Attendance: lacrosse vs. hockey at Cornell

[billhoward]

Princeton at Cornell lacrosse, April 2005, official attendance 1,150

They're both the national sports of Canada, Cornell excels in both, yet in hockey Cornell fills a 3,800-seat arena every game, while in lacrosse it's a special game when more than 1,000 fans show up. Can anyone currently on the Hill explain?

[French Rage]

I'm not there now, but was during 2000-2004.  You just dont hear as much about it.  Football has American tradition, and hockey is hockey.  Those who follows school sports know the team is good, but by far I dont think many others do.  IT simply doesnt get as much coverage or word of mouth.  Game times probly dont help; 7pm Friday and Saturday is easier than early Saturday or sometime during the week.  Springtime might have something to do, people want to go places when the weather's good, unlike winter when hockey has the entertainment monopoly.

[KeithK]

Hockey is just more popular.  The NHL is still considered a major pro sport in the US, even if it is a clear fourth and regional (and who knows where it will be post-stoppage).  Lacrosse is also a regional sport and it has very minor appeal in the US.  Just look at the pro-lacrosse league.

Now maybe you think lacrosse should have broad appeal.  But it doesn't so it's absolutely no surprise that the support at Cornell is relatively weak.

[Hillel Hoffmann]

Although the steady decline of attendance at lacrosse games at Cornell is depressing to me, it's not surprising. Attendance at all Ivy League sports events has been declining for decades.

But I'll you what IS surprising: Attendance at Cornell games has declined much more rapidly then attendance at all other Ivy schools, with the exception of Pennsylvania. Cornell had only one 1,000+ home crowd all year -- the Princeton game seen above (I don't know how attendance was tonight against Hobart). Otherwise less than 500 people showed up per game. Cornell has been passed by the likes of Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, and Harvard when it comes to lax attendance. That steams me, because it's happening at a time when the team is playing at a sustained high level.

It's not realistic to expect the 5,000-12,000 crowds that we saw in the 1970s (and occasionally in the 1980s). But I don't expect to see Cornellians abandon lacrosse more quickly than other Ivy fans, and I don't expect near total indifference to an endemic sport that's familiar and beloved by so many people in the state.

[DeltaOne81]

According to the box score on CornellBigRed.com, the game today was attended by 1337. Best crowd of the year, although I'm sure a Hobart contingent helped that. And they also didn't have a Syracuse home game this year which would have helped the numbers.

As a person who always tried to get friends to come to the lax games with me, and only ever succeeded with my gf who now enjoys the sport also, I can attest that it's very difficult to get students interested and I don't really know why.

I guess my friends mainly weren't interested in sports, except they would certainly willingling go to hockey just because it's the thing to do. I think part of it is the shortage of tickets, versus Schoellkopf where you can just walk in any time you please. Without a demand like that, it makes it seem less appealing. With hockey, either your a season ticket holder and "did your time", or it's a special invite to get to go to a game. Not sure what you could do about that. I suppose they could try a 'Schoellkopf sellout' thing for lax, but they'd just make themselves look even stupider than when they do for football.

Also, yeah, the lacrosse timing is less than ideal for college students. Noon or 1 pm on a Saturday is early. Either that or 4 pm on a Tuesday when you may have a class or a 7 pm prelim.

Gotta give credit to the Sun for covering the team and covering them well.

Afterall, we have a great sample right now. The people on here who are students who either 1) don't care about lax or 2) care but follow it on eLF instead of going down to the cresent. Care to defend yourselves?

[Will]

[Q]DeltaOne81 Wrote:

 According to the box score on CornellBigRed.com, the game today was attended by 1337. [/q]


1337 of us?  w00t!

[DeltaOne81]

[Q]Will Wrote:

 [Q2]DeltaOne81 Wrote:

 According to the box score on CornellBigRed.com, the game today was attended by 1337. [/Q]
1337 of us?  w00t![/q]
Haha... you know when I wrote 1337 it seemed odd, but I didn't realize why

[peterg]

[Q]DeltaOne81 Wrote:

 According to the box score on CornellBigRed.com, the game today was attended by 1337. Best crowd of the year, although I'm sure a Hobart contingent helped that.  [/q]

It seemed to me to be the biggest crowd of the year tonight, even without a lot of students (Slope Day didn't help attendance I'm sure).  It also seemed to me to be a relatively small Hobart contingent compared to other years when the Hobart fans outnumbered or at least out-yelled the Cornell fans.  Hobart fans were mostly family and not the usual rowdy students we were used to at one time.  Nevertheless, I bet there were quite a few more than 1337 in attendance, as well, as it seemed that gate control was, pardon the pun, lax, and a lot of people (including me and the group I brought from the HS game) just walked in.  

