570 tonight

[The YO Show]

I was at all the championship games.  The 91 game my guess there was 500-700 of us.  I have the same picture that Strollo has that was taken and we were lost in a sea of green.  But I have to believe the 3 years in Marshall we sent more than 1k.  It seems when we went in 97 and 99 there was at least 2k? Am I wrong?

I was at all of them. The Villanova game had more people than the final game in Huntington, kind of odd. Then again, 1/2 of Ytown comes from Philly area. I still think we had the most back in 1994. It looked like we had around 4k-to 5k, but I also think that could have been an illusion because Boise had very few people there. The tailgating in Georgia was fantastic ...it was a sea of red, but the game was certainly not. This year is very similar to that. The team caught everyone by surprise back then people did not know what to do. I was pretty young back in 1979, but that seems to be the biggest final crowd that I remember. 

Take those JMU numbers with a grain of salt as well. As I understand from my two calls, they took more opening day tickets that we did, but neither team used all of their 3k paper tickets and neither team ordered a second set beyond team and student seats, which are fixed at 125 on top of the two per player. I am also told that the player seats are not complimentary as it would be considered compensation? I do not buy that. Can any former players shed some light on how family tickets work?

IAA, I am not a player, but as screwed up as it is, you are correct. The University has to eat the cost of the tickets for the player's family. It would be considered compensation to give two free tickets to the parents so they can watch the game. The all knowing NCAA sure gets that one right  . In seriousness, that rule is archaic, doesn't seem like it was ever necessary or relevant and needs to change. No reason the athlete's parents shouldn't be allowed to go, and I myself would not consider it compensation. Sure, make anything above two non-complimentary or something, but jeez NCAA.

[Penguin Ice]

I was at all the championship games.  The 91 game my guess there was 500-700 of us.  I have the same picture that Strollo has that was taken and we were lost in a sea of green.  But I have to believe the 3 years in Marshall we sent more than 1k.  It seems when we went in 97 and 99 there was at least 2k? Am I wrong?

I was at all of them. The Villanova game had more people than the final game in Huntington, kind of odd. Then again, 1/2 of Ytown comes from Philly area. I still think we had the most back in 1994. It looked like we had around 4k-to 5k, but I also think that could have been an illusion because Boise had very few people there. The tailgating in Georgia was fantastic ...it was a sea of red, but the game was certainly not. This year is very similar to that. The team caught everyone by surprise back then people did not know what to do. I was pretty young back in 1979, but that seems to be the biggest final crowd that I remember. 

Take those JMU numbers with a grain of salt as well. As I understand from my two calls, they took more opening day tickets that we did, but neither team used all of their 3k paper tickets and neither team ordered a second set beyond team and student seats, which are fixed at 125 on top of the two per player. I am also told that the player seats are not complimentary as it would be considered compensation? I do not buy that. Can any former players shed some light on how family tickets work?

IAA, I am not a player, but as screwed up as it is, you are correct. The University has to eat the cost of the tickets for the player's family. It would be considered compensation to give two free tickets to the parents so they can watch the game. The all knowing NCAA sure gets that one right  . In seriousness, that rule is archaic, doesn't seem like it was ever necessary or relevant and needs to change. No reason the athlete's parents shouldn't be allowed to go, and I myself would not consider it compensation. Sure, make anything above two non-complimentary or something, but jeez NCAA.

I am a parent of a player. And my ticket is not free. They were not given any free tickets

[IAA Fan]

For the sake of argument, let's say the population of the Youngstown area is zero, the enrollment at YSU is zero, total 2016 FB attendance was zero, and no Penguin fan has ever attended a YSU championship game.  Why would you still not accept the maximum allotment of the risk-free e-tickets?  The only way you undersupply your fan base is if there is a demand for >4k tickets, which would be a great problem to have.  The excuse offered from the AD to Charles Grove was concern that JMU fans would buy our seats (despite there being safeguards against that)....so he gave our seats to JMU wholesale.  There simply is no excusing that away.  There is no blaming the fans of yesterday or today.  It was pure incompetence.  Plain and simple.

