-Championship 2019-20 Manual a single time.

That's why I wondered if anyone has definitive knowledge. The rulebook (as I can find it) is a bit obtuse in regards to the bids.

[Professor Chaos]

You have more faith in the NCAA's generosity than I do, good sir! I tried to peruse the bidding portal, but the bastahds require a login! However, as a CPA, when I read "estimated net receipts", I read that as total revenue earned less total expenses incurred. To be honest the "as submitted on the proposed budget" part of the bylaw almost sounds like there is no "bid amount or 75%, whichever is greater" rule, but more of a hard number that the school has committed to. E.g. School A submits a "proposed budget" of 4000 tickets @ $20 average, with costs to host of $20,000. 75% of that proposed budget is $45,000. That's their bid and it's a qualifying bid because it meets the minimum. Any variance in the tickets sold, the average price or the costs to host would be irrespective of the PROPOSED BUDGET submitted, of which the NCAA claims 75%. To be sure, the term "greater of" doesn't appear in the Pre-Championship 2019-20 Manual a single time.

That's why I wondered if anyone has definitive knowledge. The rulebook (as I can find it) is a bit obtuse in regards to the bids.
Agreed, it would be very interesting to see the NCAA's books on this. I won't hold my breath waiting for them. xlolx

[MSUBobcat]

Agreed, it would be very interesting to see the NCAA's books on this. I won't hold my breath waiting for them. xlolx

Agreed. Was wondering if there's anyone with a line to an AD of a school that's been thru the bidding process, so we could glean some knowledge from someone who's been thru the process. I imagine the NCAA bid portal details out the financial obligations agreed to upon submitting a bid, but they don't seem to want to let the Average Joe have a peek.

The nuts and bolts of it are that I think AD's submit bids based on realistic expectations of attendance on that tough Thanksgiving weekend, the revenue to be gained and expenses to be incurred, often knowing full well that they may take a small financial loss. However, they feel that expected loss is worth it for a number of other benefits gained by winning the bid. If universities only participated, or hosted, athletic events that didn't lose money, we'd have A LOT less school-sponsored sports and a lot more club teams because almost no sports provide a school with direct financial benefit. If a school is willing to lose money fielding a tennis team for instance, what's the harm in putting in a bid that you expect will cost the school $20k?

[Tazman2664]

2019 Division I Football Championship Manual
Proposed Budget/Financial Report Form(Reference Bylaw 31.4, pages 420-422 of the 2019-20 NCAA Division I Manual)

Host Honorarium. When preliminary round competition is conducted on campus, the host institution may retain a maximum of 15 percent of the net receipts or receive an honorarium per the provisions of Bylaw 31.4.4 (whichever is greater) in addition to its approved budget.

Minimum Financial Guarantee. In order to be considered by the Division I Football Championship Committee, all prospective host institutions are required to submit a minimum financial guarantee of $30,000 (first-round), $40,000 (second-round), $50,000 (quarterfinals) and $60,000 (semifinals), which shall be 75 percent of the estimated net receipts listed on the online hosting proposal. Once the minimum guarantee is met, the committee will review the other site selection criteria to determine the host.

It seems they are tied to the guaranteed amount and have to submit a budget to support their proposal and then a final report showing all the final revenues and expenditures. So, nothing is tied to number of tickets sold or used. And yes net receipts is basically profit, so it would take revenue less expenses. The question is does the revenue include concession sales? If one could see their on-line budget report one could tell what is all included in the budget, I am sure they have everything they want accounted for in the system. And your budget must account for everything allowable and incurred otherwise they will be shorting themselves some money.

And I would think most first round proposals were above the $30,000 mark, since we heard last year Nicholls bidding $80,000 and UND, I think someone said this year, they bidded $75,003.75. Now the second, third and fourth round would come in at the marks, since the higher seed will automatically host.

[MSUBobcat]

2019 Division I Football Championship Manual
Proposed Budget/Financial Report Form(Reference Bylaw 31.4, pages 420-422 of the 2019-20 NCAA Division I Manual)

Host Honorarium. When preliminary round competition is conducted on campus, the host institution may retain a maximum of 15 percent of the net receipts or receive an honorarium per the provisions of Bylaw 31.4.4 (whichever is greater) in addition to its approved budget.

Minimum Financial Guarantee. In order to be considered by the Division I Football Championship Committee, all prospective host institutions are required to submit a minimum financial guarantee of $30,000 (first-round), $40,000 (second-round), $50,000 (quarterfinals) and $60,000 (semifinals), which shall be 75 percent of the estimated net receipts listed on the online hosting proposal. Once the minimum guarantee is met, the committee will review the other site selection criteria to determine the host.

It seems they are tied to the guaranteed amount and have to submit a budget to support their proposal and then a final report showing all the final revenues and expenditures. So, nothing is tied to number of tickets sold or used. And yes net receipts is basically profit, so it would take revenue less expenses. The question is does the revenue include concession sales? If one could see their on-line budget report one could tell what is all included in the budget, I am sure they have everything they want accounted for in the system. And your budget must account for everything allowable and incurred otherwise they will be shorting themselves some money.

And I would think most first round proposals were above the $30,000 mark, since we heard last year Nicholls bidding $80,000 and UND, I think someone said this year, they bidded $75,003.75. Now the second, third and fourth round would come in at the marks, since the higher seed will automatically host.

I think more of the first round teams (this year anyway) were probably more in the $30-50k range than the Nicholls and UND bids (which means pairing them together cost the NCAA some ducats). My guess is, if UND truly bid $75k, they submitted the 2nd highest bid of all 16 teams in the first round. Half of the teams that hosted averaged less than 5k during the season, so I'd imagine those 4 weren't expecting more than 3k (and indeed only SEMO of those 4 exceeded 3k). At a $20/ticket assumption, only Nicholls and SLU had large enough attendance to even cover a $75k bid let alone factoring in costs to host.

Any school that bid more than the minimum for Round 2 was potentially pissing money away, since you were either awarded a seed and automatically host with a qualifying bid or you are playing a seed and your bid is irrelevant. In the 3rd and 4th rounds, a school expecting to not get a seed can bid more than the minimum, but the chances of it mattering are very remote (would require 2 unseeded teams to be paired up, which would require 2 seeds to be knocked off).

[Catbooster]

I think more of the first round teams (this year anyway) were probably more in the $30-50k range than the Nicholls and UND bids (which means pairing them together cost the NCAA some ducats). My guess is, if UND truly bid $75k, they submitted the 2nd highest bid of all 16 teams in the first round. Half of the teams that hosted averaged less than 5k during the season, so I'd imagine those 4 weren't expecting more than 3k (and indeed only SEMO of those 4 exceeded 3k). At a $20/ticket assumption, only Nicholls and SLU had large enough attendance to even cover a $75k bid let alone factoring in costs to host.

Any school that bid more than the minimum for Round 2 was potentially pissing money away, since you were either awarded a seed and automatically host with a qualifying bid or you are playing a seed and your bid is irrelevant. In the 3rd and 4th rounds, a school expecting to not get a seed can bid more than the minimum, but the chances of it mattering are very remote (would require 2 unseeded teams to be paired up, which would require 2 seeds to be knocked off).
The only reason to put in a minimum bid is if you don't think the net receipts will exceed the minimum. The NCAA gets 75% of the net receipts regardless, unless they are less than the minimum guarantee.

Say you're MSU and think you can get 12k+ for the first round (turkey day) and 15k+ on subsequent rounds, and it costs $95k for expenses to host. Be a little conservative and assume $100k for expenses and 10,000 tickets at $20 each. Conservatively, you'll net $100k. You might as well bid $75k for your minimum guarantee. Now you start thinking about what others will bid and maybe increase it from that. There's really very little risk in putting in a bid like Nicholls' $80k if you have the kind of attendance we do. Later rounds you could put in a minimum guarantee of $150,000 with relatively little risk (15k tickets at $20 minus $100k expenses) if you want. At first, I assumed you would bid all rounds somewhat aggressively like that if you can because the bids are due before the last regular season game is played, IIRC, so you don't know if you will be seeded when the bids are due (unless you're NDSU or JMU xbowx).

Then I realized that since the seeded teams get a bye, there is no chance of unseeded teams meeting in the second round, so there's no reason to bid more than the minimum on the second round. Every round after that there is a slight chance of (higher) seeds being knocked out so might as well bid as much as your situation allows.

The first round is probably the hardest round to bid because all of the teams are bidding against each other, attendance is low, and expenses are probably higher (overtime on turkey day weekend).

TL: DR You're not necessarily pissing money away by submitting a higher bid since it's just a minimum guarantee and some schools will easily have 75% net receipts higher than that.

[MSUBobcat]

The only reason to put in a minimum bid is if you don't think the net receipts will exceed the minimum. The NCAA gets 75% of the net receipts regardless, unless they are less than the minimum guarantee.

Say you're MSU and think you can get 12k+ for the first round (turkey day) and 15k+ on subsequent rounds, and it costs $95k for expenses to host. Be a little conservative and assume $100k for expenses and 10,000 tickets at $20 each. Conservatively, you'll net $100k. You might as well bid $75k for your minimum guarantee. Now you start thinking about what others will bid and maybe increase it from that. There's really very little risk in putting in a bid like Nicholls' $80k if you have the kind of attendance we do. Later rounds you could put in a minimum guarantee of $150,000 with relatively little risk (15k tickets at $20 minus $100k expenses) if you want. At first, I assumed you would bid all rounds somewhat aggressively like that if you can because the bids are due before the last regular season game is played, IIRC, so you don't know if you will be seeded when the bids are due (unless you're NDSU or JMU xbowx).

Then I realized that since the seeded teams get a bye, there is no chance of unseeded teams meeting in the second round, so there's no reason to bid more than the minimum on the second round. Every round after that there is a slight chance of (higher) seeds being knocked out so might as well bid as much as your situation allows.

The first round is probably the hardest round to bid because all of the teams are bidding against each other, attendance is low, and expenses are probably higher (overtime on turkey day weekend).

TL: DR You're not necessarily pissing money away by submitting a higher bid since it's just a minimum guarantee and some schools will easily have 75% net receipts higher than that.

MSU should NEVER lose a first round bid again. We'll get a minimum of 10k regardless and I'd be okay with bidding with a $20k loss leader, minimum. You'll make it up in concessions. Plus home field is worth money. It's a weird setup in the FCS in that you can buy home field. I was talking more generally. If there's a year where some attendance powerhouses like NDSU, UM, MSU et al are borderline seeds and/or likely playoff teams but not seeds, the price of hosting the first round goes up, because they'll bid high also and you run the risk of being paired together.

[cx500d]

MSU should NEVER lose a first round bid again. We'll get a minimum of 10k regardless and I'd be okay with bidding with a $20k loss leader, minimum. You'll make it up in concessions. Plus home field is worth money. It's a weird setup in the FCS in that you can buy home field. I was talking more generally. If there's a year where some attendance powerhouses like NDSU, UM, MSU et al are borderline seeds and/or likely playoff teams but not seeds, the price of hosting the first round goes up, because they'll bid high also and you run the risk of being paired together.
have you just tried buying out a playoff game?

[MSUBobcat]

Put simply and mathematically (tho one has to put value to an intangible)

Expected Ticket Revenue - Cost to host + Concession/parking/other revenue + intangible asset of school hosting/boost to local economy/home field/etc (loss leader)=school's max bid

[MSUBobcat]

have you just tried buying out a playoff game?

If you pull that stick out your ass, life will get a WHOLE lot better.

