Ding, ding, ding
We are behind 3 schools with large metropolitan areas -- Baton Rouge, Columbia, and Fayetteville and near more schools with the same in Austin, College Station, etc. Chances aren't that good that we can't outdraw them in actual attendance even in our best years due to the lull we will always have in the midweeks.
You say "it's time we step up", but how would you have us do that? Easily over 50% of our season ticket holders live a long way from Starkville and can't make midweeks, etc... The same is true for Ole Miss -- hence why it is actually preferable for both of us to list paid attendance. That isn't changing anytime soon.
Fact is -- we sell out our chairback season tickets and everyone that actually has rigs in the outfield buys them as well. NO ONE cancels their skyboxes, there is a long waiting list, etc...This virtually caps our season ticket sales though -- and limits "on paper" attendance. No one is buying season tickets to sit in those damn bleachers -- and no one that doesn't at least have some vested interest in a rig is buying them in the outfield.
The only way we ever get actual attendance numbers back/better is to continually be competitive, which IMO we will be under Cohen, and to find a way to have more chairbacks and thus more season ticket sales...and/or to get out from under the lifetime seating contracts. Those chairbacks are always going to be partially empty as long as we're handcuffed by those contracts...
This is correct about the contracts. As an aside- Skip Bertman was the one who started doing paid attendance because that was at the time the only way LSU could "outdraw" us. Bianco, from Bertman's staff, took that idea with him to Oxford. So, this thread is really Skip Bertman's fault.
I have been to six games in Starkville thus far, and I can tell you going off of an eyeball's glance that attendance is subjectively better, or at the very least there is excitement there and maybe that makes it seem "bigger". What I can say is, the past few years I have been able to get a ticket in the grandstands walking up to the ticket office like an hour before the game. Now, I am always having to sit in the bleachers.
We're having fireworks on Thursday, giving out t-shirts, and I think we are doing a MUCH better job in between innings with things for the fans.
So, people are there- they're just not in the grandstand. I would say that it is about 30% full right now. The other "problem" we're having is we are undergoing a massive facilities rebuilding/building project- and it's football's turn right now. That means that Dudy-Noble is on the backburner right now other than some random up grades like the drainage system a couple of years ago. Once the football building is done, I think the focus will possibly start to shift back to baseball for a moment.
The thing about a new grandstand- we need new skyboxes and a new pressbox anyway. My hope is that we tear down the grandstand and build it pretty much like Trustmark Park- seats from foul pole to foul pole, seats closer to the field at a lower angle for better sight lines, and maybe a concourse that is open where people can walk and get food and not miss the game. Adding new skyboxes seems prudent because there is apparently a demand for it, and then a nice pressbox.