NDSU round of 16 and quarter-final attendance

[FCS_pwns_FBS]

Noticed watching NDSU and Illinois State that the Fargo Dome just didn't seem as loud as it usually is so I was wondering about their attendance and then went back and looked at attendance for the round of 16 and quarters.

Round of 16
2015 (vs UNI) 18,041
2016 (vs USD) 18,305
2017 (vs USD) 18,067
2018 (vs Montana St) 17,007
2019 (vs Nicholls) 15,690

Quarter-Final
2015 (vs UNI) 18,401
2016 (vs SDSU) 18,285
2017 (vs Wofford) 17,008
2018 (vs Colgate) 16,404
2019 (vs ISU-r) 14,132

Not a good trend. Are Bison fans in a state of ennui in the FCS?

[JacksFan40]

I’m not a Bison insider by any means but I’d assume the success has spoiled the fan base. Nobody there besides the ones on this board get excited for games against teams outside of SDSU and UNI.

[POD Knows]

I’m not a Bison insider by any means but I’d assume the success has spoiled the fan base. Nobody there besides the ones on this board get excited for games against teams outside of SDSU and UNI.Yea, we had little over 14,000 today and I bet 2000 to 3000 left at halftime when the score was 9-0.

[Professor Chaos]

Noticed watching NDSU and Illinois State that the Fargo Dome just didn't seem as loud as it usually is so I was wondering about their attendance and then went back and looked at attendance for the round of 16 and quarters.

Round of 16
2015 (vs UNI) 18,041
2016 (vs USD) 18,305
2017 (vs USD) 18,067
2018 (vs Montana St) 17,007
2019 (vs Nicholls) 15,690

Quarter-Final
2015 (vs UNI) 18,401
2016 (vs SDSU) 18,285
2017 (vs Wofford) 17,008
2018 (vs Colgate) 16,404
2019 (vs ISU-r) 14,132

Not a good trend. Are Bison fans in a state of ennui in the FCS?
NDSU attendance declines are really no different from elsewhere. JMU is drawing well below what they did 2 years ago in the same rounds. Same with Weber St drawing below what they did last year in the same rounds. Percentage wise they're both declining faster than NDSU is.

I'd say it's trend with live sports attendance everywhere. No doubt that we're spoiled rotten as a fan base and I used to think that was the main contributor to the decline in attendance but at this point I think it's evident that NDSU is just the same as everyone else when it comes to this problem.

[JacksFan40]

Yea, we had little over 14,000 today and I bet 2000 to 3000 left at halftime when the score was 9-0.
That’s what happened at our early season home games. We’d get around 12-14k and about 3-4K were gone at halftime. By the end of the season we struggle to even get 3-4K.

[Professor Chaos]

Noticed watching NDSU and Illinois State that the Fargo Dome just didn't seem as loud as it usually is so I was wondering about their attendance and then went back and looked at attendance for the round of 16 and quarters.

Round of 16
2015 (vs UNI) 18,041
2016 (vs USD) 18,305
2017 (vs USD) 18,067
2018 (vs Montana St) 17,007
2019 (vs Nicholls) 15,690

Quarter-Final
2015 (vs UNI) 18,401
2016 (vs SDSU) 18,285
2017 (vs Wofford) 17,008
2018 (vs Colgate) 16,404
2019 (vs ISU-r) 14,132

Not a good trend. Are Bison fans in a state of ennui in the FCS?
I'm curious your perspective on this being a Georgia Southern fan. There are plenty within our fan base who think that FBS is a solution to this but I see that both App St and Georgia Southern are below their per game attendance averages this year compared to their last few years in the FCS. I don't think going FBS fixes this for NDSU and if the AD expects that it will they're going to find themselves deeper in the red with the added expenses that going FBS entails and no negligible uptick in ticket sales.

As a GSU fan who's been through it would you expect attendance to be boosted for any extended period of time by an FBS move?

[FCS_pwns_FBS]

I'm curious your perspective on this being a Georgia Southern fan. There are plenty within our fan base who think that FBS is a solution to this but I see that both App St and Georgia Southern are below their per game attendance averages this year compared to their last few years in the FCS. I don't think going FBS fixes this for NDSU and if the AD expects that it will they're going to find themselves deeper in the red with the added expenses that going FBS entails and no negligible uptick in ticket sales.

As a GSU fan who's been through it would you expect attendance to be boosted for any extended period of time by an FBS move?

Can't really speak for App, but across the board for GSU attendance is higher in FBS than it was FCS. We had 3 games this season with awful weather with this season including a tropical storm, a second storm that rained even more, and a third game where it was forecast to be raining all weekend and just ended up being cold and really windy. Season ticket sales are still better than in FCS as well. It should recover next season.

