Rowdy wrote:My guess is you were among, perhaps, a number of fans you could have counted on one or two hands at the most.
I'm hoping you were exaggerating, but not sure so my guess is as follows: Ga State game in Atlanta drew maybe 500. Games I saw at Wofford maybe 100-200. Furman playoff game maybe 600-700.
However, remember the team was 7-12-1. I was around during the Rick Gilstrap years and football was not drawing enough to fill half of Snyder Field. It's all relative, soccer at Wofford will never be as big as football. There are many reasons why one being every year football produces approx 20 new alumni (new Terrier Club members), this year soccer produced 3 new alumni.
Rowdy wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong because I've never gone to a soccer game, male or female, Wofford or otherwise. And I have no plans to go to one. Don't even understand the sport. But, is this a game anyone cares about? I mean, does anyone care enough about it to fill a couple of seats?
The sport is not that hard to understand. Kind of like hockey, just a ball instead of sticks and a puck. But there are a lot of people who "care". As far as growth, here are the numbers I could find:
Sport Participation by year in the U.S. (in thousands)
Baseball 1987-15,098, 2003-10,885, 16 yr. change -2.1
Basketball 1987-35,737, 2003-35,439 16 yr. change -0.8
Football 1987-20,292, 2003-14,119, 16 yr. change -30.4
Soccer 1987-15,388, 2003-17,679, 16 yr. change +14.9
Sources: Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA) Annual Survey 2004 (
www.SGMA.com), U.S. Soccer Federation, Chicago, U.S. National Soccer Players Association, World Almanach for Kids, Wikipedia.
Clemson and Carolina consistently draw 3,000-5,000 at Men's games. Fox Soccer Channel broadcasts a college game of the week on Friday nights and this year there were a couple of SoCon teams that played. Furman charged $5 a seat at the playoff game. Furman also has 2 very recent alumni playing professionally (one in the English Premiere League) and a player form this years team has just been selected to the US National U-23 team. These are the type of alumni that bring publicity to the program on a national scale and create the necessary funding environment. So it is not out of the realm of possibility that a successful Wofford program while not making money could certainly offset a great deal of costs and generate some very positive PR for the college.
Rowdy wrote:We've got limited resources at Wofford. Put the money where it counts ........ football and mens basketball! If you had one or two additional scholarships next year, where would you put them? I'd put them in football. Maximum return for the money. 8500 fans at Gibbs Stadium Sat. night. My guess it would take 100 soccer games to garner 8500 fans?????????????????
Why? So we can win the SoCon and compete for a National Championship and get on television? Oh wait we just did that. With this mentality, we may as well just take all the money and give it to football and field the teams in the other sports to meet NCAA requirements but just let them all get drummed every time they step on the field. Ideally as "dude" pointed out we care about the success of the entire athletic program.
Furthermore, the point is Wofford is about taking high quality young men and women with a great deal of potential and helping them reach that potential. The demographics of youth soccer fit quite nicely with this mission so it is about more than filling seats on Saturday.