Just saw this today:

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-heads-in-wrong-direction-with-largest-attendance-drop-in-34-years/

Any thoughts? It can't bode well for the stadium financing model.

Only solution to better attendance: more wins. 50% is unacceptable.

Well, i have to call total BS on one part of the video. Notice the empty shot of Folsom Field... no renovation inthe NE corner, which was completed 2 years ago. So yeah, CBS is using stock photo's from not last year to show poor attendance in 2017.

Not that CU had great attendance this year. I remember going to CU vs UW at 8pm in a huge rainstorm. Let's just say, no one was there or excited, even people from seattle. 1.049 million watched on FS1 though. Great. The 2nd most watched p12 game on FS1 (by 8k). Over 2x Cal v UCLA. FS1 is a black hole. Colorado vs Utah on FS1 seems to be the lowest rated P5 game on all national outlets at 273k. Maryland appears to have the worst game on FS1 at 247k vs . And to my count, 6 of 13 B12 games on FS1 and between p5 teams had viewership in the 300k's. Only 2 of 13 P12 games on FS1 were in the 300k's.

I've advocated downsizing stadiums for a while now. With the remodel we actually did that, but we should do so more. Of course the cost to do so is prohibitive considering the budget issues.

One way to do it without a huge cost is to renumber the regular bench seats allowing more space. Right now to sit on your actual number, you have very little space. If there are 20 seats on each bench now, they could be renumbered to be 16 (20% reduction). Lowers the capacity of the stadium but makes it more comfortable for the fans.

Maybe just do that for some of the sections ... kinda like Premium Economy on an airplane.

For Haas, I didn't like the way they took out student section benches and replaced them with premium seats. Instead they should have put some box seats lounges and took out seats higher up. Of course this would have cost a lot more money, and there isn't an easy place to put the boxes in the stadium.

Not surprised at all that overall attendance is dropping. From what I've read, colleges all over the place have enslaved themselves to the television gods and simply are ignoring their attending fan base with regard to start times, non Saturday games etc.

College football is fast becoming a pay-per-view internet/cable event. On the brighter side, short game time decision scheduling means that tickets won't be as hard to get if someone decides to actually attend a game.

ColoradoBear said:

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Well, i have to call total BS on one part of the video. Notice the empty shot of Folsom Field... no renovation inthe NE corner, which was completed 2 years ago. So yeah, CBS is using stock photo's from not last year to show poor attendance in 2017.

Not that CU had great attendance this year. I remember going to CU vs UW at 8pm in a huge rainstorm. Let's just say, no one was there or excited, even people from seattle. 1.049 million watched on FS1 though. Great. The 2nd most watched p12 game on FS1 (by 8k). Over 2x Cal v UCLA. FS1 is a black hole. Colorado vs Utah on FS1 seems to be the lowest rated P5 game on all national outlets at 273k. Maryland appears to have the worst game on FS1 at 247k vs . And to my count, 6 of 13 B12 games on FS1 and between p5 teams had viewership in the 300k's. Only 2 of 13 P12 games on FS1 were in the 300k's.

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Yes, yes it is a black hole.

One of the many major fails of Larry Scott is that football game start times can be changed on 6 days' notice by a network that regularly draws between 30 and 50 percent of the ESPN/ESPN2 audience for comparable college football games.

If only 300,000 viewers are watching on FS1, might as well set the game time at the start of the season, don't change it, and if FS1 or whomever doesn't want to show the game at 1 pm or 4 pm, put it on PTN.

Larry Scott didn't invent the 6 day scheduling window...that existed for a long time before our Pac12 media deal.

We didn't notice it so much because there weren't so many channels available to air games. The growth of channels implied a natural growth of television viewing windows...which now results in high variability and low predictability on when games occur. Bad for attendance...but good for allowing a broader audience to have the opportunity to watch Cal football.

The old question stands: which is better for Cal sports...to have all games start at 1:00pm on Saturdays with very little television coverage or having all games on TV but dealing with random start times.

The "game" is dirty. People are tired of the sham of amateur sports. As our former punter commented to a friend, as reported here, "This a business."

Rooting for laundry.

