Pat Fitzgerald sounds off on negative impact phones are having on attendance/society

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Go Gophers!!
 


I agree with him it's one of the factors but I notice he left out the huge increases in cost and the many entertainment options . I always liked PF except when he says " go cats " after every interview. Sounds like the same thing some people complain with in regards to PJF.
 

I love watching games in person. But I also love watching multiple games at the same time. And sometimes I'm at TCF wishing we weren't in another tv timeout while other games I'm interested in are playing. I love tailgating, but I also dislike spending 8 hours devoted to my favorite team when I love college football. So I'm a foot in both camps...
 

If you spend time posting on a message board you can’t really complain about tech use by young people
 


Some guy said:
If you spend time posting on a message board you can’t really complain about tech use by young people
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His point is perhaps more nuanced. I'd say PF is touching on how multi-tasking can cause present yet absent moments during life experiences/relationships. Young people do not have sole ownership of this practice. All people can come up with all sorts of reasons to not give all their attention to someone or something.
 

kisarazu said:
His point is perhaps more nuanced. I'd say PF is touching on how multi-tasking can cause present yet absent moments during life experiences/relationships. Young people do not have sole ownership of this practice. All people can come up with all sorts of reasons to not give all their attention to someone or something.
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Phones are a problem, but mostly because they are the delivery device keeping social media flowing at all times to people. Social media and the constant culture of life curation are the biggest issue. He is spot on there. People only want to go to the games where they can be “seen” at which raises up “helmet school” games and lowers others, even high P5 like Minnesota and Northwestern.

Next time anything interesting happens around you in public just watch how people react. Unless it’s gunfire, phones are sure to be popping out everywhere.

It’s amazing how many events that are being professionally recorded, like weddings, sporting events, concerts, etc still suffer from this. I have a friend who is a news cameraman and he is endlessly amused how many people desperately want to do his job much worse and for free during their peak life moments.
 


50PoundHead said:
Get off my lawn!
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More like, "Don't stumble into my fence because you're walking while staring into your phone".

The phone zombie phenomenon is depressing to watch. Fitzgerald's observation about people out at a restaurant and not interacting because they're all staring at their phones is all too true.

Sad.

But I'm afraid this particular genie is never going back in the bottle.
 




Good points by Pat.
But $$$ always plays a factor.

Sounds like Pat has been looking for ways to make it a better experience, but he has neighborhood concerns he has to be aware of.

Maybe they need to pair each game with a concert.
 

Someone replied to his speech by saying yea--if you coaches didnt make so much money tickets would be cheaper and students could afford to come to games.
 

Face The Facts said:
Good points by Pat.
But $$$ always plays a factor.

Sounds like Pat has been looking for ways to make it a better experience, but he has neighborhood concerns he has to be aware of.

Maybe they need to pair each game with a concert.
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Yeah Chicago / inner burbs are hardcore about event noise. Cubs almost never play Friday night home games because of city ordinance and outdoor bars and dining mostly all close at 11 even in the middle of downtown. I’m guessing it’s worse in older and quieter Evanston.

I would say folks who live next to those things knew what they were signing up for when they moved in. None of these things were recently built.
 



kisarazu said:
His point is perhaps more nuanced. I'd say PF is touching on how multi-tasking can cause present yet absent moments during life experiences/relationships. Young people do not have sole ownership of this practice. All people can come up with all sorts of reasons to not give all their attention to someone or something.
Click to expand...

You can’t shift the entire game day experience to cater to TV with long TV timeouts, odd start times, 8 minutes instant replay reviews over 7 yard catches that they never show replays in the stadium of etc...and then complain that people are staying home to watch on TV because they’re addicted to phones and TV.

i guess you can complain about it, but to me you look like a fool and a hypocrite. Let’s blane the kids rather than acknowledging the game has changed and thus how and where people watch games has also changed. Meanwhile, in 2000 you could get a gopher season ticket for 100 bucks upper deck endzone....today the cheapest season ticket would cost 148 adjusted for inflation....I guess I can get a digital ticket deal for 199 and go watch Maryland.
 

fmlizard said:
Yeah Chicago / inner burbs are hardcore about event noise. Cubs almost never play Friday night home games because of city ordinance and outdoor bars and dining mostly all close at 11 even in the middle of downtown. I’m guessing it’s worse in older and quieter Evanston.

I would say folks who live next to those things knew what they were signing up for when they moved in. None of these things were recently built.
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Doesn’t matter for northwestern. They can’t control their start times anyways.
 

