Now that’s pretty, ain’t it? You can always count on the profit motive to generate people like Jeff here, who explains La Nouvelle Vague for us.
Empty seats in all the student sections? Big deal. Universities don’t care whether people who have anything to do with them go to football games! Especially since students are poor. Not to mention sloppy drunks. Plus, as an economist at Temple University (which will probably build a new stadium although virtually none of its students attend football games) explains:
“[T]oday’s students aren’t coming to games. That’s a problem all over college football. Even at Minnesota, student attendance didn’t increase from when they played at the Metrodome.”
It’s a national trend, see. We’ve been following the trend on this blog for quite some time. But who cares? Why should Temple care? Only the silent invisible corporate guys in the luxury suites produce any real revenue; the whole show’s for them.
I mean, the whole show’s also for tv networks – they set when the games start, how they’re run, etc.
It’s a beautiful synergy, when you think about it. Players who aren’t students perform in front of local businesspeople who aren’t alumni. These two groups also have in common massive subsidies from… uh… from the students who don’t go to the games. And from all the rest of us.
And listen – if the only two audiences that matter are the guys in the upper decks plus the national tv audience, why build a traditional yawning stadium at all? UD proposes introducing what she calls boutique stadia, on the model of boutique hotels: Small, luxurious, extremely expensive, with vastly more amenities which would include an expanded bar, a gym and a spa and … hell… bedrooms.
January 3rd, 2015 at 11:55AM
Still, it’s pretty pathetic when the TV camera pans across those empty seats. I see a great opportunity for Audio-Animatronics (R)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio-Animatronics) here. Send those student fees over to the engineering school, and they’ll fill those empty seats for you. And robots don’t get sloppy-drunk (although you could program some to simulate such behavior for added realism.)
January 3rd, 2015 at 12:05PM
Polish Peter: LOL.
January 3rd, 2015 at 7:11PM
P.P. think green-screens…
January 3rd, 2015 at 7:22PM
dmf: Indeed, probably more efficient. Redirect those student fees from Mechanical Engineering over to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
January 3rd, 2015 at 9:33PM
“Players who aren’t students . . . businesspeople who aren’t alumni.”
I can readily imagine future universities where the core functions are mostly extinct, but there’s much activity nonetheless hanging beneath the university name. I’m thinking of suburbs named something like Shawnee Acres, Kiowa Farms, etc., where you’re unlikely to find those actual indigenous Americans who’ve disappeared through intermarriage, forced relocation, and so on. “University” may end up as a name for an amalgam of regional live entertainment, day care for young adults, transfer payments for geeky types, etc.
January 4th, 2015 at 11:14AM
jack/oh google “university retirement community”
January 8th, 2015 at 11:12AM
At the last Castaways (our team) game I attended, there were exactly 0 students in the student section. The only obvious students there were players, cheerleaders, and band members. In the section I sat in (nominal capacity, approx. 500), there were 20 people. Other than a grade-schooler in tow by either a very old dad or more likely a grandpa, my 50-something body was the youngest in my section.