Food for thought:
I certainly wouldn’t deny his overall point about how social media affects public behavior (one of the striking things about attending the Masters is watching people spend the afternoon not glued to their phones), but I’m interested in what you think of his point about how it contributes to the decline in college football attendance. I can’t say I’ve observed an effect on tailgating; hell, it’s as much an event to show yourself off at to others as concert going is.
I do wonder if schools offering improved Wi-fi as an attendance inducement are wasting their time, though. If all you’re doing is coaxing people to show up who aren’t involved in the game, what’s the point?
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UPDATE: More food for thought.
Get The Picture 
I agree wi-fi will take folks out of the game who are busy posting on FB and scrolling instagram, but… I attended the Overwatch Professional League Homestand event in Atlanta with my son a few weeks ago. For those of you not familar – that’s watching pro video gamers face off live. So, here’s my football related point…
There are screens everywhere while you take in the action. You can see all the players and what they’re up to – you can look through the POV of a specific player – you can see exactly who’s in the game for each team w/ stats.
As I was taking this all in, I was reliving so many moments in Sanford where they won’t show a freakin’ replay. And I’m texting with someone who’s watching TV to find out if the call was good or not. Was it a fumble? Gimme a break.
Next year is 2020 – I should be able to pull out my mobile, get on WiFi, fire up YouTube TV, and dial in a channel that lets me watch the game through Tae Crowder’s helmet cam.
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Can you imagine?! That would be the coolest thing ever. Have one screen with your favorite players’ helmet cams and another showing the typical broadcast of the game and another showing the full 22.
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Helmet cam, sponsored by Tito’s vodka! And still not a penny given to the players.
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Tae Crowder could stream his helmet feed on twitch prime to earn my money.
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Geek here. Stadium tech is generally lacking. Heck, it was just a few ago they got a new cell tower!
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A couple of points:
1. We have such crappy in-stadium reporting of other scores, its handy to be able to check them on your phone.
2. Being able to get in-depth stats, injury updates, etc. via twitter from the media watching the game from the pressbox/on tv is also helpful
3. Plenty of time for both of these things to be done given the volume and length of tv timeouts – it beats the hell out of karaoke!
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Good points. The need to have better WiFi lessens if the stadium provided better information regarding stats, replays, and up to date CFB scores. Those are legit reasons to use your phone at the stadium, and can easily be provided by info readily available, on boards being used for less important things. Those ad dollars will diminish if they have fewer people in the stands, especially if they are distracted viewers of those same boards when attending. AD group missing the boat again.
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Meh………….. put your phone down and enjoy the atmosphere of the game.
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Ive seen 10s of thousands at a game having nothing to do with the game well before phones.
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It’s a problem, but I don’t think it is THE problem. Young fans spend half of the time looking at their phone whether they are at the stadium or at thier home. They love going to big events and not being entirely there. It is how they do things.
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Well said Pat; I’ve been harping on this for years about being out at nice restaurants and couples all around you all staring at their phones instead of talking to each other. It’s pathetic. I so bad want to go up to them and ask why they didn’t eat something at home instead and saved $100 or more?
I’ve personally never done any social media (facebook, twitter, etc.) and never will, as I just see all of it as a total waste of time. In fact, studies have shown that the more time you spend on your phone and in social media, the more unhappy you are with your life.
Along that same point, did you know that gum sales are at all-time lows, with sales declines of over 50% just in the last 10 years? Why? Well the vast majority of gum sales are made in the check-out line in grocery stores. And what the various brands have been able to determine as the root cause of the decline is that people simply are staring down at their phones while waiting at checkout instead, which causes them not to see the gum on display as they are putting their food on the belt. Crazy.
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Also you have the proliferation of self checkout – impulse items are not featured there.
https://www.foodandwine.com/news/gum-sales-decline
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My heart goes out to the gum industry.
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3rd, I think there may be some kids on your lawn…..
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You are on social media on this blog. 😄
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Cognitive dissonance.
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Pardon my ignorance, but I honestly never viewed this blog as social media. My view was that social media involved the likes of facebook, twitter, instagram…maybe LinkedIn, etc.
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WordPress is definitely social media. Technically any online media where users create and share content is social media – following Bluto on WordPress isn’t any different from following someone on Twitter or Instagram and commenting on their posts, only difference is the format.
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I hate it when you’re right.
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Shit, you must be in a foul mood all the time then. ;-p
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I’m not young and not exactly old. Im 38. I love nothing more than being in that stadium watching the Dawgs play. I’m that fan that doesnt leave my seat for 4 quarters and I stand a yell the majority of the time. I definitely would prefer better wifi for more up to date scoring, replays, radio broadcasts, and in love to post pics from the stadium during the game. When there’s an injury on the field, or a player on the sidelines that we can’t understand why he isn’t playing, I can find out way faster through my phone what exactly happened than by waiting for the announcers or scoreboard to tell me. And I love following the scores from around the country in game. In fact, everyone around me is often asking what the score is from this team or that team. Finally, the only thing that has changed is the technology. Don’t act like guys weren’t going to games with radios and headphones in for years. Of course, if I could still listen to Munson, I would too.
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“I’m not young and not exactly old. Im 38.”
Pffft. You’re young. But we need our phones for the beginning of the 4th quarter.
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When I’m at a game, my phone is in my car.
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It’s an interconnected world. They can either bitch about it, or figure out how to use it to their advantage.
I think I know which option people like Fitzgerald will choose.
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Also, Spencer is right, as evidenced by the fact that we are all reading/commenting on a blog in the middle of July.
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No correlation between huge HD flat screens and exponential increases in ticket prices??