Change the subject. Quit retrying to repeat yourself 500 times to get the last word. Both teams ordered only paper and neither team used their allotment, so feel free to go over to JMU boards and complain abou thteir departmental staff. BS then and BS now ...MOVE ON.

[penguinpower]

Yikes. The Madison forum folks have basically been saying they're expecting 10-12 K of their fans. Unfortunately for Strollo I doubt the way the school handled the ticket thing endears themselves to too many rank and file Penguin Club folks. This should've been the perfect year to cash in on all the new enthusiasm, but whatever, hopefully it doesn't matter on Saturday. Just think about how many students they could have sent if they took the full allotment. They sold out of 125 in 45 minutes...

Strollo is full of crap though about only 500-1000 fans being the norm. Maybe for a couple times in Huntington, but if you go back and watch the 99 game on Youtube, they probably had at least a third to half the fans there. An entire sideline is almost red.

I failed to mention that he also stated population decline.

How long are we going to use that excuse ? Jesus.

Just the messenger here.

[Penguin Nation]

For the sake of argument, let's say the population of the Youngstown area is zero, the enrollment at YSU is zero, total 2016 FB attendance was zero, and no Penguin fan has ever attended a YSU championship game.  Why would you still not accept the maximum allotment of the risk-free e-tickets?  The only way you undersupply your fan base is if there is a demand for >4k tickets, which would be a great problem to have.  The excuse offered from the AD to Charles Grove was concern that JMU fans would buy our seats (despite there being safeguards against that)....so he gave our seats to JMU wholesale.  There simply is no excusing that away.  There is no blaming the fans of yesterday or today.  It was pure incompetence.  Plain and simple.

Change the subject. Quit retrying to repeat yourself 500 times to get the last word. Both teams ordered only paper and neither team used their allotment, so feel free to go over to JMU boards and complain abou thteir departmental staff. BS then and BS now ...MOVE ON.

I was responding to new information provided in a new thread, where after the SID lied to the Vindy, the AD then blames the people he screwed over....the fans...for his incompetence.

I looked at the box score for the 1999 title game.  The attendance was >20k.  So if he's correct, and only 500-1k YSU fans went, then the ratio of YSU fans to non-YSU fans was >1:39 -1:19.  I don't think so.

As far as JMU goes, they are a different school with a different set of circumstances.  Since they got 7k seats to our 1k (the absolute minimum order), I think it's reasonable to say they played their hand quite well.  They completely outplayed us off the field.  I hope that is reversed on the field despite our AD orchestrating a home field environment for our opponent.

FWIW, I've lost count of the stories I've heard of fans paying above face value for their tickets(call it an "AD Incompetence fee"), and also groups being divided and sitting scattered throughout the stadium.

[Duke Dawg]

I was at all the championship games.  The 91 game my guess there was 500-700 of us.  I have the same picture that Strollo has that was taken and we were lost in a sea of green.  But I have to believe the 3 years in Marshall we sent more than 1k.  It seems when we went in 97 and 99 there was at least 2k? Am I wrong?

I was at all of them. The Villanova game had more people than the final game in Huntington, kind of odd. Then again, 1/2 of Ytown comes from Philly area. I still think we had the most back in 1994. It looked like we had around 4k-to 5k, but I also think that could have been an illusion because Boise had very few people there. The tailgating in Georgia was fantastic ...it was a sea of red, but the game was certainly not. This year is very similar to that. The team caught everyone by surprise back then people did not know what to do. I was pretty young back in 1979, but that seems to be the biggest final crowd that I remember. 

Take those JMU numbers with a grain of salt as well. As I understand from my two calls, they took more opening day tickets that we did, but neither team used all of their 3k paper tickets and neither team ordered a second set beyond team and student seats, which are fixed at 125 on top of the two per player. I am also told that the player seats are not complimentary as it would be considered compensation? I do not buy that. Can any former players shed some light on how family tickets work?

nope. not true. we sold 7,000 tickets through the school. our estimates of 10,000 will be pretty accurate.