[BisonBacker]

have you just tried buying out a playoff game?

xlolxxnodxxthumbsupx

[JayJ79]

If there's a year where some attendance powerhouses like NDSU, UM, MSU et al are borderline seeds and/or likely playoff teams but not seeds, the price of hosting the first round goes up, because they'll bid high also and you run the risk of being paired together.
and watch the committee pair that school with one of those tiny 2K seat stadium schools and you just wasted a bunch of money.
Best to just bid what your attendance can likely generate.

[MSUBobcat]

and watch the committee pair that school with one of those tiny 2K seat stadium schools and you just wasted a bunch of money.
Best to just bid what your attendance can likely generate.

That's my point. If it's looking like a bunch of schools that are likely to bid in the $40-50k range, like I suspect 80% did this year, throw out 75-80k and you're in (unless the high bidders get paired like I also suspect happened with Nicholls-UND). If a bunch of high-attendance schools are in that 6 to 30ish range, you better up your game.

[Catbooster]

MSU should NEVER lose a first round bid again. We'll get a minimum of 10k regardless and I'd be okay with bidding with a $20k loss leader, minimum. You'll make it up in concessions. Plus home field is worth money. It's a weird setup in the FCS in that you can buy home field. I was talking more generally. If there's a year where some attendance powerhouses like NDSU, UM, MSU et al are borderline seeds and/or likely playoff teams but not seeds, the price of hosting the first round goes up, because they'll bid high also and you run the risk of being paired together.
Again? Did we lose a first round bid before? Admittedly, some of my memories from '84 are a little hazy, with the pre-game activities and such, but I don't remember us ever missing a hosting opportunity.

[MSUBobcat]

Again? Did we lose a first round bid before? Admittedly, some of my memories from '84 are a little hazy, with the pre-game activities and such, but I don't remember us ever missing a hosting opportunity.

I didn't mean again as in it happened before. I meant it as in from here to eternity. With the growth of the Gallatin Valley, MSU itself and fan base as a whole, even on Thanksgiving weekend, MSU will draw at least 10k, which is more than all but a handful of FCS teams and one (UM) can't be paired in the first round. With sideline seats going for $40, even if only 6k are sideline and the rest were free student tickets, that's over a quarter million dollars from the gate and concessions. As I've mentioned before, I'd even be willing to lose some money on the game. So now you have a pool of $300k or so. Deducting expenses to host still leaves a huge amount to place a bid. And that's being pretty conservative IMO.

Edit: We went on the road for first round games in 2002 against McNeese and 2003 against UNI. Lost both games

[neverobeyed]

Put simply and mathematically (tho one has to put value to an intangible)

Expected Ticket Revenue - Cost to host + Concession/parking/other revenue + intangible asset of school hosting/boost to local economy/home field/etc (loss leader)=school's max bid

That is an abstract.

ADs can't put that on a balance ledger, which is what their bosses/critics/etc. see first (because they have to ... that's what their bosses/critics/etc. are looking at). I agree it is important and wish more schools (and businesses) cared about the long term, but that ain't America in 2019.

(Expected Ticket Revenue - Cost to host + Concession/parking/other revenue = school's max bid) will keep bosses/critics/etc. happy. And delight accountants.

[MSUBobcat]

That is an abstract.

ADs can't put that on a balance ledger, which is what their bosses/critics/etc. see first (because they have to ... that's what their bosses/critics/etc. are looking at). I agree it is important and wish more schools (and businesses) cared about the long term, but that ain't America in 2019.

(Expected Ticket Revenue - Cost to host + Concession/parking/other revenue = school's max bid) will keep bosses/critics/etc. happy. And delight accountants.

You give little credit to people pretty high up in major universities if you don't think they see the value in losing $10 or 20k to reap certain indirect benefits. How much they value it is the flexible part of the equation, but make no mistake that they would assign SOME value to it. Albany hosting in front of less than 2k may have assigned it little to no value. I'd bet MSU values just having home field advantage at least at $5k. You have to remember when it comes to athletics, the fans and alum are the critics/bosses too.

[Catbooster]

That is an abstract.

ADs can't put that on a balance ledger, which is what their bosses/critics/etc. see first (because they have to ... that's what their bosses/critics/etc. are looking at). I agree it is important and wish more schools (and businesses) cared about the long term, but that ain't America in 2019.

(Expected Ticket Revenue - Cost to host + Concession/parking/other revenue = school's max bid) will keep bosses/critics/etc. happy. And delight accountants.
Probably true at some universities, but I'm pretty sure some would agree that there is value in those things. I would bet that our President would have no problem with our AD including some of that. But maybe that's part of why our university is bucking the trend of shrinking enrollments.

It seems apparent to me that at least some schools see value in hosting a playoff game beyond the dollars and cents entries in the ledger. Otherwise the amounts of some of the bids discussed wouldn't make any sense

[nodak651]

Probably true at some universities, but I'm pretty sure some would agree that there is value in those things. I would bet that our President would have no problem with our AD including some of that. But maybe that's part of why our university is bucking the trend of shrinking enrollments.

It seems apparent to me that at least some schools see value in hosting a playoff game beyond the dollars and cents entries in the ledger. Otherwise the amounts of some of the bids discussed wouldn't make any sense

This. It baffles me that UND lost a home playoff game over a few thousand dollars, when at the same time we pay a team like MVSU 230K for a non conf game. Most of the guarantee money is likely to be recouped anyway, so even if UND would have lost money on the game, dollar for dollar, that money would have to have some of the best bang for the buck of anything in the 4.5 million football budget. Losing a game for what effectively amounts to crumbs in the football budget is just baffling to me.

[JayJ79]

This. It baffles me that UND lost a home playoff game over a few thousand dollars, when at the same time we pay a team like MVSU 230K for a non conf game. Most of the guarantee money is likely to be recouped anyway, so even if UND would have lost money on the game, dollar for dollar, that money would have to have some of the best bang for the buck of anything in the 4.5 million football budget. Losing a game for what effectively amounts to crumbs in the football budget is just baffling to me.
you are aware that you don't know which team you'll be matched up with (so which team you have to outbid), or what any of the other teams have bid, right?

[MSUBobcat]

you are aware that you don't know which team you'll be matched up with (so which team you have to outbid), or what any of the other teams have bid, right?

I think his point was, he's disappointed that UND didn't bid enough to ENSURE they hosted the first round. I would be upset with MSU for the same. I understand his sentiment. In the grand scheme of things adding in a $20k loss to your bid for the advantage of hosting is a drop in the bucket to the overall athletic budget. Additionally, MOST of the sports a college sponsors lose money. Why not let football, which covers the losses of those other sports at many schools, dip into its reserves a bit?

[neverobeyed]

You give little credit to people pretty high up in major universities if you don't think they see the value in losing $10 or 20k to reap certain indirect benefits. How much they value it is the flexible part of the equation, but make no mistake that they would assign SOME value to it. Albany hosting in front of less than 2k may have assigned it little to no value. I'd bet MSU values just having home field advantage at least at $5k. You have to remember when it comes to athletics, the fans and alum are the critics/bosses too.

You are right. It is a combination of me giving them little credit (I have worked in higher education for most of the past 30 years) and seeing how leadership culture in this country is focused on short-term/black-white/base-it-on-numbers decision making makes it hard for anyone with a "vision" to move forward (unless they are using their own money). I think the intangibles are important. I just don't think you can attach a value to that and put into a formula and take that to many bosses in 2019.

[Blue Waves Crest]

Kids choose to go to schools not only to play football.

Believe it or not, but HC a school of 3K has both a bigger stadium and a better practice facility than NDSU...so it's not always school size either.

Isn’t Holy Cross’s stadium as large as it is because they used to play something that resembled major college football, kind of like how Princeton Harvard and Yale play in 40K-65K seat stadiums that have like 7K people in attendance weekly in the modern era? I’m not being sarcastic I’m seriously asking, because it kind of sounds like you’re suggesting there’s an outsized following for Holy Cross football in this century, my initial impression is that it’s a relic from their heydays like the Ivies. We played there in 2017 in a high scoring game and there were 4K people in attendance


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sader87]

HC's attendance has dropped pretty precipitously, like many FCS schools but even moreso, in the last 30 years or so. Much of that is due to the factors the other schools are dealing with (TV/online options, changing society etc etc) but on top of that HC joined the PL, dropped scholarships, stopped playing BC etc which hurt its following/support among both alums and CMass locals/subway alums. Throw HC not joining the Big East in basketball when invited to do so in the late 1970s and most non-alum fans stopped really caring/supporting HC athletics in general.

That being said, HC still draws relatively well for football compared to many FCS programs in the Northeast. Two games this year topped 10K in attendance and we led the PL (again, I know :) ) in home attendance this year I believe.

HC has drawn as many as 15K+ on a couple of occasions this decade...night (temporary lights) games against local CAA opponents.

Fitton Field at 23,500 is too large a stadium for FCS football in the 21st C though....no argument there.

[Go Lehigh TU Owl]

Surprised by the number of empty seats today at JMU, Montana and Montana State.

[Sader87]

Surprised by the number of empty seats today at JMU, Montana and Montana State.

These games are just too late in the year, during either Thanksgiving or Christmas season etc....these playoffs just aren't going to draw well moving forward.

[R.A.]

These games are just too late in the year, during either Thanksgiving or Christmas season etc....these playoffs just aren't going to draw well moving forward.

The SWAC Title Game looks sold out to capacity...

[LetsGoPeay]

The SWAC Title Game looks sold out to capacity...

Definitely 20K there, easily.

That's an easy 2+ hour drive for the Southern U. faithful and they seem to have brought a nice crowd to Alcorn St.

That game is crazy, by the way, with all of those turnovers.

[Professor Chaos]

15,690 at the Fargodome to watch NDSU/Nicholls today.

Other games:
4,102 for SDSU/UNI
5,127 for UCA/Illinois St
5,422 for Weber St/Kennesaw
16,550 for Montana/SLU
10,881 for JMU/Monmouth

[Sader87]

Aside fom Montana....those are D2 or D3 numbahs not all that long ago.

[Professor Chaos]

Aside fom Montana....those are D2 or D3 numbahs not all that long ago.
Yeah, some pretty disappointing totals. All down from previous years for the same schools in the same rounds.

12,947 for Montana St/Albany

[LetsGoPeay]

What is the capacity of each home stadium?

I would say a better judge of attendance is capacity filled %, than overall raw numbers.

[Professor Chaos]

What is the capacity of each home stadium?

I would say a better judge of attendance is capacity filled %, than overall raw numbers.
Once the Sac St/APSU game finishes up I'll post alattendance numbers for all if the games along with what percentage of the regular season average it was for the host schools.

[Sader87]

What is the capacity of each home stadium?

I would say a better judge of attendance is capacity filled %, than overall raw numbers.

Outside of the 2 Montanas (which aren't great) all are well below 50% capacity I believe

[ElCid]

Outside of the 2 Montanas (which aren't great) all are well below 50% capacity I believe

It was a bit cold at a couple games.

[Sader87]

It was a bit cold at a couple games.

It's called December :)

Charleston was probably nice weather-wise today....the Uppah Midwest, not so muvh.

[GreatGreatGreat]

I was really disappointed in the Weber attendance. Cold weather scaring the fair weathered fans. And, unfortunately, even in Ogden Weber is 2nd favorite to either Utah or BYU. Ute fans probably didn’t feel like watching football today.

[Derby City Duke]

Once the Sac St/APSU game finishes up I'll post alattendance numbers for all if the games along with what percentage of the regular season average it was for the host schools.

