[cruzan_flame13]

With all due respect, I think Williams Stadium, when finished, will look much better than Troy's.

I agree; Troy will not have an Indoor facility and a tower in the background lol. I see where you're going with it 20, but I'll pick the Bill every time. I wonder how the construction/designing team will expand the stadium when the capacity has met its peak? A Jeffersonian Colosseum?

[LUGrad2000]

Our attendance ceiling, I believe is somewhere in the 24-28k range. Our growth will be determined by how many alumni come in from outside VA, such as GA, NC, SC, etc.

[Jonathan Carone]

27,000 seems overly optimistic for an attendance number is there any preliminary estimation of what attendance will be for the opener?

Blind optimism from an excited fan base.

We’ve never had a legitimate 21,000. Our average the last two years is 16,470.

There’s no legitimate reason to think we are going to jump 10,000 people for this opener.

As a reminder, yearly averages under Gill:

2012: 16,318
2013: 15,030
2014: 17,016
2015: 18,990
2016: 16,376
2017: 16,565

[Purple Haize]

27,000 seems overly optimistic for an attendance number is there any preliminary estimation of what attendance will be for the opener?

Blind optimism from an excited fan base.

We’ve never had a legitimate 21,000. Our average the last two years is 16,470.

There’s no legitimate reason to think we are going to jump 10,000 people for this opener.

As a reminder, yearly averages under Gill:

2012: 16,318
2013: 15,030
2014: 17,016
2015: 18,990
2016: 16,376
2017: 16,565

But....but...but...FBS

[Class of 20Something]

Blind optimism from an excited fan base.

I resemble that remark.

I do think the Montana numbers may have been legit.

[youtube]CoxBZ_sRR7A[/youtube]

[Jonathan Carone]

Montana might have been 20k, possibly even 21k. It wasn’t the 22+ they reported.

[BJWilliams]

I could see 26k...maybe not 27. It's the first FBS game with an expanded stadium against an in-state squad, so there's a lot of "ooh shiny" at play but I would certainly pump the brakes given the last few seasons.

[thepostman]

I mean I'm driving down from Maryland to go just to be there for the first FBS game at the bill. I typically have Ero interest in making that drive for a game and have only made it to 1 games the past 5 years. So I can't imagine in the only person who feels more inclined to go to games. Especially games like this.

27k though?? I just dont see it happening but was curious if anybody actually had Intel on ticket numbers.

[TH Spangler]

22K for Montana, we should be well above that with some help from ODU fans.

[Ewglenn]

Easily top 26k probably close to 27k.

[Jonathan Carone]

22K for Montana, we should be well above that with some help from ODU fans.

It wasn’t a legit 22k. It was fudged numbers that Jerry and Jeff made up. They’d get the actual ticket number and then say “I think there are ___ people here” and then that’d be the announced number. The announced attendance was inflated by as much as 3000.

As of last year we started announcing a much more accurate attendance number. It’s why you didn’t see an increase in announced attendance even though we were transitioning and looked to have more people in the stands.

[jinxy]

I dont know what montanas actual number was but it was easily over 20k. It was by far the most packed seating and number of folks on the berm. I wouldve guessed 20.5 maybe 21. 22 always seemed a bit high. Richmond came to mind as another packed game. Maybe 55 52 coastal game.

I would guess 23.5 for odu.

[Jonathan Carone]

I did some asking around tonight to people who were on the athletics staff in the Barber years. They said there has never been a game they can remember where there were more than 18,000 actual tickets/swipes counted.

What would happen is Jeff and Jerry would get the actual number and then eye ball what they thought the number should be. If a section looked full, they counted it as full. The problem with that is that in general admission seating, a section that looks full is usually only 80% full. People don’t choose to sit as close to their neighbor on bleachers as they sit in chair backs. Because of that, Jeff and Jerry added an extra 20% to the actual numbers in a lot of games.

Since Ian has come on board, and with the move to FBS, our attendance is audited and is more accurate.

If it’s true we’ve never had more than 18,000 to a game, I simply don’t know where the extra 7-9000 people are going to come from to get to that 25-27,000 number. I’d be thrilled with a legitimate 22,000.