[Duke Dawg]

I wonder if we could put in a FOIA for how much YSU bid for playoff games. JMU almost always loses bids to their home playoff games. Heck, it's likely most schools outside of NDSU end up whiffing on the bids. I would think the band should be there, I believe each school gets up to 350 band tickets. JMU can't bring there whole band for the seats but like Jacksonville State last year they may be able to be seated elsewhere.

we've only been outbid once. ever.

that was when EKU had the OVC kick in a ton of money to help with their bid.

[Guinfan1990]

I wonder if we could put in a FOIA for how much YSU bid for playoff games. JMU almost always loses bids to their home playoff games. Heck, it's likely most schools outside of NDSU end up whiffing on the bids. I would think the band should be there, I believe each school gets up to 350 band tickets. JMU can't bring there whole band for the seats but like Jacksonville State last year they may be able to be seated elsewhere.

we've only been outbid once. ever.

that was when EKU had the OVC kick in a ton of money to help with their bid.

what are you talking about ? YSU outbid you in 06.

[Duke Dawg]

no. you guys were seeded 4th

that's why JMU fans were so ticked. We were basically 5th and they sent us to play you guys due to their stupid geography rules.

because you were seeded, the game had to be at your place. bids never came into play.

here is the bracket:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_NCAA_Division_I_FCS_football_season

[supermario21]

I wonder if we could put in a FOIA for how much YSU bid for playoff games. JMU almost always loses bids to their home playoff games. Heck, it's likely most schools outside of NDSU end up whiffing on the bids. I would think the band should be there, I believe each school gets up to 350 band tickets. JMU can't bring there whole band for the seats but like Jacksonville State last year they may be able to be seated elsewhere.

we've only been outbid once. ever.

that was when EKU had the OVC kick in a ton of money to help with their bid.

My bad for wording that poorly. I meant to say that JMU usually loses money on its bids, but since the EKU debacle they don't care. A concession is that private funds have been available to fill in the gaps, but it still stands that JMU will bid at all costs. I read an article about the 2014 game with Liberty. The school placed a bid contingent upon an attendance of 23,000. Didn't get it, but school still said the bid was worth it. I was just using that to make a point about how just because a school may lose money on a playoff game that shouldn't deter the school from requesting as many championship game tickets as possible.

https://jamesmadison.rivals.com/news/final-tally-dukes-lose-126k-on-playoff-game

[Dukester]

It was not a ton of money OVC pitched in, but enough that topped our bid. 

See, JMU fans disagree too.   

JMU bid based on what they thought they would need to win the bid, versus what they thought they could bid based on attendance.  We rolled the dice and lost.  What made it much worse is it was the first year of our new stadium which we sold out for the year at 25k per game.  They did not take in to account OVC pitching in some money.  Either way it was not that much, and there is no way you lose a bid in your first year of a new stadium that was sold out every game.  I believe to make matters even worse our AD was on the selection committee. 

[Duke Dawg]

I wonder if we could put in a FOIA for how much YSU bid for playoff games. JMU almost always loses bids to their home playoff games. Heck, it's likely most schools outside of NDSU end up whiffing on the bids. I would think the band should be there, I believe each school gets up to 350 band tickets. JMU can't bring there whole band for the seats but like Jacksonville State last year they may be able to be seated elsewhere.

we've only been outbid once. ever.

that was when EKU had the OVC kick in a ton of money to help with their bid.

My bad for wording that poorly. I meant to say that JMU usually loses money on its bids, but since the EKU debacle they don't care. A concession is that private funds have been available to fill in the gaps, but it still stands that JMU will bid at all costs. I read an article about the 2014 game with Liberty. The school placed a bid contingent upon an attendance of 23,000. Didn't get it, but school still said the bid was worth it. I was just using that to make a point about how just because a school may lose money on a playoff game that shouldn't deter the school from requesting as many championship game tickets as possible.

https://jamesmadison.rivals.com/news/final-tally-dukes-lose-126k-on-playoff-game

yes, we purposely bid high on that one because we knew we were likely to get paired up with Liberty based on how the season was going, and they have money to burn. Even the LU AD was shocked he lost that bid.