Think we were around 45-46% of regular season. There were projections late in the week that JMU would have in the neighborhood of 17K. Must have been a neighborhood on the other side of the state...

[ElCid]

Looks like the SA/AP game is badly attended as well. But there was a downpour for a couple hours prior to game time.

[neverobeyed]

It was a bit cold at a couple games.


It's called December :)

Charleston was probably nice weather-wise today....the Uppah Midwest, not so muvh.

Sunny and mid-30s ... that's shorts weather.

[Professor Chaos]

Despite a big uptick from last week still some disappointing attendance numbers in round 2 IMO. Many of the host teams had hosted 2nd round games in the past and drawn better, in comes cases significantly better, than they did this year.

Monmouth/JMU: 10,881 (49.1% of their regular season attendance avereage of 22,144)
UNI/SDSU: 4,102 (34.3% of their regular season attendance average of 11,952)
Albany/Montana St: 12,947 (69.8% of their regular season attendance average of 18,547)
Illinois St/UCA: 5,127 (60.3% of their regular season attendance average of 8,505)
KSU/Weber St: 5,422 (68.2% of their regular season attendance average of 7,944)
SLU/Montana: 16,550 (70.3% of their regular season attendance average of 23,544)
Nicholls/NDSU: 15,690 (86.3% of their regular season attendance average of 18,177)
APSU/Sac St: 5,140 (43.1% of their regular season attendance average of 11,919)

Here's how it stacks up compared to previous years through the first 2 rounds:



Round
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019


1st round
4,502
7,297
5,634
3,408
4,958
6,373
3,598


2nd round
8,916
7,949
12,440
10,960
10,919
7,315
9,482


Total (through 2nd round)
6,709
7,623
9,037
7,184
7,939
6,844
6,540



So unfortunately we're looking at the worst attendance through the first 2 round since the field expanded to 24 teams in 2013.

[Go Lehigh TU Owl]

Despite a big uptick from last week still some disappointing attendance numbers in round 2 IMO. Many of the host teams had hosted 2nd round games in the past and drawn better, in comes cases significantly better, than they did this year.

Monmouth/JMU: 10,881 (49.1% of their regular season attendance avereage of 22,144)
UNI/SDSU: 4,102 (34.3% of their regular season attendance average of 11,952)
Albany/Montana St: 12,947 (69.8% of their regular season attendance average of 18,547)
Illinois St/UCA: 5,127 (60.3% of their regular season attendance average of 8,505)
KSU/Weber St: 5,422 (68.2% of their regular season attendance average of 7,944)
SLU/Montana: 16,550 (70.3% of their regular season attendance average of 23,544)
Nicholls/NDSU: 15,690 (86.3% of their regular season attendance average of 18,177)
APSU/Sac St: 5,140 (43.1% of their regular season attendance average of 11,919)

I'm not sure I'm buying 16k at Washington-Griz.

SDSU's attendance is shocking. Does the school being in Brookings really prevent SD residents/alums from attending these late season games? No question NDSU benefits greatly by being in Fargo and to a lesser extent MSU in Bozeman and Montana in Missoula. But still, one would think more than 4k people would be willing to hop in the car on a pretty nice day and make a reasonable 1-3 hour drive to be part of something civic/exciting.

JMU's attendance was also bad. Beautiful day in the Shenandoah Valley and the stadium is less than 1/2 full.

[Chalupa Batman]

I'm not sure I'm buying 16k at Washington-Griz.

SDSU's attendance is shocking. Does the school being in Brookings really prevent SD residents/alums from attending these late season games? No question NDSU benefits greatly by being in Fargo and to a lesser extent MSU in Bozeman and Montana in Missoula. But still, one would think more than 4k people would be willing to hop in the car on a pretty nice day and make a reasonable 1-3 hour drive to be part of something civic/exciting.

JMU's attendance was also bad. Beautiful day in the Shenandoah Valley and the stadium is less than 1/2 full.

I'm not buying over 5k at Sac. State either.

Surprised by SDSU's attendance too, would've expected 6-7k. A lot of fans soured on how the season ended and didn't feel like making the trip? Not trying to trash talk but that team deserves better support and would love to see them get it.

[Hammerhead]

It was a bit cold at a couple games.

It wasn't unusually cold on Saturday in the eastern Dakotas. Fargo hit 32 and next week it will be over 30 degrees colder for a couple of days.

[JayJ79]

Aside fom Montana....those are D2 or D3 numbahs not all that long ago.

D2 quarterfinal games from this past weekend:
3944 - West Florida @ Lenoir-Rhyne
2113 - Notre Dame (OH) @ Siippery Rock
1837 - NW Missouri State @ Ferris State
1352 - Texas A&M-Commerce @ Minnesota State
average attendance: 2312

D3 quarterfinals games from this past weekend:
2316 - Wisconsin-Whitewater @ Mary Hardin-Baylor
1510 - Muhlenberg @ Salisbury
1508 - Saint John's (MN) @ Wheaton (IL)
1351 - Delaware Valley @ North Central (IL)
(sidenote: 3 of the 4 D3 quarterfinals were won by the road team)
average attendance: 1671


and for comparison:
FCS second round games from this past weekend: (copied from Professor Chaos' numbers)
16550 - SLU/Montana
15690 - Nicholls/NDSU
12947 - Albany/Montana St
10881 - Monmouth/JMU
5422 - KSU/Weber St
5140 - APSU/Sac St
5127 - Illinois St/UCA
4102 - UNI/SDSU
average attendance: 9482

[Panther88]

FCS playoff attendance:

at Montana 16,550
at North Dakota St.: 15,690
at Montana St.: 12,947
at James Madison: 10,881
at Weber State: 5,422
at Sacramento St.: 5,140
at South Dakota St.: 4,102
at Central Arkansas: 5,127

SCG - Southern at Alcorn State
Attendance: 22,365

Mountain West: 23,561
Sunbelt: 18,618
CUSA: 14,387
MAC: 22,427

[Professor Chaos]

Still some hope attendance stays strong next week with JMU, Montana St, and NDSU hosting. Usually teams that host both the 2nd round and quarterfinal draw worse in the quarterfinals but I'd expect Weber St to draw better since it's a fairly easy trip for Montana fans. The other 3 will probably be down about 1-2K from where they were at last week pending external variables like weather.

[Panther88]

Thank goodness the fcs heavyweights also shoulder the attendance burden lol.

What do the lower echelon fcs schools bring to the fcs table aside from an eventual loss to the fcs heavyweights (Montana, NDSU, JMU, ...)???

[WestCoastAggie]

Despite a big uptick from last week still some disappointing attendance numbers in round 2 IMO. Many of the host teams had hosted 2nd round games in the past and drawn better, in comes cases significantly better, than they did this year.

Monmouth/JMU: 10,881 (49.1% of their regular season attendance avereage of 22,144)
UNI/SDSU: 4,102 (34.3% of their regular season attendance average of 11,952)
Albany/Montana St: 12,947 (69.8% of their regular season attendance average of 18,547)
Illinois St/UCA: 5,127 (60.3% of their regular season attendance average of 8,505)
KSU/Weber St: 5,422 (68.2% of their regular season attendance average of 7,944)
SLU/Montana: 16,550 (70.3% of their regular season attendance average of 23,544)
Nicholls/NDSU: 15,690 (86.3% of their regular season attendance average of 18,177)
APSU/Sac St: 5,140 (43.1% of their regular season attendance average of 11,919)

Here's how it stacks up compared to previous years through the first 2 rounds:



Round
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019


1st round
4,502
7,297
5,634
3,408
4,958
6,373
3,598


2nd round
8,916
7,949
12,440
10,960
10,919
7,315
9,482


Total (through 2nd round)
6,709
7,623
9,037
7,184
7,939
6,844
6,540



So unfortunately we're looking at the worst attendance through the first 2 round since the field expanded to 24 teams in 2013.

Are these attendance numbers able to cover the costs of the money owed to the NCAA for playing these games? The visiting teams have their expenses covered by the NCAA as long as they stay within the travel restrictions. The only two that may have possibly covered their expenses are NDSU and Montana. Montana State may also be luck to break even but still, this is unfortunate.

On the other hand, Alcorn State cleared at least 500K from hosting the SWAC Championship Game and will be getting up to $800K to play in Atlanta.

This FCS thing is way off kilter.

[LetsGoPeay]

FCS playoff attendance:

at Montana 16,550
at North Dakota St.: 15,690
at Montana St.: 12,947
at James Madison: 10,881
at Weber State: 5,422
at Sacramento St.: 5,140
at South Dakota St.: 4,102
at Central Arkansas: 5,127

SCG - Southern at Alcorn State
Attendance: 22,365

Mountain West: 23,561
Sunbelt: 18,618
CUSA: 14,387
MAC: 22,427

And this is why corporations and advertisers are willing to not only invest in the SWAC Championship Game, but also in the Celebration Bowl. When you're pretty much guaranteeing that both games will draw 20K+ people, and that both games will out draw 2 or 3 of the Group of 5 championship games, the money will come pouring in.

What the Celebration Bowl needs now, is for the actual people in ATL to start going to the game, much like they used to go to the FAMU vs TSU Atlanta Football Classic. Barring bad road conditions that wold prevent people from going to the game, the Celebration Bowl should start to creep toward that 35K - 40K mark with more support from Metro Atlanta. NCAT vs ALCORN pt 3 should be a draw, as well as the bands.

I'll make the 4.5 hour drive from Tennessee to be in ATL for that game, while also ( hopefully )watching the Govs on my phone take on GODZILLA up in North Dakota. Still have a major stepping stone in Montana before that happens, but I definitely hope to see it.

[WestCoastAggie]

And this is why corporations and advertisers are willing to not only invest in the SWAC Championship Game, but also in the Celebration Bowl. When you're pretty much guaranteeing that both games will draw 20K+ people, and that both games will out draw 2 or 3 of the Group of 5 championship games, the money will come pouring in.

What the Celebration Bowl needs now, is for the actual people in ATL to start going to the game, much like they used to go to the FAMU vs TSU Atlanta Football Classic. Barring bad road conditions that wold prevent people from going to the game, the Celebration Bowl should start to creep toward that 35K - 40K mark with more support from Metro Atlanta. NCAT vs ALCORN pt 3 should be a draw, as well as the bands.

I'll make the 4.5 hour drive from Tennessee to be in ATL for that game, while also ( hopefully )watching the Govs on my phone take on GODZILLA up in North Dakota. Still have a major stepping stone in Montana before that happens, but I definitely hope to see it.

It's still up in the air if Aggies/Braves III will get the eyeballs to the screen. NCAT sold all $200K of their ticket allotment in 1 day but it's unsure if Alcorn will make that move. And the ratings were down in 2018 compared to 2019. Add in all of FAMU's foolishness and other black press orgs saying that the CB isn't the HBCU National Title game, ESPN may be hard pressed to extend the contract past 2020.

We could have had the Bandheads and casual fans automatic with Southern but you can't win turning the ball over 7 times.

[Professor Chaos]

Are these attendance numbers able to cover the costs of the money owed to the NCAA for playing these games? The visiting teams have their expenses covered by the NCAA as long as they stay within the travel restrictions. The only two that may have possibly covered their expenses are NDSU and Montana. Montana State may also be luck to break even but still, this is unfortunate.

On the other hand, Alcorn State cleared at least 500K from hosting the SWAC Championship Game and will be getting up to $800K to play in Atlanta.