Of the seven lacrosse events (games and the Drexel scrimmage) that were in Ithaca this year, five occurred on or before April 9.  Frankly, the weather was lousy.  That never helps attendance.  

The game times are inconvenient.  It is also a big annoyance that the University markets the games to the community and then it is impossible to find parking and you end up with a ticket.  They charge non-Cornell people $5 for a ticket to attend.

Some things are beyond the control of the University, but Cornell doesn't do much to help attendance for lacrosse.

[billhoward]

[Q]Hillel Hoffmann Wrote:  Although the steady decline of attendance at lacrosse games at Cornell is depressing to me, it's not surprising. Attendance at all Ivy League sports events has been declining for decades. ... But I'll you what IS surprising: Attendance at Cornell games has declined much more rapidly then attendance at all other Ivy schools, with the exception of Pennsylvania. Cornell had only one 1,000+ home crowd all year -- the Princeton game seen above (I don't know how attendance was tonight against Hobart). Otherwise less than 500 people showed up per game. Cornell has been passed by the likes of Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, and Harvard when it comes to lax attendance. That steams me, because it's happening at a time when the team is playing at a sustained high level. .... It's not realistic to expect the 5,000-12,000 crowds that we saw in the 1970s (and occasionally in the 1980s). But I don't expect to see Cornellians abandon lacrosse more quickly than other Ivy fans, and I don't expect near total indifference to an endemic sport that's familiar and beloved by so many people in the state.[/q]The Ivies are not alone in seeing attendance falling off. It's a phenomenon affecting most all college sports across all of America. Ohio State or Michigan may fill their 100,000-seat stadiums but not with students. It's alumni and townspeople/boosters. (Cornell hockey may be one of the exceptions.) If Cornell students are doing StairMaster instead of sunning themselves at Schoellkopf while the lacrosse team plays, okay, it's probably better to be in good shape than watch athletes who are in really good shape.

Having forgotten how poorly Cornell home games have been attended, at the last two Cornell lacrosse games at Princeton, I thought wrongly how sad it was to see the stands only half to three-quarters full. (It was impressive that the Big Red Pep Band showed but not the Princeton band.) I didn't realize that 2000-3000 was pretty good compared to what Cornell is drawing.

Maybe hockey draws more because hockey is a (semi) major sport and there's a long history of winning at Cornell. While Cornell has more and more recent lacrosse championships, it's still before they were born. Maybe there is nothing else to do on a winter weekend. Maybe when you can't get tickets you're willing to stand in line for tickets.

It is sad if other Ivy schools haven't had the falloff in lacrosse participation that Cornell did. Upstate New York is one of the hotbeds of lacrosse. It's hard to believe there aren't at least 1,000 freshmen coming in each year whose schools played lacrosse and played it seriously.

Could it be Schoellkopf Field is just too big? It may look comfortable with 10,000 or even 5,000 but when it falls to 1,500 max, it looks deserted and you feel uncomfortable, sort of the way four people feel uncomfortable sitting in a grand living room with a 12-foot ceiling. It's too late to fix this except with dynamite, but imagine if Lower Alumni Field (that would be what's directly across from Barton, next to Teagle - ie Comstock Hall) was still a sports field and not one more academic building. Imagine that Ari could walk over from his afternoon ILR class and be watching a lax game 90 seconds later.

Is there any possibility - I meant this as a joke but now I wonder - if the falloff in interest in lacrosse correlates to the advent of the 21-year-drinking age and the hassles of bringing a couple beers into the stadium? Hobart students can't handle their beer, but Cornell students for the most part have known when to say when.

[Liz '05]

[Q]DeltaOne81 Wrote:
Afterall, we have a great sample right now. The people on here who are students who either 1) don't care about lax or 2) care but follow it on eLF instead of going down to the cresent. Care to defend yourselves? [/q]


I went to a high school that was very good at lacrosse, but saw my first lacrosse game this season, v. Princeton.  Wow.  I loved it.  But, and I'm going to echo other comments here, the timing of the games does not help.  Football is always around 1, 1:30 on Saturdays, hockey is always at 7 pm on Friday and Saturday.  The only question is whether it's a home or away weekend.  I can't guess at when the lacrosse games will be, so I often miss them, even if I would like to go.  Messing around on eLynah as often as I do helps, because I usually get a heads-up from some poster that a game is coming up.
Generalized sports apathy is another problem - most of my friends don't care about Cornell sports.  They might care about the teams their boyfriends are on, they might care about hockey because you're supposed to care about hockey, but they're amazed that I actually know how, say, the soccer teams are doing.  (And that's only because I read the Sun sports section.)  They're not the type to go to any game, and I'm not sure what anyone could do to fix that.

