Reddit thread- why do students decide not to go to games?

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The school is pretty liberal and not as rowdy as places like Wisconsin, Minnesota State, Iowa, etc. I'm guessing alot of them don't care about football, which is sad. Especially this year. What a season they are having. That place better be packed next Saturday!!
 

It's a big school and that sub is pretty barron.

I'm not sure that sub is very representative.
 

The biggest reason why college kids don't go to games or stay for the whole game is they'd prefer to keep drinking at party or bar. If they are under 21 they can't buy beer inside and if they are over 21, the $8 beers are too expensive for them. And I think a lot of them just have shorter attention spans.

Specifically at the U, a lot of them just aren't die hard fans like they are at OSU, Nebraska, PSU etc. due to a lack of success.
 

Just put a sworn allegiance to Minnesota football on the Application for the U of M.

As part of attending the Minnesota, you are required to attend 5 home games a year. LOL
 


Yeah but games are a great place to go to socialize, meet new people, hit on members of the same/opposite sex, and have fun...I didn't go to the U and could have given 2 $hits less about the football team at the college I went to but I still went to games for those reasons
 

We have a huge student body and as mentioned that sub is barren. Probably not super representative of the actual student body.

And further more, there are probably lots of students not interested in football and that's not something that should be focused on (yet), but rather the question should have asked "Students who are interested in college football, why don't you go to home games?".
 

Taji34 said:
We have a huge student body and as mentioned that sub is barren. Probably not super representative of the actual student body.

And further more, there are probably lots of students not interested in football and that's not something that should be focused on (yet), but rather the question should have asked "Students who are interested in college football, why don't you go to home games?".
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Yeah, those people don't sound like they'd be going to the games even if they went to a helmet school.
 

die hard gopher said:
The biggest reason why college kids don't go to games or stay for the whole game is they'd prefer to keep drinking at party or bar. If they are under 21 they can't buy beer inside and if they are over 21, the $8 beers are too expensive for them. And I think a lot of them just have shorter attention spans.

Specifically at the U, a lot of them just aren't die hard fans like they are at OSU, Nebraska, PSU etc. due to a lack of success.
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Nailed it on all points. Ease and cost of obtaining alcohol dictate where the kids show up.
 



Go Gophs said:
The school is pretty liberal and not as rowdy as places like Wisconsin, Minnesota State, Iowa, etc. I'm guessing alot of them don't care about football, which is sad. Especially this year. What a season they are having. That place better be packed next Saturday!!
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wisconsin is way more liberal than the U, and has way better attendance than we do. And what does being liberal have to do with attending football games anyway?
 

Evidently the UofM redditors are simply not football fans.

By their responses, many seemed to be international students or soccer fans.
 

6-7K of the students are from China. CFB not real big over there.
 




dpodoll68 said:
wisconsin is way more liberal than the U, and has way better attendance than we do. And what does being liberal have to do with attending football games anyway?
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I'd argue that Wisconsin has been good for 25 years and it has made it much more of a social event there that easily grabs the fringe students. I went to a game at Camp Randall in the late 80s and the student section was pretty busted. On another note, I have also watched some Badger games on TV where the student section has been empty at the top (just like ours).
 

WriterGoph said:
I'd argue that Wisconsin has been good for 25 years and it has made it much more of a social event there that easily grabs the fringe students. I went to a game at Camp Randall in the late 80s and the student section was pretty busted. On another note, I have also watched some Badger games on TV where the student section has been empty at the top (just like ours).
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Agreed on all points. It's almost as if "being liberal" has nothing to do with college football game attendance.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Agreed on all points. It's almost as if "being liberal" has nothing to do with college football game attendance.
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Haha. I think that someone was trying to make the ridiculous correlation that maybe liberals don't like the sportsball as much?
 

WriterGoph said:
Haha. I think that someone was trying to make the ridiculous correlation that maybe liberals don't like the sportsball as much?
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I thought they were all at the art museum?
 

die hard gopher said:
The biggest reason why college kids don't go to games or stay for the whole game is they'd prefer to keep drinking at party or bar. If they are under 21 they can't buy beer inside and if they are over 21, the $8 beers are too expensive for them. And I think a lot of them just have shorter attention spans.

