Though the point is well-taken with Division I schools, hockey
attendance at Div. II schools with Div. I hockey programs is very
important.  North Dakota, for example, has a great Div. II football
team.  In the last five years it has placed #1 in its conference four
times, and #2 once, boosting attendance near the max.  A sellout game
at ND is about 10,000 fans.  In the Div. II football schedule, there
are only about 5 home games, leading to a max of 50,000 tickets sold
(realistically, say average attendance is 5000, for 25,000 tickets
sold).
 
North Dakota hockey, on the other hand, sells out at about 6500
(Minnesota and Wisconsin games tend to sell out).  Guessing an
average attendance of just 3000 (I think its higher), thats still
57,000 tickets sold because of the significantly longer season (19
home games this year).  I know that a couple years ago, for sure,
hockey revenues were significantly higher than football revenues at
North Dakota.
 
On Wed, 4 Dec 1996 13:55:29 -0500, Dan Lee wrote:
>On Wed, 4 Dec 1996, Debbie Somers wrote:
>> I don't mean to come across as a major cynic, but the color of the sky over
>> Bowling Green must be different than most of the rest of the country.  For
>> any college sport that incurs expenses, the relative importance of
>> attendance is pretty high.
>
>Not at all for most Division I schools.  Most schools with football and
>basketball use those programs to fund the rest of their athletic
>programs.  How else do you explain NCAA Synchronized Swimming, Cross
>Country or Rowing?  There's absolutely no way that those programs can ever
>hope to make a profit, break even, or come anywhere near breaking even.
>As I sit here and consider the schools in the CCHA, for instance, the football
>and basketball programs at Ohio State, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre
>Dame, and maybe Bowling Green create enough revenue that if nobody went
>to hockey games, the team would continue to exist.  Heck, at Ohio State,
>they don't even seem to want anybody to go, with their 500 seat arena.
>
>Have you considered the possibility that the sky in Stevens Point is a
>different color than most of the rest of the country?
 
***********************************************************
Jim Dahl                              [log in to unmask]
http://www.cs.und.nodak.edu/~dahl
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