If Illinois State goes FBS in football, who replaces them?

[Haha]

UNI's attendance the past couple seasons has been right about 14K.

Not trying to be a stickler but last season was 12,997. Doesn't really change anything else you said, just happened to come across this earlier today while looking at FCS football attendance. That was number 21 for FCS schools btw and only behind NDSU in the valley. They were a little over 16K if I recall.

Also I noticed Mizz St was right at 9K, I didn't realize conf USA football attracted such small crowds.

[valleychamp]

I think he was talking more of an average of the last several years, which probably would be around 14K.

[Haha]

I think he was talking more of an average of the last several years, which probably would be around 14K.

Again not trying to be a d-bag but 2009 was actually lower at 12,969, and 2008 was 12,178. It's only a 1K off so not really that big of deal. Also looks like attendance has increased each year the last 3.

Ok just looked up 2007 and it was 16,117. WTF happened that UNI lost nearly 20% of their average from 2007? I'm going to assume several home playoff games that year helped or something?

[Haha]

Ok I went and looked beyond 2007 and 06 and 05 were not very good. I will just do a 5 year average and leave 05 out, just note it was the worst at 10,628.

12,997
12,969
12,128
16,117
11,120

13,066 is the average. Now I did it by simply adding each season average and dividing by 5. If say for instance the season they averaged 16K had several more games than the season they averaged 11K and I would have taken the total number of each season and divided by games then that number could be raised by several hundred I would imagine.

However looking at the 5 last seasons I would say the 16K is really abnormal, it might show though what attendance would be like consistently at FBS level if it did generate more interest.

[valleychamp]

2007 we crushed Iowa State early in the year, and were ranked #1 most of the year and had an undefeated regular season. That was the reason for the good crowds. Several sellouts that year.

It was definitely an outlier type year, but I think most UNI fans will tell you that a typical football crowd in the UNI dome is around 12-14K. Maybe 1 or 2 games with lower, and 1 or 2 games with higher each year.

[uniftw]

Last season's attendance is real screwed up by the playoff game. Last year UNI's playoff game was Thanksgiving weekend, with 95% off the students off campus, the majority of fans (UNI has 8K season ticket holders and game attendance was well under 6k) out of town to family events, with a noon kick off, leaving little to no chance for a majority of them to get back.

The playoffs is what f's UNI's attendance...actually does across the nation...FCS attendance drops about about 25-30% during the playoffs because of the very short turnaround each week and knowing if there is a home game or not, getting weekends off (much easier to plan for during the regular season)

Take that playoff game out and UNI was over 14k last year(14398)

2009 is skewed some by one of the OOC oponents - a nonoscholly team from PA that has won just as many games as Indiana State has since 2000. Average of 12,969 with that game, without it is just under 13,500 again.

2008 - Regular season attendance was just under 13,500...playoff games of 8477, 9055, and 12062 drop that overall average pretty hard.

2007 - UNI averaged 16,200 during the regular season and that dropped during the playoffs to the 16,100

That means since 07 UNI has averaged just over 14,200 in the regular season

The FBS teams don't have the short turn around of the playoffs to skew attendance, granted teams like Texas, Florida, OU, Michigan, OSU, etc... would always sell out, but MAC, WAC, MWC (minus TCU and BSU), etc... would see the same type of drop.


Not that any of this matters, but food for thought as the vast majority of non-FCS fans don't understand that the playoffs hurt the overall attendance average

[panther-state]

The problem was laid out by beatingrillz....The Iowa BOR doesn't want UNI to move up....or UNI to be a state school in general.

Agreed...minus when grillz wasn't being his normal idiot self and talking about a D2 move.

It would really help if we had a governor that cared about us (or education in general...or people in general) or at the very least would appoint board members who actually WANT to be on the board. Man, politics are dumb.

[beatingrillz]

The D2 comment was uncalled for but the fact remains that UNI is at the minimal number of scholarship sports to remain D1. How is anyone suppose to believe that the Iowa BOR is looking to move up. The push has to start at the leaders of the university. I also have a hard time believing tha UNI has the donors to make the move, but I am no expert on the fundraising at UNI so I won't comment any further. The attendance isn't an issue but increasing the capacity in the Dome would be. Lastly, it has been documented That FCS success doesn't automatically translate FBS success. If a school is gonna make a move they just need to jump and be prepared to take their lumps cause it could be a long road. All the more reason I call for MSU to jump in and do it. They aren't winning here so might as well go lose at the next level. That way when we do succeed it's on the highest level. 

[valleychamp]

By my count, Missouri State sponsors a grand total of 1 more program than does UNI. I guess it was that big time field hockey program that that pushed MSU over the top, to claim superiority over UNI.

If I am not mistaken, there are plans to add a bowling program at UNI in the future (insert WSU joke), which would put UNI/MSU at the same # of sports. Maybe we can join you in Conf USA?

[valleychamp]

Scratch that, it seems I was mistaken. I did not take into account that MSU had neither a men's CC or T&F team. So assuming we are counting both men's and women's T&F and CC as separate programs, UNI actually sponsors more sports than MSU.