The University of Iowa Athletic Department has hired a marketing firm to find out why it can't fill each of Kinnick Stadium's 70,000 seats and attract more students to every home Hawkeye football game.
As the parent of a marching band member, I'm in a unique position to give an unbiased assessment to the university. I like football and the Hawkeyes, but I would not have attended any of the home games last year if not to watch the halftime show.
These are in no special order, so feel free to pick and choose my "solutions" to the falling number of fans, particularly students, at Hawkeye games.
• The games are slower than baseball. Television time-outs take any air of momentum out of the game and fans have way too much time to ponder why they are sitting in cramped hard seats in extremely hot or cold weather while football players stand around waiting to get the signal to play from a guy in a red hat who seems to control the entire contest. Seriously, last year in 90 degree weather, the first half took more than two hours. Last time I checked, a half in a football game was only 30 minutes long.
• Fans must be required to sit down, and stay seated, unless they are jumping to their feet to watch an exciting play. Why pay $50 for a seat, and then be required to stand the entire game to actually see the players on the field. I watched most of the game on the jumbotron replay because other fans were blocking my view. I contend most of the standing by fans is not related to excitement on the field, but seats the width of a small plate. . . on which most fans can no longer fit their derrière.
• Boring games; boring play calling. When was the last time anyone was actually surprised by a play call? Give play calling back to the quarterback. If he wants to pass on third and inches, great. If he wants to call the statute-of-liberty play three times in a single game, go for it. Fourth-and-five and not kicking, okay with me anywhere on the field. Even when teams are down double digits in the fourth quarter, you get no risk-taking.
• Knock-off those goofy obnoxious messages on the jumbotrons, the ones that say it is third-and-short and you need to make noise. If you're a football fan and watching the game, don't you think you would know when there is an important play? Oh, that's right, you can't see the players on field and had nodded off while waiting for the TV timeout to end.
• Luxury box seats with their own restrooms and food service are nice, I'm sure, but for most fans the food and restrooms are a lot like life on a galley slave ship sans the chains.
• Give the best 50-yard line seats over to the student section. Its their team, not those fat cat alums, who should get the best view. We'll know the athletic department is serious about attracting students to the games when they do this. The other stuff is just so much "marketing" window-dressing to fill up seats with students to continue the charade that big-time college athletics is actually about students and student-athletes.
• Require the athletic director and his staff to sit in the student section for every game. That will give all of them a better perspective on their "product." By the end of the season, I'm sure they'll have no need for expensive marketing studies to improve the student fan experience.
And, while you're focusing on improving the student experience at the stadium, put the marching band in the middle of the stands, rather than stuck in those pitiful end zone seats. Much better for parents to hear and see their kids performing in the band.
