FB: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[BoBo]

You came onto this board with a low blow attack saying "I just think it's funny that some of you UWW guys (certainly not all) are happy to take a crap on other schools in pretty much any way possible". 

You used Bobo's opinion as an example.  We can argue whether that is an attack, but I'm looking for the examples of "some of you UWW guys" doing what you say.  And when you find an example of a UWW guy doing so, understand that I will find, I will absolutely find, examples of it being done by people on all kinds of these boards, and I will search for your posts attacking them in the same way.  And my guess is that I'm not likely to find your attacks.  Why do you think that is?   

I literally just did give you an example.  BoBo took a big, steaming dump on the Oshkosh program - their history, their attendance, and even their recent success.  Show me where I did the same thing to any program, at any time.  As for the last two sentences of the post, I am confused.  You're not likely to find my attacks because...I don't go around taking a dump on other programs?

EDIT: ah, now I understand the last portion.  Sorry that I don't have time to go around correcting every board injustice, emma.  Maybe you can help with the case load.

"BoBo took a big, steaming dump on the Oshkosh program." Listen, what I said was neither egregious, nor untrue. I took 2 common facts that any WIAC follower already knows, wrote them down in a post responding to a drive-by Oshkosh dude asking (an extremely stupid) hypothetical question, then finished with an opinion and you as message board cop call it sh*tting on UWO. You need to get a real life. What does it really have to do with you anyway??? If I wanted to take a "big, steaming dump on the Oshkosh program," I could mention a few other things that would really make your head explode. When it's all said and done, it's like having a squabble with your brother. A normal part of growing up. Lighten up extartan!!

Most of the time, I get this disturbing feeling you and a few, select others who occasionally drop by here, do so for no other reason than to nit-pick every post and, by doing so, contribute to the sissification of this board. You guys just don't get it. Message boards are for bickering only, not agreeing with or supporting anybody's observation/opinions. I take my share of flak and 96% of the time I say things expecting to receive it. But, this is one of those 4% times. Now, before you or one of those people I'm talking about, say, sissification, what's that? Is that a word? Well no, it's urban slang. Look it up.   

S0...

...If I want to express truthful facts about Oshkosh's woeful history, I will. 

...If I want to express something truthful about Oshkosh's attendance woes (I openly and clearly exaggerated a number slightly, OMG, shoot me - I'm hardly the first to use the technique of exaggeration, hyperbole (wink, wink) on a message board, but I know I won't be the last person to use it), I will. Had I known you and Sager would have gotten so bent out of shape over the number I used, I would've raised it...well, maybe just a little.

...If I want to express my opinion about Oshkosh's recent history, I will.

...If I want to criticize the UWW TV online video stream quality,  student announcers, especially the sideline reporter and why she is there, I will.  Which I just did, again. oops.

After all, that's what this forum is for, expressing opinions. BTW, Oshkosh's history stats and attendance are freely available to any one on their football website - if they were as sensitive about that data as you appear to be, they wouldn't have it available for public viewing. Sue me for bringing it to your attention. I will kindly provide similar service in the future, with or without your consent. Thank you and good night (it's late here).

[retagent]

You came onto this board with a low blow attack saying "I just think it's funny that some of you UWW guys (certainly not all) are happy to take a crap on other schools in pretty much any way possible". 

You used Bobo's opinion as an example.  We can argue whether that is an attack, but I'm looking for the examples of "some of you UWW guys" doing what you say.  And when you find an example of a UWW guy doing so, understand that I will find, I will absolutely find, examples of it being done by people on all kinds of these boards, and I will search for your posts attacking them in the same way.  And my guess is that I'm not likely to find your attacks.  Why do you think that is?   

I literally just did give you an example.  BoBo took a big, steaming dump on the Oshkosh program - their history, their attendance, and even their recent success.  Show me where I did the same thing to any program, at any time.  As for the last two sentences of the post, I am confused.  You're not likely to find my attacks because...I don't go around taking a dump on other programs?

EDIT: ah, now I understand the last portion.  Sorry that I don't have time to go around correcting every board injustice, emma.  Maybe you can help with the case load.

As did I.

