How do we get people to Wallace Wade on Saturday?

[Green Wave Dukie]

Do you people have any idea what happens to popcorn when it isn't adequately monitored? One of the most dangerous and unstable substances on the planet. Requires rigorous oversite.

Jim - sorry, but your comment is very corny.

[arnie]

I can honestly say that by the time I walked away, I had seen them serve NO ONE anything hot...all attention was on popcorn (none of that ready, of course, but it was being popped)...so I have no idea about cocoa delivery systems, but the packet and stick methodology sounds right up their alley, though they'd probably run out of sticks.

Or water, but hand you 2 sticks to make up for it.

[fuse]

I’ve advocated free admission as an avenue to get more people in Wally Wade.

I wonder if instead of free, if a charitable donation that was offset by concession coupons would be a possibility.
Give $5-10 to Durham Rescue Mission (or some other local charity) and get a $5-10 coupon for concessions.

It all comes back to Al Davis.

[Acymetric]

I can honestly say that by the time I walked away, I had seen them serve NO ONE anything hot...all attention was on popcorn (none of that ready, of course, but it was being popped)...so I have no idea about cocoa delivery systems, but the packet and stick methodology sounds right up their alley, though they'd probably run out of sticks.

The times I've gotten hot chocolate at the games in recent years it comes pre-mixed. Handy for keeping your hands warm during cold November games!

[uh_no]

I’ve advocated free admission as an avenue to get more people in Wally Wade.

I wonder if instead of free, if a charitable donation that was offset by concession coupons would be a possibility.
Give $5-10 to Durham Rescue Mission (or some other local charity) and get a $5-10 coupon for concessions.

It all comes back to Al Davis.

giving out free tickets to trinity faculty and staff is a common occurrence. I had 4 free tix to the ND game.

[devildeac]

giving out free tickets to trinity faculty and staff is a common occurrence. I had 4 free tix to the ND game.

No wonder you had mad money for all that great beer you brought...

[jimmymax]

They can magically make a yellow line appear, from one side of the field to the other. I think they can fill the seats with people if they want.

[bloodevil]

Q: How do we get people to Wallace Wade on Saturday?
A: Bring The Rolling Stones BACK!

[HereBeforeCoachK]

They can magically make a yellow line appear, from one side of the field to the other. I think they can fill the seats with people if they want.

From the 10-15 plays I watched -- the camera people did an excellent job of not showing the crowd...er...empty seats.

[TruBlu]

It might be a while before I make a 12 hour round trip drive to attend another episode of Duke football. There were two positive things about my experience at Wallace Wade yesterday:

1) There was still hot chocolate available at halftime.
2). The performance (or lack there of) by the Duke team and coaching staff enabled me to escape after the third quarter to my warm car.

Some changes, including staff personnel and coaching philosophy, will be necessary for me to eagerly return to Wade. Problems with parking, concessions, alcohol sales, etc., are just fluff, IMHO. Entertaining football is concern #1. Our performance against Syracuse, and several other recent games, did not provide entertainment. (Unless you appreciate slapstick comedy.)

[Devilwin]

Win football games. That and that alone will fill the seats. It is very sad when we do have decent crowds, most wear the other school's colors.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Win football games. That and that alone will fill the seats. It is very sad when we do have decent crowds, most wear the other school's colors.

It's not quite that simple, though that would help a lot. Having a more dynamic offense, with or without more wins, is another...the Spurrier theory on how to win at Duke. If there's one thing I think is underestimated by many on this board, it's how much of an albatross Wally Wade still is on Duke FB. I think it's the number one single problem plaguing the Duke FB program, because it is part and parcel of winning or losing, recruiting or not recruiting successfully, of having fans or not attend. Wade and the crowds are both a reflection of Duke FB struggles as well as a cause of it.

Consider: Besides winning, how you feel at a game is what brings you back to a stadium, an arena, a concert, or a movie. Wade is simply too big and too open air somehow to create any intimacy, any atmosphere, except on very rare occasions. No venue in the country shows that this is possible with a small number of fans like Cameron does. AD White said they were going to "Cameronize" Wade and "right size" it - but that's not what they did. Perhaps it was not feasible...so that's not a criticism so much as an observation. Duke routinely gets 20-25 thousand to the site....and that's probably the football equivalent of 9314 for basketball. Cameron is on the selling side of supply and demand, and that in and of itself is important. The 9314 represents the best atmosphere in basketball. Wade has the worst in college FB in my opinion. There are FB stadiums where 20,000 or even less creates an intimate and good atmosphere. In such a venue, even 16,000 looks respectable. In WW, it's embarrassing.

