Attendance…how do we fix this?

Win the SEC regular season by 4 games then sweep the tournament We also have one of the smaller SEC stadiums which I don’t mind if we make a couple improvements. Could still do a bit better though hopefully the interest and excitement around the program is getting there

KirbysadVISOR said:

1. Keep winning 2. Keep building out the stadium into a unique venue. Foley offers a closeness to the action that Truist can’t so cater a build out in that direction. Build out the corner at 1B and RF and hand it over to the students, thereby returning seating on the 3B side to ticket holders. 3. Better opponents bring bigger crowds. Can’t control the SEC schedule but this years home conference slate ended up being trash. We can however control non con, though Wes seemed to hve found a scheduling formula that pisses off the RPI white knights while still landing national seeds so… early season attendance be damned if it keeps yielding results in May/June

Don’t be have one of the smallest stadiums in the SEC? Probably one of the smallest in P5.

We really didn’t have a great home schedule this year

Sell tickets to average fans who don’t put them online every game.

Simple: Just announce tickets sold and not the actual gate when Wes prefers playing midweek games at 3pm

GodTurley3 said:

Don’t be have one of the smallest stadiums in the SEC? Probably one of the smallest in P5.

There’s nowhere else to go. Maybe you could put 500-600 seats in LF, but that’s it.

It’s majorly disappointing to be at the bottom of this list at a school like UGA. I personally know tons of people who would want to go, but don’t/can’t because of the lack of available tickets. Foley needs to be expanded. Find a way.

KirbysadVISOR said:

It’s majorly disappointing to be at the bottom of this list at a school like UGA. I personally know tons of people who would want to go, but don’t/can’t because of the lack of available tickets. Foley needs to be expanded. Find a way.

There isn’t one. We already spent a fortune to renovate when it would’ve cost the same or less to build brand new. The only option is LF and that gets you maybe 500 seats. Those seats would also be a million miles from HP. We are stuck with what we have, and that’s going to have to do. Foley is beautiful and unique.

RyanJordan said:

There’s nowhere else to go. Maybe you could put 500-600 seats in LF, but that’s it.

Not complaining… just saying can’t do anything about attendance when you don’t have the seats.

KirbysadVISOR said:

Well, we could feed the trees...... to a logger. And build some outfield seating. Wouldn't be that expensive to tack on 1500-2000 seats. I am sorta kidding, of course. But if Wes keeps these Dawgs on their upward trajectory, previously unthinkable things like Foley expansion may just have to be thought about.

PappyDawg27 said:

Well, we could feed the trees...... to a logger. And build some outfield seating. Wouldn't be that expensive to tack on 1500-2000 seats. I am sorta kidding, of course. But if Wes keeps these Dawgs on their upward trajectory, previously unthinkable things like Foley expansion may just have to be thought about.

There’s not a lot of space out there…the neighborhood that is our RF is really unique but it doesn’t lend to expansion Build anew is the realistic option to go 5k+ and I don’t know if that’s necessary

Gillis Bridge said:

1. Keep winning 2. Keep building out the stadium into a unique venue. Foley offers a closeness to the action that Truist can’t so cater a build out in that direction. Build out the corner at 1B and RF and hand it over to the students, thereby returning seating on the 3B side to ticket holders. 3. Better opponents bring bigger crowds. Can’t control the SEC schedule but this years home conference slate ended up being trash. We can however control non con, though Wes seemed to hve found a scheduling formula that pisses off the RPI white knights while still landing national seeds so… early season attendance be damned if it keeps yielding results in May/June

I thought the home slate was fiine. Funny how we are calling our home conference slate trash when traditional baseball blue bloods South Carolina and LSU (defending national champs) came to Foley. It just so happened they were both awful this year. Mizzou will always be a drag to everyone in the conference and honestly needs to get booted to the B10 where they belong. Tennessee and Florida are always great series to host. Foley’s size is fine. Folks need to realize in places where stadium seating is 5-10,000 that they are the only baseball in the area. No minor league ball, no MLB within driving distance. That matters. Also, many of those programs have a tradition of winning and of schools investing in baseball - not just the facilities, but also the fan experience. The music Foley plays is trash. Just recycled band music. It’s not football. Make homeruns exciting. Playing the fight song isn’t exciting. And for goodness sake get nicer uniforms instead of reusing the same rags with Nike font when other sports have moved on from that. And I agree with the person who rebuked season ticket holders who sell their tickets to the highest bidder. Last thing I want to see are Miss St fans sitting behind home plate in the Supers. I saw Tenn fans sitting there in our first series. It’s a very bad look. Maybe sell season tickets to people who actually care about baseball.

