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2023 WF Soccer Thread - NCAA Tourney 2nd Round - Hoosiers Visit Spry 5 pm Sunday ESPN+

thatguy2016 said:
WF lists capacity for Spry at 3,000. 3,630 seems like a great crowd. And yes...when you charge money you will get lower attendance than when you give it away for free. Particularly during a pandemic and period of inflation like the country hasn't seen for 40+ years.

The cost of attending a home regular season soccer game is less than the cost of a movie. Seems like a great deal and no different from other entertainment options.

Still waiting for an explanation of how charging for regular-season games impacts our team's performance in ACC and NCAA tournament games.
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OK, so it sounds like you agree that attendance is down and that is likely related to the decision to charge for admission. Did you attend many games this year? In addition to attendance being down, the energy level was low and the whole vibe was off compared to previous years. I think that can affect enthusiasm for attending future games, including NCAA tournament games.
 
Rafi said:
OK, so it sounds like you agree that attendance is down and that is likely related to the decision to charge for admission. Did you attend many games this year? In addition to attendance being down, the energy level was low and the whole vibe was off compared to previous years. I think that can affect enthusiasm for attending future games, including NCAA tournament games.
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I believe 120% of stadium capacity is a great crowd, and I don't think we lost to Duke because it wasn't 130%. I don't think the average Deacon Club member is half as loud as the average student. I don't think changes to regular-season ticket charges for non-students should impact post-season attendance. And, I think if we're going to say that the cost of attending WF is in line with other like universities, it's not unreasonable to point out that the cost of attending a regular-season soccer game is in line with other similar entertainment options.
 
thatguy2016 said:
I believe 120% of stadium capacity is a great crowd, and I don't think we lost to Duke because it wasn't 130%. I don't think the average Deacon Club member is half as loud as the average student. I don't think changes to regular-season ticket charges for non-students should impact post-season attendance. And, I think if we're going to say that the cost of attending WF is in line with other like universities, it's not unreasonable to point out that the cost of attending a regular-season soccer game is in line with other similar entertainment options.
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For soccer Wake charged $15/game for ACC games. Football tickets on the hill are $7/game.

Below is what I wrote at the beginning of the year in August, and I think it became even more of an issue than I expected. The free exhibition game had by far the best attendance and vibe of all the games this year.

"The crowd turnout on Saturday night for the exhibition against WVU was impressive. There was no charge, and the crowd felt like a pre-COVID Spry crowd. I'm interested to hear the opinions of others, but I question the decision to charge admission to Wake soccer games to Deacon Club members. They are planning to charge $10 for non-con games and $15 for conference games. A season ticket is $99, which I realize is not that much, but it is more than season tickets on the hill for football and it can add up when the whole family attends. The soccer hill is still free, so I think we'll see a lot of people on the hill and not so many in the stands. Plus, there are not a lot of tangible benefits to being in the Deacon Club, but free Olympic sports was one of them for those that can attend. I think charging for soccer took away some of the magic of Spry by decreasing the overall numbers attending games."
 
we had 11 home games. a $99 season ticket means tickets are $9 per game for a seat. From your post, hill seats at soccer are free.

So, seats in the stands: $9 for soccer, more than that for football
seats on the hill: $0 for soccer, $7 for football

A seat at AMC at Hanes Mall: $15.99

Why are you comparing seats in the soccer stadium to football Hill tickets?
 
thatguy2016 said:
we had 11 home games. a $99 season ticket means tickets are $9 per game for a seat. From your post, hill seats at soccer are free.

So, seats in the stands: $9 for soccer, more than that for football
seats on the hill: $0 for soccer, $7 for football

Why are you comparing seats in the soccer stadium to football Hill tickets?
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I compare them because it's a similar crowd. The hill in football and the stands at Spry are lots of families with young kids. I see the same folks at both, though this year I did not see the families at Spry.

We seem to agree that attendance is down at Spry, likely because they are charging admission. I'm not sure if you attended games at Spry and felt the lack of energy compared to previous years, but I think it clearly occurred (though that's obviously hard to demonstrate). I think the decision to take something that was free for decades and then start charging admission had the potential to fail, and in my opinion it did fail in that it negatively impacted the atmosphere at Spry, which used to be top 5 in the country. Maybe we'll get that atmosphere back over time - I hope so.
 
$15 is a lot of money for a soccer game or a movie. You can spend the same to watch thousands of TV shows and movies on multiple devices in a month.
 
Still haven't seen any causation to support charging regular-season attendance for non-students (but keeping the hill free!) impacting post-season performance
 
your atmosphere is not going to be good when you get your ass kicked right out of the gate anyway.
 
Yeah. If tournament attendance was low it was because this team lacked clear star power and lost a lot of big games down the stretch, which killed excitement.

I think all the night football games this season played a small part too. There's only so many nights a week I'm going to have the tolerance to freeze my ass off outside (and can get away from young kids).
 
Amazing job by Jay. That program was nowhere. Could have easily been three in a row, too.
 
What were the circumstances that led to Vidovich leaving Wake Forest? When was he hired by Pitt.?
 
He started as head coach at Wake when I was there and that's after having been an assistant for a long time.
 
He left to coach the reserve/2nd team of Portland in 2015, and then left them for Pitt just a year later, so it was kind of odd. I suspect things had just run their course with the former athletic dept leadership/univ admin.

Probably an ok call/outcome on both sides, and it sort of felt like it at the time, though if he wanted to stay I would have preferred they found a way to make that happen, but whatever. Muuss can always get kids in who will thrive at Wake; Jay prob needs a Muuss-type as an assistant to help with recruiting (at least at a place like Wake, I don’t know his assistants at Pitt, but it’s easier to get kids in there — lots of head butting with admissions at Wake over the years), but there have been few better at the other stuff, ever. He had been at Wake since ‘86, and saved it after Chyzowych’s death.
 
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