My ignorance is my fault, but I don’t think the point was really driven home about how disconnected the Florida football program had gotten from its fans until Wednesday.
Yes I see the bleachers get emptier and emptier in The Swamp every year, I chalk that up personally to there just being more apathy among college football fans in general.
I have always kind of shrugged off the notion of “disconnected from the fanbase” as not a core issue, or not an issue that impacted that many people.
I’m from Gainesville, where everyone has some connection to the University of Florida, and my family wouldn’t be here if my mother hadn’t been hired by Shands.
Yesterday, I tweeted out a picture of what I thought was a pretty simple move by the Florida marketing department, putting center Max Garcia and linebacker Mike Taylor in the ticket booth to hand out tickets to students. It got some retweets and some favorites, nothing out of the norm, but I was surprised by how poignant the gesture connected with one of my followers.
About the gesture, @nawtadigm tweeted “I love the connection. It sucks to feel disconnected from the program.” That stuck with me, I'm not really sure why, but it did.
To unpack the idea of the disconnect, let me first examine what I think connects folks to their respective programs.
When someone says “your (insert college team) sucks” they aren’t just saying the 11 men on the field sucks. They’re coming at your way of life. Assuming you’re an alum of UF, the best four years of your life were spent in Gainesville. Sometimes your father, or your father’s father spent his here too.
Perhaps you met your spouse on campus and friends that last a lifetime.
If you aren’t an alum, you still have a connection, you wear orange and blue on Saturdays and get upset when people say Tim Tebow can’t play quarterback in the NFL. You follow recruiting incessantly, and bring your kids to the spring game.
For fans of every school, that passion runs deep, and it’s important — like, tell your friends not to schedule a damn wedding between August and January important. But let’s be honest, anyone that would have a fall wedding isn’t a friend of yours to begin with.
So how does that ingrained loyalty erode over time? It starts with the fact that from the jump, college athletics isn’t as mom and pop as it used to be. College athletics is big business and we all know it, revenue-producing coaches make millions, athletics directors make millions and television contracts line everyone’s pockets — except the players of course.
It’s just not the way things used to be, and that’s fine, everything changes over time.
Florida stood significantly behind the curve with many schools on improving the fan experience in the stadium. Things like getting wifi and game look ins from across the country and more stats on video boards — that stuff matters and UF is finally getting those things done.
There’s also the fact the team didn’t do so hot, but I think that’s an ancillary reason, after being just six years removed from a national championship and two years removed from a BCS bowl and the doorstep of another title game berth.
Couple that with the alarming connection that isn’t being built with current students. As of Sunday evening, Florida was 1,500 tickets short of their student season ticket allotment number, at risk of not selling out for the first time since 1979.
The fact of the matter is students just feel they have better things to do than go to games, especially with a team is losing noon games in the swealtering heat and the games aren’t that good to begin with. Then those students graduate and become boosters with disposable income that have better uses for that money than to just endlessly pump it back to Gainesville.
So how do you fix the disconnect? The simple answers are “just win” and “improve the quality of opponents” which are both things that will happen. Just like Florida State, a team in this part of the country with the resources and cache that Florida has will not stay down for decades on end. But there is more to it than that, and Florida’s doing it.
The fan advisory council, open practices to fans and things like football players handing out tickets are just a few things the school is doing right now.
The more I think about it, fan apathy and disconnect is here to stay. Stadiums should be done expanding. The movement should be made to downsize, more luxury suites and less cheap seats that aren’t being filled everywhere. As of Wednesday, Nebraska had tickets available for five home games, and it has sold out Memorial Stadium over 330 straight times.
Maybe those things I wrote about above aren’t just things the schools have done wrong, maybe they’re also excuses.
I have a feeling fans say those things partially because it prevents them from looking in the mirror and coming to grips with the fact that their personal fandom of old just isn’t there anymore.
You gripe about change until you get used to it. Maybe disconnect isn’t the right word anymore — maybe it’s just a sign of the times.
Follow Richard Johnson on Twitter @RagjUF
Students and fans watch Florida's Orange & Blue Debut on April 12 in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
