FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[amh63]

Read a WSJ article dealing with student attendance at football games decreasing.  Struck a nerve. At the Hamilton game, the attendance  level was not high.  The Amherst following was primarily parents and alums....totaling under 150...with a number on the home side hidden. The home crowd was primarily adults.  I did not see many students in attendance.  More on the field than in the stands.
Anyway,  the WSJ focused on the SEC in general and Georgia in particular.  It seems in football crazy SEC, the student section for non rival games has large vacant sections.  At Georgia, 18,000 seats are allotted to students. On average over a third of the seats are vacant.  Several reasons are given.  Today's students are drawn away by technology !  HD TVs and smartphones.  Most college stadiums it seems are bad for smartphone receptions.  Also, the quality of flat screens keep students in the parking lots, bars and frat houses closer to food and beer.  Most interesting.
It mentions that a number of NFL stadiums have spent millions to improve reception.  Fans want to tweet, text, etc. today.
Wonder how the reception is  at Amherst's new facilities.

[madzillagd]

amh63 you touch on a subject that I'm hearing a lot these days out here in Sacramento.  We are on track to open up the new basketball arena for the Kings in 2016, and from all reports it will be the most technologically advanced arena in the world when it goes live.  The brief history is, the new ownership group led by Vivek Ranadive is primarily from the tech industry and so this arena is going to be a reflection of their willingness to push the envelope.  Vivek is the CEO of TIBCO, which pretty much invented real-time processing for the stock market etc. and is the engine behind Amazon etc.  Other owners include a former exec from Facebook and he's in charge of the social media portion, one owner is CEO of Leap Technologies which just launched a new device that allows you to control your pc through hand motions, the Jacobs family which run QUALCOMM which is a cell giant, etc. 

Point being, they are already looking at launching a lot new features that I'm sure will roll out to all these large stadiums in a short amount of time.  For example, they are already planning on having a 'cashless' facility where you can get into the game using your smartphone, track the shortest lines for food and/or order food from your seats via the phone, and pay for everything in arena via your phone as well.  They will be doing things such as tracking your purchases, so when you get to the arena and you purchased a kids jersey previously they will send you a text offering a discount on kids products for that game.  They will be tracking volume of prepared foods so if they've got an excess of hot dogs left at the end of Q3, they'll send out a message indicating discounts so they can clear out their stock instead of throwing it away.  All of these things seem pretty common sense but the infrastructure to do them probably hasn't been an expense owners have wanted to take on in the past.  But, if these guys can do it faster/cheaper I'm sure it will hit every big arena/stadium in a few years. 

Some of this sounds intrusive for sure but I'm sure they will be able to figure out what that line is for offering services people want versus just pushing a profit.   

[frank uible]

Profit comes before people: it's the American way.

[Panthernation]

Fun post: NESCAC fantasy football; fire away.

http://sites.middlebury.edu/panthernation/2013/09/27/return-of-nescac-fantasy-football/

[amh63]

An earlier post pointed out that the Bowdoin vs Amherst will have WR brothers playing against each other again.  The conference fans were treated to the Bunker Brothers setting records as RBs at Amherst and Trinity.  Head to head battles were fun to watch.  This season, there will be more of the same.  There are again brothers at Trinity and Amherst.  The Ragone brothers from Sarasota, Fl. have both moved into the starting WR/slots on their teams.  Their parents were at the Hamilton game to watch their younger son, Brian play.  They were following Trinity in Maine on a smart phone...isn't technology helpful.  It was anxious times going into the fourth quarter.  The Ragone brothers brought smiles to their parents when both caught TD passes late in the games to seal their teams wins.
The parents will be in Hartford this weekend.  On Amherst's Family Day game, Trinity travels to Pratt Field.  Wonder which side the parents will sit on?  That "problem" will face the O'Malley family this weekend.

[frank uible]

As POTUS does at the Army-Navy game, the Ragone and O'Malley parents can switch sides at half time.

