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YSU Penguin Athletics / Re: Eastern Washington
« on: December 12, 2016, 05:48:50 PM »For all that sillyness (my opinon) of a red field, that place only seats 12,000 and they are averaging less than 10,000 per game YSU average is 12,000+ for our 8 home wins. That has to at least tie a YSU record for home wins in a season with 8 and I bet 100,000 is the most home attendance in a long time also.
This isn't accurate. Roos field only has seating for 8,300 and we average nearly 10,000. We don't have big crowds, but we have no problem filling seats during the season. They've had to get creative with field level standing club areas at the corners to accommodate higher than capacity crowds, and we are at four seasons straight selling out regular season home games. The school does Hogwarts style magic tricks to get 11,500 in for the Montana game each year but it's a huge strain on the gamely resources the school has. We have a desperate need for an expansion to around 18,000 but can't come up with the funding to make it happen. Two recent proposals have failed and the current AD has been specifically tasked with coming up with a 3rd by the new university president.
We struggle with attendance in the post season like most of the FCS. Nobody is around Cheney after Thanksgiving. And I think our success has actually come back to bite us a little bit. In 2010 the fans were a bit starved for playoff success and basically sold out the whole postseason run of three games. But 2010 to this weekend we have hosted 12 postseason games and I get the feeling that people take for granted that they can always come watch EWU play December ball next year if their plans get in the way this year (office christmas parties, kid's nativity plays, The Santa Clause 2 and Love Actually double feature on Oxygen network...).
It's frustrating, but a good problem to have.
This is of course not true, playoffs are never guaranteed, and home games even less so. I wish we could get people in those seats in December even when its cold.