Well, I bought 3 tickets for my annual drive from Atlanta.
With the Ga Tech game coming up after a bye, it will be back to back Tech games in person for me.
Every little bit helps
I'm beyond excited for this weekend's game against the CHokies (can I trademark that? I like that a lot. I'm trademarking that.). Win this game and we've got a legit shot at winning the Coastal, but perhaps more importantly winning a game as a ranked team against a name school will be another important step in shedding the decades old negative reputation of Duke football.
But I'm legitimately concerned that when I watch the game from Toronto this weekend I'm going to continue to see a half-empty stadium. I'm of the mind that the next step in becoming a legitimate, competitive team every year is creating a some sort of home field advantage, or at the very least a non-depressing home field environment. Filling a football stadium is a lot harder than filling Cameron, especially with the extra limitations on Duke not having a large alumni base in the Durham area (darn our stellar academic University!)... but a sparsely populated stadium in a big game, broadcast on an ESPN network, certainly can't help recruiting.
So with all that in mind, what can we do to fill Wallace Wade for one of the biggest home games in recent memory this weekend? I have one friend who got his PostDoc at Duke so I'm putting the pressure on him to start going to FB games, so I'm doing my part, lol. Feel free to respond both with tongue-in-cheek suggestions (see mine a sentence previous) or legitimate suggestions. I'm curious to see what ideas arise.
Scott Rich on the front page
Trinity BS 2012; University of Michigan PhD 2018
Duke Chronicle, Sports Online Editor: 2010-2012
K-Ville Blue Tenting 2009-2012
Unofficial Brian Zoubek Biographer
If you have questions about Michigan Basketball/Football, I'm your man!
Well, I bought 3 tickets for my annual drive from Atlanta.
With the Ga Tech game coming up after a bye, it will be back to back Tech games in person for me.
Every little bit helps
Filling Wade for TV purposes may be a tough sell. But, may I suggest moving the cameras to the other side of the field. I'm sure this has been mentioned many,many times. I'll be interested to see how Pitt Basketball looks now that they have done this.
I've been told that the reason the TV cameras face the visitor side has to do with the position of the sun during daytime games... you know, the sun appears in the east and moves to the west as the earth rotates.
On another note, the fancy scoreboard has begun to stream the words to our songs so people can sing along, but the crowds have been slow to join in... maybe because the words stream at the bottom while the main screen is filled with major distractions.
One reason for the NCCU game being so empty was the heat. People were dropping like flies and a lot left at halftime.
The eternal problem. If there was an easy answer, I imagine it would have already been accomplished.
Which is why thinking outside the box, like having craft beer, could only help. At minimum, it's worth a try.
Why keep doing the same damn thing when we know what the result will be?
The heat and sun was brutal on the TV side. Need to make the Tower on the other side significantly taller or create clouds every game to cover the sun. My best answer is to provide free tickets to the Duke community every game, once the sun problem is solved. Duke makes their money on TV revenue. Get the people in the stands to create a community. Those who want the great seats can pay for them- but again make it reasonable.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Perhaps leverage the popularity of the basketball team and scarcity of its tickets. Maybe say that two sets of two tickets for a random men's basketball game will be drawn at the end of the third quarter based on those who were there at the start of the game, and you have to be there at the end of the third quarter to get the tickets so people actually stick around?
For VA Tech, it is a night game so the sun will not be an issue. The long term forecast now seems to be showing thunderstorms on Saturday, which creates all sorts of other problems in terms of attracting those who would not otherwise be predisposed to attend. But weather forecasts could change a lot between now and then.
As a thirty year veteran of the East side of the stadium, I can attest to the brutal conditions there for a sunny day game.
When Duke is playing well, more fans (not as many as we might like) show up...and night games definitely help.
For example, last year Duke drew 26k+ to the Baylor game (announced attendance, lots of no shows); but with a 4-0 record a few weeks
later the Miami game drew 36k+ (again, announced)...it was a pretty solid crowd. Enthusiastic while Duke was still in the game.
I can tell you that Duke does not have a unique situation with attendance. I went to the Northwestern game and spent a lot of time on their football board beforehand, and they also
have a problem with attendance, despite being in the huge Chicago metro area...their stadium holds 47k (WW now holds 40k) , and is rarely filled except when visiting Big Whatever
teams help fill it up...last year NW had a great year, finished 10-3, yet when they were 6-3, only 34k showed up for the Purdue game (announced), and 30k for the next game vs Minnesota, when NW was 7-3.
In seven home games, they averaged roughly 36k .
With every game being on TV, even being located in a huge metro area doesn't help a number of private schools...play better and you do get more fans, play in less than Baghdadian heat, more fans come.
I think we'll have a good crowd vs VT, and better crowds going forward if we're still on a roll...
If everybody watching on TV complaining about how empty the stands look on TV would actually attend the game, we won't have a perceived problem with attendance.
And if we'd build a giant shade over the field and east stands, that would help, too.
(Boy, I'm cranky today!)
Seriously, we were in the shade on the west side, and we were hot and sweaty. (Wish I could have gotten a drink, but I would have missed about a quarter waiting in the concession lines.)
better wi-fi...
fight me....
"One POSSIBLE future. From your point of view... I don't know tech stuff.".... Kyle Reese
I was disappointed that with the renovation they didn't raise the wall around the concourse so that people couldn't watch the game from out there. The number of folks standing around out there and hanging over the wall would fill a bunch of seats. That would help a little. We had friends with seats on the top row over there who've had to call security with all the drinks and food knocked over on them along with other annoyances.
And yes, afternoon games are BRUTAL on that sunny side...and getting worse with global warming. We sat on tht side for years on the metal benches. It was awful then and it's so much worse now. As loyal as we have been for many, many years, had we not been able move to the west side we'd not be going anymore. At our age, we couldn't take it. They should be paying people to sit over there !
I'm eager to see if they move the cameras for a night game to show more of the loyal crowd on the west side. (Another reason to schedule as many night games as possible.)
There just doesn't seem to be a football culture among a student body in a private school with such a great percentage of foreign students. Not having been raised with it, they have their own interestsas well as a familiarity with other sports.
Then there is the city of Durham...half of which is probably made up of University of Non-Compliance fans.
Lots of reasons why WW games aren't more well attended. Sure do hope a winning and ranked program retrains a lot of people. Cutcliffe and company are doing a fabulous job and folks don't know what they're missing!
Love, Ima
Some smart Duke engineers should be all over this.
https://gizmodo.com/5785384/qatar-wi...-the-world-cup
I think this is a great option. I have heard (unconfirmed) rumors that the athletic department will make you buy season tickets to women's basketball while you "earn points" to get season tickets to men's basketball. Do this with the football team too!
Craft beer would also be freaking sick, but probably not coming in the near term. I know Michigan had to jump through a ton of weird regulatory hoops to have beer at Michigan Stadium when they hosted the Winter Classic and a couple of the International Cup soccer games, so I have to imagine it'd be that plus some more hassle to do something permanent.
Scott Rich on the front page
Trinity BS 2012; University of Michigan PhD 2018
Duke Chronicle, Sports Online Editor: 2010-2012
K-Ville Blue Tenting 2009-2012
Unofficial Brian Zoubek Biographer
If you have questions about Michigan Basketball/Football, I'm your man!
Scott Rich on the front page
Trinity BS 2012; University of Michigan PhD 2018
Duke Chronicle, Sports Online Editor: 2010-2012
K-Ville Blue Tenting 2009-2012
Unofficial Brian Zoubek Biographer
If you have questions about Michigan Basketball/Football, I'm your man!