How do we fill our 16,000 seat Paladin stadium? Which Home Schedule is more appealing?

[Northeast Furman Fan]

I am hoping for a thoughtful discussion on this topic. I have been attending Furman Football games for 37 years so my blood runs purple. I would like to see our stadium filled up. I was at the game when over 17,000 fans saw Furman beat Georgia Southern at Paladin Stadium. The atmosphere was exciting and electric. I would like to hear some positive discussion and ideas on how to improve our attendance. More than just win games.

I look at former Southern Conference schools like Marshall (23,190 average attendance), Appalachian State (23,806 average attendance), and Georgia Southern (13,964 average attendance) and see their success.

I even look at Coastal Carolina (15,109 average attendance), a school that did not seem good enough for the Southern Conference, achieve great success.

Not including the 2020 season, the average home attendance at Furman has been about 6,400 per conference game. We have had good Furman teams in 2018 and 2019 so it just doesn't seem right not to have a good attendance.

I like the pursuit of a national championship at the FCS level but it just doesn't seem to get enough fans in the seats at Paladin Stadium.

I will always be a Furman fan and will always enjoy the Furman games. I would like to see future games at Paladin Stadium where it is sold out. I would like to see again, 17,000 Furman fans enjoying the beating that we give to a visiting team. It has happened before.

I am wondering if a different home schedule would help. Would more fans come to Paladin Stadium to see Furman play Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, and Louisiana. The out of conference home schedule may include teams like Charlotte, Duke, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, and East Carolina. If we play Wofford or Citadel, it will always be a home game.

I sincerely would like a constructive discussion on this topic and look forward to reading ideas that others may have.

How do we as a Furman Football community improve, other than win games?

[apaladin]

Like you I have seen many near capacity, really good crowds at PS. With that said I do not remember any since GSU and ASU left the conference. Unfortunately we have to rely on the other team to fill PS. Currently the SoCon does not have a team that travels well. The only team that might bring even 500 is the Citadel. I am looking forward to seeing how many fans NC A&T will bring the first game this season but that is just a one time thing. I don’t expect future opponents like Tennessee Tech and William & Mary to bring many. I really can’t think of any team we could get to come to PS that would bring a big crowd. Please no one suggest SCSt. as they don’t travel well now. The teams you suggest are not coming to PS. We are not going to get any FBS team here, i don’t understand it when you said “if we play WC or Citadel it will always be a home game”? Are you suggesting Furman move to FBS? I can assure you that will never happem especially with the current leadership. The only thing I can think of to increase attendance for one game a year is to bring back RA day but that bridge has been burned. We could offer free tickets to Grrenville County schools, military, first responders, health care workers or just about anyone. Even with free tickets people still have to make the effort to come. Things have changed so much in the last 15 years. Everything from more teams to all the games being on TV. We can work to increase attendance and I think we can but I’m not sure even winning will help that much but it could. Finally I remember a few years ago I used to think how boring Clempson foutball was and why would anyone go watch that when they could come to Furman and watch exciting FB, Those roles have certainly reversed. There is no bigger Furman fan than myself but our spring season was absolutely boring to the point of being unwatchable. That has to change first and foremost. That would be a good start but I am afraid the days of filling PS are gone and are not coming back.

[tim]

Furman has to connect with the Greenville area. The Greenville Drive is one of the crown jewels of minor league baseball with poor parking and after losing the AA Braves, going down in classification etc. It would be great to partner with them in some way. The people in Greenville, TR, Marietta etc don't feel a connection with Furman.

[Furmanoid]

Attendance is dropping everywhere except for maybe a few FBS programs. Last time I went to Ole Miss they had 10 dollar tickets at one end zone and that section was still empty. So there is no way to fill PS. It is overbuilt.

Virtually nobody outside of Fargo cares much about FCS football. Your friends at work will smile politely while you talk about the rankings and playoffs, but probably only a few percent of them know the difference between FCS and DII. Alumni go to lower level games, but we have relatively few alumni and the vast majority of them do not live within reasonable driving distance (which for FCS is probably about an hour).

I think give aways to kids is the best bet. They don’t know what they’re watching. I remember just wanting to see the horse. If they come out and have a good time, they will beg to come back, and by HS they’ll be Paladin fans. Of course they’ll be too uncouth to actually be allowed in school with Bif and Thurston, but they’ll live in Greenville and maybe continue to go to games. This might get us up to 8000 or so.