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It is not the main problem but it certainly is a problem. My 17 year old daughter was home Saturday night and her phone was going off vibrating non stop and I asked what’s up with that and she said group text. She stays home and texts with her friends more than she goes out with them. In the 80s and 90s if you wanted to see your friends you had to actually physically go see your firiends. If you want to tail gate you have to go to a place and all meet up for the tail gate. I am not sure anyone born after about 92 or 93 has as much interest as us older folks in getting together like that. I am not saying it is right or wrong just saying that people don’t have to be in close proximity to communicate as if they are. That is a game changer so to speak.
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If I skip the game, I’m not on my phone. I’m watching it on my big screen.
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TV is obviously the key factor in the decline in attendance. Now that ever game is televised, attendance will continue to decline until they have to reduce the seating capacity at most stadiums.
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Atlanta United provides the answers. Yes, it’s still the hot new thing, but it has several key advantages over most college football venues.
1) Climate controlled
2) Ability to sit in groups instead of just stadium seating. Ever notice how many people watch on the big screens from the concourses?
3) Cheap, accessible food & drink
4) Normal TV & technology. Sanford literally wastes it’s scoreboard on showing you which SEC teams play that day, and leaving it up for long stretches of time. As if we don’t ALL already know that.
Traditional college football stadiums are golf driving ranges from 1990.
New stadiums are TopGolf.
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Could not agree more.
We can pretend it’s a problem of those darn kids not getting off their phones or we can recognize that technology has changed the fan experience.
WiFi is important to me: I have young children, a wife that works full time, and a job that demands attention at unusual times, and get terrible cell service on gamedays through AT&T which makes coordinating after game festivities more difficult than it should be. I also like following scores, texting with friends about in game happenings, and being able to look up statistics during the seemingly never ending TV timeouts.
The fan experience in Athens is garbage and could be easily addressed with minimal dollars. Our AD doesn’t care; therefore, I don’t go and when I do I scalp tickets.
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“Traditional college football stadiums are golf driving ranges from 1990.
New stadiums are TopGolf.”
Good analogy, but I’m not sure it’s a good thing. I tried Top Golf twice (someone gave me a gift card). Not my favorite thing, but then you probably already figured that out.
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The driving range (aka the practice tee) is where golfers go to work on their games to try to improve. Top Golf is an “experience” where you take a date or go with friends to basically drink, screw around and hit a few shots off mats. Totally different things. Golfers at a driving range are real golfers, albeit of varying handicaps, who are serious about playing golf and improving at golf–that’s why they are there. People at Top Golf are not.
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That’s my point. We need the experience now.
There are simply too many other options that offer a better experience than dealing with weather, bad seating for interaction, bad concessions, bad tech.
Just a matter of time before a relatively major power 5 school tears down their traditional stadium and builds a smaller MBS. Hell, Tech is already headed that way.
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Huge soccer fan.
They need to be playing on real grass. It is just dumb that in Atlanta we are playing on fake grass. Uncle A has the cash.
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Which begs the question – which SEC program will be the first to abandon their on campus stadium and build a new off-site complex ala SunTrust Park/The Battery? Awful lot of unused real estate out in Oconee county…
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Shit it’s tough being old and living in the glorious past but I will “endeavor to persevere”.
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I’m almost 70 and retiring in 43 days. I’ve spent the better part of 20 years working in online education. The world is different and it’s going to get differenter really quickly. Lead, follow or get out of the way.
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@ilini84: I’ve been in educational facility construction and management for the last 15 years. You speak the truth.
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I prefer to see improvement not merely different.
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Well good for you, I don’t suppose you think improvement is subjective?
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It may be on an individual basis but not in the collective.
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Grumpy old men and women wondering why the younger crowd can’t act and think just like they do.
How novel.
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I’m going to go ahead and say that declining attendance has a lot to do with the ever rising cost of the event more than people are too busy looking at their phones to attend.
A couple of tickets to NW/OSU will cost you $270 to sit in the lower level. $20 for parking. Another $20 to throw a stadium hot dog & coke down the Ol’ ladies throat.
If we are gonna tailgate ahead of time, that’s what probably got set you back another $50 a head for grill out supplies, beer, ice, liquor, etc.
So yeah, for two couples to go and tailgate and watch the game you are probably looking at maybe $700-$800.
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At UGA, add maybe $2-300 to that?
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Agreed.
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Not only do the events cost more, but the younger generations are making less money. That’s a dynamic at play across the board w/r/t athletic events that I don’t think people talk about enough. As wealth inequality continues to worsen, attendance will continue to decrease.
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Damn if I didn’t agree with a lot of that (although not the football part of it). Nothing drives me crazier that seeing something amazing and watching assholes not only video it on their phones, but also watch it through their phones. Concerts, art museums, historical sites. I can see that shit for free on the Internet. Why would I watch it through my phone while I’m there?
However, lamenting folks arriving 4 hours before the game Fails to get southern football completely. We get to the tailgate for 7 pm games at 9 am. That is if we didn’t sleep there for some reason. And for Georgia Florida most of us get there on Wednesday.
Wifi is fine when I need to see a score. The issue now for me is cost and convenience. When you make it so hard to park, walk to the game, get a sandwich, or get to a horrible bathroom when I could watch on a huge HD TV and drink good beer without having to drive 3.5 hours each way that sums it up for me.
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Lower attendance has nothing to do with this:
Parking
$5 water
$8 hot dogs that suck
$500 tickets
giving up an entire day
Giving up a day with family and 3-4 games on tv
175 football teams with maybe 40 worth caring about
Hotels
Driving for hours
Traffic
Restrooms
Oh and connectivity
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