What determines "Success" of the Game Zone?

[tony]

The Game Zone will have 2 effects in theory - increasing paid attendance - it's main goal, and decreasing congestion around the stadium - whether that's a good thing or not is debatable. Are there any other reasons for it that I'm not aware of?

People keep throwing around emotional arguments, like good alumni won't mind paying for a ticket, or people that wouldn't pay could still contribute to the atmosphere. Well, neither one of those arguments has ANYTHING to do with the purpose I mentioned above - increasing revenue by increasing paid attendance.

That said, I pulled our records going into homecoming and that day's attendance from rivals.com from as far back as I could find there:

2011 3-2 DSU - 19,454 W 10/15
2010 0-4 MSU - 21,500 L 10/9
2009 4-3 BCU - 21,500 L 10/31
2008 2-4 MSU - 21,500 L 10/11
2007 0-8 BCU - 20,013 L 10/27
2006 0-6 HU - 21,500 L 10/21
2005 3-3 DSU - 22,137 L 10/15
2004 2-3 MSU - 21,940 L 10/9

According to the facts, this year was lowest attended homecoming in the past 8 years, even though this was only one of two years we had a winning record going into the game. By the strict metric of attendance numbers, the Game Zone didn't work for homecoming this year.

Now how big was the drop in attendance? The average attendance for the seven years before was 21441, with 1987 fewer people attending this year - that's a drop of 9%.

We can go into all the other factors that may have had something to do with attendance, but more external factors just means the Game Zone is having less of a total effect. And at the end of the day, numbers are numbers. It not only didn't work, but did 9% worse this year. If we consider the congestion and atmosphere outside the stadium a good thing, how much of an improvement in attendance should we see to make sacrificing it worthwhile? And how long do we give the Game Zone to achieve this success?

[oleschoolaggie]

interesting. i have no statistical proof, but i would argue that having excessive folk outside the stadium has a positive effect on ticket purchases. i maintain that some (not all, not even most) of those outsiders will eventually purchase a ticket if they hear aggie fans constantly cheering and having fun.

some folk who hang around the stadium would like to go in, but prefer not to if a&t is gonna lose the game. but when they hear a&t fans constantly cheering and the pa announcer saying "touchdown aggies!", i believe a fraction of those outsiders will walk up to the window and buy a ticket. sure, it may not be a lot of them, but its more than we would get with the fan zone in effect.

but with the fan zone fencing them out, those folk don't even bother to show up which eliminates the possibility of them purchasing a ticket. now with the fan zone, we can only rely on folk who's intention was to buy a ticket in the first place...

[captaggie]

Is comparing one year to eight year enough to draw a valid conclusion? IMO, no.

A better case study would be to analyze SCSU HC attendance (as Decks has stated).

[DOOMS]

It will be interesting to see what the attendance ends up being for the year. My thinking (and I'm hoping I'm wrong) is that a number of Aggie fans have had it with price gouging from the University, and will find other things to do with their Saturdays. Hopefully this thing will be as successful as folks are claiming it has been elsewhere.

Homecoming is but one game, and we did lose money on it by not selling it out. If we sell less tix throughout the course of the season for the next several years, then and only then can we call it a monumental failure.

[Aggie77]

Why only compare Homecoming games, is that the only game the Game Zone is in affect? Or a comparison of the final season attendance numbers..

After all you could compare this year's BCU (non-homecoming) and Coastal games to the previous visits by these schools. These games are early enough in the season to be independent of the winning season variable.

[Aggie Monster]

I dont think you can compare ANY of it. To many other variables that you need to include.

Our Opponent - I've stated before that the opponent matters for attendance. We all know that.
Our record at the time.
Our record the year before.
How accurate down to the hundreds are those numbers. Its fishy to me that 4 of the 8 years the number is EXACTLY 21,500. That's not possible.
How many of that number are current students attending? They should know this cause they go through a different gate.


I also remember the non-sellouts started with Dee Todd raising the homecoming price to something ridiculous at the time, so the economy might be a factor.

[DOOMS]

21,500 is the stadium max. So if you sell out, then it's 21,500. Not fishy. I think the '05 number is fishy. That's the year Dee decided to charge $50 a ticket. I know that didn't sell out. I was there, laid out asleep on the bleachers. There was plenty of empty space that year, and I remember folks made a big deal about it being the first homecoming that didn't sell out in years.

[Aggie Monster]

Oct 18, 2011 12:56:20 GMT -5 DOOMS said:

21,500 is the stadium max. So if you sell out, then it's 21,500. Not fishy. I think the '05 number is fishy. That's the year Dee decided to charge $50 a ticket. I know that didn't sell out. I was there, laid out asleep on the bleachers. There was plenty of empty space that year, and I remember folks made a big deal about it being the first homecoming that didn't sell out in years.

Wasn't that the year bleachers were added?

[DOOMS]

Might have been. I halfway think that we haven't added bleachers since the track went down, and I halfway think there were empty bleachers sitting over in the end zone and commenting that we didn't need the bleachers. I was drunk (that's why I was laid out asleep). But the memory is that I was able to lay out, and there were huge spots of empty bleachers throughout the stadium.

But if we're selling less tix over the course of a year for several years, doesn't that mean we're making less money?

[@ProfBellamy]

Students do not go through a different gate. However, they should be able to backout student figures since they used Aggie One cards. However, I think the success of Game Zone will come when they have to start only selling the tailgate only passes upon hitting the "maximum capacity" but in this season that was not probably going to happen.

Next year there will be some changes, but there will be some type of charge to be inside of the stadium area because it is only right. Student bear the majority of the burden for athletics (and they need to be showing up at games); however, the public should also play a part in supporting the effort also.

[oleschoolaggie]

i remember the added bleachers too and indeed it happened before the new track was put down. i'm not sure what year that was, but i was there too and i definitely remember a lot of empty seats compared to past homecomings. i think the worst of it happened the year that dee todd jacked up the homecoming tickets way up from what they were. prior to that, homecoming sellouts were essentially guaranteed, even with the additional bleachers...

[codeblu78]

The first thing that came to mind when I saw the attendance was the decline in the economy. I would think that anyone that lives a consderable distance away (that plans several months ahead) would think twice about spending big bucks for a team, that most would have expected to be 1-4 at best 2-3.

I say Game Zone was a non factor!

[DOOMS]

The economy ain't never hurt homecoming attendance. Never. Now, I'm sure it didn't help attendance...

In '05, people were pissed at the $50 price of a ticket, and they just hung around in the tailgate area rather than buy a ticket. They spoke with their wallets. This year, methinks they just hung out elsewhere altogether. The game zone has gotten enough bad publicity to keep enough folks away, bottom line. That's part of the growing pains we'll have to deal with. It's better to accept it than to make excuses for it. Making excuses only ensures that we never tweak and improve it.

[@ProfBellamy]

This year with so many options and the almost "Howard-lization" or "CIAA-ing" of homecoming with a number of day parties and events downtown. I realized that the campus environment wasn't the same, but it hasn't been for a while.

The colleges, schools, programs, etc need to make a point to have events on the yard on Friday/Saturday of homecoming during reasonable hours. Additionally, Friday evening pep-rally or event would be good before the step show.

[Aggie77]

A sellout in 2005 would have been 24,600. The bleacher seats were $45 and on the track.

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