FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[DuffMan]

Winner of the regular season game hosts the championship.

[carletonknights]

TCO? What's that? You mean TCF?

[Pat Coleman]

TCO? What's that? You mean TCF?

TCO is the Vikings practice facility. They have hosted high school games there.

[carletonknights]

Oh that's cool. Just looked it up, says capacity is 6,000.

What about Allianz field? Didn't the final Tommie-Johnnie game sell that out - capacity is ~19,000. St. John's average attendance is what, like 7,000? I'd think a MIAC championship game with good marketing could draw in at least 10,000 no? Obviously would have to work out with the Loons, but the MLS regular season ends in October so may not be a big conflict point

[sjusection105]

I thought the Tommies were your favorite FCS team!?!

[retagent]

Merry Christmas to all on the MIAC PP board. Have a New Year filled with good health and good friends.

[OzJohnnie]

And to you as well, retagent. Merry Christmas, all.

[Ice Bear]

Ice Bear wishes all on the MIAC board, and their loved ones a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or Happy Whateverthe****you celebrate! Ice is hoping he gets a new seal splitter this Christmas as his teeth are getting a little old and his Jaw muscles are getting a bit tired breaking up all that flesh every day.

[SagatagSam]

Oh that's cool. Just looked it up, says capacity is 6,000.

What about Allianz field? Didn't the final Tommie-Johnnie game sell that out - capacity is ~19,000. St. John's average attendance is what, like 7,000? I'd think a MIAC championship game with good marketing could draw in at least 10,000 no? Obviously would have to work out with the Loons, but the MLS regular season ends in October so may not be a big conflict point

Attendance at this year's MIAC Championship Game in Collegeville was 7,582. It was a bona fide national top ten matchup--SJU was #5 and Bethel was #9 in the D3fb poll at the time. The first BU-SJU matchup in Arden Hills drew 7,314. I don't necessarily think putting that game at Allianz increases attendance much. Maybe it could push it over 10K because of the game being in the metro and the novelty of playing at Allianz.

I think Johnnie-Tommie (and now Cortaca Jug) can distort our perception of what's impressive in D3 attendance-wise. 10,000 is a big pretty big deal.

I took a look at the top recorded single-game attendance in Division III games (https://www.d3football.com/notables/top-single-game-attendance). The data appears to go back to as early as the mid-90s.
34 games over 12,000
approximately 50 games over 11,000

There is no indication how many games put over 10,000 in the seats. At some point it has to start to become exponentially larger, but I would still guess that the number is below 150 or so.

That means fewer than 0.4% of all D3 games draw 10K or more.

It's a laudable goal, but it's worth noting that it is very aggressive, and If it's a matchup between Gustavus and Augsburg, or Carleton and Concordia, what's the crowd looking like then?

[Pat Coleman]

The initial compilation of that data was from searching through our archives and contacting the schools in some of the biggest D-III rivalries. Anything before the mid-90s, not sure how well it was kept.

[SagatagSam]

The initial compilation of that data was from searching through our archives and contacting the schools in some of the biggest D-III rivalries. Anything before the mid-90s, not sure how well it was kept.

Saint John's attendance records are only reliable (insofar as they consistently have something) back to 1986. There are some estimates dating back to the 1930s, but usually its only one or two games per season, and its reported as a round number in increments of 500. SO, more of an honest estimate in those days.

The 1963 NAIA championship game vs. Prairie View A&M was attended by 12,220, and the '63 semifinal vs. Emporia State @ Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota had 12,438 spectators.
It wasn't until 1993 that Johnnie-Tommie topped 10K.

[DuffMan]

Happy Festivus, all!

[jamtod]

Happy Festivus, all!

I got a lot of problems with you people!

[hazzben]

Happy Festivus, all!

I got a lot of problems with you people!

And now as Festivus rolls on, we come to the feats of strength.

[art76]

Have a safe and joyous holiday - Merry Christmas to all!