This FCS thing is way off kilter.
I don't think anyone had issues clearing the money making threshold this week. Unlike last week this week everyone bid the minimum guarantee to the NCAA which is $40k (there's no reason to bid more than that this round because you won't be hosting if you're not seeded and if you're seeded you just need to submit a minimum bid to host). SDSU would've been the closest but assuming they sold tickets for a $20 average that's just over $80k in gate receipts. So unless their expenses to host were over $40k they were fine and I'd highly doubt their expenses were anywhere near that.

The teams that drew over 10k probably made a decent chunk of change but nowhere near that Alcorn St number since they're sending a majority of that to the NCAA. NDSU tickets were $30 for endzone, $40 for sideline, and then $5 for student tickets. So I'd say the average ticket price was in the $30-$35 range. That's just over $500k in gate receipts. NDSU has higher expenses than most schools since they don't own their venue. It was reported that UND's, who also doesn't own their home venue, proposed budget to the NCAA had $50k in expenses so NDSU is probably similar or slightly higher. That means net receipts were probably about $450k but 75% of that (~$340k) is sent to the NCAA. I believe NDSU/the Fargodome keep all of the money made off of parking and concessions but that's not super clear. Still they probably cleared $100k if not more depending on those alternate revenue sources.

[LetsGoPeay]

Are these attendance numbers able to cover the costs of the money owed to the NCAA for playing these games? The visiting teams have their expenses covered by the NCAA as long as they stay within the travel restrictions. The only two that may have possibly covered their expenses are NDSU and Montana. Montana State may also be luck to break even but still, this is unfortunate.

On the other hand, Alcorn State cleared at least 500K from hosting the SWAC Championship Game and will be getting up to $800K to play in Atlanta.

This FCS thing is way off kilter.

The more you look at this, the more obvious that they need to go to a more regional playoff setup. Sending schools across the country to play 2nd round playoff games, doesn't make any sense at all, especially if everyone in the FCS is so sensitive about finances. If that means that some regions will be stronger than others, so be it. If a different setup will put more fans in the seats, generate more money, and not have costs be as high, they should go to 4 regions, 8 teams, and keep everyone playing as close as possible to each other.

2nd round matchups if these games were grouped by region:

East: JMU vs Albany . . . Monmouth vs Kennesaw St
South: APSU vs Illinios St . . . Central Ark vs SELA
Midwest: NDSU vs UNI . . . SDSU vs Illinois St
West: Weber St vs Montana . . . Sac State vs Montana St

Yes, the West is the strongest. Yes, the East is the weakest, and would be a cakewalk for JMU to the semis. But this would honestly create a lot more revenue for the FCS playoffs, than the matchups we currently have now.

[TheKingpin28]

The more you look at this, the more obvious that they need to go to a more regional playoff setup. Sending schools across the country to play 2nd round playoff games, doesn't make any sense at all, especially if everyone in the FCS is so sensitive about finances. If that means that some regions will be stronger than others, so be it. If a different setup will put more fans in the seats, generate more money, and not have costs be as high, they should go to 4 regions, 8 teams, and keep everyone playing as close as possible to each other.

2nd round matchups if these games were grouped by region:

East: JMU vs Albany . . . Monmouth vs Kennesaw St
South: APSU vs Illinios St . . . Central Ark vs SELA
Midwest: NDSU vs UNI . . . SDSU vs Illinois St
West: Weber St vs Montana . . . Sac State vs Montana St

Yes, the West is the strongest. Yes, the East is the weakest, and would be a cakewalk for JMU to the semis. But this would honestly create a lot more revenue for the FCS playoffs, than the matchups we currently have now.

Why? You seed the top 8 and go from there. Why should NDSU, Montana, Montana St, Sac St, Weber St, UNI, and SDSU be forced to cannibalize each other why JMU gets a cake walk to the title game? It's not these teams fault that the east sucks. We will never get a true seeded tournament until the FCS makes money, so we go with the top 8 getting seeds and try and pair from there. If you do not like it, then have your team play better. As an NDSU fan, I'd love for Holy Cross, CCSU, etc... to come to NDSU in the 2nd round, but instead, we traditionally get fed the tougher teams and have to go from there. I enjoy seeing "new blood" in the Fargodome and if the committee seeds the best 8 teams (I'd argue UNI got snubbed) and go from there, that is all we can truly ask for with the current status of the FCS.

[Professor Chaos]

The more you look at this, the more obvious that they need to go to a more regional playoff setup. Sending schools across the country to play 2nd round playoff games, doesn't make any sense at all, especially if everyone in the FCS is so sensitive about finances. If that means that some regions will be stronger than others, so be it. If a different setup will put more fans in the seats, generate more money, and not have costs be as high, they should go to 4 regions, 8 teams, and keep everyone playing as close as possible to each other.

2nd round matchups if these games were grouped by region:

East: JMU vs Albany . . . Monmouth vs Kennesaw St
South: APSU vs Illinios St . . . Central Ark vs SELA
Midwest: NDSU vs UNI . . . SDSU vs Illinois St
West: Weber St vs Montana . . . Sac State vs Montana St

Yes, the West is the strongest. Yes, the East is the weakest, and would be a cakewalk for JMU to the semis. But this would honestly create a lot more revenue for the FCS playoffs, than the matchups we currently have now.
Schools aren't losing money like I pointed out earlier. If anyone is losing money it's the NCAA and they have a nice fat TV contract from ESPN that the FCS Playoffs are a part of to draw from if they need to so they'll be just fine.

Having more regionalization would not lead to increased attendance. All you'd do is make super unbalanced brackets. There's enough regionalization the way it is in the first two rounds.

[100%GRIZ]

So the total for both Montana schools is 29497. Not bad for the Great State of Montana!

[JayJ79]

The more you look at this, the more obvious that they need to go to a more regional playoff setup. Sending schools across the country to play 2nd round playoff games, doesn't make any sense at all, especially if everyone in the FCS is so sensitive about finances. If that means that some regions will be stronger than others, so be it. If a different setup will put more fans in the seats, generate more money, and not have costs be as high, they should go to 4 regions, 8 teams, and keep everyone playing as close as possible to each other.

2nd round matchups if these games were grouped by region:

East: JMU vs Albany . . . Monmouth vs Kennesaw St
South: APSU vs Illinios St . . . Central Ark vs SELA
Midwest: NDSU vs UNI . . . SDSU vs Illinois St
West: Weber St vs Montana . . . Sac State vs Montana St

Yes, the West is the strongest. Yes, the East is the weakest, and would be a cakewalk for JMU to the semis. But this would honestly create a lot more revenue for the FCS playoffs, than the matchups we currently have now.
totally disagree. It is a national playoff, so the top national teams should be seeded nationally.

Switching it to a regional setup wouldn't even increase attendance much. UNI/SDSU and ILS/UCA were "regional" matchups and had poor attendance. Monmouth/JMU was a regional matchup and JMU drew half as much as they did in the regular season.

So you're sacrificing the national tournament integrity for no real gain.

[Panther88]

Schools aren't losing money like I pointed out earlier. If anyone is losing money it's the NCAA and they have a nice fat TV contract from ESPN that the FCS Playoffs are a part of to draw from if they need to so they'll be just fine.

Having more regionalization would not lead to increased attendance. All you'd do is make super unbalanced brackets. There's enough regionalization the way it is in the first two rounds.

So, the ncaa is subsidizing the ncaa fcs playoffs? xconfusedx It's painfully obvious w/ the round #1 games. Oh my....

[Professor Chaos]

So, the ncaa is subsidizing the ncaa fcs playoffs? xconfusedx It's painfully obvious w/ the round #1 games. Oh my....
That's a gray area there because who knows how much of the $40M+ annually the NCAA gets from ESPN for the NCAA Championships TV contract can be attributed to the FCS Playoffs. Is it $1M? Is it $5M? Whatever it is I think it's a pretty good possibility that it takes the FCS playoffs from red numbers to black numbers or from black numbers to bigger black numbers.

[JayJ79]

the purpose of the FCS playoffs isn't to make money or to generate attendance, any more than that is the purpose of the D2 or D3 playoffs, or the NCAA water polo tournament.

Sure, it would be great if all of those made money and drew huge crowds, but that isn't the purpose of the playoffs.

[LetsGoPeay]

Bowl game viewership is down across the board.

The Celebration Bowl drew a higher rating and more viewers than these bowl games in 2018:

- Independence
- Holiday ( which is a Big 10 vs Pac 10 matchup )
- Gasparilla
- Mobile
- Frisco
- Dallas
- Idaho
- Boca Raton
- Hawaii
- Camellia
- New Mexico
- Bahamas

- and drew a higher rating and viewership than both FCS Semifinals and the FCS Championship game . . . combined

Would most people liked to have seen Southern in that game vs you guys . . . absolutely . . . if just to see the band and those Dancing Dolls. But for myself, who follows Tennessee State football and HBCU football in general, I'm looking forward to seeing NCAT - Alcorn III in person.

[Professor Chaos]

Bowl game viewership is down across the board.

The Celebration Bowl drew a higher rating and more viewers than these bowl games in 2018:

- Independence
- Holiday ( which is a Big 10 vs Pac 10 matchup )
- Gasparilla
- Mobile
- Frisco
- Dallas
- Idaho
- Boca Raton
- Hawaii
- Camellia
- New Mexico
- Bahamas

- and drew a higher rating and viewership than both FCS Semifinals and the FCS Championship game . . . combined

Would most people liked to have seen Southern in that game vs you guys . . . absolutely . . . if just to see the band and those Dancing Dolls. But for myself, who follows Tennessee State football and HBCU football in general, I'm looking forward to seeing NCAT - Alcorn III in person.
The Celebration Bowl was also on ABC which none of those other games were. We'll finally get an apples to apples comparison this year when the FCS Championship game is on ABC. The Celebration Bowl may still draw more viewers but I bet it'll be pretty darn close either way.

[LetsGoPeay]

The Celebration Bowl was also on ABC which none of those other games were. We'll finally get an apples to apples comparison this year when the FCS Championship game is on ABC. The Celebration Bowl may still draw more viewers but I bet it'll be pretty darn close either way.

The FCS Championship game drew a 0.6 rating and had just over 1.0M views in 2018.

What type of rating and views are you expecting the FCS Championship game to have, if the best case scenario of NDSU vs JMU happens?

[Professor Chaos]

The FCS Championship game drew a 0.6 rating and had just over 1.0M views in 2018.

What type of rating and views are you expecting the FCS Championship game to have, if the best case scenario of NDSU vs JMU happens?
I'd put the O/U at about 2.5M viewers (no idea what rating that would translate to since that changes based on the number of active TV sets at the time). In January 2018 the JMU/NDSU natty drew over 1.5M when it was still on ESPN2.

[R.A.]

Definitely 20K there, easily.

That's an easy 2+ hour drive for the Southern U. faithful and they seem to have brought a nice crowd to Alcorn St.

That game is crazy, by the way, with all of those turnovers.

SWAC Title Game Attendance,
22,365
https://www.espn.com/college-football/matchup?gameId=401187336

[LetsGoPeay]

the purpose of the FCS playoffs isn't to make money or to generate attendance, any more than that is the purpose of the D2 or D3 playoffs, or the NCAA water polo tournament.

Sure, it would be great if all of those made money and drew huge crowds, but that isn't the purpose of the playoffs.

It's not? Well why all of the stipulations in the 1st round and the NCAA taking a significant cut for themselves? Why is the NCAA taking their cut like a mafia boss?

