Rutgers attendance problems and how to fix them

[RutgersRecruiting]

Rutgers announced 42,729 in attendance for the Maryland game. That was a win or go home game for both teams. The announced number was even worse (40,280) against a ranked Wisconsin team a few weeks earlier.

All of us know that Rutgers inflates the attendance figures, so actual numbers were probably in the 28,000 range vs. Wisconsin and maybe 30,000 against Maryland. That is terrible in a 52,454 seat stadium. It looks bad on TV, hurts recruiting and also our bowl options. For instance, the Pinstripe Bowl probably wasn't going to take Rutgers if we were bowl eligible this year; most projections had us in Detroit.

"Winning cures everything" is used so often that it has become a cliché, but how else can Rutgers get fans excited about this program again? I personally don't think they should be charging students a damn thing to go to a game. I think if it was billed as "free" you would see a lot more kids making an effort to go to these games. If the students aren't interested, the general public probably won't be either.

As for non-students, ticket prices MUST be lowered especially for the non-marquee opponents. While I don't buy the "there's a lot going on in New Jersey" and "youth sports" excuses for low attendance (fans in every other state can say the same thing), I definitely think high ticket prices are keeping people away.

It's time for the Rutgers ticket office and athletic department to get off their butts and fix this problem. Seeing 20-25,000 empty seats per game is both depressing and embarrassing. Give free tickets to students and lower the damn prices for everyone else.

 

[NickRU714]

There is no way to get fans in the stadium other than "winning cures everything".
Give away Schiano bobbleheads or whatever you want.
Make tickets free. Doesn't matter.
Student tickets were free when I was at Rutgers (02-06).
Student attendance wasn't exactly making headlines.

It's not happening until the team is EXPECTED to win.
Not "could" or "should". They need to be EXPECTED to win and compete in every game (and especially marquee games) in order to get fans in the stadium.

"General public" doesn't want to go to ANY game when the team is expected or there is a good chance the team gets blown out.

 

[BeantownKnight]

Nick, I couldn't agree with you more. As a matter of fact, when Schiano was answering questions during his press conferences this season by saying things like, "Well - it's not a home-field advantage unless we make it one. The fans have to come out and support the team.", etc. I thought - well .. win, and the fans will come.

However, there is the curious case of Nebraska. They have to be one of the worst teams in America that can still sell out a stadium. Sure, maybe not every seat was filled. But, I was watching their game for a bit last week, and man - there are a lot of fans in that stadium ready to watch their team lose .. again. So .. maybe you don't need winning to cure everything?!

 

[mikebal9]

I agree that student ticketse should be free. I also agree that even that won't be enough to get them to every game. Sure, when it's 80 degrees and we're not mathematically elimnated from anything important, they'll show up. But if you think the chance to play in Detroit is getting students out on a 30 degree day at noon, you're nuts.

 

[fg7321]

Nick, I couldn't agree with you more. As a matter of fact, when Schiano was answering questions during his press conferences this season by saying things like, "Well - it's not a home-field advantage unless we make it one. The fans have to come out and support the team.", etc. I thought - well .. win, and the fans will come.

However, there is the curious case of Nebraska. They have to be one of the worst teams in America that can still sell out a stadium. Sure, maybe not every seat was filled. But, I was watching their game for a bit last week, and man - there are a lot of fans in that stadium ready to watch their team lose .. again. So .. maybe you don't need winning to cure everything?!

LOL There is literally nothing to else do in Nebraska except Husker FB

 

[jtung230]

Forget winning vs losing. What they need is an offense. The last two games feels a lot like Ash era. I think that’s why fans were exited about last year. We can fill the stadium by winning low scoring games or losing shootouts.

 

[NickRU714]

Nick, I couldn't agree with you more. As a matter of fact, when Schiano was answering questions during his press conferences this season by saying things like, "Well - it's not a home-field advantage unless we make it one. The fans have to come out and support the team.", etc. I thought - well .. win, and the fans will come.

