A Sea Of Red

Myrtle Beach Sun-News wrote:Don’t see 15,000 at CCU football games? See how the school is meeting attendance mark

BY ALAN BLONDIN
ablondin@thesunnews.com
NOVEMBER 25, 2017 07:53 PM
UPDATED NOVEMBER 25, 2017 07:59 PM

CONWAY To the naked eye, a person attending a Coastal Carolina University football game this season would assume there is no way the school will meet the 15,000 in average attendance required by the NCAA of Football Bowl Subdivision programs.

The newly expanded Brooks Stadium now seats approximately 15,500, and it has been maybe 70 percent full at its peak this season.

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I hope this is not in the future for Liberty

The article says the stadium holds 15,500. Then goes on to say it’s been at 70% capacity once. Finally it says it will sell 15,900 tickets for the Georgia Southern game So they are going to sell 400+ tickets than capacity
#creativeaccounting

I would be ashamed to talk about this as an AD

CCU is fudging numbers. Hopefully NCAA will catch on and boot them out of FBS. They have no business in FBS, and should have never been invited.

ballcoach15 wrote:CCU is fudging numbers. Hopefully NCAA will catch on and boot them out of FBS. They have no business in FBS, and should have never been invited.

If they purchase a ticket it’s not fudging the numbers. Selling more tickets than your stadium holds on the other hand.... But I’m sure the Fire Marshall code for attendance is about 16000 so they should be fine

ballcoach15 wrote:CCU is fudging numbers. Hopefully NCAA will catch on and boot them out of FBS. They have no business in FBS, and should have never been invited.

There’s a non-zero chance that Liberty will be doing the same in two years.

In the future, with the teams we have coming to Williams Stadium, I think we'll average 20,000 a game. In the past 99% of all teams coming to LU had very little fan support for road games.
Heck for some of the games, we could hit 30,000.

adam42381 wrote:

ballcoach15 wrote:CCU is fudging numbers. Hopefully NCAA will catch on and boot them out of FBS. They have no business in FBS, and should have never been invited.

There’s a non-zero chance that Liberty will be doing the same in two years.

We did it the entire time Barber was AD. This is the first year the numbers were legit.

ballcoach15 wrote:In the future, with the teams we have coming to Williams Stadium, I think we'll average 20,000 a game. In the past 99% of all teams coming to LU had very little fan support for road games.
Heck for some of the games, we could hit 30,000.

While we should remember that CCU got an increase in competition as well, they didn't have a base to "fire up". CCU was cold gasoline. You can throw in a match and it does nothing.

Flames fans will fill the bill for good opponents. Look at the Montana game for proof. That was a bona fide 21k. ODU could very well put the building at capacity to open the season. 25k will really help keep the average high for the season. There is no incentive to fudge past the minimum. It's a big risk without anything to gain.

Jonathan Carone wrote:

adam42381 wrote:

ballcoach15 wrote:CCU is fudging numbers. Hopefully NCAA will catch on and boot them out of FBS. They have no business in FBS, and should have never been invited.

There’s a non-zero chance that Liberty will be doing the same in two years.

We did it the entire time Barber was AD. This is the first year the numbers were legit.

I thought there were two methods of attendance in FBS, actual or the tickets sold model. A school has to pick one of the two. I also thought we were doing the tickets sold model, just like CCU.

If that's the case, our numbers are not any more legit this year, if we define legit as actual attendance. Pretty sure the last home game did not have anywhere near the announced 18k in actual attendance, but certainly we had that many tickets "sold," or given away for employee day. That's my take, at any rate

We announce based on tickets sold. In the past, the numbers would be given to Jeff and then he and Jerry would determine what the announced attendance would be.

Jonathan Carone wrote:We announce based on tickets sold. In the past, the numbers would be given to Jeff and then he and Jerry would determine what the announced attendance would be.

Aka lying.

The way it was explained to me was that in years past we would round up. For example, if there were 250 band members we would count it as 400. If there were 5,700 students scanned in we would say 6,000. Etc. etc.

We would round up more than a couple hundred. The numbers we were seeing in those years were usually 2000-3000 more than actual tickets.

jcmanson wrote:The way it was explained to me was that in years past we would round up. For example, if there were 250 band members we would count it as 400. If there were 5,700 students scanned in we would say 6,000. Etc. etc.

How does that math even work? Rounding from 250 to 400 doesn’t make sense to me.

Jonathan Carone wrote:We would round up more than a couple hundred. The numbers we were seeing in those years were usually 2000-3000 more than actual tickets.

A couple hundred in 5-6 different categories like band members, students, paid attendance, season tickets, athletic staff, etc. That adds up to a few thousand.

adam42381 wrote:

jcmanson wrote:The way it was explained to me was that in years past we would round up. For example, if there were 250 band members we would count it as 400. If there were 5,700 students scanned in we would say 6,000. Etc. etc.

How does that math even work? Rounding from 250 to 400 doesn’t make sense to me.

It wasn't supposed to make sense. It was just to make the numbers look good.

I was told by someone in ticket office, how they complied attendance figures a couple years ago, but I cannot remember what was said.

Cool story.

ballcoach15 wrote:I was told by someone in ticket office, how they complied attendance figures a couple years ago, but I cannot remember what was said.

Uh, you could just read my post above.

Everyone inflates attendance unless they are forced to list actual ticket sales (like we are in D3 for NCAA Tournament games).

People working the games or within the facility in any capacity count, babies count, teams count, etc. If at a facility that allows animals, animals count 2x since they have four legs. Did someone walk by the facility and was able to see the game while walking by without getting a ticket? They count. Did they just tailgate and not actually see a second of the game? They count. Did they just stop by for the free giveaway and leave before the game even started? They count.

That article had so much good info in it. Thanks for sharing.

- We count by tickets sold. This has three major categories, Season Tickets , Tickets purchased at the gate, and Student attendance.

- This is the first year LU will be audited for attendance. So we have to provide proof of the numbers. Turn style count, badge swipes for students, along with ticket sales numbers.

- In the past we were allowed to count all of game day operations staff and the two teams. That is not the case in FBS.

- Ian has talked on multiple occasions that he was excited to meet the FBS requirement in the first year, playing an FCS schedule. I do not think LU will ever have to worry about the attendance numbers.

- The old method of counting was not just Jerry and Jeff making up a number. It was rounding and then counting game day operations. I am not sure students had to actually attend the game to be counted either. They have all purchased tickets through their activity fee I would guess, so they possibly could count students that did not come through the turn style.

- When building a scheduling strategy, Ian talks about at least one great home game a year. This will help with season ticket sales, and keep the attendance number up. LU will draw 20,000 a game for at least one game a year for the foreseeable future. That and the regional way we have built the schedule. Wake, Duke, VT , UVA, they will bring fans because it is essentially a home game for them in terms of travel.

- CCU attendance will struggle if they do not start winning. LU could go 2-10 for 5 years and not have to worry about the attendance in my opinion.

My guess for attendance next year.
ODU 23,800
Norfolk St. 16,900
North Texas 20,377
Troy 18,799
Idaho St. 15,230
NMSU 12,500 Thanksgiving weekend. No students.

Average 17,934

Idaho State will probably be homecoming so that may increase the numbers a bit.

thepostman wrote:Idaho State will probably be homecoming so that may increase the numbers a bit.

First 5k fans get Free French fries ?