They could easily seed this thing 1 - 24, match up the teams from there, and not worry about how much a team has to travel to play a game. That would be the most fair way to do it.

But they don't do it that way because their playoff format decisions, and I would even say the way they seed teams, are driven by potential revenue brought in.

[JayJ79]

It's not? Well why all of the stipulations in the 1st round and the NCAA taking a significant cut for themselves? Why is the NCAA taking their cut like a mafia boss?

They could easily seed this thing 1 - 24, match up the teams from there, and not worry about how much a team has to travel to play a game. That would be the most fair way to do it.

But they don't do it that way because their playoff format decisions, and I would even say the way they seed teams, are driven by potential revenue brought in.
They take their cut to cover the expenses of paying for travel/lodging of the visiting team and other expenses.
Yes, the preliminary rounds are set up to reduce expenses, but that doesn't change the purpose of the playoff.

[Panther88]

the purpose of the FCS playoffs isn't to make money or to generate attendance, any more than that is the purpose of the D2 or D3 playoffs, or the NCAA water polo tournament.

Sure, it would be great if all of those made money and drew huge crowds, but that isn't the purpose of the playoffs.

Stick w/ d-1 fcs.

So, you admit the purpose of the playoffs is to lose $$$? Excepting the fcs heavyweights NDSU, JMU, Montana, Montana St, SDSU, ...

The purpose of the lower echelon fcs schools is to provide a historical W to the historical heavyweights and bring 3-4 fans for revenue generation? xconfusedx What type of backwards business model is this? xlolx The fcs heavyweights should relo to the s-w’rn corridor so we can rival the local fbs schools, finally. xreadx

[Blue Waves Crest]

A few thoughts on all of this, this has been really good conversation:

1) the Monmouth radio announcers were saying on the pregame yesterday that the JMU admin they spoke to expected a lower than average attendance because fans were anticipating coming to a better game next week, basically “these fans come from far away to go to the games, would they rather see JMU as a 31 point favorite in round 2 or South Dakota State or UNI in the quarterfinals?” It’s Jersey, we’re honest with eachother here lol.

But it had me thinking, is that legit? Is it mostly the same 20K people going to every game, and is JMU’s campus that remote that almost everyone who goes to a game is coming from a great distance, so much so that they would “sit out” a playoff game? Are most of the upper echelon FCS programs the same way? I’m used to an area where an overwhelming majority of the fans who come to our games are local people driving an hour or less, granted we have way fewer fans but we’re in the middle of the most densely populated state in the US so that helps.

2) I’m really looking forward to seeing JMU and NDSU meet in Frisco. Aside from the schools with teams left in the field my impression is that most of the FCS feels the same way. Both programs make by far the best impression to those who don’t watch FCS football (game is on ABC this year), and it would just be really good football with lots of fans in attendance, goes a long way to dispel “it’s not good football” “nobody cares about FCS football”, etc.

I also don’t think we’re at the point yet where there’s the Clemson Alabama effect- where fans that would go to the national championship would’ve already made the trip by now. While the Bison have taken up temporary residence in Frisco, JMU has been once right? I’d have to imagine if they rematch JMU will show out pretty well down there.

Long story short, to promote the FCS, the best foot needs to be put forward. Obviously if someone beats them it’s legit and I’ll watch no matter what, but I think with the recent success both JMU and NDSU have had against FBS teams that a matchup of these two teams in Frisco would actually register with the mainstream American college football fan, and would be a better watch than more than half the FBS bowl games


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[ElCid]

But it had me thinking, is that legit? Is it mostly the same 20K people going to every game, and is JMU’s campus that remote that almost everyone who goes to a game is coming from a great distance, so much so that they would “sit out” a playoff game? Are most of the upper echelon FCS programs the same way? I’m used to an area where an overwhelming majority of the fans who come to our games are local people driving an hour or less, granted we have way fewer fans but we’re in the middle of the most densely populated state in the US so that helps.


It's strange. Down south people have an entirely different view than in NJ when it comes to college football. I can say that having grown up in NJ. I used to travel 4 hours each way to get to Charleston for our games, from Georgia. I know lots of folks who come from all over SC, NC or GA to see our games. I made every game for 9 years in a row. And we have a pretty good attendance record. Usually top 25 or better. Although it has dropped off the last few years, especially with half our stadium missing. I also think people down south are more likely to be distracted by the big FBS games. For one, there are way more teams down here, and better teams. I know when Clemson or USC are at home, our attendance drops off a bit. But people drive far for games down here. I really think, at least on the east coast, the further you go south, the higher proportion of diehard college football fans you have. Not sure why JMU had a low turn out. JMU is literally right on I-81 and not that hard to get to.

[kdinva]

A few thoughts on all of this, this has been really good conversation:

1) the Monmouth radio announcers were saying on the pregame yesterday that the JMU admin they spoke to expected a lower than average attendance because fans were anticipating coming to a better game next week, basically “these fans come from far away to go to the games, would they rather see JMU as a 31 point favorite in round 2 or South Dakota State or UNI in the quarterfinals?” It’s Jersey, we’re honest with eachother here lol.

But it had me thinking, is that legit? Is it mostly the same 20K people going to every game, and is JMU’s campus that remote that almost everyone who goes to a game is coming from a great distance, so much so that they would “sit out” a playoff game? Are most of the upper echelon FCS programs the same way? I’m used to an area where an overwhelming majority of the fans who come to our games are local people driving an hour or less, granted we have way fewer fans but we’re in the middle of the most densely populated state in the US so that helps.



surprised at the attendance in Harrisonburg of only 10,880.......even NDSU wasn't a sellout (3500 short of sellout), thought in advance JMU would draw at least 18K

[Blue Waves Crest]

surprised at the attendance in Harrisonburg of only 10,880.......even NDSU wasn't a sellout (3500 short of sellout), thought in advance JMU would draw at least 18K

NDSU was way closer to a sellout than JMU was. I could understand selling 80% on that basis but not just over half lol


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[Blue Waves Crest]

It's strange. Down south people have an entirely different view than in NJ when it comes to college football. I can say that having grown up in NJ. I used to travel 4 hours each way to get to Charleston for our games, from Georgia. I know lots of folks who come from all over SC, NC or GA to see our games. I made every game for 9 years in a row. And we have a pretty good attendance record. Usually top 25 or better. Although it has dropped off the last few years, especially with half our stadium missing. I also think people down south are more likely to be distracted by the big FBS games. For one, there are way more teams down here, and better teams. I know when Clemson or USC are at home, our attendance drops off a bit. But people drive far for games down here. I really think, at least on the east coast, the further you go south, the higher proportion of diehard college football fans you have. Not sure why JMU had a low turn out. JMU is literally right on I-81 and not that hard to get to.

Interesting. Population density (or lack there of) probably has a lot do with the average fan’s proximity to their team. Relative popularity of the college teams themselves probably very closely correlates to the amount of pro sports in the area (AKA other entertainment options). Both broad generalizations and there are several outliers but they would seem to hold true for the most part


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[ElCid]

Interesting. Population density (or lack there of) probably has a lot do with the average fan’s proximity to their team. Relative popularity of the college teams themselves probably very closely correlates to the amount of pro sports in the area (AKA other entertainment options). Both broad generalizations and there are several outliers but they would seem to hold true for the most part


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I am sure it does, but we are a bit weird in that lots of Cid grads in Charleston, and SC, but lots elsewhere as well with military. But we still only have between 20-23K living grads (Corps of Cadets). I am sure that some go to the games who are not grads, but they probably have a brother or father or cousin or something that did. Alumni of schools are obviously much more likely to go to games than those who are not. I remember growing up in north Jersey and I think we may have gone to maybe two college games in my entire youth. And I had never been to a pro game of any kind until after college. And the GW bridge was just 50 miles away. But we lived up in the sticks.

I was curious, and the last time we hosted both a first and second round game in the same season (1992), we were significantly down as well from the regular season, so it is nothing new. We averaged 19K+ in the regular season and only had 12K and 13K when hosting NC A&T and YSU that year. More recently, in 2016 we averaged 13600 or so in the regular season and only had 10,336 for our second round game. I think the time of year is a factor, but I also think that regular season conference match ups are actually more of a draw to the average fan. I am pretty sure that is the case in the SOCON at least. Plus, season ticket holders have to fork out even more money for the playoffs. Some just don't do it.

[Hammerhead]

How many individual tournaments make money for the NCAA? The purpose of the playoffs is to find the best team in the country, not to make money.


Stick w/ d-1 fcs.

So, you admit the purpose of the playoffs is to lose $$$? Excepting the fcs heavyweights NDSU, JMU, Montana, Montana St, SDSU, ...

The purpose of the lower echelon fcs schools is to provide a historical W to the historical heavyweights and bring 3-4 fans for revenue generation? xconfusedx What type of backwards business model is this? xlolx The fcs heavyweights should relo to the c-w’rn corridor so we can rival the local fbs schools, finally. xreadx

[Blue Waves Crest]

I think the time of year is a factor, but I also think that regular season conference match ups are actually more of a draw to the average fan. I am pretty sure that is the case in the SOCON at least. Plus, season ticket holders have to fork out even more money for the playoffs. Some just don't do it.

I agree that at this level the regional rivalries (if you’re lucky enough to have them) can resonate more with casual fans than the playoff games


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[Blue Waves Crest]

How many individual tournaments make money for the NCAA? The purpose of the playoffs is to find the best team in the country, not to make money.

Big facts


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[Blue Waves Crest]

Thought this was interesting too as it relates to attendance. The only FBS game this week is Army Navy, yet the best concentration of FCS games remaining is being squeezed into Friday night and early Saturday. Why? Seriously, is there a good logistical answer? On the surface this seems to be a massive missed opportunity to fill a void for good football. All the teams remaining are good and the venues are top notch as well, seems like a great opportunity to catch the average FBS fan and make a great impression. Also would appear to be way harder to sell out a Friday night game than a Saturday evening

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[Professor Chaos]

Thought this was interesting too as it relates to attendance. The only FBS game this week is Army Navy, yet the best concentration of FCS games remaining is being squeezed into Friday night and early Saturday. Why? Seriously, is there a good logistical answer? On the surface this seems to be a massive missed opportunity to fill a void for good football. All the teams remaining are good and the venues are top notch as well, seems like a great opportunity to catch the average FBS fan and make a great impression. Also would appear to be way harder to sell out a Friday night game than a Saturday evening

The answer is because that's when ESPN has open TV slots for the JMU/UNI, Weber St/Montana, and NDSU/Illinois St games. TV drives the bus when it comes to dictating kickoff times if it means you get a nationally televised game. As far as the Montana St/APSU game apparently Montana St has commencement ceremonies on Saturday that they didn't want to conflict with so they listed Friday night as their preferred kickoff time. Generally, with games that are streaming on ESPN3 they'll let the schools kickoff whenever their preferred time is.

FWIW, this is the first year that I can remember (so at least in the last 10 years) that there's been two nationally televised quarterfinals on Friday night. Usually it's only one. So while it's kind of a crappy deal to have all the kickoffs bunched up Friday night and early Saturday it's good for the FCS to get a 3rd quarterfinal game on national television (meaning 6 of the last 7 games in the tournament are nationally televised).

[Blue Waves Crest]

The answer is because that's when ESPN has open TV slots for the JMU/UNI, Weber St/Montana, and NDSU/Illinois St games. TV drives the bus when it comes to dictating kickoff times if it means you get a nationally televised game. As far as the Montana St/APSU game apparently Montana St has commencement ceremonies on Saturday that they didn't want to conflict with so they listed Friday night as their preferred kickoff time. Generally, with games that are streaming on ESPN3 they'll let the schools kickoff whenever their preferred time is.