TBH, I think putting the NDSU playoff attendance numbers on the decline of college football attendance is wishful thinking because (1) it's a pretty big drop percentage-wise and (2) most of the decline seems to be at major Power 5 programs and particularly with student crowds. The media never really dig deeper beyond published attendance numbers but the decline isn't what people think it is. There's no guarantees with going to FBS but it may be the only way out the downward spiral. I'll say too that the geography situation isn't ideal but it's also not as big a problem as you might think because you can leave other sport in the Summit without them telling you that you can't stay unless football stays. If NDSU were in the footprint of an FBS league it'd be a no-brainer IMO.

[Bisonator]

Interesting how obsessed other teams fans are of our attendance....xcoffeex

[caribbeanhen]

Yea, we had little over 14,000 today and I bet 2000 to 3000 left at halftime when the score was 9-0.

What in the world is waiting for people outside of the Fargo Dome besides -25° temperatures

I would stay in the barn as long as I could

[Professor Chaos]

Can't really speak for App, but across the board for GSU attendance is higher in FBS than it was FCS. We had 3 games this season with awful weather with this season including a tropical storm, a second storm that rained even more, and a third game where it was forecast to be raining all weekend and just ended up being cold and really windy. Season ticket sales are still better than in FCS as well. It should recover next season.

TBH, I think putting the NDSU playoff attendance numbers on the decline of college football attendance is wishful thinking because (1) it's a pretty big drop percentage-wise and (2) most of the decline seems to be at major Power 5 programs and particularly with student crowds. The media never really dig deeper beyond published attendance numbers but the decline isn't what people think it is. There's no guarantees with going to FBS but it may be the only way out the downward spiral. I'll say too that the geography situation isn't ideal but it's also not as big a problem as you might think because you can leave other sport in the Summit without them telling you that you can't stay unless football stays. If NDSU were in the footprint of an FBS league it'd be a no-brainer IMO.
Percentage wise NDSU has seen less of a drop than others. The highest quarterfinal attendance at NDSU was 18,219 against Coastal Carolina in 2013. Today's attendance down 22.5% from that. JMU's attendance yesterday was down 35.2% from their quarterfinal in 2017. It was down 44.1% from their quarterfinal in 2016. There is a certain element of boredom that plays into NDSU's attendance decline but I think it's moreso the same decline everyone is seeing across the board.

Georgia Southern though hasn't been drawing more than they did in the FCS over the last 3 years. I looked it up last week when participating in the perpetual debate amongst our fan base about the merits of FBS and overall GSU is declining from the FCS days. These are their yearly averages since 2010 including this year.

2010: 17,627 (6 games)
2011: 17,701 (8 games)
2012: 18,487 (7 games)
2013: 14,828 (6 games)
2014: 21,102 (5 games)
2015: 20,780 (6 games)
2016: 20,819 (5 games)
2017: 15,258 (4 games)
2018: 16,802 (6 games)
2019: 13,964 (6 games)

Looks to me like the attendance trends show that the fan base was buying into the product more from 2014-2016 but that the novelty of FBS is wearing off in Stateboro since then. Then I look at https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/ which shows that student fees going to the athletic budget at Georgia Southern have doubled since 2012 from $5.5M to $11M and school funds have more than tripled going from $2M to $7.5M and it give me serious doubts that NDSU could pull off a similar move because neither of those avenues (school funds or student fees) are going to have any more "juice" to be squeezed out of them at NDSU.

[SUPharmacist]

If NDSU were in the footprint of an FBS league it'd be a no-brainer IMO.

But NDSU is far from the footprint of an FBS conference. Too far west for the MAC, too Far East for the Mountain West. The only conferences we are reasonably close to are the Big 10 and the Big 12. Outside of the obvious reasons NDSU is not a fit for either of those conferences, we are still too far west for the Big 10 and too far north for the Big 12. Add to that the fact that NDSU is a one trick pony and does not bring the basketball program any G5 conference will want from a member. Short of the MVFC or some hybrid of the MVFC-Big Sky moving to FBS NDSU isn’t going anywhere. Some may point to Liberty and say independent is an option, but NDSU will not file any legal challenges the way Liberty would and the state of North Dakota will not subsidize a move up.

While I would love to see how NDSU would do against an FBS schedule, short of a G5-P5 split I see no benefits to NDSU to move up as the G5 is still locked out of any real championship. Additionally, I have no confidence a split is coming as the current setup is good for the P5 and no G5 conference would want to admit they are closer to FCS. With how uneven the FCS is I cannot blame them.

