In communities like Corvallis and Pullman, and schools like WSU & OSU, the athletic departments are not siloed off from the rest of campus and community. Shop keepers, hotel owners, restaurants, typically break even financially and rely on special event weekends to be profitable for the year.
In communities like Corvallis and Pullman, and schools like WSU & OSU, the athletic departments are not siloed off from the rest of campus and community. Shop keepers, hotel owners, restaurants, typically break even financially and rely on special event weekends to be profitable for the year.
I know in Pullman, COVID definitely revealed how important those home football weekends were to the economy. Many restaurants and businesses went under because of the disruption in the athletic department.
And if this, in the end, means that either no one or very few people show up to these games, I'd agree with you. I just don't think that'll be the case.
COVID-19 isn't a good analog here because, in that case, people were literally *banned* from attending the game. That's not the case here at all. What you'd be looking at, at worst, is a reduction in attendance. While not great, it's not likely the end of the world.
What I tried to convey, is that if WSU is truly relegated to a G5 or lesser conference. They will have to schedule payday games in place of home games to make up revenue for the Athletics Department. When they do that, the massive cash influx for home games will not happen.
These people who say "nothing will change; people will still fill the stadiums on Saturdays" are living in la-la land. I have been a part of the worst years of the Beavers history. No One showed up on Saturdays. No one cared. I have been to early September games against 2nd tier competitors. The stadium is empty and no excitement. Playing a bunch of 2nd tier teams is like glorified high school football. Expect HS type crowds of a less than 10,000. If this were not so, then why was the league just realigned. Obviously money and competitive quality matter. A LOT
Were you around and attending Beavers games in the 1970s and 1980s like me? Attendance was terrible and the Beavers still had the PAC12 gloss. Without it, and team quality like then, attendance is going to be low. How many people attend games at Willamette?
At the 1980 Census, there were only 2.6M people in Oregon, which is only about 55% of today's 4.2M people. Corvallis had 15,000 fewer residents and OSU had 10,000 fewer students. So, on pure numbers alone, this is just a larger market now. Plus, it was an ag school (almost exclusively) at the time.
Additionally, the USA - as well as Oregon - was a much poorer place at the time, and college sports weren't as ubiquitously marketed and on TV. So, the demographic profile of college sports was just...different.
Long story short, this ain't 40-50 years ago anymore. Everything is incredibly different now.
Nailed it...Oregon State will NOT be on TV in the new alignment and so will be of much less national and regional interest. Real income (inflation adjusted) has not changed all that much in 50 years. Getting knocked down a couple levels will be devastating. Some people have a hard time grasping reality. They call it cognitive dissonance.
In communities like Corvallis and Pullman, and schools like WSU & OSU, the athletic departments are not siloed off from the rest of campus and community. Shop keepers, hotel owners, restaurants, typically break even financially and rely on special event weekends to be profitable for the year.
I know in Pullman, COVID definitely revealed how important those home football weekends were to the economy. Many restaurants and businesses went under because of the disruption in the athletic department.
And if this, in the end, means that either no one or very few people show up to these games, I'd agree with you. I just don't think that'll be the case.
COVID-19 isn't a good analog here because, in that case, people were literally *banned* from attending the game. That's not the case here at all. What you'd be looking at, at worst, is a reduction in attendance. While not great, it's not likely the end of the world.
What I tried to convey, is that if WSU is truly relegated to a G5 or lesser conference. They will have to schedule payday games in place of home games to make up revenue for the Athletics Department. When they do that, the massive cash influx for home games will not happen.
These people who say "nothing will change; people will still fill the stadiums on Saturdays" are living in la-la land. I have been a part of the worst years of the Beavers history. No One showed up on Saturdays. No one cared. I have been to early September games against 2nd tier competitors. The stadium is empty and no excitement. Playing a bunch of 2nd tier teams is like glorified high school football. Expect HS type crowds of a less than 10,000. If this were not so, then why was the league just realigned. Obviously money and competitive quality matter. A LOT
We'll see. I don't see this as being as big of a hit to gameday attendance.
Were you around and attending Beavers games in the 1970s and 1980s like me? Attendance was terrible and the Beavers still had the PAC12 gloss. Without it, and team quality like then, attendance is going to be low. How many people attend games at Willamette?
At the 1980 Census, there were only 2.6M people in Oregon, which is only about 55% of today's 4.2M people. Corvallis had 15,000 fewer residents and OSU had 10,000 fewer students. So, on pure numbers alone, this is just a larger market now. Plus, it was an ag school (almost exclusively) at the time.
Additionally, the USA - as well as Oregon - was a much poorer place at the time, and college sports weren't as ubiquitously marketed and on TV. So, the demographic profile of college sports was just...different.
Long story short, this ain't 40-50 years ago anymore. Everything is incredibly different now.
Nailed it...Oregon State will NOT be on TV in the new alignment and so will be of much less national and regional interest. Real income (inflation adjusted) has not changed all that much in 50 years. Getting knocked down a couple levels will be devastating. Some people have a hard time grasping reality. They call it cognitive dissonance.