But much like the crowd, which barely filled Vaught-Hemingway Stadium to half of its capacity with an announced 38,184 in attendance, the glass was half-full for Ole Miss (6-3) as it prepares for a crucial three-game Southeastern Conference stretch to end the regular season.
For their game last night against vaunted Northern Arizona, Ole Miss had an announced capacity of barely 38,000, which brings me to raise the following point. For teams like this that don't have big athletic budgets anyway, at what point is it plain stupid to schedule teams this bad late in the season, if but for nothing more than you lose a ton of money with a half-empty stadium?
Doing that is fine if you're a program like Alabama that will pack the house regardless of who you schedule, but it seems to me for a program like Ole Miss you are simply costing yourself a ton of money. Just think, if the face value of the ticket is about $45, you can basically make another million dollars just by selling 20,000 more tickets for one single game.
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I guess theoretically one could argue
that Bama is actually taking advantage of (read: cheating) a loyal fanbase in scheduling lackluster games, since we’ll attend no matter who they play. Now I certainly understand throwing a few cupcakes in there so that it’s not a physically impossible schedule, but at the same time…UTC? Really?
I bleed crimson and white...I puke Vol puke orange. RTR
We need...
…an off-week before AU and the SECCG….
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Nov 8, 2009 8:20 PM CST up reply actions
Or...
…two off-weeks to get ready for the SECCG, if you prefer….
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Nov 8, 2009 8:20 PM CST up reply actions
I think you have to assume that this was not the PAID attendance
They probably had a lot of no-shows. In fact, I would guess the game was probably at least close to a sell out, but people didn’t show.
Father. Husband. Lawyer. Nerd.
Even so, the negative financial impact remains. People in town generate revenue for Ole Miss, Oxford, and the state of Mississippi. The extra economic benefits surrendered by the scheduling decision likely outweigh the disparity in ticket sales by quite a bit.
by Bama philosophe on Nov 8, 2009 8:11 PM CST up reply actions
Also consider
that they probably paid them another 200 to 400 thousand bucks to come be sacrificial lambs…
No real loss...
…as they used Confederate money….
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Nov 8, 2009 8:21 PM CST up reply actions 3 recs
Ole Miss
will never be Bama, LSU, UF, UT, or UGA for this very reason. Their fans are just not there and they will never get there.
Auburn however could slide down into Ole Miss territory if they are not careful. I think their fans are pretty engergized now that they have a 2 game streak going, and they will be fine this year as they only have Bama left at home.
But if they have a bad year next year, as in 6-6, 7-5 they could see a lot of empty seats. The truth is Auburn has probably overbuilt their stadium based on their real fan base.
I hate the NCAA more than UT & AU combined. At least with UT & AU you got a fighting chance.
They didn't mean to overbuild...
…they just suck at math….
"High standards come from passion within...." --Coach Nick Saban
by NiceLittleSaturday on Nov 8, 2009 9:43 PM CST up reply actions
We're obviously not going to have...
…a “the place is half empty” type of scenario, but the bigger the stadium gets, the more the value of the tickets gets driven down and the more empties we’ll see. We always have a lot of empties too for the cupcakes. I wish we would do a “sold” stat and an “actual attendance” stat just so we could see what the numbers are for the sacrificial lambs.
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