Why is this so disappointing to the BCS bowl system and the NCAA? The underwhelming home crowds at Stanford games this season, despite the team's on-field prowess, illustrates why the BCS bowls should be concerned - there just aren't many fans of Stanford football even in Palo Alto, let alone across the country. Stanford's inability to convince fans to come to a critical home game against Arizona earlier this season suggests that premier football matchups don't matter much to Cardinal fans. Even more disappointing to me, though, was the pathetic turnout for Senior Day against Oregon State yesterday afternoon.
A dominant team and a great Stadium apparently aren't enough to sell out Stanford home games.
Yes, there were possible explanations for why some people might not have come to the Oregon State game yesterday. It had rained earlier in the day. It was the Saturday following Thanksgiving, so some people might have been out of town. Oregon State isn't a high profile opponent (Stanford's only sellout this year came against USC). Despite these facts, though, I was personally really excited for Senior Day and would have thought more people would have been, too. The fifth-year seniors were freshmen when Stanford went 1-11 five seasons ago, and this home finale should have been a celebration of the turnaround that the program has made since 2005. Instead, it was just another dominant on-field performance that was only seen live by 38,775 people.
One of the coolest parts of most Senior Days is when the senior class is recognized one-by-one on the field prior to the game, but Stanford didn't even do that because, as I was told by a credible source,not enough fans show up prior to kickoff to justify the ceremony. Instead, the team videotaped a "ceremony" that was held earlier in the day, and showed it on the video boards during halftime. Rather than receiving a standing ovation from 65,000+ fans like he would have had he attended Penn State, Texas or Alabama, two-way starter Owen Marecic was featured for about five seconds as part of a cheaply-made video that barely anyone was paying attention to. Not cool.
It was pretty sad and very disappointing, and I can't blame the BCS for not wanting Stanford in one of their bowls. As much as I've enjoyed watching the Stanford football team play this year (I don't think anyone in the country is playing better right now, Oregon, Auburn and Wisconsin included), I've found the support for such a dominant team thoroughly underwhelming. If Cardinal fans won't come out to home games to watch the #4 team in the nation, why should we believe that they will travel to support their team in a BCS bowl played in New Orleans, Miami or even Los Angeles? My guess is they won't, and what should be a neautral-site game will turn into a tough road contest for the Cardinal.
Congrats to the Stanford Cardinal 2010 football team. They're the only team in the country going BCS bowling in spite of their fans.
2 comments:
Yup.
I am certainly in your camp, Matt, but over the last couple seasons I think I may have stumbled across something.
I think that maybe the fans that we all bemoan for not coming to the games don't actually exist.
Now, I grant you that there are at least a thousand (probably more) Stanford students that are too lazy/apathetic/uninterested to come. To those students, I say, I hate you. Okay, I don't hate you, but I disagree with your Saturday priorities.
But I don't think there are 50,000 of those students. I don't think there are even 5,000. The problem, in my mind, is threefold.
One - Stanford is a small school. It is by a large margin the smallest in the PAC-10 with only 15,000 students (including grad students, who I'm not sure you can count on for regular attendance - present company excluded of course.)
Two - Stanford is a private school that admits students from around the world. Again, this is rare in the PAC-10, and in most major college football programs. While California is the home to more Stanford Students than anywhere else, students and alumni are more likely to live/work in a different place more often than most other schools' alums.
Third, and most importantly - The Admit rate. Stanford has admitted about 10% or fewer high school seniors who applied in the last decade or so. Compare that to Oregon State's 85%. My point? If you ask your average football-loving San Franciscan what he thinks of Stanford, he might say that it's a great school with a great football team, but it might be asking a lot of him to root for the very school that rejected him. Now of course, not every Bay Area resident applied to Stanford, but Stanford does not have the "of the people, for the people" feel that big public schools like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio State, or Oregon have. Even USC, a private school, has somehow created this image as "The" football team of Los Angeles (a lack of an NFL team no doubt helps them). Stanford hasn't yet done that. No doubt Jim Harbaugh and crew are changing a few minds, but the days of the Bay Area rooting for Stanford every week are probably still years away.
Of course, I might be wrong. Hell, I hope I'm wrong. I don't know. But I do know this - if Stanford makes a BCS bowl, I'm going. And I know more than a few others who will too.
Book your tickets, because they're going. We'll just have to wait a bit to find out where. Completely agree with all of your points, though.
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