Capacity or no, I defy anyone to show me a better atmosphere than Foley Field during a Super. Those Perno runs felt like there was pure magic in the air.

CoastalVADawg said:

I thought the home slate was fiine. Funny how we are calling our home conference slate trash when traditional baseball blue bloods South Carolina and LSU (defending national champs) came to Foley. It just so happened they were both awful this year. Mizzou will always be a drag to everyone in the conference and honestly needs to get booted to the B10 where they belong. Tennessee and Florida are always great series to host. Foley’s size is fine. Folks need to realize in places where stadium seating is 5-10,000 that they are the only baseball in the area. No minor league ball, no MLB within driving distance. That matters. Also, many of those programs have a tradition of winning and of schools investing in baseball - not just the facilities, but also the fan experience. The music Foley plays is trash. Just recycled band music. It’s not football. Make homeruns exciting. Playing the fight song isn’t exciting. And for goodness sake get nicer uniforms instead of reusing the same rags with Nike font when other sports have moved on from that. And I agree with the person who rebuked season ticket holders who sell their tickets to the highest bidder. Last thing I want to see are Miss St fans sitting behind home plate in the Supers. I saw Tenn fans sitting there in our first series. It’s a very bad look. Maybe sell season tickets to people who actually care about baseball.

100% agree on the homerun music...Ole Miss plays The Gap Band's "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" on homers and it lights that place up.

RyanJordan said:

There isn’t one. We already spent a fortune to renovate when it would’ve cost the same or less to build brand new. The only option is LF and that gets you maybe 500 seats. Those seats would also be a million miles from HP. We are stuck with what we have, and that’s going to have to do. Foley is beautiful and unique.

Move the scoreboard out of right and into left center, build out tiered general admission seating from right center to the foul pole. There’s a lot more room back there than people realize mostly because of the scoreboard and the hill itself. Wouldn’t be cheap but it would be effective.

CoastalVADawg said:

I thought the home slate was fiine. Funny how we are calling our home conference slate trash when traditional baseball blue bloods South Carolina and LSU (defending national champs) came to Foley. It just so happened they were both awful this year. Mizzou will always be a drag to everyone in the conference and honestly needs to get booted to the B10 where they belong. Tennessee and Florida are always great series to host. Foley’s size is fine. Folks need to realize in places where stadium seating is 5-10,000 that they are the only baseball in the area. No minor league ball, no MLB within driving distance. That matters. Also, many of those programs have a tradition of winning and of schools investing in baseball - not just the facilities, but also the fan experience. The music Foley plays is trash. Just recycled band music. It’s not football. Make homeruns exciting. Playing the fight song isn’t exciting. And for goodness sake get nicer uniforms instead of reusing the same rags with Nike font when other sports have moved on from that. And I agree with the person who rebuked season ticket holders who sell their tickets to the highest bidder. Last thing I want to see are Miss St fans sitting behind home plate in the Supers. I saw Tenn fans sitting there in our first series. It’s a very bad look. Maybe sell season tickets to people who actually care about baseball.

