Good point owlfan1 about the two seasons and they still had problems drawing fans. I know the on campus stadium will greatly improve attendance but people and the sports fans of today are little different from years ago. Everything is "what can you do for me now because, I have things to do" mindset. Everything is disposable. Everything is microwavable. Complete meals now comes out of a vending machine. Waiting is not an option anymore. Next!


We spent hours tailgating in the snow at Giants stadium in the 70's to get in. They were terrible and lost almost every game back then. The Saints weren't the only one's with paper bags over their heads back then! So were the Giants. But guess what. The place was SOLD OUT. Giants tickets are inherited!! Hard to come by.
Then I moved to Tampa in the early 80's. Who is waiting there? The Bucs. Yep. The orange pants Buccaneer Bruce wearing players, who was voted the worst pro franchise ever. They SUCKED. Never winning and getting blasted by the media. Again, the place(Ol' Sombrero) was SOLD OUT by 76,000 die hard fans.
So my point is that the true fans will be there for the worst of time. The casual and new fans need to be heavily solicited and a connection has to be in place. The stadium will help. Ads will surely help. Winning is also the key to getting them there. Otherwise there is just too many distractions in south Florida for FAU to avoid fan base turnovers. The big 3 programs have a hold on the casual fans. Those are the ones who FAU need to go after as Owl fans.

Ironically, the fans say win and we will come. The players say we need the fans to cheer us on and help us win. It makes you wonder what will work. Is the support even there in that area? They won in 2003 and 2004 and the fans still weren't there. Waiting to see things built has become a distant memory of the past.

Look at any circumstances. Coaches getting hired to " win now". Players jumping teams to "play for a championship now".
I don't have the answers.


Soap Box over. Now back to your regular scheduled thread.

O.G. you are right on the money about FAU. One thing to note, pro teams are very different than college teams. They do tons of research before starting up a pro team. They want to make sure that fans will show up for the game before putting a team in a particular city. I don't think that type of research took place before FAU started to build a program. Also, even if a pro team is terrible, a fan can still go to the game and see great players from the opposing team. That rarely happens with a mid-major college team. Now, if FAU scheduled Florida or Miami, the place would be packed. Enough of my thoughts. GO OWLS!!!

True. That's exacly why most of us kept going. Not only the slim chance of a win.. :D… but to see the competition. I college the competition plays a MAJOR part in deciding on going to the game or partying. Especially when funds are limited.

The fan base must be grown and that will take time, part of the problem is most students don't take part in any school activities, thus as Alumni's could careless about supporting their Alma Mater.

I think we need to do build a marketing effort that breaks things down to students & Alumni's. Maybe get some kind of survey just for students that teacher could hand-out and have them fill-out overnight - keep it simple, but gear it to question and comments of want type of activities they would take part in, build events aroung building Owl Pride - look at the big schools and what are they doing to get students and/or Alumni's involved, we don't have to re-invent the wheel here, but simple find what works for other successful programs and find a mixture of these function and blend them into our own - we need to develop some Owl pride among current students & Alumni's which in turn will get more people involved. Are far as Alumni's, they need to have a different approach which centers around changing the perception they have developed about FAU - Yes, that commuter mentality. It's all about setting up events that brings people together.

Here is an Idea for attendance at games, I say stop selling end-zone & crunch zone tickets and move everyone on the visiting side-line - the difference would be amazing as far as the perception of people at a game - 10,000 on sideline would make the stadium look a lot more full (especially for TV games) then fans spread out in the very large end-zone seating area- do this till we can bring the attendance to a consistant 15-20,000. The fans just get lost in the end-zone, plus the fans would be closer to the game, and would appreciate the game more and more likely to come back.
The crowd noise would be far greater as well.

Just a thought!!

Go Owls!!