Some guy said:
You can’t shift the entire game day experience to cater to TV with long TV timeouts, odd start times, 8 minutes instant replay reviews over 7 yard catches that they never show replays in the stadium of etc...and then complain that people are staying home to watch on TV because they’re addicted to phones and TV.

i guess you can complain about it, but to me you look like a fool and a hypocrite. Let’s blane the kids rather than acknowledging the game has changed and thus how and where people watch games has also changed. Meanwhile, in 2000 you could get a gopher season ticket for 100 bucks upper deck endzone....today the cheapest season ticket would cost 148 adjusted for inflation....I guess I can get a digital ticket deal for 199 and go watch Maryland.
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Phones and TV: there are parallels, of course. Both represent technology that accounts for shrinking crowds at stadiums.

To me, though, phones and TV are also separate in one key way: using your phone is mostly a solo experience. Watching a game on TV can still be a great social experience: at home with your spouse or friends, at a bar with strangers (potential new friends), etc.

I've had some very fun experiences watching sporting events on TV with others.

Of course, it's fair to point out that watching on TV means I'm not at the stadium.
 

Doc1001 said:
Someone replied to his speech by saying yea--if you coaches didnt make so much money tickets would be cheaper and students could afford to come to games.
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If Fleck's salary was cut in half, that would be about enough money to lower ticket prices maybe $5. A difference of $5 is probably not keeping too many people away.
 


Doc1001 said:
Someone replied to his speech by saying yea--if you coaches didnt make so much money tickets would be cheaper and students could afford to come to games.
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The last time I went to Evanston I get in for five bucks and moved down to the 40 yard line at the start of the second quarter. Very cheap experience

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
 

bemidjigopher said:
The last time I went to Evanston I get in for five bucks and moved down to the 40 yard line at the start of the second quarter. Very cheap experience

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
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The question wasn’t specific to northwestern. It was about how across all of college footballs attendance is down
 

Meanwhile, Fitz blames “young people” when it is just as likely that baby boomers are going to fewer games as well while they reach ages it is tougher to do all day events.
Plus, in my working experience...people 35+ are on their phones just as much or more at work than people under 35.
 

It's funny, my son has played against Pat's son Ryan in travel baseball for the last 4 years, and every time I see Pat at games he's working his phone the entire time, missing his kid play. Needless to say I got a chuckle when I saw this.
 


RememberMurray said:
More like, "Don't stumble into my fence because you're walking while staring into your phone".

The phone zombie phenomenon is depressing to watch. <b>Fitzgerald's observation about people out at a restaurant and not interacting because they're all staring at their phones is all too true.

Sad.</b>

But I'm afraid this particular genie is never going back in the bottle.
Click to expand...

Honest Question. Let’s assume the bolded is true. Why is that sad and wrong? If everyone at the table prefers it that way, why is that bad? We tend to decide something is wrong based on how we were taught. Doesn’t make it right. I think there needs to be two spaces after a period, but that is no longer how it is taught. Is that wrong or do times just change?


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I guess it's easier to blame something you don't understand than to look at everything the NCAA and teams are doing to make it harder to watch in person and easier to watch at home.

Ticket prices are getting to a crazy point. Not as much at Northwestern but certainly around the country. For the cheapest seats and even somewhat close parking it's around $400 minimum for the Gophers. Call it $500 if you get 1 beer at every game and food a couple of times.

Security keeps getting worse. You can only bring in a clear plastic bag, can't bring in food or drinks, and the line still takes forever. If I watch at home I have access to everything in my home including food and drinks and I don't need to worry about turning the game on early to get through security.

They do a horrible job keeping you updated in the stadium. On TV they'll keep you up to date with injuries, show tons of instant replays during a review and have someone who knows what they're talking about explain it, and have someone explain new or complicated rules when needed. At the stadium you don't get much of that at all and need to use your phone to figure out what's going on. With how often they're changing the rules and the targeting rule I find myself needing to do this frequently.

Expansion and divisions have meant worse games. The Gophers used to play the big three rivalry games just about every year. Now they only play Michigan roughly 3 out of every 7 and it feels like less than that. Instead they try to convince us that we have a rivalry with a team we first played 25 years ago and have only played 14 times ever who isn't close to us and who we also play only once every few years.

Ever since they created a national championship and a conference championship, teams can no longer only worry about themselves. Now you can't just worry about yourself; you need to watch what other teams are doing. Watching on TV at home makes that way easier to do.

Scheduling is making it way harder to go to games. The season starts in just over a month and we only know the start time of 3 Gopher games and even then I believe they can shift them a bit. For 7 we have no idea at all when the game will start. It could be as early as 11 or as late as 8. That makes it hard if you're coming from out of town and potentially staying overnight. If you're coming from 4 hours away and don't want to have to leave at 6am or get back at 4am, you need to either book a hotel room for 2 nights and cancel one or both of them or wait until a week before the game and pay higher rates. Not to mention that Friday games make it nearly impossible for anyone out of town to go without taking the day off work.

TV timeouts make the game so much harder to watch in person. At home I can just flip to another channel for a few minutes or get up and go to the bathroom. At the game there's usually nothing to do other than listen about whatever sponsor they're promoting. I could see if the game was cheap to get into but it's frustrating to pay good money to attend a game and then have to watch them shove ads down your throat because they want more money.