Making the semis every year might get us another 2000 or so. But it’s best just not to worry about it. PS stadium is just a relic of a bygone era in college sports.

[gman84]

Furman has to connect with the Greenville area. The Greenville Drive is one of the crown jewels of minor league baseball with poor parking and after losing the AA Braves, going down in classification etc. It would be great to partner with them in some way. The people in Greenville, TR, Marietta etc don't feel a connection with Furman.

We are partnered with The Drive. They do a lot with Furman and did more before our baseball program was nixed. Connect with the Greenville area....how about opening the gates to the campus. Enough with the isolation. My niece will graduate this Saturday outside in Paladin Stadium. Four tickets per family! Insane!

[Fred Garvin]

We will not see larger crowds until:
1. Furman University MUST establish some sort of connection with Greenville. We have had 3 presidents that have shunned one of the really growing areas in the Southeast. Many people do not have a garnet or orange connection; provide a family friendly product for them and they will come.
2. Establish some sort of connection with youth groups. I realize our godless crew would not pursue an RA type group but if you provide the Greenville area with an outlet for youth groups at a good price they will come.
3. Engage the student body or give up on them. I counted 78 students at the Samford game and they had a social distance section of 60% of the visitor's side. If they don't want to come then they won't come. We should not make a day of football less enjoyable for people because we are trying to engage a student body.
4. Furman is a regional university. Recruit academic talent from the Southeast. They will graduate and they will more than likely establish an adult life in the Southeast. They are more likely to come back to games.
5. Killing baseball did a lot of damage. Once again, we are a regional university. People in this region love football. People love baseball. People go to basketball games. Lacrosse doesn't butter the bread. Title IX sports don't butter the bread. The SoCon baseball tourney is being held at Fluor Field but I am assuming there is no host team.
6. Quit whining to everyone about the need for a Timmons renovation. Kick the wall down that was constructed by FU administrations past and present and get back into Greenville.

I was at a game in 1981 with 19000 plus in the stands. It was awesome. I enjoyed talking to people in the 1980's that loved Furman football. They were not graduates, they loved going to see a good game at a good price. They had no garnet or orange affiliation. Our teams were their teams. What did we do? We killed that fan base off due to our administrative arrogance.

[Yadkin]

Just follow FU’s basketball’s model with Timmons. Slice your facility capacity by 50-60 percent and fill up the place a couple of times every other year.

[FUBeAR]

our spring season was absolutely boring to the point of being unwatchable.

Which of the 3 Paladin Stadium-held games did you find most boring & unwatchable...

1) the 35-7 rout of WCU...OR...
2) the come-from-being-2TD’s-down in the 4th Quarter to win in OT 44-37 victory...OR...
3) the come-from-well-behind to take the lead in the 4th Quarter & then heart-breakingly losing by less than a single score (20-18) as the opponent’s PK’er inched his career-long FG over the cross-bar?

[gman84]

our spring season was absolutely boring to the point of being unwatchable.

Which of the 3 Paladin Stadium-held games did you find most boring & unwatchable...

1) the 35-7 rout of WCU...OR...
2) the come-from-being-2TD’s-down in the 4th Quarter to win in OT 44-37 victory...OR...
3) the come-from-well-behind to take the lead in the 4th Quarter & then heart-breakingly losing by less than a single score (20-18) as the opponent’s PK’er inched his career-long FG over the cross-bar?

Put it to bed AP. We all agree the end result was not good. It's the past, I'll leave it there.

[Furmanoid]

Looks like in 2019 only 10 schools averaged more than 16,000. Five were HBCU’s. Their games are cultural EVENTS. The bands and the teams may not be what they used to be, but the fans don’t care. They go anyway.

Three were in Montana or ND where those FCS games are the biggest events of the year outside of rodeo season.

The other two were Jacksonville State and JMU. JSU is 3 times bigger than FU and JMU is 7 times bigger. They are both state schools catering to a relatively local crowd of normal people. And they both win a lot.

Mercer led the SoCon with 9400 followed by Citadel at 9300 and WCU at 8800. All these schools are way bigger than FU. Looking at all these numbers, our 6000-7000 or so is actually pretty good. The oversized stadium makes things look worse than they are.

[Flagman]

Knock down the upper half of the visitors' side stands. Most FCS schools have smaller seating sections for visitors.

[tim]

Knock down the upper half of the visitors' side stands. Most FCS schools have smaller seating sections for visitors.