However, there is the curious case of Nebraska. They have to be one of the worst teams in America that can still sell out a stadium. Sure, maybe not every seat was filled. But, I was watching their game for a bit last week, and man - there are a lot of fans in that stadium ready to watch their team lose .. again. So .. maybe you don't need winning to cure everything?!

But did the fans come first? or did Nebraska's years of being an elite team bring in the fans first?
I would assume their winning brought in the fans first and now the fans are sticking it out during down times.

ND could probably go through a decade of extreme losing and I'm assuming their fans will still show up. Because they started as fans during years of elite winning.

Rutgers (and most schools) hasn't built up that fan equity to still have near sellouts during down times.

 

[DJ Spanky]

However, there is the curious case of Nebraska. They have to be one of the worst teams in America that can still sell out a stadium. Sure, maybe not every seat was filled. But, I was watching their game for a bit last week, and man - there are a lot of fans in that stadium ready to watch their team lose .. again. So .. maybe you don't need winning to cure everything?!

Nebraska like a lot of the southwest lives and breathes football. My brother is a pastor in Lincoln; he tells me the whole town shuts down on game day, and that people fly in from all over the state to stay the weekend while attending the game. Outside of Nebraska sports, there is no other strong sports interest because everything is so far away. Trying to compare that environment to NJ is like trying to compare apples to a garlic press.

 

[BeantownKnight]

LOL There is literally nothing to else do in Nebraska except Husker FB

I think you've got the right idea -- get rid of everything else in the tri-state area except Scarlet Knights football!

 

[BeantownKnight]

But did the fans come first? or did Nebraska's years of being an elite team bring in the fans first?
I would assume their winning brought in the fans first and now the fans are sticking it out during down times.

ND could probably go through a decade of extreme losing and I'm assuming their fans will still show up. Because they started as fans during years of elite winning.

Rutgers (and most schools) hasn't built up that fan equity to still have near sellouts during down times.

You're right. They were an elite team that brought in the fans (and now those fans are staying during the down years). But they haven't been an elite team in a long, LONG time. You've got to think they would've picked up on that by now.

;)

 

[tico brown]

I’m prove the game day atmosphere, ie:
- Get rid of the Mickey Mouse, Arena Football Bull 💩 PA system crap and start treating Rutgers like a Big Time college program. This is not Citi Field with Mr Met shooting tshirt cannons to the 100 level. Hell, let the band play 90% of the time like other colleges.

- Lower the volume so you don’t have tinnitus all week.

- Improve ticket scanning

- Improve concessions

 

[NickRU714]

You're right. They were an elite team that brought in the fans (and now those fans are staying during the down years). But they haven't been an elite team in a long, LONG time. You've got to think they would've picked up on that by now.

;)

It's Nebraska.............insert East Coast bias calling them dumb ;)

 

[bwrlaw]

1. Free student tickets.
2. Lower prices across the board for parking, tickets and food.
3. Allow fans to bring food/snacks and drinks into the game. Number 2 might convince people to not do this.
4. Stop the carnival atmosphere. It's a football game. Cheerleaders and Band. Limit the gimmicks.
5. Pick a cut off time, say friday at noon, take all remaining tickets and send them to local high schools. Tell the schools, you get the kids there, we will let me in free. They can offer the upper deck season ticket holders and opportunity to move down and clear out the upper decks for the kids.
6. Yes, winning will help.

The bottom line, the cost to take a family of 4 to a game, with the product on the field, just does not make sense. That is why minor league baseball is doing so well. They keep the cost under control.

 

[mdk01]

1. Free student tickets.
2. Lower prices across the board for parking, tickets and food.
3. Allow fans to bring food/snacks and drinks into the game. Number 2 might convince people to not do this.
4. Stop the carnival atmosphere. It's a football game. Cheerleaders and Band. Limit the gimmicks.
5. Pick a cut off time, say friday at noon, take all remaining tickets and send them to local high schools. Tell the schools, you get the kids there, we will let me in free. They can offer the upper deck season ticket holders and opportunity to move down and clear out the upper decks for the kids.
6. Yes, winning will help.

