By J.D. EDDY, Editorial Editor
Northwestern is a small school in northwest Oklahoma, and our sports attendance reflects that.
Compare Northwestern to other D2 schools like Fort Valley University or Tuskegee University in Alabama, which average 9,000 to 10,000 fans per football game.
We do not have the student enrollment to have the same number of people other universities are able to pull in during sporting events. But Northwestern can make changes to increase turnout at sporting events.
The average attendance for a Northwestern football game in 2021 was 2,912, filling up half of the stadium on the home side. That is more than we have at the school.
That number does not include people who watch the games online through a livestream. Northwestern averages around 3,000 online fans.
Northwestern officials reported that the football game against East Central had an attendance of 6,500, but they did not break down the number of in-person and online attendees.
The catalyst for this large attendance is because it was the annual Family Day event, a widely attended recruitment event.
I’m from a small town, and I know that football is a “must-have” in a small town.
Having a college in a small community makes the college the pride and joy of that town. This is especially true for Alva because we are 60 to 100 miles from any major sports team in Kansas and Oklahoma.
As a result, Northwestern is a prime source of sports entertainment for people in Alva. We offer baseball, football, basketball, soccer, cross-country, track and even esports.
If you were at the basketball game Saturday, you would think there is no problem with attendance.
The average attendance at the boys and girls games is 500, but the Hall of Fame game Saturday had 800 attendees.
Percefull Fieldhouse has a maximum capacity of 2,100 people. That means less than half of the gym is filled during an average game.
Our baseball team has an average attendance of 100 to 150 people per game. The players were legitimate playoff contenders, moving into the first round with a .615 win percentage, according to the university’s Athletic Communications website.
Yet it has the lowest attendance of most sports on campus, including soccer. Neither of these sports receive as much exposure as football or basketball.
The Hall of Fame game tends to draw a large crowd no matter where you are.
My dad graduated from Northwestern, and he has had the same friend group since the day that he graduated.
I bring this up to point out that, when we have events like this with teams that win, attendance goes up. So does the money that we bring in.
When we have greater attendance, we can also have more promotions to increase attendance.
I believe the school can boost attendance at sporting events by advertising them more.
By giving teams more of a social media presence, and even putting up posters around town, will help bring money and patrons into our programs.
Towards the end of the baseball season, attendance spiked to 400 people, though there’s no differentiation between in-person and online viewers.
My hometown had similar attendance problems and limited funding for marketing. The school board voted to increase marketing funds and raise ticket prices by $5, and as a result, attendance went up.
When attendance went up, so did revenue. This allowed our baseball and softball teams to build better facilities.
Players also got new equipment.
I think the school should increase ticket prices for at least one sport to increase revenue that can be used for marketing. While some would say raising ticket prices is a bad idea for attendance, people will pay when we can start winning.
If these sports allotted more money for advertisement, it would bring about donations for the program and the school.
I personally think these are some of the ways to increase attendance and increase the quality of games. With higher attendance, the crowd factor always goes up.