[BJWilliams]

I know I worked at a radio station where giving away tickets was a regular occurrence. I don't think you can add 7k+ in additional attendance, but I think marketing will be working their butts off to find ways to get more butts in seats. I think if we pulled off the longshot of getting CGD into campus, you can get a major influx of bodies into town and potentially at the game. Also, ODU travels very well so that'll help that night

[Jonathan Carone]

If we can’t pull in 22k in paid attendance at $20/ticket for this game then we are nowhere near where we thought we were.

[cruzan_flame13]

I know I worked at a radio station where giving away tickets was a regular occurrence. I don't think you can add 7k+ in additional attendance, but I think marketing will be working their butts off to find ways to get more butts in seats. I think if we pulled off the longshot of getting CGD into campus, you can get a major influx of bodies into town and potentially at the game. Also, ODU travels very well so that'll help that night

Who’s CGD?

[BJWilliams]

College Gameday...my pipe dream I tweeted JLFJR and AD McCaw about...I wish the power of FlameFans/ASOR could get behind that idea

[TH Spangler]

22K for Montana, we should be well above that with some help from ODU fans.

It wasn’t a legit 22k.

Were you there or is that second hand info? I was and the place was packed. The grass areas were almost full and a lot of people were standing everywhere.

[Purple Haize]

I did some asking around tonight to people who were on the athletics staff in the Barber years. They said there has never been a game they can remember where there were more than 18,000 actual tickets/swipes counted.

What would happen is Jeff and Jerry would get the actual number and then eye ball what they thought the number should be. If a section looked full, they counted it as full. The problem with that is that in general admission seating, a section that looks full is usually only 80% full. People don’t choose to sit as close to their neighbor on bleachers as they sit in chair backs. Because of that, Jeff and Jerry added an extra 20% to the actual numbers in a lot of games.

Since Ian has come on board, and with the move to FBS, our attendance is audited and is more accurate.

If it’s true we’ve never had more than 18,000 to a game, I simply don’t know where the extra 7-9000 people are going to come from to get to that 25-27,000 number. I’d be thrilled with a legitimate 22,000.

That was SOP for years. And it ended in an odd number

[R i]

I’d be thrilled with a legitimate 22,000.

If we can’t pull in 22k in paid attendance at $20/ticket for this game then we are nowhere near where we thought we were.

So we are looking somewhere between 22 and 25 if you are keeping track at home.

My guess is 24,000

[Jonathan Carone]

22K for Montana, we should be well above that with some help from ODU fans.

It wasn’t a legit 22k.

Were you there or is that second hand info? I was and the place was packed. The grass areas were almost full and a lot of people were standing everywhere.

It was information directly from the ticket office. You can choose to believe your eyes or the people who had the actual data.

[jcmanson]

Last year, I was told by an individual who helps report the attendance numbers that pre-Ian we would "round up." For example, if 5,748 students scanned in, we would say 6,000 students were there. If there were 2,219 student ticket holders, we might round that up to 2,500. If there were 324 game ops people working the game, we might say there were 500. Then you add all those numbers, after the round up, for your total attendance. So, you could have an extra 2-3,000 on some occasions.

[thepostman]

Last year, I was told by an individual who helps report the attendance numbers that pre-Ian we would "round up." For example, if 5,748 students scanned in, we would say 6,000 students were there. If there were 2,219 student ticket holders, we might round that up to 2,500. If there were 324 game ops people working the game, we might say there were 500. Then you add all those numbers, after the round up, for your total attendance. So, you could have an extra 2-3,000 on some occasions.

I have been told that as well but I'd defer to ballcoach's sources before believing anything

[R i]

Even if we were rounding up. I have a hard time believing there weren't 18,000 at the Montana game.

[tyndal23]

Only shot for College Game Day ( light ) is moving Syracuse to a Thursday Night and coordinating with ESPN well in advance - only way that happens is if LU has a decent upset or 2 in 2018 and or Buckshot lights it up and is being talked about as one of nations top QB's heading in to 2019. LU should try and be the Boise State of a decade or so ago and play every Thursday / Friday - weird schedule they can for eyeballs ( however that is much tougher to do because a ton of teams want to do that now based on how successful that plan was )