Specifically at the U, a lot of them just aren't die hard fans like they are at OSU, Nebraska, PSU etc. due to a lack of success.
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I'm sure college kids can figure out how to drink in the stadium if they really put their minds to it.
I think your 2nd point is more the reason. It's all about what's cool to do and where it's cool to be seen. I'm a pretty hard core Twins fan (go to about 8-10 games a year and share season tickets). My friends are always amazed at the "scene" at Target Field on Friday and Saturday nights (especially when the team is winning). Lots of young people there (20's) just there to hang out - not really paying attention to the game, but going to all the different bars inside the stadium, etc.
 

One thing that is underrated in all of this is that those kids that grew up and live 2,3 4 hours away from campus when there not in school on the weekends, they want to go home see their parents, wash some clothes, chill, may be get some free food, have some fun off campus with friends they grew up with. Some have to work a job to work like do delivery's for grub hub, uber, Amazon. Even a lot of the suburban commuter kids do the gig economy jobs of delivery things like Target. Football has not been a huge deal at the U and the lack of conference championships and consistent winning at home doesn't help. All excuses but it has affected things.
Not everyone can afford time wise or money wise to go to the home football games. Like other's have mentioned there is a rather large International student population that doesn't follow American football or really understand it. I realize that the Game tickets for students are relatively inexpensive. Like others have said in other threads, I have seen the wrist band thing have a negative affect where kids have turned away and left once the lower deck fills up in the Student section.
Football student attendance seemed to peak in the latter Glen Mason years when there was quite a party scene in downtown Minneapolis. Some of those student tailgates got pretty wild with what the Minneapolis cops were letting go in the lots that were near the Metrodome. If I were the U of M I would reduce the Student section seating area down from 10,000 guaranteed seats to about 8,000. Next step get rid of the upper deck student sections all together, make those sections general seating to the general public and open up 119, 118, 113,114 to the rest of the Student section. Like others have said there is limited amounts of season ticket holder seats in those sections with the rented chair backs anyways.
 


I bet attendance would go way up if they allowed students to bring alcohol in.

I think the problem is that there aren't enough football fans and if you're not a fan, the atmosphere isn't good enough to want to go anyway between the cold, difficulty of sneaking alcohol in, expensive prices, and amount of time where nothing is going on. The Gophers could directly take 2 of those factors out of play if they wanted to.
 


I can confirm that this is not just a problem that Minnesota faces, we deal with it at Colorado State as well. We just moved our stadium on campus and it has helped a little bit but so many still leave at half time. I think part of it is the fact that the students are partying before the game and, as mentioned before, cost of partying inside the games are ridiculous. So half time rolls around and the students are starting to come off their buzz and no one likes it when that happens, so they mozy on to the next place that they can get cheap drinks at. If the game is close, then we will have more students stay but if it is a blow out, good luck. And the student tickets are FREE!

In addition, we don't do a good enough job keeping the students there. The game day atmosphere is lacking. The fans have been begging the AD to start a 4th quarter song like Jump Around or Dixieland Delight. We tried Sweet Caroline a couple of year ago and it was a miserable disaster. Only good thing we did was put a bar literally on the field.......but then charge $200 annually JUST to get in.

I really think it is a top-down thing. As freshman, the students need to be constantly reminded that football games are a tradition that they are expected to attend. Build the school pride from day one (AL, UGA and Oregon are all great at this!). Without that university buy in, its tough to build a student body that is super excited for athletics, IMO
 

GoGophersUMN said:
I bet attendance would go way up if they allowed students to bring alcohol in.

I think the problem is that there aren't enough football fans and if you're not a fan, the atmosphere isn't good enough to want to go anyway between the cold, difficulty of sneaking alcohol in, expensive prices, and amount of time where nothing is going on. The Gophers could directly take 2 of those factors out of play if they wanted to.
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That'd be very difficult to do without things getting out of control. It's stupidly easy to sneak stuff in, and in my 3 years here I've only every seen someone get busted if they were being extremely obnoxious about it.
 

I’d guess many/most (not all) young college guy’s weekends are still primarily fixated on (3-5 are interchangeable): 1) chasing tail 2 ) chasing a high/buzz 3) studying 4) socializing with friends 5) unrelated hobbies and sports 6) jobs 7) visiting home/parents

Bars figured out decades ago to bring in the ladies and the guys will not only follow but stick around but who knows in the age of Snapchat and similar. It’s definitely a new world out there and I think it has passed many of us by.
 

A good percentage said they want to go but don’t have anyone to go with.
Sounds like an great opportunity for the U there.
 

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