[palum]

As an outsider in the WW vs Oshkosh debate I think one point has not been made.  Program history and attendance have nothing to do with what goes on on the field.  Both Oshkosh and WW have impressive on the field resumes.  Oshkosh beat WW this year but they may face each other again in the playoffs.  When it comes to attendance its not only a sign of program strength but how each school creates a game day atmosphere.  As a Platteville fan I've been to both WW and Oshkosh.  WW is a pregame party (I've talked to some who have never made it into the game) at Oshkosh its find a place to park then buy your ticket & walk in.  In this day and age of tight budgets you would think schools would find a better way of marketing their programs home teams keep all of the gate.  WW drew 35,000 this year, Platteville drew 19,000 this year and Oshkosh drew 10,000.  All three have similar sized stadiums.  At $10 a ticket you would think a school would do everything possible to put more people in the stands.       

[ExTartanPlayer]

Most of the time, I get this disturbing feeling you and a few, select others who occasionally drop by here, do so for no other reason than to nit-pick every post and, by doing so, contribute to the sissification of this board.

I come by to post meaningful content, too.  For an example of such content, you can look at the previous page, where I discussed (with palum and bleedpurple) the process by which UWP was not given a Pool C bid, even though many of us feel that they probably should have.

[emma17]

You came onto this board with a low blow attack saying "I just think it's funny that some of you UWW guys (certainly not all) are happy to take a crap on other schools in pretty much any way possible". 

You used Bobo's opinion as an example.  We can argue whether that is an attack, but I'm looking for the examples of "some of you UWW guys" doing what you say.  And when you find an example of a UWW guy doing so, understand that I will find, I will absolutely find, examples of it being done by people on all kinds of these boards, and I will search for your posts attacking them in the same way.  And my guess is that I'm not likely to find your attacks.  Why do you think that is?   

I literally just did give you an example.  BoBo took a big, steaming dump on the Oshkosh program - their history, their attendance, and even their recent success.  Show me where I did the same thing to any program, at any time.  As for the last two sentences of the post, I am confused.  You're not likely to find my attacks because...I don't go around taking a dump on other programs?

EDIT: ah, now I understand the last portion.  Sorry that I don't have time to go around correcting every board injustice, emma.  Maybe you can help with the case load.

As did I.

Ret and Ex,
After some thought on this subject, I've decided I need to take a different approach.  If both of you (and any others like oshb and cubs) would like to comb through posts to identify the individual UWW posters that are "crapping all over other teams in any way possible", go ahead and post the comments and we can discuss it. 
I assume we can all agree that every board has at least one poster that has posted something that qualifies as "crapping all over other teams...", so I'm not going to spend time copying and pasting examples. 
By the way, I don't know for a fact that pg04 is a UWW guy.  Is he?
 
   

[pg04]

You came onto this board with a low blow attack saying "I just think it's funny that some of you UWW guys (certainly not all) are happy to take a crap on other schools in pretty much any way possible". 

You used Bobo's opinion as an example.  We can argue whether that is an attack, but I'm looking for the examples of "some of you UWW guys" doing what you say.  And when you find an example of a UWW guy doing so, understand that I will find, I will absolutely find, examples of it being done by people on all kinds of these boards, and I will search for your posts attacking them in the same way.  And my guess is that I'm not likely to find your attacks.  Why do you think that is?   

I literally just did give you an example.  BoBo took a big, steaming dump on the Oshkosh program - their history, their attendance, and even their recent success.  Show me where I did the same thing to any program, at any time.  As for the last two sentences of the post, I am confused.  You're not likely to find my attacks because...I don't go around taking a dump on other programs?

EDIT: ah, now I understand the last portion.  Sorry that I don't have time to go around correcting every board injustice, emma.  Maybe you can help with the case load.

As did I.

Ret and Ex,
After some thought on this subject, I've decided I need to take a different approach.  If both of you (and any others like oshb and cubs) would like to comb through posts to identify the individual UWW posters that are "crapping all over other teams in any way possible", go ahead and post the comments and we can discuss it. 
I assume we can all agree that every board has at least one poster that has posted something that qualifies as "crapping all over other teams...", so I'm not going to spend time copying and pasting examples. 
By the way, I don't know for a fact that pg04 is a UWW guy.  Is he?
 
   

Nope, I'm not. And I wasn't crapping all over St. John's despite what the other poster wanted to think. But no matter what I said I couldn't get him to understand my point so I stopped trying.