FWIW, this is the first year that I can remember (so at least in the last 10 years) that there's been two nationally televised quarterfinals on Friday night. Usually it's only one. So while it's kind of a crappy deal to have all the kickoffs bunched up Friday night and early Saturday it's good for the FCS to get a 3rd quarterfinal game on national television (meaning 6 of the last 7 games in the tournament are nationally televised).

Good to know. ESPN’s Saturday slate is probably a mix of NBA and college hoops. NBA is what it is, but could December college hoops games really be that much more of a draw? And I say that as a hoophead, I love both sports equally.

I guess the answer is yes if that’s what ESPN/NCAA decided, but it honestly comes as a a surprise. Peer into the crowd during one of those games and the arenas are half full, almost all nonconf games still. No juice yet with a few rare exceptions.

And I’ll defer to you on this one since you seem like you’re better educated on this than I am: is it worth potentially sacrificing attendance at these games due to the inconvenient times in order to have them broadcasted on national television?


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[Professor Chaos]

Good to know. ESPN’s Saturday slate is probably a mix of NBA and college hoops. NBA is what it is, but could December college hoops games really be that much more of a draw? And I say that as a hoophead, I love both sports equally.

I guess the answer is yes if that’s what ESPN/NCAA decided, but it honestly comes as a a surprise. Peer into the crowd during one of those games and the arenas are half full, almost all nonconf games still. No juice yet with a few rare exceptions.

And I’ll defer to you on this one since you seem like you’re better educated on this than I am: is it worth potentially sacrificing attendance at these games due to the inconvenient times in order to have them broadcasted on national television?


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Yeah, major college hoops takes precedence over FCS playoffs for the most part so that's why Saturday afternoon games are streaming only. It is nice to see them put the FCS title game on ABC this year though... I'm sure there's all sorts of college basketball games they could've put on there instead at noon ET on a Saturday. It's even a pretty good deal to get that noon ET quarterfinal this Saturday on ESPN. Those games have always been the most watched game of the playoffs just because they're on ESPN and the rest pf the televised games are on ESPN2 or ESPNU. This year that should change with the championship game on ABC but that ESPN spot is a big deal too.

I do think it's worth getting on the national networks even if it's at the expense of having to kickoff at a time that isn't ideal for the host school in terms of attendance. It helps you with recruiting as well as general exposure that's invaluable to your program. However, I think speak for the vast majority of Bison fans when I say having a big playoff game on a Friday night is awesome and beats the hell out of Saturday afternoon. There's something about the Friday night lights starting off the weekend that just amps up the energy in the crowd. Of course that's easy for us to say having a climate controlled venue to watch a game in but I think you'll find plenty of Montana fans share that sentiment... I still remember watching the epic 2009 Friday night semifinal between Montana and App St on the TV as the snow was falling on Washington Grizzly stadium.

[CHIP72]

I think the NCAA wants to make sure the Army/Navy game is a featured game, and not have any other college football games televised at the same time. The NCAA and ESPN may also want the Heisman Trophy announcement, which occurs on Saturday 12/14 at night, to not have any game competition.

Here's the entire college football schedule on Friday 12/13 and Saturday 12/14 across all divisions (all times Eastern):

Friday 12/13
Northern Iowa at James Madison, 7:00 PM (ESPN2)
Austin Peay at Montana State, 8:00 PM (ESPN3)
Montana at Weber State, 10:00 PM (ESPN2)

Saturday 12/14
Illinois State at North Dakota State, 12:00 PM (ESPN)
North Central (IL) at Muhlenberg, 12:00 PM (ESPN3) (D3)
Minnesota State-Mankato at Slippery Rock, 12:30 PM (ESPN3) (D2)
Army vs Navy (at Philadelphia, PA), 3:00 PM (CBS) (DI-A/FBS)
St. John's at Wisconsin-Whitewater, 3:00 PM (ESPN3) (D3)
West Florida at Ferris State, 3:30 PM (ESPN3) (D2)

(The NAIA playoffs have a bye week prior to the championship game for the participants; the NAIA semifinals were held on Saturday 12/7.)

Notice how neither of the games that primarily overlap with the Army/Navy game are available on television; they are only available via web stream.

Keeping in mind the comments a few posts up about Montana State's commencement ceremonies on Saturday and above in this comment about the Heisman Trophy ceremony, I'm still a little surprised the NCAA and ESPN didn't schedule the Montana/Weber State game for Saturday late afternoon/early evening on say ESPNU after the Army/Navy game ended. (The Austin Peay/Montana State game could have been moved to 10:00 PM ET/8:00 PM MT on ESPN2.) The NCAA women's volleyball tournament is being televised on ESPNU in the early and late evening on Saturday 12/14.

[Derby City Duke]

The answer is because that's when ESPN has open TV slots for the JMU/UNI, Weber St/Montana, and NDSU/Illinois St games. TV drives the bus when it comes to dictating kickoff times if it means you get a nationally televised game. As far as the Montana St/APSU game apparently Montana St has commencement ceremonies on Saturday that they didn't want to conflict with so they listed Friday night as their preferred kickoff time. Generally, with games that are streaming on ESPN3 they'll let the schools kickoff whenever their preferred time is.

FWIW, this is the first year that I can remember (so at least in the last 10 years) that there's been two nationally televised quarterfinals on Friday night. Usually it's only one. So while it's kind of a crappy deal to have all the kickoffs bunched up Friday night and early Saturday it's good for the FCS to get a 3rd quarterfinal game on national television (meaning 6 of the last 7 games in the tournament are nationally televised).

JMU also has commencement on Saturday 12/14. Friday works better.

Exams will be over but the school is keeping dorms open so students can more easily stay for the game.

I have an air rifle match with my Cadets on Saturday outside Cincinnati otherwise I’d be making the trip to Harrisonburg.

[Grizzlies82]

A few thoughts on all of this, this has been really good conversation:

1) the Monmouth radio announcers were saying on the pregame yesterday that the JMU admin they spoke to expected a lower than average attendance because fans were anticipating coming to a better game next week, basically “these fans come from far away to go to the games, would they rather see JMU as a 31 point favorite in round 2 or South Dakota State or UNI in the quarterfinals?” It’s Jersey, we’re honest with eachother here lol.

But it had me thinking, is that legit? Is it mostly the same 20K people going to every game, and is JMU’s campus that remote that almost everyone who goes to a game is coming from a great distance, so much so that they would “sit out” a playoff game? Are most of the upper echelon FCS programs the same way? I’m used to an area where an overwhelming majority of the fans who come to our games are local people driving an hour or less, granted we have way fewer fans but we’re in the middle of the most densely populated state in the US so that helps.

2) I’m really looking forward to seeing JMU and NDSU meet in Frisco. Aside from the schools with teams left in the field my impression is that most of the FCS feels the same way. Both programs make by far the best impression to those who don’t watch FCS football (game is on ABC this year), and it would just be really good football with lots of fans in attendance, goes a long way to dispel “it’s not good football” “nobody cares about FCS football”, etc.

I also don’t think we’re at the point yet where there’s the Clemson Alabama effect- where fans that would go to the national championship would’ve already made the trip by now. While the Bison have taken up temporary residence in Frisco, JMU has been once right? I’d have to imagine if they rematch JMU will show out pretty well down there.

Long story short, to promote the FCS, the best foot needs to be put forward. Obviously if someone beats them it’s legit and I’ll watch no matter what, but I think with the recent success both JMU and NDSU have had against FBS teams that a matchup of these two teams in Frisco would actually register with the mainstream American college football fan, and would be a better watch than more than half the FBS bowl games alk

Yes there have been several years I have passed up an earlier playoff game waiting for the following week’s game.

I can’t make them all. Just returned from Missoula. It was a 680 mile round trip. Gas, hotel, food, drinks, tickets add up. Always glad when I go but I do get selective and usually know when I can assume a victory ( the game to skip, awaiting the next one).

FYI playoff fans are often different from the regular season fans. There are many reasons why a different mix shows up. Ie... Our kid’s high school teams are done. We are easy to spot. Playoff fans are louder, not afraid of the cold, and better looking.😁

[Catbooster]

So, the ncaa is subsidizing the ncaa fcs playoffs? xconfusedx It's painfully obvious w/ the round #1 games. Oh my....

We don't know for sure whether they subsidize the playoffs. Most of us think they probably do if you only consider the revenue from the gates at the playoff games. But as has been pointed out, that's not the only source of revenue from the FCS. Regardless, it is their purpose to support college athletics. So yes, if necessary they subsidize the FCS playoffs.


the purpose of the FCS playoffs isn't to make money or to generate attendance, any more than that is the purpose of the D2 or D3 playoffs, or the NCAA water polo tournament.

Sure, it would be great if all of those made money and drew huge crowds, but that isn't the purpose of the playoffs.


How many individual tournaments make money for the NCAA? The purpose of the playoffs is to find the best team in the country, not to make money.

^^These guys are right. The NCAA is not intended to be a profitable business. It is a nonprofit created to make rules, support student athletes, organize championships, etc. - to support athletics at colleges and universities. Worrying about the NCAA "losing money" on the FCS playoffs is like worrying that the Red Cross is "losing money" by providing blood to hospitals. Maybe they should quit having blood draws - they probably lose money on them. The NCAA tries to make their money go as far as possible by doing things like regionalization, but worrying about some small amount of subsidy (from an organization that apparently has over $1 billion in annual revenue) to the FCS playoffs seems silly to me. Their entire existence is predicated on "subsidizing" various college athletic functions.

The attendance at FCS games, exposure, tv viewership, etc. are separate issues.

[Blue Waves Crest]

Not related to attendance but not starting a special thread for this: is the national awards ceremony televised?


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[JMU2K_DukeDawg]

See my thoughts below in PURPLE!!


A few thoughts on all of this, this has been really good conversation:

1) the Monmouth radio announcers were saying on the pregame yesterday that the JMU admin they spoke to expected a lower than average attendance because fans were anticipating coming to a better game next week, basically “these fans come from far away to go to the games, would they rather see JMU as a 31 point favorite in round 2 or South Dakota State or UNI in the quarterfinals?” It’s Jersey, we’re honest with eachother here lol.

But it had me thinking, is that legit? Is it mostly the same 20K people going to every game, and is JMU’s campus that remote that almost everyone who goes to a game is coming from a great distance, so much so that they would “sit out” a playoff game? Are most of the upper echelon FCS programs the same way? I’m used to an area where an overwhelming majority of the fans who come to our games are local people driving an hour or less, granted we have way fewer fans but we’re in the middle of the most densely populated state in the US so that helps.

On our message boards you will see a lot of discussion around the attendance situation. I think three primary areas make up the attendance - Washington DC, Richmond, and Norfolk. There's also some Roanoke, but it's far less populated if somewhat closer. The next group comes from the Northeast (MD, NJ, PA) with a smaller contingent of almuni traveling from NC. So while it is not Mountain West/Pacific distances to get to the game, most fans are traveling 2-5 hours. Harrisonburg, VA is quite small, so while we have some local folks there, JMU football games are really a student-alumni affair. We sell out most of our 25k stadium for the regular season, so yes, it is the same people every week, which makes the game experience all the more a family affair. Students are a bit more of an issue in terms of coming and leaving at the half. Even Alabama and other top FBS schools are experiencing this same issue in the regular season.

