You really need to take some classes on this message board stuff. You keep mentioning BCS in your comments, but you do realize this is a basketball forum and the links OP provided are related to…umm…basketball attendance?
Last I checked, the only fundamental change in the basketball playoff is it went from 64 to 68, and the seeding selection process applies more metrics than traditional committee selecting their favorite schools.
I don’t actually think it has that much to do with prices. Concert attendance is going gangbusters, and they’re every bit as expensive as sporting events. Live comedy, too. The issue with sports (and with movies, which face the same trend) is that TV has gotten too good. Watching anything but the absolute best events of the year is a better experience from your couch, irrespective of price. Even if Texans tickets were free and food/bev were sold at face value, there would still be plenty of people who would just rather not deal with the drawbacks of the in-stadium experience.
I think it’s worth noting that the suites — the most expensive seats in the stadium — offer an experience that’s pretty similar to watching from your couch. There’s a reason for that.
I think the options to game watch at sports bars has improved a lot too. The TV experience has incrementally improved, but I think people also prefer to watch with friends with multiple big/flat screens and beer. There are just so many more options that provide that type of environment versus the 90s/early 2000s.
As a product unto itself I agree with you, it is better. I’m concerned for the bigger picture, and this thread is examining one of the first signs of cracks in the foundation.
In astronomy, the stars that burn biggest and brightest also burn fastest and consume themselves soonest. They are inhospitable to planets that could support life, and they explode and turn into black holes that destroy everything around them.
Our culture has Enlightenment roots that requires an educated and virtuous population. Our economy is full of technology and industry that requires an educated workforce. We have all these schools in order to serve these requirements. Sports is only part of that mission, whether to promote health for students, unity for the community, or public visibility for the institution.
This ordering may impose limits on the absolute spectacle possible, but that’s why we have pro sports leagues. I’m super libertarian about what they do there – they’ve sold out for the show, and I don’t really care what they do to achieve it, money, facilities, roids, whatever.
I’m concerned that if college isn’t college anymore, we will lose it. Herb Stein said anything that can’t go on forever must stop. OP noticed a surprising trend that belies the promise of the all out spectacle, and this is my diagnosis. Our country needs higher learning, so there’s a lot at stake. The old story of decline is panem et circenses, and death by applause.
Yea it’s getting expensive. I get we have better facilities, but when we started playing a Robertson, it was dirt cheap. Now it feels like getting nickel and dime’d to death at the games. Its not as bad for basketball though.
I agree, the $ hasn’t had a huge effect on the things you listed, which is why every year they go up 10+%. As long as people keep paying they are going to keep raising prices. Some of the pricing is artificial, and based on scalpers buying up tix then limiting the supply and driving up prices.
But when do people finally go, enough is enough. $20 beers, $40? $150 for good seats to an Astros game, $300?
When I was a kid growing up in Houston in the early 70’s they used to have Astro tickets for 50 cents in the outfield. You mean they don’t have those any more?
The music industry and live music is doing worse now than it was pre-Covid. Yes there are mega tours that are doing well (Taylor Swift, Oasis) but overall attendance is down. Ask any musician or club owner.
If you have a winning product and the tickets aren’t too expensive, people will go.
ND? They’re 11-14 in a down year in the conference and have absolutely no chance to make the tournament unless they win 5 games in 5 days at the ACC tournament. Other schools are facing similar circumstances. We’re not immune. I remember walking into Hofheinz Pavilion my freshman year to watch a UH-SMU game. Nobody was checking tickets and it might have been about 1/3 full. The expansion of conferences adds to it as well. Utah didn’t draw well against Kansas. Why? They’re an average to poor team playing a school against which they have no connection previously.
One reason I always gave for liking the college game is that I could have a player in in class. In my economics class with @coog64fan, we would discuss football with an all-SWC linebacker. Now, you’re not going to have that. Add to that, you’ve got college students earning more in one year than may of the students in the class will earn in their lifetime, due to the House and O’Bannon cases.
I’m afraid the college game has lost its innocence and allure to many. There is no loyalty to schools. Many of us spent four or more years to earn a degree from UH. It’s our school, our alma mater. What loyalty does an athlete have to a school when he plays at three schools over four years?
Over the years, I have always given college athletes a pass when they perform poorly, because they were playing for my school. They went to class like me and were playing. But now, they’re free agents playing for $$$$. They get tutors the rest of us don’t get. Unfortunately, we’ll start seeing players booed. It will start at the entitled schools. In basketball, UNC and Kansas come to mind where they’re not performing up to historic standards. But I feel it will continue.
That was supposed to happen back when scholarship limits went into effect. UT, OU, ND and some other schools had more than 100 players on campus so other schools just got the left overs.