Maybe we could go old school Braves and play "Gone" by Montgomery Gentry every homer. Haha

CoastalVADawg said:

I thought the home slate was fiine. Funny how we are calling our home conference slate trash when traditional baseball blue bloods South Carolina and LSU (defending national champs) came to Foley. It just so happened they were both awful this year. Mizzou will always be a drag to everyone in the conference and honestly needs to get booted to the B10 where they belong. Tennessee and Florida are always great series to host. Foley’s size is fine. Folks need to realize in places where stadium seating is 5-10,000 that they are the only baseball in the area. No minor league ball, no MLB within driving distance. That matters. Also, many of those programs have a tradition of winning and of schools investing in baseball - not just the facilities, but also the fan experience. The music Foley plays is trash. Just recycled band music. It’s not football. Make homeruns exciting. Playing the fight song isn’t exciting. And for goodness sake get nicer uniforms instead of reusing the same rags with Nike font when other sports have moved on from that. And I agree with the person who rebuked season ticket holders who sell their tickets to the highest bidder. Last thing I want to see are Miss St fans sitting behind home plate in the Supers. I saw Tenn fans sitting there in our first series. It’s a very bad look. Maybe sell season tickets to people who actually care about baseball.

As scheduling is concerned, I said “ended up being” for a reason. By the time the Carolina and LSU series arrived both teams were already in the tank. Would’ve been different had we played LSU early in the year and we still should’ve had a better crowd for the clinching series. But when baseball is having to compete with the busy spring schedules in and around Atlanta, the opponent is going to matter. Tennessee and Florida were our best home opponents and those crowds were pretty good. The other 3 series were a wet blanket and our best series of the year otherwise were all played on the road. Completely agree on the music. I wish we could clone Matthew Kaminski so he could be a permanent fixture at Foley; games are better when he’s there. I also hate that UGA has done nothing to promote the chants that Ted Deiter used to try to lead behind home plate (calling the dawgs after a run, the “walk that dawg” chant with a 3-ball count). The most personality we have is Billy Squire and that has now been copied as nauseam by every other team so it’s not even unique anymore. As for unis, I have been beating that same drum for wel over a decade now. ArkansaS, USC, LSU, MSU, Texas, and Ole Miss all hve baseball-unique logos and UGA has one too - we just don’t ever use it (beyond randomly slapping it on player pullovers they wear on road trips?) Bulldog Bold was a terrible “brand synergy” decision made by a feckless and dying company that had fallen wel” behind Adidas in the past 15 years. If baseball wants to step out of the shadow of football and actually stand out, it needs its own brand identity and going back to the 80s block G with the Red Sox style lettering is a great place to start.

This is an interesting conversation, but I have to wonder how many of you folks are long time supporters of the program? The attendance/Foley size issue is in part a byproduct of the up and down flow of the program since the NC in 1990. We've had many peaks and valleys in on field success that quite honestly has never necessitated a dramatically larger stadium to accommodate "all the folks." Truth be told we have a lot of band wagon fans these days and that's normal given our success as of late, but it's also the reality. I have long believed we could move the scoreboard to LC and use the area in RC to create more dynamic seating which could add another couple thousand seats. That would bring capacity to around 5,600 which would be fine 90% of the season. As to the (sold) vs. butts in the seats argument lets look at the OOC schedule at Foley: Wright State (4) USC Upstate (1) Samford (3) Troy (2) Oakland (4) Western Carolina (1) Queens (4) ETSU (1) Citadel (1) Kenn State (1) GA State (1) Of those 23 games vs. incredibly mediocre opposition CWJ chose to start 8 of them at 3pm on weekdays. That's not conducive to working folks/families so you'll obviously see a dip SEC Tennessee South Carolina Florida Missouri LSU It really wasn't a good home slate given the fact that 3/5 teams didn't make the NCAA tournament in a league where we had 12/16 make it. The stadium size issue will take care of itself in time with either sustained success (and expansion in the areas discussed) or a return to history (rise and fall of the program) where it's not a concern.