[Lauren '06]

[Q]peterg Wrote:

It seemed to me to be the biggest crowd of the year tonight, even without a lot of students (Slope Day didn't help attendance I'm sure).[/Q]Paradoxically, Slope Day greatly IMPROVED the attendance of pep band members.  Biggest band we've had all season.  I guess I could pin it on my fantastic job promoting the event.  ::nut::

[Q]Liz '05 Wrote:

Generalized sports apathy is another problem - most of my friends don't care about Cornell sports.  They might care about the teams their boyfriends are on, they might care about hockey because you're supposed to care about hockey, but they're amazed that I actually know how, say, the soccer teams are doing.  (And that's only because I read the Sun sports section.)  They're not the type to go to any game, and I'm not sure what anyone could do to fix that.[/q]Solution: Get better friends. :-D

Seriously, it's a growing trend for the academic-minded to have a healthy distaste for sports.  I think that's a big part of why there's been a drop-off in interest in the pep band, even for hockey... they feel it's somehow "immoral" to support something that, in their minds, takes a lot of money and administrative attention away from academics.

[DeltaOne81]

Thanks for your input, Liz. One thing you kinda misunderstood what I said... the lax times are *pretty* consistent, although not as much so as hockey, but what I meant is that most of them are 1 pm on Saturday (occassionally noon, but I think those tend to be away games, Cornell tends to schedule them at 1). And 1 on Saturday is a bad time for college kids, no matter how consistent it may be.

I made a special effort because I'm a huge sports fan and once I forced myself to the first lacrosse game (in the rain ), I was hooked.

And the lax exceptions are pretty consistent. Syracuse is on Tuesday at 7 (home or away), Binghamton has been on Wednesday at 4 (moment of silence...) . Other than that, they're all Saturday at 1. Which may be consistent, but isn't easy to get up for after going to sleep at 2 or 3 or later the night before.

Other than the fact that they'd be bucking lacrosse tradition, putting weekend games at say 4 would probably be a good first step. But other than that, yeah, it's generalized sports apathy (good phrase) except for hockey. Football gets more townie interest and I think as a freshman/sophomore you naturally want to go to the football game cause you associate that with college sports, then you realize we often suck and it's not a big event anyway when you can't find a friend to go with you anymore. Wrestling has definitely been getting crowds, but again it's townie based.

Success definitely can't hurt, but it might take a national title or so to garner real attention. Then again, it doesn't help that the Final 4 is after the Sun stops printing and all the students leave, except seniors who are just a little bit busy that weekend.

[BCrespi]

[Q]Seriously, it's a growing trend for the academic-minded to have a healthy distaste for sports.  I think that's a big part of why there's been a drop-off in interest in the pep band, even for hockey... they feel it's somehow "immoral" to support something that, in their minds, takes a lot of money and administrative attention away from academics.[/q]

I couldn't agree more.  They're the same people who bitch for hours on end about letting athletes into the university on slightly reduced academic standards.  Of course, these are the very same people who were the president of seven (insert generic club/organization name here) to make themselves a "more rounded student."  Not that we all  didn't do that, just have some respect for yourselves and others and manage a half-decent argument.  Athletics are just another thing to measure one by, and if someone is in the top couple hundred at something in the nation, why shouldn't they be recognized for it, so long as they can handle themselves here?  Anyway, sorry for the rant, but this is definitely one of my pet peeves.

[Trotsky]

Well it isn't just a PC issue.  I had no ideological problem with sports or student-athletes when I was on the hill, but other than hockey I probably attended fewer than a half dozen of all other sporting events combined in 4+ years.  It just didn't fit my priorities (study, drink, repeat...).

[billhoward]

[Q]Section A Banshee Wrote: Seriously, it's a growing trend for the academic-minded to have a healthy distaste for sports.  I think that's a big part of why there's been a drop-off in interest in the pep band, even for hockey... they feel it's somehow "immoral" to support something that, in their minds, takes a lot of money and administrative attention away from academics.[/q]Dislike of the academic elite for the athletic elite is not a new phenomenon. Today, as a generation ago, it must really tick off some short, geeky guys with glasses trying to get in Hopkins Med that there are tall, muscular hockey players who played, started, starred, earned post-season honors ... and are at Yale Med right now. There are simply going to be students at Cornell who are more well-rounded than others. To paraphrase Gore Vidal, "When a friend succeeds, a little something inside me dies."

Drawing 1,000 fans for a lacrosse game, that does not go back a generation.

Good thing the highest ranking Cornell alum in the administration who is of the academic elite is also a sports nut of the highest order.