(08-15-2023, 12:17 PM)branner Wrote: I am not making excuses for the lack of fan interest. Stanford needs to put a product on the field that will excite more than its alumni base.
We did that though! We were in Rose Bowls and Orange Bowls and with Heísman candidates on a yearly basis, and still weren't filling the stadium.
More community outreach or advertising or special ticket deals wouldn't have helped. Maybe a little on the margins but not enough to make up for being a small, elite private school in a part of the country that is not very interested in college football.
When the super league comes, we won't be in it, and neither will any other small private school like us.
I think college football and the media overlords are unfortunately locked in a vicious spiral. The super league may be really interesting for the fans of the biggest and best football schools, but culling all the other schools will cut back on overall viewers. They will have to charge more and more to those super league fans for an add on package, but I don't think the price raises will make up for the volume they are losing.
Hopefully once it all blows up things can be rebuilt in a way where Stanford can have relevance in football but I doubt that.