HodaddyBear said:

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The old question stands: which is better for Cal sports...to have all games start at 1:00pm on Saturdays with very little television coverage or having all games on TV but dealing with random start times.

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How about have all home games at the 1:00/3:30 pm slot but show them only on the P12 Networks?

HodaddyBear said:

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Larry Scott didn't invent the 6 day scheduling window...that existed for a long time before our Pac12 media deal.

We didn't notice it so much because there weren't so many channels available to air games. The growth of channels implied a natural growth of television viewing windows...which now results in high variability and low predictability on when games occur. Bad for attendance...but good for allowing a broader audience to have the opportunity to watch Cal football.

The old question stands: which is better for Cal sports...to have all games start at 1:00pm on Saturdays with very little television coverage or having all games on TV but dealing with random start times.

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The number of night games should be LIMITED.

Rivalry games should not be at night and the times should be set AT LEAST two weeks in advance.

oskirules said:

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HodaddyBear said:

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The old question stands: which is better for Cal sports...to have all games start at 1:00pm on Saturdays with very little television coverage or having all games on TV but dealing with random start times.

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How about have all home games at the 1:00/3:30 pm slot but show them only on the P12 Networks?

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Yes, the notion of "very little television coverage" is just a pointless strawman argument. The games are going to be on TV regardless.

One possible solution is to limit the TV networks' ability to move the game times around. Set the game times for every home game before the start of the season for a time that the home team likes (i.e., it might be 12:30 or 4 for every Cal home game but 7:30 for every Arizona State home game) and let the TV networks move the start time of no more than one of each team's home games per season after the season starts.

That way, the networks can choose the time slot for a choice game between two ranked teams in November, but if two teams having so-so seasons are playing in the second half of the season, the networks leave the original game time alone and they either choose to air the game at that time or leave the game for PTN.

Interesting discussion on this today on ESPNU. One of the points that they brought up is that the FBS now has more teams joining FBS from FCS, who have smaller stadiums, so we are seeing changes in the max total, and averages going down. And, of course, the increase in the weekday games and neutral site games. Alabama is not drawing 101,000 when they play at Jerry's world or in Atlanta. But the Saturday game attendance is still about the same (not sure if that was researched or just conjecture on their part).

So there are some basic reasons for this. The Pac 12 had a relatively small decline, probably entirely made up of Cal's overall decline in attendance this year. Pac 12 had a good year overall - most teams were decent except for Oregon State. So there was probably some excitement about that. The SEC did have a number of neutral site games that probably dropped their attendance. So they dropped in the SEC about 150,000 tickets sold. But this year the SEC sucked except for Alabama and Georgia. So that is probably a normal reaction.

Students and grad students should get in for free if they get to the stadium 20 minutes or so before kickoff. The more student energy that you get in the stadium, the more fun it is for paying customers to go. And that will get a higher number of students into it, which will one day mean more alumni into it.
For virtually all games, there are tens of thousands of empty seats. Let's offer them to our students.
It's harder and harder to compete with flat screens and everything else. Even priced free, i'm not sure how many we could get to attend.

HodaddyBear said:

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Larry Scott didn't invent the 6 day scheduling window...that existed for a long time before our Pac12 media deal.

We didn't notice it so much because there weren't so many channels available to air games. The growth of channels implied a natural growth of television viewing windows...which now results in high variability and low predictability on when games occur. Bad for attendance...but good for allowing a broader audience to have the opportunity to watch Cal football.

The old question stands: which is better for Cal sports...to have all games start at 1:00pm on Saturdays with very little television coverage or having all games on TV but dealing with random start times.

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Does anyone think its pure coincidence that the Pac showed the largest drop in attendance since 2012 and when new TV deal took effect?

BearSD said:

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oskirules said:

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HodaddyBear said:

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The old question stands: which is better for Cal sports...to have all games start at 1:00pm on Saturdays with very little television coverage or having all games on TV but dealing with random start times.

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How about have all home games at the 1:00/3:30 pm slot but show them only on the P12 Networks?

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Yes, the notion of "very little television coverage" is just a pointless strawman argument. The games are going to be on TV regardless.

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They weren't always before the latest TV contract.