The bottom line, the cost to take a family of 4 to a game, with the product on the field, just does not make sense. That is why minor league baseball is doing so well. They keep the cost under control.

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but do you think an organization that has problems with ticket scanning can coordinate within 24 hours moving upper deck season ticket holders into lower deck unsold seats while bringing in a bunch of HS kids?

 

[ScarletSince86]

Rutgers is never going to have the culture that schools like Nebraska and ND have. It's just not going to happen. If we are successful and win, or are even very entertaining (which we aren't right now) we will come close to packing the house. I was pleasantly surprised at the Maryland attendance but quite a bit of that was high school freebies based on what I saw.

Winning is the only option.

 

[Knight Shift]

But did the fans come first? or did Nebraska's years of being an elite team bring in the fans first?
I would assume their winning brought in the fans first and now the fans are sticking it out during down times.

ND could probably go through a decade of extreme losing and I'm assuming their fans will still show up. Because they started as fans during years of elite winning.

Rutgers (and most schools) hasn't built up that fan equity to still have near sellouts during down times.

This

Nebraska like a lot of the southwest lives and breathes football. My brother is a pastor in Lincoln; he tells me the whole town shuts down on game day, and that people fly in from all over the state to stay the weekend while attending the game. Outside of Nebraska sports, there is no other strong sports interest because everything is so far away. Trying to compare that environment to NJ is like trying to compare apples to a garlic press.

And this

I’m prove the game day atmosphere, ie:
- Get rid of the Mickey Mouse, Arena Football Bull 💩 PA system crap and start treating Rutgers like a Big Time college program. This is not Citi Field with Mr Met shooting tshirt cannons to the 100 level. Hell, let the band play 90% of the time like other colleges.

- Lower the volume so you don’t have tinnitus all week.

- Improve ticket scanning

- Improve concessions

Did not have a single issue the entire season. We saved all of our tickets and parking passes to Google Pay at the beginning of the season, and on the way to the game, we had our parking pass on the phone ready for scanning. Once in the lot, we called up our tickets in Google Pay, and we got in without a single issue.

Understand there were issues with the app early in the season, but weren't they fixed?

To your point on improving ticket scanning, they even had self-serve kiosks at the entrance on the West side where fans could self scan their ticket to get in.

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but do you think an organization that has problems with ticket scanning can coordinate within 24 hours moving upper deck season ticket holders into lower deck unsold seats while bringing in a bunch of HS kids?

Seems the ticket scanning issues were resolved the last couple of games?

 

[RUfromNJ]

At some point, it’d be nice to not be down 3 TDs at half of one of these conference home games. 0 conference wins in that building over a 4 year span will take its toll.

When this team starts winning there, we’ll be surprised at how little we care about the other experiential stuff

 

[letitrip2]

I have 18 tickets on my account of which 16 (plus parking passes) had to be transferred to my group for each game. Not a single problem all year. System works great. And you dont have to ever worry about forgetting to bring your tickets to the game.

As for the other ideas to fill the stadium - none of them will work except one - Just Win!

 

[JudgeSmails56]

Try winning some games at home.. that might help

 

[kupuna133]

I have 18 tickets on my account of which 16 (plus parking passes) had to be transferred to my group for each game. Not a single problem all year. System works great. And you dont have to ever worry about forgetting to bring your tickets to the game.

As for the other ideas to fill the stadium - none of them will work except one - Just Win!

I have a very similar experience. 12 tickets on my account. One problem all year and that was user error by my brother. Last game had 8 additional tickets transferred to me and I was able to turn around and transfer out 30 minutes before game.

 

[bac2therac]

Lol

Its about winning dummies

 

[Danprusa_4]

Nick, I couldn't agree with you more. As a matter of fact, when Schiano was answering questions during his press conferences this season by saying things like, "Well - it's not a home-field advantage unless we make it one. The fans have to come out and support the team.", etc. I thought - well .. win, and the fans will come.

However, there is the curious case of Nebraska. They have to be one of the worst teams in America that can still sell out a stadium. Sure, maybe not every seat was filled. But, I was watching their game for a bit last week, and man - there are a lot of fans in that stadium ready to watch their team lose .. again. So .. maybe you don't need winning to cure everything?!