[emma17]

As an outsider in the WW vs Oshkosh debate I think one point has not been made.  Program history and attendance have nothing to do with what goes on on the field.  Both Oshkosh and WW have impressive on the field resumes.  Oshkosh beat WW this year but they may face each other again in the playoffs.  When it comes to attendance its not only a sign of program strength but how each school creates a game day atmosphere.  As a Platteville fan I've been to both WW and Oshkosh.  WW is a pregame party (I've talked to some who have never made it into the game) at Oshkosh its find a place to park then buy your ticket & walk in.  In this day and age of tight budgets you would think schools would find a better way of marketing their programs home teams keep all of the gate.  WW drew 35,000 this year, Platteville drew 19,000 this year and Oshkosh drew 10,000.  All three have similar sized stadiums.  At $10 a ticket you would think a school would do everything possible to put more people in the stands.       

Good info palum, thanks.
I'm sorry the Pioneers weren't selected for Pool C.  UWP is a very strong team and it's unfortunate they weren't compared head to head with all Pool C candidates.

[emma17]

You came onto this board with a low blow attack saying "I just think it's funny that some of you UWW guys (certainly not all) are happy to take a crap on other schools in pretty much any way possible". 

You used Bobo's opinion as an example.  We can argue whether that is an attack, but I'm looking for the examples of "some of you UWW guys" doing what you say.  And when you find an example of a UWW guy doing so, understand that I will find, I will absolutely find, examples of it being done by people on all kinds of these boards, and I will search for your posts attacking them in the same way.  And my guess is that I'm not likely to find your attacks.  Why do you think that is?   

I literally just did give you an example.  BoBo took a big, steaming dump on the Oshkosh program - their history, their attendance, and even their recent success.  Show me where I did the same thing to any program, at any time.  As for the last two sentences of the post, I am confused.  You're not likely to find my attacks because...I don't go around taking a dump on other programs?

EDIT: ah, now I understand the last portion.  Sorry that I don't have time to go around correcting every board injustice, emma.  Maybe you can help with the case load.

As did I.

Ret and Ex,
After some thought on this subject, I've decided I need to take a different approach.  If both of you (and any others like oshb and cubs) would like to comb through posts to identify the individual UWW posters that are "crapping all over other teams in any way possible", go ahead and post the comments and we can discuss it. 
I assume we can all agree that every board has at least one poster that has posted something that qualifies as "crapping all over other teams...", so I'm not going to spend time copying and pasting examples. 
By the way, I don't know for a fact that pg04 is a UWW guy.  Is he?
 
   

Nope, I'm not. And I wasn't crapping all over St. John's despite what the other poster wanted to think. But no matter what I said I couldn't get him to understand my point so I stopped trying.

Thanks for letting us know.  This is an example of how this "some UWW guys" thing can take on a life of its own and be just wrong.  Ret is often guilty of jumping to conclusions, but the problem is other readers see a comment like his and assume he has the facts straight. 

[cubs]

I took 2 common facts that any WIAC follower already knows, wrote them down in a post responding to a drive-by Oshkosh dude asking (an extremely stupid) hypothetical question, then finished with an opinion and you as message board cop call it sh*tting on UWO.

You wrote a lot there BoBo and while I might agree/disagree with some of the other points you made I kept coming back to the one sentence above...

If you have ever noticed AppletonRocks posting before, he typically posts something to see what kind of reaction he can get...  Nothing more, nothing less...  Case in point here (and on the WIAC Basketball board as it pertained to transfers.)

[cubs]

the problem is other readers see a comment like his and assume he has the facts straight.

This is exactly what I was talking about in my reply above....

[UWO Titan 78]