HodaddyBear said:

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Larry Scott didn't invent the 6 day scheduling window...that existed for a long time before our Pac12 media deal.

We didn't notice it so much because there weren't so many channels available to air games. The growth of channels implied a natural growth of television viewing windows...which now results in high variability and low predictability on when games occur. Bad for attendance...but good for allowing a broader audience to have the opportunity to watch Cal football.

The old question stands: which is better for Cal sports...to have all games start at 1:00pm on Saturdays with very little television coverage or having all games on TV but dealing with random start times.

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There were very few games in the past subject to a 6 day window. Nothing like it is today. Most time slots were scheduled before the season started.

Your "old question" ignores an easy middle ground. Take less money from tv networks in exchange for them deciding most of their game selections preseason and taking some risk that they might guess wrong and not have the best matchup every week. And also require a fair distribution of time slots between the teams. It is a simple change that could balance the need for tv money with the need to maintain attendance

Those plastic chairback seats in Haas that are on the floor are still part of the student section , according to the Ticket Manager.

I was told last year by an assistant AD that thise seats were given to recruits and other vips. In the preseason, they were letting anyone sit there most of the time.

I was also told they may re evaluate that section in the future with the possibility of selling them as reserved seats if student attendance continues to be poor.

My bet is they will eventually be sold.

OaktownBear said:

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HodaddyBear said:

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Larry Scott didn't invent the 6 day scheduling window...that existed for a long time before our Pac12 media deal.

We didn't notice it so much because there weren't so many channels available to air games. The growth of channels implied a natural growth of television viewing windows...which now results in high variability and low predictability on when games occur. Bad for attendance...but good for allowing a broader audience to have the opportunity to watch Cal football.

The old question stands: which is better for Cal sports...to have all games start at 1:00pm on Saturdays with very little television coverage or having all games on TV but dealing with random start times.

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There were very few games in the past subject to a 6 day window. Nothing like it is today. Most time slots were scheduled before the season started.

Your "old question" ignores an easy middle ground. Take less money from tv networks in exchange for them deciding most of their game selections preseason and taking some risk that they might guess wrong and not have the best matchup every week. And also require a fair distribution of time slots between the teams. It is a simple change that could balance the need for tv money with the need to maintain attendance

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My guess is that this will happen at the next TV contract negotiation. The conferences underestimated how much the changes in game times would affect attendance.

The old "you don't know what you've got till it's gone" factor.

OaktownBear said:

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Take less money from tv networks in exchange for them deciding most of their game selections preseason and taking some risk that they might guess wrong and not have the best matchup every week.

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When the program is between a third and half a billion in hock over a stadium deal, taking less money is probably not an option.

SoFlaBear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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Take less money from tv networks in exchange for them deciding most of their game selections preseason and taking some risk that they might guess wrong and not have the best matchup every week.

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When the program is between a third and half a billion in hock over a stadium deal, taking less money is probably not an option.

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Well it could be argued that destroying the fan base by making gamedays crappy to attend will cost the school more in the long term win greatly reduced ticket sales than would be made with the incremental TV money needs like 6 day windows and weeknight games.

But as of right now, tv money is a huge deal. Are we sure that will continue as ESPN looks to spend less? FS1 has to be losing a ton of money. The thing the P12 really needs to avoid is getting fewer dollars and giving up everything to the networks. It's really pathetic the MWC plays so many night games (often even worse times since they have Mountain Time teams playing in West Coast windows when it often below freezing) all for a couple million per season. I'd say under current contract, each national (non p12 network) game is worth $2-3 million for each team playing.

SoFlaBear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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Take less money from tv networks in exchange for them deciding most of their game selections preseason and taking some risk that they might guess wrong and not have the best matchup every week.

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When the program is between a third and half a billion in hock over a stadium deal, taking less money is probably not an option.

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You are missing the point. The program is losing money in dropping attendance. Ultimately, lost interest will hit television ratings too. This is not a choice between having a television contract or having fans in the stadium. The bulk of the money on the tv contract comes from selling the games, not in giving the network total authority over scheduling. It is questionable whether the conference is getting much if anything at all back for this term. By the way, there are other conferences that did not agree to these terms

Strange question.