Throw in the idiotic nature of the concessions and security, and you have other contributors to small crowds....but the stadium is wrongly sized, wrongly laid out, for the Duke FB fanbase. This may be insoluble...regardless of who is coaching.

[Devilwin]

It's not quite that simple, though that would help a lot. Having a more dynamic offense, with or without more wins, is another...the Spurrier theory on how to win at Duke. If there's one thing I think is underestimated by many on this board, it's how much of an albatross Wally Wade still is on Duke FB. I think it's the number one single problem plaguing the Duke FB program, because it is part and parcel of winning or losing, recruiting or not recruiting successfully, of having fans or not attend. Wade and the crowds are both a reflection of Duke FB struggles as well as a cause of it.

Consider: Besides winning, how you feel at a game is what brings you back to a stadium, an arena, a concert, or a movie. Wade is simply too big and too open air somehow to create any intimacy, any atmosphere, except on very rare occasions. No venue in the country shows that this is possible with a small number of fans like Cameron does. AD White said they were going to "Cameronize" Wade and "right size" it - but that's not what they did. Perhaps it was not feasible...so that's not a criticism so much as an observation. Duke routinely gets 20-25 thousand to the site...and that's probably the football equivalent of 9314 for basketball. Cameron is on the selling side of supply and demand, and that in and of itself is important. The 9314 represents the best atmosphere in basketball. Wade has the worst in college FB in my opinion. There are FB stadiums where 20,000 or even less creates an intimate and good atmosphere. In such a venue, even 16,000 looks respectable. In WW, it's embarrassing.

Throw in the idiotic nature of the concessions and security, and you have other contributors to small crowds...but the stadium is wrongly sized, wrongly laid out, for the Duke FB fanbase. This may be insoluble...regardless of who is coaching.

Well said. I still say if we put a competitive product on the field that would be step one. No one wants to come and sit there and watch our team get routed, especially when most of the blame is on the sidelines and in the booth, and not on the kids..

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Well said. I still say if we put a competitive product on the field that would be step one. No one wants to come and sit there and watch our team get routed, especially when most of the blame is on the sidelines and in the booth, and not on the kids..

You are right about that.

However I would not really separate the product on the field from the venue. They build on each other.

I would further the Cameron analogy by saying that Cameron is what identified Duke BB in the early - pre Natty years - of Coach K's tenure. Al McGuire, Brent Musberger (who never got the name right) and Dick Vitale all contributed to this. Today, the identity of Duke BB is clearly Coach K - with Cameron second. But Cameron's fame helped K build it, and he's said numerous things over the years that indicate he knows that. He embraced the tiny venue as a plus, not a minus.

There's no way Wade could equal that, but today Wally Wade is the "anti Cameron" - every bit a hindrance as Cameron is a help. The way the stadium is laid out is what it is, and maybe there was and is no way to solve this. But I do think the emphasis on aesthetics and not atmosphere was a foundational mistake.

[TruBlu]

In the late 50’s and early 60’s when I started attending Duke football games, there was no problem getting good crowds to Wallace Wade. There were wooden bleachers providing splinters to everyone’s butt. Absolutely terrible parking and concessions. Inadequate restroom facilities. I remember when they would make all lanes on highway 751 one way leaving Wade to alleviate the heavy traffic leaving campus (which usually was at the end of games, not halftime or end of 3rd quarter).

The difference was twofold:
1) Duke had a winning team with a rich tradition.
2) Very few games were televised, so if you wanted to see your team, you had to go to the game.

Since then:
1) The facilities have improved.

2) ACCN now has made it difficult to watch on tv for many.

The missing ingredient is winning and entertaining football, and hopefully a return to a rich tradition.

p.s. in the mid 70’s, Duke had to have billboards advertising season tickets for “small, intimate” Cameron for basketball. Why? Because Duke basketball had declined. Winning matters.

[fuse]

[sarcasm alert]
The greatest trick the (Blue) Devil ever pulled was convincing the ACC that Duke football existed.
[end sarcasm]

I appreciate what Cut has done for Duke football.
Outside of the obvious be a winning program, Duke has invested to make Wally Wade pretty nice. I wonder how many people are aware of the new facilities.