And we were not going to have another EKU situation as that caused a big uproar.

the reality is, JMU has rarely been in a bid situation. We've either been a seeded team and not had to worry about it, or we've been sent to play a seeded team.

I believe bids have only come into play those 2 times....EKU (lost) and Liberty (won).

[Dukester]

I wonder if we could put in a FOIA for how much YSU bid for playoff games. JMU almost always loses bids to their home playoff games. Heck, it's likely most schools outside of NDSU end up whiffing on the bids. I would think the band should be there, I believe each school gets up to 350 band tickets. JMU can't bring there whole band for the seats but like Jacksonville State last year they may be able to be seated elsewhere.

we've only been outbid once. ever.

that was when EKU had the OVC kick in a ton of money to help with their bid.

what are you talking about ? YSU outbid you in 06.

No - YSU was one of the four seeded teams in 2006.  Had nothing to do with a bid. 

[GOpenZ]

I was at all the championship games.  The 91 game my guess there was 500-700 of us.  I have the same picture that Strollo has that was taken and we were lost in a sea of green.  But I have to believe the 3 years in Marshall we sent more than 1k.  It seems when we went in 97 and 99 there was at least 2k? Am I wrong?

I looked again at the overhead photo of the 1993 national championship game in my office.  Some interesting items that I noted.

• We have a block of YSU fans in red that took up over 1/3rd of the one side of the stadium, maybe 20% of the total stadium
• Our block of tickets was not in the center of the stadium, it began on the field house end and moved toward midfield
• There are additional fans in red throughout the stadium
• There were some fans in a standing room only in the endzone opposite of their fieldhouse
• Wikipedia has the total attendance of the game at 29,218
• My guess is that about 6,000+ Penguin fans made the trip that year
• We were truly outnumbered and on Marshall's home turf.
• This special set of loud fans, a great team, led by a stout defense, and a smart well coached offense, solid special teams, helped lead the Guins a 17-5 win.

I loved those years, I'm glad they are back!

Z

[The YO Show]

I was at all the championship games.  The 91 game my guess there was 500-700 of us.  I have the same picture that Strollo has that was taken and we were lost in a sea of green.  But I have to believe the 3 years in Marshall we sent more than 1k.  It seems when we went in 97 and 99 there was at least 2k? Am I wrong?

I was at all of them. The Villanova game had more people than the final game in Huntington, kind of odd. Then again, 1/2 of Ytown comes from Philly area. I still think we had the most back in 1994. It looked like we had around 4k-to 5k, but I also think that could have been an illusion because Boise had very few people there. The tailgating in Georgia was fantastic ...it was a sea of red, but the game was certainly not. This year is very similar to that. The team caught everyone by surprise back then people did not know what to do. I was pretty young back in 1979, but that seems to be the biggest final crowd that I remember. 

Take those JMU numbers with a grain of salt as well. As I understand from my two calls, they took more opening day tickets that we did, but neither team used all of their 3k paper tickets and neither team ordered a second set beyond team and student seats, which are fixed at 125 on top of the two per player. I am also told that the player seats are not complimentary as it would be considered compensation? I do not buy that. Can any former players shed some light on how family tickets work?

IAA, I am not a player, but as screwed up as it is, you are correct. The University has to eat the cost of the tickets for the player's family. It would be considered compensation to give two free tickets to the parents so they can watch the game. The all knowing NCAA sure gets that one right  . In seriousness, that rule is archaic, doesn't seem like it was ever necessary or relevant and needs to change. No reason the athlete's parents shouldn't be allowed to go, and I myself would not consider it compensation. Sure, make anything above two non-complimentary or something, but jeez NCAA.

I am a parent of a player. And my ticket is not free. They were not given any free tickets

Ice, thanks for the comment. I meant to say parents didn't get free tickets. My post did say the university ate the cost but then correctly stated the NCAA considers it compensation to give tickets to players family. I apologize didn't mean to double speak there. It's too bad too.