The money in general makes it so much harder for me to get into the sport. I get that it costs money to travel, give scholarships, and run the stadium. I get that programs like softball and rowing lose money and football needs to pay for them. I'm fine with that. But when they're going over the top trying to make a ton of money so they can pay the coach $3.5 million and the AD almost $1 million, that makes me want to just stay home. Especially when they somehow don't have enough money to pay the players or send the band to even some away games and are forcing students to pay for the stadium. At this point, what is the difference between college and pro football? The players don't get paid but that's about it. The programs are still making a ton of money and the "student athlete" thing doesn't really hold up when the Big 10 adds a team that got kicked out of the Association of American Universities and signed a recruit who is struggling to meet the minimum grade required to transfer. Minnesota is better than most teams but it's hard to buy into the whole "college football" thing when teams like Ohio State are charging over $1000 for season tickets including the mandatory "donation" and have players who tweet out how they shouldn't have to go to classes with writing at an elementary school level.

If you want fans to go to games, make the fan experience better. Schedule all of the games well in advance and not on Fridays. Make tickets and parking cheaper. Allow people to bring in food and drinks, speed up security, and don't restrict the bags fans bring in. Have a few in-house reporters who come on the big screen to give injury updates and talk the fans through replays. Bring the Big 10 back to 10 or at least 11 teams and let us play Michigan every year. Get rid of divisions and the conference championship. Cut breaks in the game to only what is needed for players to get a bit of rest. Then you'll get more fans. If you prioritize money, you'll get money but not fans.
 

Back to the issue of phones:
I attend a lot of HS athletic events. During time-outs, if I look in the stands, I would say almost every fan 50 or younger is staring at their phone - not interacting with each other.

and with younger people - let's say 25 and younger, it's getting to a point where you could arguably call it an addiction. these people literally cannot function without their phones. I work with a kid who is a couple of years out of college. he honestly spends the entire day staring at his phone -except for the rare times when he actually pays attention to his job.

it has changed society. I appreciate the information it can provide, but I also see the potentially negative impact of having people withdraw from human interaction and spend all day gazing into a 5" or 6" screen.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Back to the issue of phones:
I attend a lot of HS athletic events. During time-outs, if I look in the stands, I would say almost every fan 50 or younger is staring at their phone - not interacting with each other.

and with younger people - let's say 25 and younger, it's getting to a point where you could arguably call it an addiction. these people literally cannot function without their phones. I work with a kid who is a couple of years out of college. he honestly spends the entire day staring at his phone -except for the rare times when he actually pays attention to his job.

it has changed society. I appreciate the information it can provide, but I also see the potentially negative impact of having people withdraw from human interaction and spend all day gazing into a 5" or 6" screen.
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I know two people over the age of forty that are addicted to their phones...so I guess they all suck
 

RememberMurray said:
More like, "Don't stumble into my fence because you're walking while staring into your phone".

The phone zombie phenomenon is depressing to watch. Fitzgerald's observation about people out at a restaurant and not interacting because they're all staring at their phones is all too true.

Sad.

But I'm afraid this particular genie is never going back in the bottle.
Click to expand...

Countless times I've seen people out together at a restaurant without phones not interacting...either staring at their food or just past each other.
 

PMWinSTP said:
Countless times I've seen people out together at a restaurant without phones not interacting...either staring at their food or just past each other.
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The good old days.

The really creepy ones will stare at you and/or your companions for minutes at a time.
 

Spoofin said:
Honest Question. Let’s assume the bolded is true. Why is that sad and wrong? If everyone at the table prefers it that way, why is that bad? We tend to decide something is wrong based on how we were taught. Doesn’t make it right. I think there needs to be two spaces after a period, but that is no longer how it is taught. Is that wrong or do times just change?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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What's sad in this case is that there is something really important that's being lost in The Age of the Phone Zombie. That being: direct human interaction.

I have a friend who has a job at a place she loves. She's been there almost 20 years. She works about 30 hours a week there. To pick up extra money she also does the random freelance gig. She recently told me that her current freelance/contract assignment is vastly different from her main job. At the freelance place, everyone is issued a laptop and all communication is digital; virtually no paper. I asked her if she can work from home, since it's mostly digital and she said yes. I said, "You must love that!" she said, nope; she hates it. No human contact. No real collaboration. No feeling of being part of a team.

At the freelance job, nobody knows anyone else and they have a constant, high turnover rate for employees.

At her main job, everyone has known everyone else for years. They celebrate job hire anniversaries together. They see each other socially outside the office. She's made lifelong friends there. Almost everybody who works there — and she knows everybody there — loves working there.

The Human Element. We are human, we are social animals. We weren't meant to be zombies.
 

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