re: This Tiger Stadium problem was years in the making (long)

Agee with you RB10 2007 was the pinnacle of TS for me.

Everybody wanted to beat Tebow and Fla soo bad.USCe tailgate was funTS rocked in the rain. Auburn tailgate and last second win.

No I said be on campus two hours prior to kickoff, not leave the house. As in, when we park and get out the car to walk to the stadium, it's 2 hrs till kickoff.

Have been doing that as a ritual since the early 80's, and up until 2006, it has slowly transgressed over the years.

agree w/everything. Good post.

Major problem is TV. Back in the day games were blacked out over a 100 mile radius of stadium.
Drinking?... I been carrying a flask in since I was a student in the '60's and still do today. Not hard to carry in liquor. You just need to use a little creativity. Black um out. It would prevent people from leaving at halftime and getting home for second half on the tube.

Yes, I was totally embarrassed at kick off yesterday.30 thousand empty seats against Florida/.

The NEZ was half full or empty, which ever way you want to look at it. That's terrible for two ranked teams. Anytime you have 100,000 plus people in one place, there will be issues to deal with. You go to the game because you love Tiger football, not because it's convenient. There is plenty that would love to go to the games and stay until the end. If you don't want to go, stop buying tickets and driving up the price.

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in case you didn't notice, the East Upper was pretty empty

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It was hotter than the Hubs of Hell. All the while I'm roasting, I'm looking at all those nice sideline seats below the press box that the corporations and the geriatrics hold and don't use. Tickets are scanned-if your seats are unused >50% of the time, you lose them and they are put back into play. There is zero opportunity to upgrade, even though there are thousands of prime seats unused for all but one game per year.

If you look at my original post, I said we are in an arms race in my first point. I do not have a problem with the seat fees or license fees. The sad truth is Bama, Georgia, Florida, and others have huge budgets and it makes a difference on the field. I remember Fedora begging the USM administration to raise his budget for hiring staff from $850,000 to $1.2 million. That is why they are USM and we are LSU. As Saban always said, its always about the money. So do not think I disagree with the seat, license, or tradition fund fees. We need them. Period.

Having written that, keep in mind my post was not just about money. LSU football is a tradition, an experience. My observation was the experience is being reduced for the average fan. I don't mean the fan who watches on tv and never went to LSU while he wears an LSU jersey on the weekends. I mean the fan who has season tickets. He may have a tailgating group with friends. He goes to one or two road games a year when possible. He would go to the coaches show and would make a Bayou Bash or two.

Now look at it from his point of view. He goes to Walk On's. He has to sit in another room. Can't even see the coach. He goes to the Bash. He can bring some binoculars to see the coach. He and his friends tailgate on campus. Now they have to go pay fees and go through that rigamarole. Starting to see how the experience of LSU football is being reduced for him?

Now you go to the game. Traffic's a bitch. Atmosphere is more dead because well, not as many people are paying to park on campus. Goes to the game (I'll leave the search issue alone for now) and instead of listening to the band, its stupid piped in music. Instead of traditions that are unique to Tiger Stadium, Tiger Stadium now sounds more like every other stadium in the country. No more Neck. No Tiger Rag. The songs unique to LSU that make it special. Then there is the band itself. The product on the field has gone down. Just one more chip in the LSU block of tradition.

Thats for the average season ticket holding LSU fan. Now move down the ladder to the younger crowd. They might can afford tickets but they say screw it. Not worth all this hassle for something I can see on tv and drink if I want to.

What the administration has done is reduce the experience for LSU fans. Its not about who can afford what. Its more about what is the experience for the fans and how much are they going to tolerate. The empty seats are the reality. The question is what are the reasons for those empty seats and what is going to be done about it.



Its always been my hypothesis that one of the downfalls of boxing (one among several reasons) was when the sport started putting all the decent fights on pay per view. Raised alot more money but cut off access to kids. One generation of kids grew up never seeing major fights on cable or network tv as Ali used to fight and voila. No one watches boxing anymore while Ultimate Fighting is on the rise.

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This is happening all over the SEC.

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Not sure that's true.

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Living in Florida my wife (Uf Grad) and I had season tickets at UF. We let them go this year because it simply was no longer fun.

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It is definetiely happening in Florida, and I think more SEC schools than not, but I don't think it's happening at all of them, at least the the extent it is here and at Florida.

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You keep refering the $ but the games are sold out. Its not a purchase $ issue. Its an attendance and staying at the game issue.

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and during the end of the Smoke years when attendance was really bad, those seats were sold.

So do you want Tiger Stadium to be the um, paper tiger of college football?