But than again Nebraska has had ton of success in football comepared to Rutgers. And they really only have Football to be excited about in Nebraska. So of course they will be selling out every game even if they are still losing.

 

[kupuna133]

1. Free student tickets.
2. Lower prices across the board for parking, tickets and food.
3. Allow fans to bring food/snacks and drinks into the game. Number 2 might convince people to not do this.
4. Stop the carnival atmosphere. It's a football game. Cheerleaders and Band. Limit the gimmicks.
5. Pick a cut off time, say friday at noon, take all remaining tickets and send them to local high schools. Tell the schools, you get the kids there, we will let me in free. They can offer the upper deck season ticket holders and opportunity to move down and clear out the upper decks for the kids.
6. Yes, winning will help.

The bottom line, the cost to take a family of 4 to a game, with the product on the field, just does not make sense. That is why minor league baseball is doing so well. They keep the cost under control.

I agree with much of what you say above. There are way too many "fan experience" people on the payroll. Very few people want whatever experience these "experts" are producing. Forcing all fans to endure being bombarded with stimuli is not conducive to a great game day environment. Took my niece and her friend to Saturdays game. Nieces friend attends LSU ( I have been to no fewer than 10 LSU games over the years) she had so many questions regarding what many of the sounds generated by the sound people were. She spit out her drink when the guy asked if the "hurricane whistle and train horn were ready"

 

[bwrlaw]

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but do you think an organization that has problems with ticket scanning can coordinate within 24 hours moving upper deck season ticket holders into lower deck unsold seats while bringing in a bunch of HS kids?

I think so. I think the technology is there. I have DII tickets for a team in the Playoff's and they are handling tickets on short notice very efficiently.

Getting high school students following the School/team is the key to building a "culture" some people want. If not, you end up with the fair weather fans who only go under the idea that winning cures all problems.

 

[WhiteBus]

WIN

 

[yessir321]

Rutgers announced 42,729 in attendance for the Maryland game. That was a win or go home game for both teams. The announced number was even worse (40,280) against a ranked Wisconsin team a few weeks earlier.

All of us know that Rutgers inflates the attendance figures, so actual numbers were probably in the 28,000 range vs. Wisconsin and maybe 30,000 against Maryland. That is terrible in a 52,454 seat stadium. It looks bad on TV, hurts recruiting and also our bowl options. For instance, the Pinstripe Bowl probably wasn't going to take Rutgers if we were bowl eligible this year; most projections had us in Detroit.

"Winning cures everything" is used so often that it has become a cliché, but how else can Rutgers get fans excited about this program again? I personally don't think they should be charging students a damn thing to go to a game. I think if it was billed as "free" you would see a lot more kids making an effort to go to these games. If the students aren't interested, the general public probably won't be either.

As for non-students, ticket prices MUST be lowered especially for the non-marquee opponents. While I don't buy the "there's a lot going on in New Jersey" and "youth sports" excuses for low attendance (fans in every other state can say the same thing), I definitely think high ticket prices are keeping people away.

It's time for the Rutgers ticket office and athletic department to get off their butts and fix this problem. Seeing 20-25,000 empty seats per game is both depressing and embarrassing. Give free tickets to students and lower the damn prices for everyone else.

We could start by hiring a coach that isn’t someone that literally NO ONE else wanted…🤷‍♂️

 

[newwavedave1]

Nick, I couldn't agree with you more. As a matter of fact, when Schiano was answering questions during his press conferences this season by saying things like, "Well - it's not a home-field advantage unless we make it one. The fans have to come out and support the team.", etc. I thought - well .. win, and the fans will come.

However, there is the curious case of Nebraska. They have to be one of the worst teams in America that can still sell out a stadium. Sure, maybe not every seat was filled. But, I was watching their game for a bit last week, and man - there are a lot of fans in that stadium ready to watch their team lose .. again. So .. maybe you don't need winning to cure everything?!