I don’t know what the title is for whoever is responsible for football game day programming, I bet there is not a more difficult sports related job than the answer to the titular question. You’d be the Steve Spurrier of football gameday to solve this conundrum.

Start ‘em young. Give every kid K-8 in Durham county a four pack of tickets to Duke football on the Friday before the game along with coupons for 4 free hot dogs, 4 popcorns, 4 drinks.

Give free tickets to everyone that works at Duke med. Ask them to use them or give them to patients.

Make it to all football home games and get a free Duke football t-shirt with a different design every year.

Make it to all home football games and earn a free ticket to a Duke basketball game in December when the students are out.

In season rewards program a la frequent flyer miles for other goodies at the Duke store.

When I lived in Annapolis, the midshipmen (and women) had to walk from the Naval Academy to the stadium. The midshipmen made it into a parade type event, with the middies throwing candy to the kids lined up along the route.

I expect Duke could literally give away 100,000 tickets every week and maybe get a 1:5 hit ratio to fill the stadium.

Solving this problem is a generational money losing proposition to play the long game.

[richardjackson199]

[sarcasm alert]
The greatest trick the (Blue) Devil ever pulled was convincing the ACC that Duke football existed.
[end sarcasm]

I appreciate what Cut has done for Duke football.
Outside of the obvious be a winning program, Duke has invested to make Wally Wade pretty nice. I wonder how many people are aware of the new facilities.

I don’t know what the title is for whoever is responsible for football game day programming, I bet there is not a more difficult sports related job than the answer to the titular question. You’d be the Steve Spurrier of football gameday to solve this conundrum.

Start ‘em young. Give every kid K-8 in Durham county a four pack of tickets to Duke football on the Friday before the game along with coupons for 4 free hot dogs, 4 popcorns, 4 drinks.

Give free tickets to everyone that works at Duke med. Ask them to use them or give them to patients.

Make it to all football home games and get a free Duke football t-shirt with a different design every year.

Make it to all home football games and earn a free ticket to a Duke basketball game in December when the students are out.

In season rewards program a la frequent flyer miles for other goodies at the Duke store.

When I lived in Annapolis, the midshipmen (and women) had to walk from the Naval Academy to the stadium. The midshipmen made it into a parade type event, with the middies throwing candy to the kids lined up along the route.

I expect Duke could literally give away 100,000 tickets every week and maybe get a 1:5 hit ratio to fill the stadium.

Solving this problem is a generational money losing proposition to play the long game.

This. I agree with all and think the ends would justify the means.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

[sarcasm alert]
The greatest trick the (Blue) Devil ever pulled was convincing the ACC that Duke football existed.
[end sarcasm]

I appreciate what Cut has done for Duke football.
Outside of the obvious be a winning program, Duke has invested to make Wally Wade pretty nice. I wonder how many people are aware of the new facilities.

I don’t know what the title is for whoever is responsible for football game day programming, I bet there is not a more difficult sports related job than the answer to the titular question. You’d be the Steve Spurrier of football gameday to solve this conundrum.

Start ‘em young. Give every kid K-8 in Durham county a four pack of tickets to Duke football on the Friday before the game along with coupons for 4 free hot dogs, 4 popcorns, 4 drinks.

Give free tickets to everyone that works at Duke med. Ask them to use them or give them to patients.

Make it to all football home games and get a free Duke football t-shirt with a different design every year.

Make it to all home football games and earn a free ticket to a Duke basketball game in December when the students are out.

In season rewards program a la frequent flyer miles for other goodies at the Duke store.

When I lived in Annapolis, the midshipmen (and women) had to walk from the Naval Academy to the stadium. The midshipmen made it into a parade type event, with the middies throwing candy to the kids lined up along the route.

I expect Duke could literally give away 100,000 tickets every week and maybe get a 1:5 hit ratio to fill the stadium.

Solving this problem is a generational money losing proposition to play the long game.

I see literally zero downside to plans like this. More community involvement with the university, more fans in stands, more people on campus, building a new generation of young Duke football fans.

[hallcity]

I see literally zero downside to plans like this. More community involvement with the university, more fans in stands, more people on campus, building a new generation of young Duke football fans.

How do you sell ANY tickets if you give away tens of thousands a week?

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

How do you sell ANY tickets if you give away tens of thousands a week?

Well, as they are barely selling ANY tickets now...

Okay, there is not "zero downside" but it certainly seems worth the minimal investment to get butts in seats.