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

But NDSU is far from the footprint of an FBS conference. Too far west for the MAC, too Far East for the Mountain West. The only conferences we are reasonably close to are the Big 10 and the Big 12. Outside of the obvious reasons NDSU is not a fit for either of those conferences, we are still too far west for the Big 10 and too far north for the Big 12. Add to that the fact that NDSU is a one trick pony and does not bring the basketball program any G5 conference will want from a member. Short of the MVFC or some hybrid of the MVFC-Big Sky moving to FBS NDSU isn’t going anywhere. Some may point to Liberty and say independent is an option, but NDSU will not file any legal challenges the way Liberty would and the state of North Dakota will not subsidize a move up.

While I would love to see how NDSU would do against an FBS schedule, short of a G5-P5 split I see no benefits to NDSU to move up as the G5 is still locked out of any real championship. Additionally, I have no confidence a split is coming as the current setup is good for the P5 and no G5 conference would want to admit they are closer to FCS. With how uneven the FCS is I cannot blame them.

Well the AAC doesn't have a footprint! With that said, Bison hoops would need to pick up from where they were 4-5 years ago and then some....

App State would be a more logical choice but I'm not sure their profile (regional U) matches the AAC. Plus, their hoops is pretty bad.

[SUPharmacist]

Well the AAC doesn't have a footprint! With that said, Bison hoops would need to pick up from where they were 4-5 years ago and then some....

App State would be a more logical choice but I'm not sure their profile (regional U) matches the AAC. Plus, their hoops is pretty bad.

I always wonder if a conference like the American would admit a member who was strong in one sport with a commitment that they would invest x dollars in another sport. I can’t see it, but who knows.

[Sader87]

Navy is only in the AAC for football....nearly all other sports are in the Patriot League

[caribbeanhen]

maybe they will let you in the Canadian league....

[NY Crusader 2010]

No shot the AAC considers North Dakota State. Probably not even on the Top 10 list of candidates for a variety of reasons.

The truth about NDSU is that they are actually in the perfect spot. Hypothetically if Boise and/or Colorado State got invited to the Big 12, I could see the Bison being a pretty good option for the Mountain West. MAC would be the best immediate landing spot but I honestly see very little upside from joining that league. You'd get to play in a conference championship game in Detroit almost every year and then a meaningless bowl game in Mobile. While having to dramatically increase football expenses. How thrilling!

Issue is that Fargo is a vast outlier location-wise for just about any league.

[Bisonoline]

No shot the AAC considers North Dakota State. Probably not even on the Top 10 list of candidates for a variety of reasons.

The truth about NDSU is that they are actually in the perfect spot. Hypothetically if Boise and/or Colorado State got invited to the Big 12, I could see the Bison being a pretty good option for the Mountain West. MAC would be the best immediate landing spot but I honestly see very little upside from joining that league. You'd get to play in a conference championship game in Detroit almost every year and then a meaningless bowl game in Mobile. While having to dramatically increase football expenses. How thrilling!

Issue is that Fargo is a vast outlier location-wise for just about any league.

Plus our TV market isnt attractive to any of the bigs. We are out here on an island.

[Redbird 4th & short]

But NDSU is far from the footprint of an FBS conference. Too far west for the MAC, too Far East for the Mountain West. The only conferences we are reasonably close to are the Big 10 and the Big 12. Outside of the obvious reasons NDSU is not a fit for either of those conferences, we are still too far west for the Big 10 and too far north for the Big 12. Add to that the fact that NDSU is a one trick pony and does not bring the basketball program any G5 conference will want from a member. Short of the MVFC or some hybrid of the MVFC-Big Sky moving to FBS NDSU isn’t going anywhere. Some may point to Liberty and say independent is an option, but NDSU will not file any legal challenges the way Liberty would and the state of North Dakota will not subsidize a move up.

While I would love to see how NDSU would do against an FBS schedule, short of a G5-P5 split I see no benefits to NDSU to move up as the G5 is still locked out of any real championship. Additionally, I have no confidence a split is coming as the current setup is good for the P5 and no G5 conference would want to admit they are closer to FCS. With how uneven the FCS is I cannot blame them.

What about the CFL ?

:D

[mvfcfan]

The best league for NDSU would be:
UND
USD
SDSU
MT
MT ST
ID
ID ST
Weber St.
EWU

Only problem is that them and SDSU have baseball. Then again I think a Big Sky school or two play baseball in the WAC, so that could be an option.

Point is all of those schools above would be the closest thing to an FBS conference NDSU could get into and those programs have good facilities and programs overall. They also have better fan support than a lot of FCS programs out there. I mean 3 of the 4 teams left in the playoffs are on my list.

[Redbird 4th & short]

maybe they will let you in the Canadian league....
sorry ... didn't see your post ... you got first dibs on CFL joke.