No, lets not do that. It would cost money and accomplish nothing.

[Affirm]

I am hoping for a thoughtful discussion on this topic. I have been attending Furman Football games for 37 years so my blood runs purple. I would like to see our stadium filled up. I was at the game when over 17,000 fans saw Furman beat Georgia Southern at Paladin Stadium. The atmosphere was exciting and electric. I would like to hear some positive discussion and ideas on how to improve our attendance. More than just win games.

I look at former Southern Conference schools like Marshall (23,190 average attendance), Appalachian State (23,806 average attendance), and Georgia Southern (13,964 average attendance) and see their success.

I even look at Coastal Carolina (15,109 average attendance), a school that did not seem good enough for the Southern Conference, achieve great success.

Not including the 2020 season, the average home attendance at Furman has been about 6,400 per conference game. We have had good Furman teams in 2018 and 2019 so it just doesn't seem right not to have a good attendance.

I like the pursuit of a national championship at the FCS level but it just doesn't seem to get enough fans in the seats at Paladin Stadium.

I will always be a Furman fan and will always enjoy the Furman games. I would like to see future games at Paladin Stadium where it is sold out. I would like to see again, 17,000 Furman fans enjoying the beating that we give to a visiting team. It has happened before.

I am wondering if a different home schedule would help. Would more fans come to Paladin Stadium to see Furman play Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, and Louisiana. The out of conference home schedule may include teams like Charlotte, Duke, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, and East Carolina. If we play Wofford or Citadel, it will always be a home game.

I sincerely would like a constructive discussion on this topic and look forward to reading ideas that others may have.

How do we as a Furman Football community improve, other than win games?

Thanks to Northeast Furman Fan for excellent post which led to a pretty good follow-up discussion. I hope the discussion continues.
The 9 schools that Northeast Paladin Fan named ending at ECU are all FBS including 3 P5. We can never bring In those to our place.
The ability for Furman to do that ended about 59 years ago. Clemson in 1962 was the last one.
My suggestion:
1. Have home/home OOC rivalries or at least frequent games with SCSU, NCA&TSU, NCCU, Howard, Gardner-Webb, Richmond, W&M, Elon, EKU, KnswSU, Charleston Southern.
2. Bring in Davidson & PC to come to our place or home-home if necessary. Don’t lose.
3. Bring in Newberry to our place. Don’t lose.
4. Home-home (or more away than home if necessary) against schools like Georgetown, Yale, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, Columbia, Brown.
5. And/or just forget about >4 home games, and seek 2 FBS away games every year, preferably against interesting FBS schools.
6. As stated by Flagman, reduce the height of visitors side by at least 50%.
7. And/or just forget about attendance and realize that what we have is good enough.

[FUBeAR]

Start here https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insigh ... ience.html (just 1 example)

Scale the recommendations appropriate to FU

Broaden the scope to include “Campus” vs. “Stadium”

Bottom Line: Create a low-friction, highly engaged, fan-centric ‘destination’ experience.

People don’t expect 2 channels (maybe 3) on their TV’s anymore & they don’t come to FCS Football games just to see good Football played by a Team they may (or may not) support to varying degrees.

[The Jackal]

Some thoughts:

1. Most Furman fans don't grow up Furman fans. You need to connect with the local community and build a local fan base.

2. Continue to make efforts to play road games in locations where Furman alums live. While games against PC, SCSU, and Charleston Southern have their place, not trying to get games around Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, etc. is athletic malpractice, in my opinion.

3. Winning helps. If you are asking people to part with a full day and money from their pocket, they at least need to be a tiny bit assured that the team will play at some level worth watching.

4. There's nothing Furman can really do about the departure of large schools from the conference. They have more people and would bring more fans. Smaller schools don't have the same traveling fan base.

5. Put rivalry games at the end of the year. This seems like a complete no brainer to me, but rarely seems to happen.

6. I agree that Paladin Stadium is overbuilt for current needs. I have long wanted to see the visitor stands torn down and rebuilt to more aptly accommodate current needs. I think that would help the game day atmosphere by making the confines smaller and give less of a look of empty space. Same number of people, just the optics are different.

7. I would look at other schools numbers with a grain of salt. There are a bunch of different ways to report attendance.

8. Personal observation here, but I think Furman travels as well as anyone in the SoCon. There was a big contingent at Georgia State in 2019. I've seen big contingents at Samford and Mercer. Again, see point 2.