Quote Originally Posted by berr6728 View Post
Coach34 how do you expect to have better tv crowds with a new stadium. It is not all about the stadium, it is partly about economics, and long baseball weekends, not like a double header on Sat and single on Sun as in past. All of our better crowds in past were on either double headers or on super bulldog weekends. Super Bulldog Weekends will continue to be large but the other weekends, imo, will still be smaller. In past all SEC TV broadcast was on Thur nights, now with the SEC Network coming there is more reason not to attend a 3 day weekend to watch baseball when you can watch it on tv. Just my evaluation.

Darryl Berryhill
Class of 1963/65
Box 13 DNF/PDS
berr6728@bellsouth.net
1-225-205-1499
As far as economics- a good team + a new ballpark = more fans. That goes MLB, minor league baseball and yes, even college baseball. People will want to see the new stadium if for no other reason than out of curiousity.

I believe the DH increasing attendance is a myth. We had a DH a couple of years ago against Alabama that was actually programmed into the schedule before the season started and we didn't draw any better than what we were for any other SEC weekend. I would think that if that had been a success, Scott would have petitioned the SEC office to make it where we played DH every home weekend and proclaimed that as a MSU tradition. Most players do not like DH and as a fan, I don't like them either personally.

I actually think TV has an opposite effect on attendance. When people hear that a game is on TV, it is assumed that it is a "big game" and they will want to go to it.

We aren't struggling with attendance now as it is, and I expect it to increase this upcoming season. There are people at the game, but when you can't get a seat in the grandstand until the 5th inning and you have to miss a half inning as part of the great migration as I call it, that's not a good game day policy. It would be like going to a restaurant and having to wait 30 minutes when you can see that there are plenty of open tables.

I think a big reason why people went to games in the 80's was because we were really good. As the team got less prominent over the years, the attendance went along with the decline.