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Letter to the Editor: Stadium location to blame for low attendance

Published: Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Updated: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 23:10

I am a senior, and until this year I've been fortunate to be able to enjoy a perennially good football team, one that I am always still able to care about during bowl season. It has been a very exciting few years for NU football. And yet, the crowds in the student section at our games are always notoriously small. Every single game I've gone to (which is every home game I've been on campus for), I've had many friends tell me they're not going because Ryan Field is too far away and they "just don't feel like it." Come on, folks. This is a significant part of our University; the athletics. Our student body just doesn't seem to care enough about sports.

But there's a big reason for that. NU's campus, instead of having a football stadium and a basketball arena at its heart, has an enormous grad school building, a seminary, and a high-priced hotel taking up the best locations on campus. And if I were a betting man, I'd say that the average undergrad has been inside no more than one of those three buildings. Before I go any further, I'm not advocating that Coach Fitz drives a bulldozer through the middle of campus while dragging Ryan Field behind it to take those buildings' place (though that would be really cool to watch). What I am saying is that NU is a Big Ten school, and the Big Ten is a pretty important conference. I remember more home games in which the visiting fans outnumbered us than vice versa, and much of that is due to the fact that people don't want to go a mile north of campus to see our team play.  

I'm not an unrealistic person; I understand that moving Ryan Field to campus would not completely solve our attendance problem, but it would certainly help. In 2010, according to ESPN, NU finished 83rd nationally in average attendance per game. And Bleacher Report included Ryan Field as one of their "25 Worst College Football Stadium Experiences" due to the low attendance. It seems that everything — Kellogg's move to downtown Chicago, the nationally recognized low attendance numbers — is pointing to a move to campus being the best option. So, Fitz, Morty, Jim Phillips, Willie the Wildcat, whoever's listening: PLEASE give us a stadium on campus! But until that day when we can make the move, I call on each and every student to get out to Ryan Field, jingle your keys, make your wildcat claws, and put your hands up in the air for our ‘Cats.

Max Moline

Communications senior

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8 comments

Anonymous
Thu Oct 27 2011 14:38
The one commenter who mentioned the Horseshoe at Ohio State being as far as Ryan Field here has obviously never been to Ohio State. The shoe is VERY close to campus and especially the part of campus where dorms are. That said, I think it's stupid that NU students are too lazy to walk to the stadium.
Anonymous
Wed Oct 26 2011 18:13
Also, factors that contribute to NU's lack of attendance include the small student body and the "reach" of that school. By that, I mean graduates scatter across the country moreso than other schools, where the surrounding towns are filled with alums. Sure, we have lots of purple in Chicago, but also in, say, Japan. I don't think they're going to many games. How many kids from ETHS go to NU each year? A handful? Combine that with Evanston not exactly being in love with NU, and there's your attendance.
Anonymous
Wed Oct 26 2011 18:06
I remember as an undergrad, I went on an ASB trip to Louisiana and was shocked by how many on the trip had never done any sort of manual labor (like you would do on a farm.) Let's get less lazy, Wildcats.
Anonymous
Wed Oct 26 2011 17:39
Even if you walk to the field from south campus, and there are free goddamn BUSES, you're still only walking as far as many typical undergrads might to walk to Camp Randall in Wisconsin, TCF Bank in Minnesota, the Hoseshoe at OSU, or any other national school that has a much larger campus area than NU.
Anonymous
Wed Oct 26 2011 15:50
Kellogg is not moving to the downtown campus. not sure where you got that "fact", because it is indeed fiction.
Anonymous
Wed Oct 26 2011 15:29
According to google maps, Ryan Field is about 1.2 miles from Tech, walking down Sheridan to Central. That's almost exactly the same distance from the center of Penn State's campus to their football stadium. But yet, Penn State has 100,000+ fans each and every home game. Somehow, PSU students manage to walk those 1.2 miles and don't need a stadium across from their dorm rooms in order to get to the games.
Anonymous
Wed Oct 26 2011 15:00
I hope you understand just how much space a new football stadium requires - way more than our tiny campus has to offer. Go ahead, bulldoze the church. But it won't change anything. Point is, people don't go to games because no one at NU likes football.

We're an Ivy League school in the Big Ten. The only university in the country that could pull that off is Stanford.

Anonymous
Wed Oct 26 2011 00:37
Wow, quoting Bleacher Report? What are you, 12? Do you realize what Bleacher Report is? Not saying they're not wrong, but seriously, Bleacher Report? What an idiot, Max.






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