<p>Byerly should know about smaller stadiums, empty seats, and rivalry games that don't sell out. What does Harvard's stadium hold? 30,000. Even with that tiny stadium, they can't sell it out - averaging only 12,000 per game (compared with Stanford's average attendance of 43,000).</p>
<p>oh snap. </p>
<p>:-/</p>
<p>Football games in Harvard Stadium (or elsewhere in the Ivy League) are played by amateurs. Even so, "The Game" is usually a sellout in either Cambridge or New Haven.</p>
<p>At Stanford - which offers more so-called "athletic scholarships" than any other college or university in the United States of America - the football team (as most other teams) is staffed by paid professionals.</p>
<p>When we want to see the pros play, we go to Foxboro to watch the Patriots - who sell out regularly... and usually win.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Ducks look good; Stanford lays an egg.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Byerly,</p>
<p>Oregon St. BEAVERS, not ducks! Sorry man, your net surfing skill may be excellent but doesn't hide the fact you know very little about football. ;)</p>
<p>we get an average of $43,000? really? none of the games minus BIG GAME i went to looked that full. weird. the stadium looked like 1/4 full if that most of the games.</p>
<p>everything Byerly says is so cool. do come here more please.</p>
<p>After reviewing stats for the past two years at the now-demolished Stanford Stadium, I have these observations:</p>
<p>The Stadium was about one-third full, on average, with three exceptions: (1) two-thirds full for a game against Notre Dame in 2005; two-thirds full for a game against national champion USC in 2004; and 80% full for the "Big Game" vs Cal in 2005.</p>
<p>Presumably a large fraction of the crowd at the Notre Dame, Cal and USC games were supporters of the other team.</p>
<p>They were, in consequence, wise to downsize. Princeton did the same thing a few years ago, and Dartmouth is doing it this year.</p>
<p>It is not good for team or school morale to see a huge expanse of empty seats at games.</p>
<p>Byerly, why didn't you acknowledge Sam Lee's post?</p>
<p>So while Stanford's Stadium was only 1/3 full for half the games, Harvard's Stadium averaged being only 1/3 full for the entire season. It sounds like Harvard would be wise to follow Stanford and downsize. Are any of the local high school stadiums available?</p>
<p>No, you are mistaken. </p>
<p>Even without using professional hirelings, as Stanford does, Harvard fills a higher fraction of its seats for games other than "The Game" - which is a sellout at Harvard and Yale (and Cal) - though not at Berkeley in recent years.</p>
<p>there were 53,213 in Yale Bowl for "The Game" - capacity, in that portions of the storied (but decaying) Bowl were closed for long-overdue renovation.</p>
<p>The last time I was in Stanford Stadium was in mid-70’s when Coach Jack Christiansen said of USC’s John McKay (or was it McKay about Christiansen?), “I don’t want to get into a ****ing contest with a skunk.” I think it had something to do with the band. Most likely, the Cardinals (yes, for a few post-Indians years it was Cardinals, not Cardinal) got thoroughly trounced that day by the evil Trojans.</p>
<p>The problem with Stanford Stadium was not that too few people showed up, but that the stadium was just too big. The Rams had the same problem in Los Angeles before moving to Anaheim, and then St. Louis, playing at the LA Memorial Coliseum with a capacity of 100,000 seats. Carrol Rosenbloom couldn’t make any money off of TV revenue because the games were always blacked-out in the local market due to the fact that they could never get a sell-out. If the old Stanford Stadium had a capacity of 85,000, then an average of one-third full is still nearly 30,000 spectators, and according to tactics’ link, the average has been more like 43,000. Not too shabby for a mediocre team at a top-tier school of 6500 undergraduates.</p>
<p>i still can't believe that we averaged 43000. i was friggin there for most of the games and i def don't remember it being anywhere near 1/3. but then again i wasn't counting every single person, and perhaps my counting of mass people ability isn't that good.</p>
<p>eh...as long as we win in the new stadium...i don't care if it seats 3. but we're probably not gonna win so i'm just gonna go, drink, and sit with the other team's fans and be obnoxious.</p>
<p>Average Harvard Attendance 2005: 12,169
Harvard Stadium Capacity: 30,898
Percentage of Capacity: 39%</p>
<p>Average Stanford Attendance 2005: 43,550
Stanford Stadium Capacity: 85,000
Percentage of Capacity:51%</p>
<p>Granted, 2005 was a year when the Harvard-Yale Game was hosted by Yale, but even if you add a 6th game sellout to Harvard's attendance figures, the average attendance is still under 50%. </p>
<p>However, you are right about comparing Harvard to a D-I school that provides athletic scholarships. It's unfair. Perhaps Harvard should consider moving to D-III?</p>
<p>Faulty math.</p>
<p>Why add a "6th" game sellout?</p>
<p>Why not convert one of the 5 to a "5th" game sellout, since there are never more than 5 home games?</p>
<p>I guess that would have undercut your point, wouldn't it?</p>
<hr>
<p>Meanwhile, rest easy... as a guaranteed win against an inferior opponent is on Stanford's schedule this week.</p>
<p>In my experience, there are no guaranteed wins for Stanford football, alas.</p>
<p>Not a math mistake. I assumed that Harvard played an 11-game schedule, common for most D-1 schools. </p>
<p>So, Hurrah! During years when Harvard hosts the Yale game, you can expect average attendance to rise to 51.5%. But wait, isn't that similar to Stanford's 51.2% with the old stadium?</p>
<p>My point, which is not undercut, is that the percentage of empty seats at the typical Harvard game warrants the same concern that you're giving Stanford.</p>
<p>^booyah!</p>
<p>anyway, i unfortunately have to agree with farmdad.</p>
<p><em>My point</em>, "which is not undercut", is that Harvard does better with amateur players than Stanford does with professionals.</p>
<p>On a more serious note, I agree with most of what Byerly says about the state of D-1 athletics, especially the "professional" nature of the student-athlete arrangement. And it only seems to be getting more professional, as TV lures schools into setting ridiculous sports schedules (i.e. Thursday night football) that interfere with even more classes and the student side of student-athlete.</p>
<p>There's much that I admire about the way the Ivy League approaches athletics.</p>
<p>One of the things that most concerns me is not the lowering of standards for certain recruits but the tendency, at many D-1 schools, to force student athletes to subvert their academic best interests to the needs of the team.</p>
<p>Not only the Thursday night football games, as mentioned, but the absurd travel schedules to play an excessive number of intersectional games in certain sports.</p>
<p>I am still hearing from a number of D-1 recruits that they are pressured to take light academic loads during "the season" - even if it means graduating in 5 or 6 years rather than 4 (if at all) - and to avoid classes where labs, etc., will present conflicts with sports practices, games and travel schedules.</p>
<p>This sends the wrong message about what is really important.</p>