Some background: The NBA and NFL will not be renewing their TV contracts when the expire, but instead fans will see games through networks owned by the leagues.

Why not the same for conferences? All conference games on Pac 12 network. Work out deals on inter-cofenrece games, control starting times and coverage, and have a monopoly than the Direct TV's have less negotiation leverage against. And then there is the extra commercial revenue by eliminating ESPN, etc.

wifeisafurd said:

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Strange question.

Some background: The NBA and NFL will not be renewing their TV contracts when the expire, but instead fans will see games through networks owned by the leagues.

Why not the same for conferences? All conference games on Pac 12 network. Work out deals on inter-cofenrece games, control starting times and coverage, and have a monopoly than the Direct TV's have less negotiation leverage against. And then there is the extra commercial revenue by eliminating ESPN, etc.

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Actually, the NFL just sold their Thursday night package to Fox for a substantial increase over the previous rights amount. I forecast some movement towards exclusive streaming but the bulk of the games will continue to be on cable/ network TV with the ability to stream.

OaktownBear said:

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SoFlaBear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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Take less money from tv networks in exchange for them deciding most of their game selections preseason and taking some risk that they might guess wrong and not have the best matchup every week.

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When the program is between a third and half a billion in hock over a stadium deal, taking less money is probably not an option.

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You are missing the point. The program is losing money in dropping attendance. Ultimately, lost interest will hit television ratings too. This is not a choice between having a television contract or having fans in the stadium. The bulk of the money on the tv contract comes from selling the games, not in giving the network total authority over scheduling. It is questionable whether the conference is getting much if anything at all back for this term. By the way, there are other conferences that did not agree to these terms

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I don't think I'm missing the point at all. Perhaps we have different takeaways.

The article is entitled, "College football heads in wrong direction with largest attendance drop in 34 years." Not "Cal football heads in wrong direction with largest attendance drop in 34 years." College football attendance is dropping because HD and UHD televisions provide great views. There are field goal range and first down stripes that aren't there IRL. I don't know about your house, but the prices for beer, soft drinks, and parking are far more reasonable at mine than at any stadium. The bathroom lines are shorter. Even if I splurge and go to the watering hole for a pitcher and a bunch of wings, as long as I don't get caught by my wife or doctor, it's still cheaper than the stadium.

One attendance driven aspect that is not mentioned in any of these articles, but is evident here at BI: aging baby boomer alumni (at all schools - not just Cal) aren't as able to attend and aren't enchanted with changing traditions (read: piped in music).

You'll get no disagreement from me on two things: the short notice time changes are killing us and winning cures a lot of this problem. That said, the program owes $440M and UC Berkeley had to bail Cal Athletics out. The Pac 12 Network deal isn't on DirecTV, which means it doesn't have the footprint that SEC and BTN have. As you know, both FS1 and ESPN have a 7/8 western 9/10 eastern slots to fill. A Pac 12, MW, or WAC game is chosen to close down the sports bars in New York and Chicago and to provide more programming for those who can't get enough football. Cal is generally a fun team to cover, and we have a reasonably large alumni base, so we get offered those games. Since we owe more than any other sports program in the country and UC is bailing us out, we are hardly in a position to turn this down.

Fun fact: the situation across the board isn't necessarily likely to get better. Disney bought FOX (but FS 1 & 2 and BTN remain FOX properties - Disney got all of the regional FOX affiliates, however), and is very aware of the multitude of people cutting cables. ESPN is going to take a lot of regional games and pit them on their new streaming-for-a-fee platform. If I can stream gives via the internet for a fee, why buy cable or satellite with its 150 channels of crap I don't watch? If I cut cable, I'm not watching Pac 12 Network and they don't make money. If P12N goes to streaming-for-a-fee, then we probably end up with them wanting to schedule across more days and time slots so as not to have games competing with one another.

You stated, "By the way, there are other conferences that did not agree to these terms " True, but no other school has an athletic department nearly half a billion in the hole. I'd love stability in scheduling. With our debt load, I don't see it anytime soon - we are not in a strong negotiating position. Maybe we could find 1,000 alums who'd write a check for half a mil each?