As a former player and alum of UWO the attendance issue has been a sore spot since well before I played there. When I was playing we were celebrating the program's 100th anniversary. We even had key chains made to hand out to the crowd! There was talk that the administration had made a huge promotional push and we were going to get 6,000 - 7,000 people for homecoming that year. I remember coming out of the locker room for the coin toss and seeing our usual 1,500 people and being disappointed. We were bad in the early 90s, but that wasn't the reason for a lack of attendance. There are factors that are problematic (the biggest being the stadium being off campus), but the biggest reason for lack of attendance (in all sports) is that students just aren't that invested in the university. Coming from Chicago, I was surprised how much my teammates cared about their former high schools and, especially, the Badgers. We would be in the locker room and often it would feel like guys were be more concerned with the Badger game than ours. If players are thinking about the Badgers, I'm sure the regular student body is too. In Wisconsin, at least in my 4-1/2 years, the pecking order for what students cared about was the Packers, Badgers, deer hunting, their high school community, their university (if it wasn't Madison). I'm very jealous of the fan base at Whitewater. I'm hopeful that we can build something similar at Oshkosh. Believe me, UWW was in the hunt for conference titles when I played at Oshkosh, and Perkins Stadium wasn't any more filled than Titan Stadium was. LAX won two national titles around my time at Oshkosh, and even those teams only drew 4,000 fans. I will say this, I will take winning a conference title in front of 1,500 fans any day rather than losing in front of a sellout crowd. Hopefully some day soon, Titan attendance can match the level of the product their putting on the field.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Coming from Chicago, I was surprised how much my teammates cared about their former high schools and, especially, the Badgers. We would be in the locker room and often it would feel like guys were be more concerned with the Badger game than ours. If players are thinking about the Badgers, I'm sure the regular student body is too. In Wisconsin, at least in my 4-1/2 years, the pecking order for what students cared about was the Packers, Badgers, deer hunting, their high school community, their university (if it wasn't Madison).

This is great insight, and definitely is a big part of the battle that any D3 school faces.  Kids who aren't on the team at (Local D3 Power) that grew up nearby following (Big State U) will always (understandably) be more worried about the Big State U game than their own school's game.

My fiancee has been teaching at Central Michigan for the last 2 years.  We've gone to a handful of home games during that time.  The Chippewas - a respectable MAC team that's been going to bowl games the last few years - do get "OK" fan support, but just an hour down the road is Michigan State and two hours down the road iS UM, and it seems that a fair number of kids who grew up UM or MSU fans are always going to prefer staying home and watching UM/MSU on TV (or driving to East Lansing and tailgating) than going to support the Chippewas.

[pg04]

This is going to be completely off the rails of WIAC but since you mentioned Central Michigan, what do you think of the MAC teams playing many games on Tuesday/Wednesday nights? That can't really help attendance. Or does it because they aren't competing with any of the teams you mention?

[ExTartanPlayer]

This is going to be completely off the rails of WIAC but since you mentioned Central Michigan, what do you think of the MAC teams playing many games on Tuesday/Wednesday nights? That can't really help attendance. Or does it because they aren't competing with any of the teams you mention?

Central played a big, big game (for them) against Toledo last week on Tuesday night - the winner going into the driver's seat for the MAC West title - and from the looks of it on TV (sidebar: I live in Pittsburgh, so I've only seen games when I'm visiting her for the weekend), it looked like a crowd that was a little smaller than usual.  Between last year & this season I've been to six games, and the 15,000-20,000 range has been about the norm.  A couple weeks earlier, they drew 17,380 for Northern Illinois (homecoming) and 14,301 for Buffalo.  The official attendance for the Tuesday night game was 13,490.  But the game with Toledo was a big game - the winner going into control of the division race - so I was surprised there weren't more people there.  I will say that my fiancee, who has been an absolute champ about going to the games with me on Saturdays when I'm in town, told me "No way I'm going to the Tuesday night game alone.  Too cold, middle of the week."  If I had been there I might have gotten her out, but for people "on the fence" about going, I think they just pass on the Tuesday night games.

So while it hurts attendance...it's what they have to do to get on national TV, and that's priceless exposure for them plus a hefty chunk of change that they can't pass up.  Their TV contract with ESPN is obviously small potatoes compared to what the big schools get but it's still something like $100 million for 13 years, coming out to $670K annually per school, probably approaching what they make in ticket sales for the entire season (http://www.hustlebelt.com/2014/8/19/6045303/explaining-the-new-mac-espn-tv-deal).  They just can't so no to that kind of money, even if it means playing a Tuesday-night game in front of a half-assed crowd.

And although it feels off the rails from the WIAC, it's really not.  This stuff is relevant to the discussion of attendance at UWO and around D3.  If in-person attendance is a priority, thinking up creative ways to boost attendance matters.  As palum noted a few posts back, if the mere attraction of a winning team isn't enough, you have to wonder what else you can do.  Going back to another tangent that's a little closer to the WIAC: do Wisconsin folks believe that a good live-stream online of home games is neutral, or that it hurts attendance?  If so, is the cost in lower in-person attendance worth the additional exposure that your fans and alums get by having the chance to watch if they're out of town?

[pg04]

+K I have to admit that I love the MACtion because I'm a big college football fan and if it's on at any level, I'll likely watch it over anything else. And even on weird night having the exclusive window is big.