[Nescacman]

NESCAC Week 2 Weather Update

Across the NESCAC weather will not be a factor in week 2. High's in the 70's and sunny weather will be experienced at all home sites from Clinton, NY to Lewiston, ME. It will be a good day for eye black manufacturers. Uncharacteristically warm weather should favor the best conditioned teams.

[Panthernation]

Colby preview: http://sites.middlebury.edu/panthernation/2013/09/28/dont-put-the-cart-before-the-mules/

[amh63]

Frank U....just finished reading a Boston Globe sports page lead article on the O'Malley brothers.  About  50 friends and family members plan to attend the game.  The parents will change sides, it seems.  From the Dark side to the Sunny side at the half?

[AlDavis]

Don Best Sports

Wesleyan       - 24 1/2
Hamilton          54

Colby                 49
Middlebury       - 14 1/2

Bowdoin              46
Amherst             - 13 1/2

Tufts                   52 1/2
Bates                 - 23

Williams                51
Trinity                 - 17 1/2

Wesleyan       - 27      and    55 1/2

Middlebury      - 14       and   49 1/2

Amherst         - 14 1/2   and    47

Bates             - 22 1/2  and   53

Trinity            - 17        and    52

[frank uible]

"Just direct your feet to the sunny side of"... Pratt Field.

[Knightstalker]

"Just direct your feet to the sunny side of"... Pratt Field.

Frank that reminds me of the story of why the NY Giants bench was moved to the sunny side of the field.  Wellington Mara' mother Elizabeth told Tim Mara (Wellingtons father for those who wonder) that it was too chilly on the home side and he needed to move the home bench to the sunny side where the home bench has stayed in every stadium they played in.

[quicksilver]

here's a link to today's story in the Boston Globe about the 3 O'Malley brothers, who are all expected to play in today's Amherst-Bowdoin game.

[Pat Coleman]

here's a link to today's story in the Boston Globe about the 3 O'Malley brothers, who are all expected to play in today's Amherst-Bowdoin game.

Thanks for the heads-up and the link!

[nescac1]

Night and day for Williams from the Colby game.  Ephs up 6-0 at halftime (missed XP, unfortunately, something that has cost them in the past vs. Trinity).

The big difference is up front, on both sides of the ball.  Colby just owned the line of scrimmage vs. Williams, whereas Williams has held its own (maybe even has a slight edge) on the line.  Maybe Colby was better than folks thought.  Williams has received a strong pass rush and has totally shut down Evan Bunker, who has 18 yards on 10 carries.  Datema, Howe, and Higginbotham all playing very well up front, accounting for two sacks.  On the other end of the ball, Scyocurka methodically rushed his way to 52 yards, after being bottled up early, hestarted to find a bit of daylight.  He has the lone Eph TD.  The Ephs have not done much in the passing game, Tom Murphy at QB who is more athletic and has a bigger arm, but is not terribly accurate with his throws.  Still, he at least makes a defense have to think about the deep ball.  TE Alex Way has been the big weapon for Williams in the passing game with a huge play early in the game and a second crucial first down catch. Looks like a guy who is going to be tough to deal with for the next few years.  Kris Lapointe has been dymanite with three great punt returns setting the Ephs up in great field position.  Unfortunately, Williams has done very little with that field position (other than the last drive) due to many offensive miscues (penalties, bobbled snap, dropped pass among them).

Trinity will surely play better offensively in the next half as the Bantams also were plagued by untimely penalties and dropped passes on offense.  Ben Crick looked very explosive and was tough for the Ephs to control once he got through the line of scrimmage.  Trinity's defense has been very solid overall other than the one big play to Way, but the Trinity offense and special teams continuously placed the defense in a tough position.  I wouldn't put money on the Ephs or anything, no one seems to be able to hang on vs. Trinity on the road, but at least the team came to play today and looks like they will be more competitive this season than was evident from the Colby game.  And maybe they can find a way to stun the world (or at least NESCAC) today.  The oline seems to be slowly finding its groove as they improved a lot from last week, and even improved as the game went along.  The Ephs are going to need to keep Scyocurka rolling and hope to make some vertical passing plays down the middle of the field this half because you can't expect the defense to put up another half like that!