The gameday solutions aren't necessarily big revenue drivers either. A lot of alumni (myself included) think that free student admission could help fill seats and make the atmosphere more fun. I'd also favor keeping young alumni seats cheap and sweetening the deal to give kids under 12 free admission to most games. But again - families with kids will maybe stay for a half on 7 PM start nights. By the way, I mentioned bathroom lines: the east side of our stadium has glorified portapotties after having spent a fortune upgrading the facility. I don't think that helps.

Limit night games
Shorten game by 30+ minutes

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FS1 has to be losing a ton of money.

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Agreed. They're paying as much as ESPN but FS1 ratings (and thus their ad rates, presumably) are 30-50% of ESPN's ratings for comparable games.

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I'd say under current contract, each national (non p12 network) game is worth $2-3 million for each team playing.

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That's about right. Rough calculation:

Pac-12 gets an average of $250 million/year during this contract from Fox and ESPN

About 80% of that value is football ($200 million/year)

45 total games televised each season by ESPN and Fox

That includes the conference championship game, let's assign a value of $20 million/year to that game

$180 million for 44 regular-season games on ESPN/Fox = average of $4.09 million/game. (Average per regular-season game is $4.2 million if you assign a $15 million value to the Pac-12 championship game.)

OK, all the things listed have certainly contributed to the downturn in attendance. I travel a hundred miles to the games so the late ones get me home early in the morning, and certainly others travel further distances. But consider this: I have been attending games since 1964 and the norm for Cal football in that time is poor attendance for most games and a few games with big crowds. If all these negative things keep away fans now what was the excuse for small crowds with 12:30 games, cheap general admission seats in the end zones, family plans, and no piped-in music and silly games? And a stadium without the present amenities. I had seats in section EE for years and there were many games when we could stretch out with plenty of room around us. The peak Tedford years were outliers in this time, and those years led to the elimination of general admission and family plan but also to a renovated stadium. Yes. during the 54 years I have been attending there have been more bad years than good ones but even the good years did not always have large crowds. The fantastic 1975 win over USC had around 55,000 fans in the 76,000 seat stadium. In those 54 years I bet I could count total home sellouts on my fingers and not run out of them. I used to think that a return to winning as in the Tedford years would lead to sellouts, or near sellouts, but I'm not so sure anymore.

Who on this board has not been at a Cal home game the last 2 years? Just curious..

71Bear said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Strange question.

Some background: The NBA and NFL will not be renewing their TV contracts when the expire, but instead fans will see games through networks owned by the leagues.

Why not the same for conferences? All conference games on Pac 12 network. Work out deals on inter-cofenrece games, control starting times and coverage, and have a monopoly than the Direct TV's have less negotiation leverage against. And then there is the extra commercial revenue by eliminating ESPN, etc.

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Actually, the NFL just sold their Thursday night package to Fox for a substantial increase over the previous rights amount. I forecast some movement towards exclusive streaming but the bulk of the games will continue to be on cable/ network TV with the ability to stream.

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Wow , that is a major pullback by the NFL executive committee. I agree that eventually most games will be seen through streaming, but the NFL must have thought they were too early? (that is a question, not a statement)

I haven't, but I live in the Midwest. I'm planning on coming out for the Oregon game this September.

wifeisafurd said:

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71Bear said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Strange question.

Some background: The NBA and NFL will not be renewing their TV contracts when the expire, but instead fans will see games through networks owned by the leagues.

Why not the same for conferences? All conference games on Pac 12 network. Work out deals on inter-cofenrece games, control starting times and coverage, and have a monopoly than the Direct TV's have less negotiation leverage against. And then there is the extra commercial revenue by eliminating ESPN, etc.

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Actually, the NFL just sold their Thursday night package to Fox for a substantial increase over the previous rights amount. I forecast some movement towards exclusive streaming but the bulk of the games will continue to be on cable/ network TV with the ability to stream.

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Wow , that is a major pullback by the NFL executive committee. I agree that eventually most games will be seen through streaming, but the NFL must have thought they were too early? (that is a question, not a statement)

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I was surprised as well. I guess it tells us that the NFL is still the king of television. Despite the falloff in ratings (similar to all other programming), the NFL still dominates (Sunday night football is the highest rated series on TV this year).