Blueblood with a rabid fanbase vs "what's a Rutgers?".

 

[Bleem Phuppert]

Show me a team that doesn't get blown out in a "winner take all" bowl eligibility game against an evenly matched conference opponent and I'll show you a team that sells tickets.

Next.

 

[MrsScrew]

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but do you think an organization that has problems with ticket scanning can coordinate within 24 hours moving upper deck season ticket holders into lower deck unsold seats while bringing in a bunch of HS kids?

I'm not moving from my upper deck seats so good luck with that

 

[NotInRHouse]

Are student tickets not free? I thought they are if you sign up early.

I don't think tickets are expensive. It's all the add ons like concessions and parking that are killer.

I also think the arena league TV giveaway type stuff is terrible.

 

[mildone]

Some decent suggestions. Free student tickets (I actually thought they were free already) and ditching most of the gimmicky noise-based faux enthusiasm probably won't hurt and might help a bit.

But ultimately, winning is the only thing that will fill the stadium.

One thing nobody is mentioning, but that I think could be a way to get people more interested in RU football, is the tailgating scene. It's a lot of fun to gather with a bunch of friends, fire up grills and basically have a party before the game.

Maybe RU can do more to publicize that aspect of game days. And do more to make it easier (and for now, cheaper) for people to gather in large groups to tailgate. Instead of having cops wander the lots, maybe have food venders wandering the lots. Maybe enlist some New Brunswick area restaurants to create outdoor eating areas, hire some bands to play, etc.

Even when the games are awful, the tailgates before the game can make it worth going. And if people are already showing up for the tailgates, some will buy tickets and eventually wander into the stadium.

Filling the stadium requires winning. But creating more of a culture of heading to Piscataway on Saturdays to party can at least happen before the team is winning a lot. By selling the tailgate scene itself, independently of the game.

 

[RU-AGK]

They better put these theoretical high schoolers someplace else like those crappy low endzone seats because I'm not leaving the upper deck where I can watch every play develop and I'm not dealing with group HS kid nonsense.

 

[tico brown]

Lower concession prices to Atlanta Falcons level prices.

 

[mdk01]

Lower concession prices to Atlanta Falcons level prices.

And total sales increased.

 

[RU-AGK]

Lower concession prices to Atlanta Falcons level prices.

YES PLEASE!

Does anyone have the data on how their concession sales are compared to the rest of the league? I hope those guys are getting filthy, disgusting rich on volume looking out for their customers.

 

[kupuna133]

They better put these theoretical high schoolers someplace else like those crappy low endzone seats because I'm not leaving the upper deck where I can watch every play develop and I'm not dealing with group HS kid nonsense.

Agreed. There may be too many free tickets available. Can't tell you how many times I have been approached over the years by different municipal groups with free tickets. Many of these tickets available in very desirable areas(between the 30's). Guy I know has been getting free tickets for 10+ years. No need for him or the 50 other people associated with this organization to buy tickets when the athletic department pretty much sends them season tickets every year.

 

[jtung230]

I would watch us lose 42-35. This is the B1G East. Winning will not be easy. Just need to make it entertaining.

 

[MrsScrew]

Are student tickets not free? I thought they are if you sign up early.

I don't think tickets are expensive. It's all the add ons like concessions and parking that are killer.

I also think the arena league TV giveaway type stuff is terrible.

Young Alumni and Grad student tickets are $195 for the season.

Rutgers was offering students a season ticket combo for Football and MBB back in the spring for $129 total....worked out to like $5 a game

so while not "free" they are basically free.

 

[Mr_Twister]

We could use a galvanizing local player like BC had with Doug Flutie, a few stirring victories, and an offense that is entertaining and capable of rallying down the stretch of a game.

 

[NotInRHouse]

Young Alumni and Grad student tickets are $195 for the season.

Rutgers was offering students a season ticket combo for Football and MBB back in the spring for $129 total....worked out to like $5 a game

so while not "free" they are basically free.

I do believe the MBB Student Section sold out so it goes to show that winning would cure that too. That said with the current situation with football I do think free tickets should be an option.