UGDawwg said:

This is an interesting conversation, but I have to wonder how many of you folks are long time supporters of the program? The attendance/Foley size issue is in part a byproduct of the up and down flow of the program since the NC in 1990. We've had many peaks and valleys in on field success that quite honestly has never necessitated a dramatically larger stadium to accommodate "all the folks." Truth be told we have a lot of band wagon fans these days and that's normal given our success as of late, but it's also the reality. I have long believed we could move the scoreboard to LC and use the area in RC to create more dynamic seating which could add another couple thousand seats. That would bring capacity to around 5,600 which would be fine 90% of the season. As to the (sold) vs. butts in the seats argument lets look at the OOC schedule at Foley: Wright State (4) USC Upstate (1) Samford (3) Troy (2) Oakland (4) Western Carolina (1) Queens (4) ETSU (1) Citadel (1) Kenn State (1) GA State (1) Of those 23 games vs. incredibly mediocre opposition CWJ chose to start 8 of them at 3pm on weekdays. That's not conducive to working folks/families so you'll obviously see a dip SEC Tennessee South Carolina Florida Missouri LSU It really wasn't a good home slate given the fact that 3/5 teams didn't make the NCAA tournament in a league where we had 12/16 make it. The stadium size issue will take care of itself in time with either sustained success (and expansion in the areas discussed) or a return to history (rise and fall of the program) where it's not a concern.

Totally agree on expansion plan and 5600-6000 is all the capacity you will need. Georgia baseball fans are fickle for the reasons you stated. There's just more options to watch good baseball within a 2 hour drive of Athens. Oxford, Starkville, Fayetteville, Knoxville just don't have that. It matters.

C17 Dawg said:

Totally agree on expansion plan and 5600-6000 is all the capacity you will need. Georgia baseball fans are fickle for the reasons you stated. There's just more options to watch good baseball within a 2 hour drive of Athens. Oxford, Starkville, Fayetteville, Knoxville just don't have that. It matters.

100% and for the record if I had extra baseball tickets for the weekend I'd sell them to a fan like you. I just hate these folks that DGAS about the baseball team all season but then have an opportunity to swoop in for some of the best seats come post season.

RyanJordan said:

There isn’t one. We already spent a fortune to renovate when it would’ve cost the same or less to build brand new. The only option is LF and that gets you maybe 500 seats. Those seats would also be a million miles from HP. We are stuck with what we have, and that’s going to have to do. Foley is beautiful and unique.

Can you show me said plans for a new stadium that would be same or less than renovations? I haven't seen one.

UGDawwg said:

This is an interesting conversation, but I have to wonder how many of you folks are long time supporters of the program? The attendance/Foley size issue is in part a byproduct of the up and down flow of the program since the NC in 1990. We've had many peaks and valleys in on field success that quite honestly has never necessitated a dramatically larger stadium to accommodate "all the folks." Truth be told we have a lot of band wagon fans these days and that's normal given our success as of late, but it's also the reality. I have long believed we could move the scoreboard to LC and use the area in RC to create more dynamic seating which could add another couple thousand seats. That would bring capacity to around 5,600 which would be fine 90% of the season. As to the (sold) vs. butts in the seats argument lets look at the OOC schedule at Foley: Wright State (4) USC Upstate (1) Samford (3) Troy (2) Oakland (4) Western Carolina (1) Queens (4) ETSU (1) Citadel (1) Kenn State (1) GA State (1) Of those 23 games vs. incredibly mediocre opposition CWJ chose to start 8 of them at 3pm on weekdays. That's not conducive to working folks/families so you'll obviously see a dip SEC Tennessee South Carolina Florida Missouri LSU It really wasn't a good home slate given the fact that 3/5 teams didn't make the NCAA tournament in a league where we had 12/16 make it. The stadium size issue will take care of itself in time with either sustained success (and expansion in the areas discussed) or a return to history (rise and fall of the program) where it's not a concern.

I agree. You aren’t going to put many fans in the seats when you are playing mid-week games at 3pm. I would love to be able to support baseball but just don’t have the resources with 4 kids, not to mention I live in Virginia. The rare opportunity I had to enjoy games in person has been through the incredible generosity of those who do support the baseball program.

UGDawwg said:

100% and for the record if I had extra baseball tickets for the weekend I'd sell them to a fan like you. I just hate these folks that DGAS about the baseball team all season but then have an opportunity to swoop in for some of the best seats come post season.

Its truly maddening to me. When I sell tickets, I always try to envision a dad taking his son to the game. Why would I want to gouge them out of that experience? I don't need the money that bad. Maybe that's the difference. But I doubt it.