Big Sky Attendance 10/14

[Alan1]

Weber drew 9,135 in a loss to S. Utah. Montana drew 25,085 in a win over N. Dakota. Sacramento State drew 10,008 in a win over Idaho State. Eastern Washington drew 11,301 in a win over Montana State. PSU drew 4,430 in a loss to N. Arizona.

 

[pdxball]

May be a stupid question, but the SDSU Stanford game this year got me wondering what the barriers are to hosting a Pac 12 team? The 4-5,000 person attendance hasn't changed even when the team is playing well. Financially, I feel a Pac 12 game in Portland would be a sell out and easily make up the cost of bringing a team in. Not to mention what a huge boost it would be to the program. On the other side, a team like Oregon or OSU could generate a lot of hype for their own programs by playing a game in Portland where they have a huge fan base. Is there another reason PSU or a potential opponent would not want to try it?

 

[bigskyconf]

May be a stupid question, but the SDSU Stanford game this year got me wondering what the barriers are to hosting a Pac 12 team? The 4-5,000 person attendance hasn't changed even when the team is playing well. Financially, I feel a Pac 12 game in Portland would be a sell out and easily make up the cost of bringing a team in. Not to mention what a huge boost it would be to the program. On the other side, a team like Oregon or OSU could generate a lot of hype for their own programs by playing a game in Portland where they have a huge fan base. Is there another reason PSU or a potential opponent would not want to try it?

Generally an FBS school does not travel to an FCS school. The Mountain West may be "lower" than the Pac-12, but they are still FBS. The last time any FBS school traveled to a Big Sky school was I think Idaho when they went to Montana in 2003. Hearing the sharp criticism when Oregon played at Wyoming and Oregon State going to Colorado State this year (both Mountain West teams), I can't see any scenario where they would play PSU at Portland.

 

[Pounder]

Would Oregon make the trip for a $1.5 million guarantee? I'm thinking probably not. Oregon State probably would.

Average ticket $75. Would Portland State fans afford that and Oregon State fans (for whom that price might be slightly below Pac-12 game average, and they're NOT selling out Reser these days) pay it for an FCS opponent?

Point is that PSU would come nowhere close to covering the guarantee that would actually bring a Pac-12 team here.

 

[pdxball]

The criticism makes sense, but in this case one of those schools might be able to market it as they are doing it for their Portland fans. Yeah, breaking even would likely the goal. I was thinking more along the lines of an event like that improving long term attendance. Montana drawing almost as many fans in a game as PSU gets in a season has always been really hard for me to understand. The Phil Knight tournament should be an interesting test to see what kind of support PSU gets against some of those teams.

 

[Alan1]

I believe in the middle part of the last century the UO-OSU (Civil War) was played in Multnomah Stadium (now Providence Park). Also, the UW @ UO and the UW @ OSU were also played there. But, that was before the Oregon schools expanded their stadiums after which it did not make economic sense to play in Portland.

 

[bigskyconf]

The criticism makes sense, but in this case one of those schools might be able to market it as they are doing it for their Portland fans. Yeah, breaking even would likely the goal. I was thinking more along the lines of an event like that improving long term attendance. Montana drawing almost as many fans in a game as PSU gets in a season has always been really hard for me to understand. The Phil Knight tournament should be an interesting test to see what kind of support PSU gets against some of those teams.

I can't see it, when Portland fans are willing to drive down I-5 and fill a 40,000 seat stadium, why turn away half that and play in Portland at a 20,000 seat stadium. If demand would ease up and the fans are not going, then they may entertain the idea, but I still don't think they would go for it.