A bigger issue is the time of the year. Lots of holiday parties at work, family obligations around the holidays, and traffic out of DC to get to Harrisonburg on a Friday night (66W is almost a parking lot for about 50+ miles from downtown DC out to the West suburbs of Northern VA). Exams were last week and this week. At least they will be over by Friday this week, but then no students on campus next week. Weather is colder. I find this lame, but it is sadly true, that many of the students and alumni would rather stay in their warm living rooms watching the game. Pathetic really (unless you're sick). So as a result, we end up with 30-60% less attendance. It sucks and if there was one thing I'd love to fix, it would be getting games at the optimal time for attendance. For JMU, it's 3:30PM on a Saturday afternoon.

2) I’m really looking forward to seeing JMU and NDSU meet in Frisco. Aside from the schools with teams left in the field my impression is that most of the FCS feels the same way. Both programs make by far the best impression to those who don’t watch FCS football (game is on ABC this year), and it would just be really good football with lots of fans in attendance, goes a long way to dispel “it’s not good football” “nobody cares about FCS football”, etc.

I also don’t think we’re at the point yet where there’s the Clemson Alabama effect- where fans that would go to the national championship would’ve already made the trip by now. While the Bison have taken up temporary residence in Frisco, JMU has been once right? I’d have to imagine if they rematch JMU will show out pretty well down there.

Yes, JMU was in Chattanooga in 2004 (beat Montana on a god-forsaken turf) and won its first NC, then again in 2016 we beat YSU after having beat NDSU in Fargo. We dominated the stands in that game as we bought up a bunch of extras, offered by NDSU fans as well as YSU's admin that gave tickets back (it was BAD for them). NDSU and JMU had the rematch a year later in an exciting 17-13 win for NDSU in which they had a defensive stand with JMU driving and in the redzone at the end of the game. Both fan bases showed well, but NDSU's fanbase planning is superior to JMU's (hey, we don't make it every year, so give our fanbase a break for not scooping up all the public tickets starting in August!). I believe both fanbases will continue to show well for such an event, especially now that it is being carried on ABC - this can only help turnout, especially among younger populations that care about appearing on national TV, etc.

Long story short, to promote the FCS, the best foot needs to be put forward. Obviously if someone beats them it’s legit and I’ll watch no matter what, but I think with the recent success both JMU and NDSU have had against FBS teams that a matchup of these two teams in Frisco would actually register with the mainstream American college football fan, and would be a better watch than more than half the FBS bowl games

Agreed!

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[gofurman]

So maybe they need to move the playoffs to the weekend after Thanksgiving.

The weather definitely played a factor in the Austin Peay game. It started raining in the early morning, intensified right at game time which caused a late start. Then got delayed again in the 2nd quarter.


Yep - weather killed Furman/Austin Peay regardg first-round attendance. Weather delays/lightning had it last from 1p to 6p or so? That's how bad the weather was! Rain and lightning all over the place etc. That hurts FCS attendance tremendously.

[BigGrizz]

An NSDU Montana game in Frisco would draw the largest crowd easily! Both teams travel well. That being said its a long shot for the Griz.

[Professor Chaos]

An NSDU Montana game in Frisco would draw the largest crowd easily! Both teams travel well. That being said its a long shot for the Griz.
I think any combination of the Montana schools, JMU, and NDSU will easily sell it out. Maybe even just one of those schools could get close assuming their opponent can sell out their allotment of 4500 or so. Their renovation of the south endzone in Toyota stadium reduced seating capacity from around 21k to around 18k. They still claim (at least their wiki does) that capacity is 20,500 but that's gotta be with a bunch of people standing on the concourses or they just haven't updated it since the renovation. For the 2017 natty between JMU and NDSU they had sell 1,000 standing room tickets and attendance was still just barely over 19k.

[waverly_panther]

I think any combination of the Montana schools, JMU, and NDSU will easily sell it out. Maybe even just one of those schools could get close assuming their opponent can sell out their allotment of 4500 or so. Their renovation of the south endzone in Toyota stadium reduced seating capacity from around 21k to around 18k. They still claim (at least their wiki does) that capacity is 20,500 but that's gotta be with a bunch of people standing on the concourses or they just haven't updated it since the renovation. For the 2017 natty between JMU and NDSU they had sell 1,000 standing room tickets and attendance was still just barely over 19k.UNI brought close to 5000 to Chatty back in 2006. Would think we'd sell out our allotment with no issues. Not that we need to worry about it.

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[LetsGoPeay]

Yep - weather killed Furman/Austin Peay regardg first-round attendance. Weather delays/lightning had it last from 1p to 6p or so? That's how bad the weather was! Rain and lightning all over the place etc. That hurts FCS attendance tremendously.

Actually it was light rain for most of the morning, then a heavier rain with a few lightning strikes came right before game time, which delayed the game. They had one more delay in the 2nd quarter, in which a few lighting strikes put the game on like a 30 minute pause.

It was a pretty wet and dreary day, for the most part, and it kept me out of the stadium. I can do the cold. Rain I cannot do. I got enough of that when I went to the Tennessee vs Florida game back in 1992, in which a heavy rain drenched everybody in the stadium.

[BigGrizz]

Agree. If the Cats can find a way it will also be sold out. In sure most NDSU fans have already purchased tickets, hotel rooms and flights as they should.

[JayJ79]

UNI brought close to 5000 to Chatty back in 2006. Would think we'd sell out our allotment with no issues. Not that we need to worry about it.

2005.
We do not speak about 2006. That football season was cancelled.

[MSUBobcat]

2005.
We do not speak about 2006. That football season was cancelled.

What am I missing? A 5-2/7-4 record isn't a terrible season. Maybe not up to expectations coming off a runner up year, but still respectable.

[waverly_panther]

2005.
We do not speak about 2006. That football season was cancelled.I was drunk in Chatty and couldn't remember the year. But, yes, 2005.

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[Hammerhead]

ESPN's College Gameday might give a few minutes of coverage to the FCS. I wonder which games will be in the pick segment at the end. :)

[Professor Chaos]

8,741 for JMU/UNI

14,071 for Montana St/Austin Peay

6,422 for Weber St/Montana

Both Montana St and Weber St outdraw their 2nd round game which bucks the typical trend from the 2nd round to the quarters. I'd expect about 15,000 for the NDSU/Illinois St game which would put the 4 quarterfinals at around an 11k average which is a very good number (would be the 3rd highest quarterfinal average since 2013).

[Professor Chaos]

Only one direction to go in comparison to previous years with the first two rounds being the lowest attended since 2013. The quarters drew fairly well.

UNI/JMU: 8,741 (39.5% of their regular season attendance average of 22,144)
APSU/Montana St: 14,071 (75.6% of their regular season attendance average of 18,547)
Montana/Weber St: 6,422 (80.8% of their regular season attendance average of 7,944)
Illinois St/NDSU: 14,132 (77.7% of their regular season attendance average of 18,177)

Averages compared to previous years:



Round

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019



Total (through the quarters)

6,979

7,749

9,767

8,105

8,441

7,119

7,401



1st round

4,502

7,297

5,634

3,408

4,958

6,373

3,598



2nd round

8,916

7,949

12,440

10,960

10,919

7,315

9,482



Quarters

8,058

8,250

12,688

11,787

10,452

8,219

10,842




So current attendance is sitting at 5th out of the 7 years since 2013 at this point but with semifinals that should hopefully draw in the 12,000+ range each and hopefully a couple good traveling fan bases in Frisco it's conceivable to get into the top 3 still.

[Hammersmith]

We don't know for sure whether they subsidize the playoffs. Most of us think they probably do if you only consider the revenue from the gates at the playoff games. But as has been pointed out, that's not the only source of revenue from the FCS. Regardless, it is their purpose to support college athletics. So yes, if necessary they subsidize the FCS playoffs.





^^These guys are right. The NCAA is not intended to be a profitable business. It is a nonprofit created to make rules, support student athletes, organize championships, etc. - to support athletics at colleges and universities. Worrying about the NCAA "losing money" on the FCS playoffs is like worrying that the Red Cross is "losing money" by providing blood to hospitals. Maybe they should quit having blood draws - they probably lose money on them. The NCAA tries to make their money go as far as possible by doing things like regionalization, but worrying about some small amount of subsidy (from an organization that apparently has over $1 billion in annual revenue) to the FCS playoffs seems silly to me. Their entire existence is predicated on "subsidizing" various college athletic functions.

The attendance at FCS games, exposure, tv viewership, etc. are separate issues.

Are you guys all kidding with this?!?

It's well-known that the NCAA makes money on only two tournaments out of all sports at all NCAA levels. DI men's basketball, and DI men's ice hockey. And hockey has been trending downwards in recent years and isn't much above breaking even. This hasn't been a secret. It's the DI MBB TV contract with CBS that covers all the losses from all the tournaments. Had NDSU's run happened before the playoffs expanded to five rounds, it's possible the FCS tournament might have come close to breaking even some years, but no way it's happening now with eight first round games on Thanksgiving weekend. All of the traveling requirements in the bracketing guidelines are not about making money, they're about minimizing the overall financial losses from the tournament.

[NY Crusader 2010]

8,741 for JMU/UNI

14,071 for Montana St/Austin Peay

6,422 for Weber St/Montana

Both Montana St and Weber St outdraw their 2nd round game which bucks the typical trend from the 2nd round to the quarters. I'd expect about 15,000 for the NDSU/Illinois St game which would put the 4 quarterfinals at around an 11k average which is a very good number (would be the 3rd highest quarterfinal average since 2013).

Question: wouldn't the quarters typically be a BETTER draw than the Round of 16? Or was that only true back in the day when the Round of 16 was played Thanksgiving weekend?

[JayJ79]

Had NDSU's run happened before the playoffs expanded to five rounds, it's possible the FCS tournament might have come close to breaking even some years, but no way it's happening now with eight first round games on Thanksgiving weekend.
Before the playoffs expanded to five rounds, it was a 16-team field and there were still eight first round games on Thanksgiving weekend.

[Professor Chaos]

Question: wouldn't the quarters typically be a BETTER draw than the Round of 16? Or was that only true back in the day when the Round of 16 was played Thanksgiving weekend?
Yeah, that's not as true anymore. I'm sure in the old 16 team format it would've been since, like you mentioned, the round of 16 was on Thanksgiving weekend which is always a poor draw.

I think the factors as to why the quarters typically draw less than the 2nd round in this format is because schools only have one week to sell tickets rather than two, student attendance dwindles even more since many students are already done with their fall semester by quarterfinal weekend, and the weather gets that much worse.

[MSUBobcat]

Yeah, that's not as true anymore. I'm sure in the old 16 team format it would've been since, like you mentioned, the round of 16 was on Thanksgiving weekend which is always a poor draw.

I think the factors as to why the quarters typically draw less than the 2nd round in this format is because schools only have one week to sell tickets rather than two, student attendance dwindles even more since many students are already done with their fall semester by quarterfinal weekend, and the weather gets that much worse.

I think having commencement this weekend may have contributed to MSU having better attendance. Lots of family in town Friday in advance of graduation. What better way to spend your last weekend in Bozeman than cheering on the team one last time? Of course this gain would be offset by some traveling fans that didn't come because there were no rooms available. We decided on Thursday to come for the game and just make the drive home after. Luckily the lil lady found us a room Friday morning.

[Hammersmith]

Before the playoffs expanded to five rounds, it was a 16-team field and there were still eight first round games on Thanksgiving weekend.

