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Post by groundchuck on Jun 12, 2006 20:39:36 GMT -6
General question abou fan support. In the state where you coach how would you rate fan support of local teams? I know it varries from school to school but in general how is it?
How does football fan support rate compared to other sports in your state? Is football king in your state?
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Post by cookiemonster on Jun 12, 2006 21:29:47 GMT -6
Texas small 4A around 1000 students 2500-3000 home fans
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Post by coachveer on Jun 13, 2006 7:27:11 GMT -6
Thats a great question. Here in Michigan I think the west side of the state receives more fan support then the east side. On the west side 2 or 3 different TV channels do half hour High School Football wrap up shows every Friday night during the season. There are more high school football "fans" that will go and watch the best match up of the week. When I was on the east side of the state it seemed that many schools couldn't sell out homecoming.
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Post by coachjd on Jun 13, 2006 7:45:29 GMT -6
our fan support depends on who we are playing. We are a 3A school in minnesota with approx 400 kids 10-12 and vs the top teams in our conf and section we will draw close to 2500 - 3000 fans and vs the other teams it is around 1000 -1500. When we play a couple of teams in our league that have not been very good we are playing in front of 750 or less fans and the majority of them our are fans who made the trip.
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Post by senatorblutarsky on Jun 13, 2006 8:18:22 GMT -6
Class D (smallest) Northeast Nebraska, schools from 1-119...anywhere from 100-1500. Our crowds range from 600 to 1500+. For regular season games- around 650-700. Home opener and Homecoming will be 800+. Rivalry games will be around 1000. (for reference, the sign at the edge of town says our pop. is 1021). Playoff games are a big draw. Any team that is not in usually sends a lot of players and fans to close playoff games (close = under 3 hours). I think the largest we've had here was just over 2200 (quarterfinal playoff game between #1 and #2 ranked teams in the state). I'm basing it on the home gate (plus passes and activity tickets... it's probably pretty close).
From what I have seen in NE Nebraska, almost all schools get good draws. Seems to be better in the east, but that makes sense- drives are much farther for visitors in the west (drive to school may be 40 miles in the west too).
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Post by phantom on Jun 13, 2006 10:13:00 GMT -6
In our league it varies wildly. For a big game or a regional playoff we'll pack the place, 10,000-12,000. For other games the stands may be almost empty. We've had Saturday afternoon games where instead of announcing the starting lineup we could have gone into the stands and introduced ourselves individually to the fans. We didn't have to, though, because they were all family.
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Post by senatorblutarsky on Jun 13, 2006 10:49:48 GMT -6
When I was in Colorado at a 5A school, I would estimate that our crowds were about the same (#s) as we have in tiny school NE. Here, it seems packed- there, in a stadium that would seat 9500... 700 makes it seem empty. Never played to a SRO crowd there. Here, we do almost every game... of course, there is less room to sit.
Phantom, I remember Saturday's being the absolute worst. We played a Saturday playoff game once in front of no more than 500.
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Post by groundchuck on Jun 13, 2006 12:14:24 GMT -6
What about TV and newspaper coverage?
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Post by phantom on Jun 13, 2006 13:16:04 GMT -6
What about TV and newspaper coverage? It's good. The newspaper coverage can go either way. There's great coverage for big games but average at best for others. There's a radio show that goes from 7-12 on Friday night that has people call in updates and recaps of the games. They used to do a game of the week but the announcer got too fat to climb to the pressbox. I like this format better anyway. Two TV stations have Friday night shows with highlights after the news. So, for Friday games the coverage is very good. How if you play on Saturday....
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Post by los on Jun 13, 2006 13:29:33 GMT -6
Thats funny stuff Phantom, lol! But now that you mention it , I recall having a few saturday games in youth ball when we played in a football tournament down south of here. Most of the more affluent parents were absent from these games as they all went to tailgate parties and games at the major colleges around. Since were kinda right in the middle(travel wise) of Fla. State, Auburn,Ga. Southern and UGA(little further) these schools covered most parents alma maters and someone seemed to always have a home game lol. I guess saturday is reserved for the college guys?
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Post by senatorblutarsky on Jun 13, 2006 14:57:25 GMT -6
What about TV and newspaper coverage?
I would say that we get great TV coverage in the area (from the Iowa and South Dakota stations... we don't exist until playoffs in Lincoln/Omaha).
News is about the same- best for us is in South Dakota... they (Yankton, SD Press) did a 2 page write up on us last year. Second is Iowa (Sioux City). We do get good coverage in Huskerland (sports only weekly paper). We get blurbs in Lincoln & Omaha as long as we are in their top 10s.
I suppose the coverage makes sense... we are less than 20 mi. from SD, less than an hour from Iowa and 3 hours + to the Lincoln/Omaha area.
Radio coverage is very good in this state. A lot of games on the radio (a lot of times when traveling, we will have a game on before/after ours). There are also a lot of radio score report shows. Usually, I know how our whole district did by 11:00 that night.
Overall, coverage is much better here than the other two states I've been in (CO and WY).
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Post by goldenbear76 on Jun 13, 2006 16:48:49 GMT -6
Central Oregon. Small school 220ish students. We draw 500-800 normally. Over 1k in playoffs. However our seating capacity has to cap out at 1500 lol.
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Post by davecisar on Jun 20, 2006 7:24:55 GMT -6
In Nebraska, the Omaha-Millard area the crowds have diminished greatly in the last 20-30 years. Class A ( largest class) schools with 1600-2600 students games I was at in the last 3 years: Omaha South Omaha Bryan ( rivalry) total less than 1000 fans Omaha South vs Millard North ( State Playoff) 1800 fans Millard North vs Millard West ( huge matchup and rivalry) 4000 Omaha South vs Omaha Central less than 1000 fans Omaha South vs Omaha Prep 2000 fans Omahs South vs Bellevue East less than 1200 fans Even the best teams fan support has waned here
In comparison in 1978 Omaha South vs Omaha Bryan, Sold out 8,000+ fans vs Omaha Tech and Omaha Central at least 6,000.
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Post by davecisar on Jun 20, 2006 11:23:02 GMT -6
I have attended 5 A Games in Texas, Lake Highlands, Plano in the late 80s and the crowds were huge, 8-10,000.
I have friends in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan that coach HS ball. They have sent me film, and in regular season games I see attendance in the 10,000+ range, pretty amazing support compared to what we see in the largest Schools in Nebraska today.
Ohio, Penn, Texas and Michigan get my votes.
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Post by coachdawhip on Jun 22, 2006 11:02:40 GMT -6
In South GA, like everywhere else the home is a ghost town, you better find where the high school is playing, in Metro Atlanta, we get great coverage on Saturday mornings, all but one county who gets it every day of the week.
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