<p>Historically, our men's soccer team has been terrible but we're getting better this year. However, attendance at our games are terrible. Anybody have any ideas that you've seen from your schools at how to get students at non-football/basketball events (other than winning more)? </p>
<p>Having a larger crowd would definitely help out a lot (all of our losses have been 1-0 and I feel that we could win those games if we had more people at the games and more of a home field feel)</p>
<p>That’s a good question and I’ve wondered that myself. I recently convinced a bunch of my friends on my floor to go with me to a Columbus Crew game on the 24th even though none of them have an interest in soccer, but that’s mostly because The Crew have an amazing game/party atmosphere that everyone can enjoy. I guess you have to make the game more into an event that people can get excited about. I don’t know how familiar you are with soccer culture, but perhaps you should start an “Ultra” for Clemson soccer if you really are passionate about the team and you want to attract others to support it. Americans treat soccer like Broccoli, pretty much. They won’t like soccer for the game until you push along a lot of other things along with it. Then, in time, they’ll become soccer fans.</p>
<p>Yeah, the only reason I ask is because I know a couple of the soccer players and they seem frustrated at the fact that nobody comes to their games and I’m frustrated too because I don’t know what to tell them besides “win the close games”.</p>
<p>Win the close games, as in, all of the games that end 0-0, 0-1, 1-1, 1-2, etc.? What a funny remark!</p>
<p>Soccer is just an aweful spectator sport. Watching men kick a ball up and down a field for a couple hours and only score once or twice isn’t exciting.</p>
<p>If you want more people to come, you need to start giving out free beer.</p>
<p>Watching soccer is definitely no worse than watching football. What’s so excited about seeing a bunch of men chase a ball around and then jump on top of each other? </p>
<p>Actually advertise the game. Offer free food.</p>
<p>One of the sports teams at my college were providing free food at their games…I suppose it was to attract people. The Ultra sounds like a good idea. At my high school there was a pep squad that consisted of girls for the baseball team. So maybe you guys could get an equivalent to that.</p>
<p>“Soccer is just an aweful spectator sport. Watching men kick a ball up and down a field for a couple hours and only score once or twice isn’t exciting.”</p>
<p>Which is interesting, because there are a lot of people who hate basketball because what is there to get excited about when someone scores if both sides are going to score 30 more times anyway? </p>
<p>I would go to my schools soccer games but I have no idea when they are or where they even play. If they promoted better I would go. I guess I could look it up but I don’t want to go THAT badly, I am more of a hockey person.</p>
<h2>Watching soccer is definitely no worse than watching football. What’s so excited about seeing a bunch of men chase a ball around and then jump on top of each other? ~ October47</h2>
<p>Well, I guess that’s your opinion, however here in the US a football game can draw over 100,000 people so I guess some people like it.</p>
<p>However, the difference between soccer, basketball, and football is action and scoring.</p>
<p>Personally, I’m not a hockey fan, but I understand that pull to it and I think it’s a very good spectator sport.</p>
<p>I also understand that attendance is reliant on the excitement of an actual game, but many other reasons like loyalty, tradition, relevance, ect. Soccer doesn’t have much of those things and when you combine it with the fact that there it is very low scoring, not much action (no dunking, no home runs/plays at the plate, big hits/breakout runs), and not very much tradition here in the US (no tailgating, popular rivalries, well-known players, not very televised), it just doesn’t put people in the seats.</p>
<p>Hockey, which is also a low scoring sport, has all the other things listed above, plus an incredibly fast game which is fun to watch live.</p>
<p>Baseball, while slow at least is built around anticipation, which soccer doesn’t have much of.</p>
<p>If you want to bring people to the games, start a big tailgate.</p>
<p>Free Tee Shirts! Works at the University of Minnesota for many of the women sports.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Thanks for speaking for all of us. Most of the world would disagree. What I find particularly funny is that even soccer fans in the US provide a better spectator experience at their games than other sports. They are so much more involved and have so much more creativity compared to other sports fans. I mean, this is no surprise in Europe or South America, but the fact that this fan culture has spread to the United States is fantastic. Also, unlike football which has 10 seconds of play and 40 seconds of break and endless “TV Timeouts”, there are absolutely no time outs in soccer until halftime. That alone, the actual game aside, makes it a far better spectator experience than most other sports.</p>
<p>Start a club that goes to soccer games. UMD has “The Crew” which is basically a group of super dedicated fans that go to every home game if I’m not mistaken, and they’re loud ‘n’ proud. They’ve got t-shirts and everything.</p>
<p>Advertise your games - particularly to women who don’t necessarily watch sports. There are a lot of perks to watching athletically fit males participate in an active sport that doesn’t have them covered in bulky padding and ugly uniforms…</p>
<p>BTW my two teenage daughters, who never watch any other sport, were glued to the set for the two most recent World Cup events. Go find your audience!</p>
<p>Have a raffle with a prize for at least $500 but make it so that you have to be at the game to win.
Or give away free food.</p>
<p>Free food. Even with a meal plan they usually aren’t really paying for anyway, college kids always flock to free food.</p>
<p>If you really want people to come see your games, then you should use an elipsoid shaped ball, and let the players pick it up and run with it. The games would be more exciting than the usual “watching the paint dry low scoring soccer games”, and you would attract a better class of athlete, and TV cameras.</p>
<p>HTH :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I actually think that the start & stop nature of american football makes it a better sport. It means that there is no downtime when the players are actually playing. Every play of the game becomes important. Because of all of the rest, the athletes can really give it their all on every play.</p>
<p>Every time I watch a soccer game, most of the time there’s a bunch of guys trotting around on a field not doing much. They have to do that because they can’t just go all out and sprint all of the time. In american football, players are sprinting every single play.</p>
<p>Yes, they will be trotting around and not doing much when there’s a free kick, corner kick, penalty kick, foul, ball out of bounds, or when the goalie has the ball. And why would they sprint all the time? Although soccer players have impressive stamina, they are not going to sprint when they don’t need to. When your team has the ball and is passing it back and forth, why would you sprint? If you are on the defense and your opponent has the ball and is on your half of the field, where are you going to sprint to? Sure you might sprint to catch up to the guy who has the ball but once you catch up, you stay with him. Although if the guy gets by you, you are not going to trot around and do nothing. You are going to sprint to the guy and try to prevent him from scoring or from making a successful pass to his own teammate.</p>
<p>Are you sure you have watch soccer? You are not just pretending to say that you have watched the sport in order to defend America football now are you? And notice I didn’t say anything about American football…why? Because I don’t watch it so I don’t need to pretend like I know the sport (cuz I don’t know much about American football since I don’t watch it). I am not going to make dumb assumptions about the sport because honestly, we all can make dumb assumptions about every sport (including the ones we like). </p>
<p>And to reply to the original question ask (rather than stating pointless opinions on the sport), free food is always a nice way to attract people.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’ve seen a few games. In the games I watched, most of the time, the players are jogging, passing it back & forth, in the center of the field. Every once in a while a guy would break free and get a good opportunity to score a goal & that was fast & exciting, but it didn’t happen much.</p>
<p>Are the soccer games that I watched not a representative sample of the sport?</p>