Okay, ignore the Thanksgiving weekend part, but the point still stands. The playoffs went from 15 total games up to 23, but you can typically only count on maybe one or two of the new first-round games to make money. I was just saying that adding NDSU(whose games always more than cover the NCAA travel costs) to the regular powers of the time like App St, Georgia Southern, Montana, etc., might have created enough revenue-positive games out of the 15 to cover any losses. But there's just no way to cover the losses involved with 23 total games.

[Go Lehigh TU Owl]

The crowd in Bozeman was very good! Especially for a Friday at a place where a lot of people have 4+ hour drives one-way!

I'd like to think the NDSU-MSU game comes close to selling out. Not sure if JMU will get more than 14-15k for Weber State. I think the Griz would have stirred more local interest.

The weekend right before Christmas is tough for travel. You got people going in a million different directions starting the end of this week.

[GreatGreatGreat]

I was proud of our attendance. Given the miserable conditions we had a good showing. Could have had 10000 if the weather was cooperating. I was there and not complaining because I believe we rarely lose bad weather games.

[Go Lehigh TU Owl]

I was proud of our attendance. Given the miserable conditions we had a good showing. Could have had 10000 if the weather was cooperating. I was there and not complaining because I believe we rarely lose bad weather games.

I agree! Weber State's stadium is a reasonable size as a result the crowd that was there looked good on TV! The conditions clearly weren't ideal.

[Catbooster]

Okay, ignore the Thanksgiving weekend part, but the point still stands. The playoffs went from 15 total games up to 23, but you can typically only count on maybe one or two of the new first-round games to make money. I was just saying that adding NDSU(whose games always more than cover the NCAA travel costs) to the regular powers of the time like App St, Georgia Southern, Montana, etc., might have created enough revenue-positive games out of the 15 to cover any losses. But there's just no way to cover the losses involved with 23 total games.
I don't think anyone has tried to argue that the playoffs are profitable - certainly not based only on gate receipts. I'm not sure what your point is. Are you concerned that the losses are too much for the NCAA to continue sponsoring the playoffs?

[Hammersmith]

I don't think anyone has tried to argue that the playoffs are profitable - certainly not based only on gate receipts. I'm not sure what your point is. Are you concerned that the losses are too much for the NCAA to continue sponsoring the playoffs?

Actually, you said: "We don't know for sure whether they subsidize the playoffs." I'm saying we know for certain they subsidize the playoffs. I'm totally okay with that and don't know why it should surprise anyone. I'm especially mocking of Panther88's faux shock or whatever. He's trying to passively-aggressively suggest that it's so shameful that the FCS playoffs must be subsidized. I'm saying that's an idiotic position when playoffs aren't supposed to make money for the NCAA, and out of the dozens of championships that the NCAA puts on, only two outliers actually turn a profit(and a negligible profit for one of them). I made a minor side argument that adding NDSU to a 16-team playoff with all the other traditional powers might have moved things from a minor revenue loss to a minor revenue gain, but I didn't say anything about it being good or bad because it's neither. It doesn't matter if the playoffs make money or not, that's not their purpose.

[Catbooster]

Actually, you said: "We don't know for sure whether they subsidize the playoffs." I'm saying we know for certain they subsidize the playoffs. I'm totally okay with that and don't know why it should surprise anyone. I'm especially mocking of Panther88's faux shock or whatever. He's trying to passively-aggressively suggest that it's so shameful that the FCS playoffs must be subsidized. I'm saying that's an idiotic position when playoffs aren't supposed to make money for the NCAA, and out of the dozens of championships that the NCAA puts on, only two outliers actually turn a profit(and a negligible profit for one of them). I made a minor side argument that adding NDSU to a 16-team playoff with all the other traditional powers might have moved things from a minor revenue loss to a minor revenue gain, but I didn't say anything about it being good or bad because it's neither. It doesn't matter if the playoffs make money or not, that's not their purpose.

Yeah, you're right. I didn't word that clearly. What I meant was that we don't have anything to cite - no press release, articles, financial disclosures (that I'm aware of) proving their revenue and costs. I went on to say that "most" (should have said virtually all) think that they are losing money (or subsidizing the playoffs), particularly when we are just talking about the revenue from bids for hosting playoff games. Other than the confusion I created with a poor choice of words, it seems we're in agreement.

[Hammersmith]

Yeah, you're right. I didn't word that clearly. What I meant was that we don't have anything to cite - no press release, articles, financial disclosures (that I'm aware of) proving their revenue and costs. I went on to say that "most" (should have said virtually all) think that they are losing money (or subsidizing the playoffs), particularly when we are just talking about the revenue from bids for hosting playoff games. Other than the confusion I created with a poor choice of words, it seems we're in agreement.

Yeah, we are. There are some press releases or articles floating around out there from a few years back, but I wouldn't know where to start looking. They were in regards to the DI men's ice hockey tournament. Probably from the Grand Forks Herald or the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It would have been included in a fluff piece either hyping up an upcoming tournament or recapping one that had just happened. But I do remember reading it, and the content has been quoted on the UND message board a bunch of times.

[Catbooster]

Should be good attendance this weekend in Fargo. MSU's ticket allotment sold out over the weekend and fans are buying Bison tickets.

[Professor Chaos]

Should be good attendance this weekend in Fargo. MSU's ticket allotment sold out over the weekend and fans are buying Bison tickets.
Yeah, I thought it would struggle to sell out. I'm sure that it would've topped last week with just Bison fans but guessing there will be a couple thousand Bobcat fans there maybe which might push it to a sellout. As of now there's less than 100 left of the couple thousand they opened up for sale on Saturday night that are normally single game tickets and student tickets. There's probably going to be anywhere from 500-2000 more go on sale Wednesday morning from unclaimed student and season tickets but it's trending towards a sellout I'd say if this momentum keeps up.

[JMUNJ08]

JMU's were hurt BAD by them predicting a torrential downpour all week (ended up at the NCAA Men's Soccer Final 4 in North Carolina instead). Had the actual weather been given, I bet we'd tick up a fair bit more but 4 hours in upper 30's rain doesn't make for more than we got.

Saturday looks to be incredibly good weather given mid/ late December in the valley. While right before Xmas, most people can probably sneak out early if they already didn't take some holiday time off the next week. Not sure what to expect but probably at least 12-15K though given my location/ family commitments, its Frisco or bust for me to sneak another game in this year.

[Schism55]

https://twitter.com/DomIzzoWDAY/status/1206720338089971713

[JayJ79]

https://twitter.com/DomIzzoWDAY/status/1206720338089971713
if there are seats that aren't claimed, then those seats aren't yet paid for and it isn't a sellout yet (or do they charge the season ticket holders for those seats even if they aren't claimed?)

[POD Knows]

if there are seats that aren't claimed, then those seats aren't yet paid for and it isn't a sellout yet (or do they charge the season ticket holders for those seats even if they aren't claimed?)No, they don't charge the season tickets holders for unclaimed seats, they give you a couple days to buy them before they release them to the general public. It is also interesting to note that the playoff tickets are cheaper than regular season tickets but there is less demand.

[footballer23]

if there are seats that aren't claimed, then those seats aren't yet paid for and it isn't a sellout yet (or do they charge the season ticket holders for those seats even if they aren't claimed?)

They do not... which is why it is a little premature IMO to call it a sellout. That being said, the fact that the available seats thus far have all been sold should be a pretty good sign that we'll be pretty darn close.

[Professor Chaos]

Semifinal attendance:

Montana St/NDSU: 18,077 (99.4% of their regular season attendance average of 18,177)
Weber St/JMU: 10,487 (47.3% of their regular season attendance average of 22,144)

Averages compared to previous years through the semis:


Round

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019



All

7,476

8,294

10,779

8,437

9,256

7,645

8,026



1st round

4,502

7,297

5,634

3,408

4,958

6,373

3,598



2nd round

8,916

7,949

12,440

10,960

10,919

7,315

9,482



Quarters

8,058

8,250

12,688

11,787

10,452

8,219

10,841.5



Semis

12,452

13,752

20,899

11,758

17,404

12,908

14,282





Looks like we'll end up topping last year and 2013 but that's it so this year will end up 5th of the 7 years of the 24 team field when it comes to attendance. Overall that's pretty disappointing considering the schools that were hosting the 2nd round games and on. It could be just a factor of less fans overall that want to go to live sporting events but if we want to see less regionalization and more seed the attendance trends are not going in the right direction.

[POD Knows]

Semifinal attendance:

Montana St/NDSU: 18,077 (99.4% of their regular season attendance average of 18,177)
Weber St/JMU: 10,487 (47.3% of their regular season attendance average of 22,144)

Averages compared to previous years through the semis:


Round
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019


All
7,476
8,294
10,779
8,437
9,256
7,645
8,026


1st round
4,502
7,297
5,634
3,408
4,958
6,373
3,598


2nd round
8,916
7,949
12,440
10,960
10,919
7,315
9,482


Quarters
8,058
8,250
12,688
11,787
10,452
8,219
10,841.5


Semis
12,452
13,752
20,899
11,758
17,404
12,908
14,282




Looks like we'll end up topping last year and 2013 but that's it so this year will end up 5th of the 7 years of the 24 team field when it comes to attendance. Overall that's pretty disappointing considering the schools that were hosting the 2nd round games and on. It could be just a factor of less fans overall that want to go to live sporting events but if we want to see less regionalization and more seed the attendance trends are not going in the right direction.So NDSU had a little over 18,000 but it was 100% sold out with quite a few people buying SRO tickets. So 1000 people bought tickets and then didn't show? WTF.

[Professor Chaos]

So NDSU had a little over 18,000 but it was 100% sold out with quite a few people buying SRO tickets. So 1000 people bought tickets and then didn't show? WTF.
That's always been the case in the playoffs where total sell outs will barely crack 18,000 in official reported attendance. Part of that is I don't think they count the band in that number so that's a couple hundred seats and Montana St brought their band too so that's probably 300-400 seats between the two of them for this particular game.

But you're right that it still doesn't quite add up. I mentioned it earlier in one of these threads that I think schools report the turnstile count when it comes to attendance rather than tickets sold because then they send less money to the NCAA. So if a school sells a ticket that goes unused that isn't included in the net receipts of their budget (which the NCAA takes 75% of) so the school gets 100% of the cash from that unused ticket.

Someone pointed out that the NCAA would probably frown on that and I'd agree but I also think it's a little nickel-dimey (copyright Bill Raftery) for the NCAA to worry about a couple hundred sold but unused tickets being left out of the total gate receipts.

[POD Knows]

That's always been the case in the playoffs where total sell outs will barely crack 18,000 in official reported attendance. Part of that is I don't think they count the band in that number so that's a couple hundred seats and Montana St brought their band too so that's probably 300-400 seats between the two of them for this particular game.

But you're right that it still doesn't quite add up. I mentioned it earlier in one of these threads that I think schools report the turnstile count when it comes to attendance rather than tickets sold because then they send less money to the NCAA. So if a school sells a ticket that goes unused that isn't included in the net receipts of their budget (which the NCAA takes 75% of) so the school gets 100% of the cash from that unused ticket.

Someone pointed out that the NCAA would frown on that and I'd agree but I also think it's a little nickel-dimey (copyright Bill Raftery) for the NCAA to worry about a couple hundred sold but unused tickets being left out of the total gate receipts.I totally believe the 18,000 number, there were empty seats in the dome but with playoff tickets, you have actually make an effort to "buy" those tickets, it isn't like season tickets that you actually own and paid for earlier. I would imagine that it is just scalpers buying up some tickets and not getting rid of them but you are limited on how many you can buy, so this thing is kind of a mystery.