Stumpy is posting again. My heart is full.
Interesting topic and one that interests me as we have the same discussions on Moc Nation. We have a stadium with the capacity of 20K and averaged 8K in 2019 and even in our best years the past decade were only slightly over 10K average attendance. While our situations are slightly different, we are both facing a similar problem.
I have always felt with a city as large as Chattanooga having a huge amount of alumni within reasonable driving distance of Finley stadium we should have no problem averaging 15K per game if we just put a winning team on the field. We had three straight years in the top 10 and we were ranked as high as #3 in the FCS polls – we put a winning product on the field and still could not seem to manage more attendance than around 10K. I came to the realization then that we will likely never average more than 10K for home games.
While it is true that most SoCon schools do not travel well, we should not rely on the other team to fill our stands. Our best attended games other than the Finley Stadium opener against TSU, have all been against JSU, which travels well but is not in our conference, and App State, and GSU, neither of which we play anymore. What we lack is a connection to the city of Chattanooga. Chattanooga is largely a commuter school and students are not Mocs fans. They are either Vol fans, Tide fans, or Bulldog Fans. I work with a UTC alum whose daughter is currently a UTC student. He would never even think of going to a UTC sporting event despite the fact that he is an alum and lives 20 minutes away from campus. He is however a UT Vols football season ticket holder and drives 90 minutes to games regularly. Until we are able to change the culture of our students and alumni that the Mocs are THEIR team, we will continue to struggle with attendance. A couple of years ago, I had talked my neighbor (USC graduates) into going to a game. They drove down to the stadium and left because parking was too far away – never mind that it was probably only a couple of blocks walk to the stadium. This same neighbor regularly attends USC home games where I am sure he has to walk forever to get to the stadium.
One reality that set in was Finley, while a nice facility is really too big for our needs. It is also not on campus, which was probably a mistake, but at the time, there was simply not space for a new on campus stadium. I think we probably should have played at a HS stadium for a year while we tore down Chamberlin and put a new stadium in its footprint, but that is water under the bridge now.
There has been some talk of building a new stadium that is owned by the University (Finley is owned by Stadium Corp, not the School) and trying to build something on or closer to campus. I am not sure how serious this talk is – my gut tells me it is not too serious considering the cost of a new facility, the fact that Finley is only 24 years old, and the fact that Finley Stadium could not survive without Chattanooga Athletics. We have a similar problem with our basketball facility, McKenzie Arena – it is twice the size we need. It has a capacity of 11K and we averaged less than 4K in 2019. The facility is 40 years old but it is a good facility and in the heart of campus, so we have made the decision to stay long term and have done a lot to improve the facility. There have been talks of somehow blocking off the upper deck and just using the lower bowl.
As much as it pains me to say this as I hate both of these schools but two schools I think have good models are ETSU and JSU.
ETSU built a nice, but small stadium right in the middle of campus. It’s small with only a 7K seat capacity, but since they average a sell out it feels better than a half capacity Finley Stadium. It seems that the Tri-State area has embraced the Bucs as their team and although I know many of them are Vol fans, they still support their local school. I think Mercer has gone a similar path and I’ve thought it Chattanooga were to build a new stadium – Five Star Stadium at Mercer would be a good template.
The other school that I think has done a good job is Jacksonville State. They average 17K per home game and have one of the better fan experiences in FCS (at least short of the HBCU’s, NDSU, and Montana). On top of that, unlike NDSU and Montana, they are right in the middle of SEC country and share that fight with the rest of the other Southeastern FCS schools. One thing that we have talked about on Mocs Nation is that the games are broadcast from the Home side looking at the Visitor’s side, which is normally empty. JSU’s visitor side was the old home side before the last renovation, so they kept the video booth where it was and the game is shot looking at the (impressive) home side.
Some good discussion here already but I do believe in both Furman and Chattanooga’s case it all starts with engaging the student body and the city – the city needs to feel that this is their team, and that’s easier said than done. Furman has some advantages because it has a rich football history; Chattanooga has some advantages, as there is a large number of alumni living in the metropolitan area, but both schools need to figure out how to get engrained into the fabric of the community.
I’m all for giving out free tickets to school age kids or even large employers in town. For the kids, if the kids want to go, the parents are going to go too, and they might want to come back, heck they might even become a fan if they like what they see on the field. For businesses in Chattanooga, you could make one game, TVA day, where you give free tickets to all TVA employees, another game could be Volkswagen day, where you give free tickets to VW employees, Blue Cross Day, Unum Day, etc . That might get some butts in the seats and you might get a few of those people to buy a ticket to the next game. You might even work with some local kids clubs or rec leagues giving out free tickets to kids football teams (or baseball teams, etc) to get some kids in the stands.
Keep concession prices reasonable and have some decent food options. I know Chattanooga has done some good work lately on having some better food options available. Keep it reasonable so you can bring a family to the game get some hot dogs and Cokes for the kids, and some Beer for the parents at a reasonable price. I’m not sure how much control we have over it, but parking too shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg.
Chattanooga’s band situation has long been laughable – I do think it’s about to get better, but still an option is to invite a local HS band to come in and perform at halftime or after a game. I know some of the North Georgia schools particularly have big bands. If the band kids come, their parents and siblings will come and they might have a good time and want to come back.
If the SoCon would work with us, it could help to try and schedule home games on weekends where the Vols are away, of course most of the people who watch the Vols instead of coming to a Mocs game are watching the Vols on TV not going in person, so perhaps that doesn’t help much.
Fireworks night has always been a big draw at the Chattanooga Lookouts (Minor League Baseball), what about having (and advertising) Fireworks after a game? What about used car night? That was always a sellout for the Lookouts? Could we do a “used car night” at a Mocs Football Game? I know these are gimmicky things, but what we need to do is get people out to games and show them a good time, so they want to come back. Getting new fans isn’t much different than a coach getting a recruit to sign, you have to get them on campus first, then the product can sell itself.
