Sam McKewon has an article in the OWH about actual fan attendance as the 2017 football season dwindled down. It’s linked below. If you read through it, you’ll see that fan attendance dropped significantly for the Ohio State, Northwestern and Iowa games as compared to earlier in the season. Compare his numbers between Ohio State and Wisconsin games, and you have roughly 10k less fans in the stadium.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Ok, well, it didn’t surprise me. Maybe I’m alone in that. Honestly, were I not running a website, I probably wouldn’t have watched games after the debacle at Minnesota, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have bothered attending one in person.

I like my football, and it is fun being at live events. What we got last year at the end of the season was not good football (being kind), and I have a hard time believing that being in the stands at Memorial was fun. You had a defense that couldn’t bothered to be in position, and an offensive line that barely bothered to show up. It sucked.

Our Wisconsin buddies at Bucky’s 5th Quarter are concerned about attendance as well - note the linked article below regarding their student tickets, and struggles with getting students into the stands earlier. (They’re not any different than us... if you read that article, don’t skip the part where they’re complaining their students are lazy, ungrateful, entitled punks - where have you heard that?)

Below you also have a linked article about the Olympics.

Take the word “Olympics” out of that headline and change it to “Memorial Stadium”. (You could do the same with “Bowl Game”.)

I’m not going to present a cohesive thought behind all this - at least, not yet. I would simply like to hear your comments on the subjects.

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Olympics has struggled with attendance. But if it makes billions, does filling seats really matter?
For an Olympic movement that generates billions of dollars from television and corporate sponsorships, does attendance really matter?

"It would be nice to have all these cowbells clanging as skiers go down the hill," said Scott Minto, director of the sports business management program at San Diego State. "But from a business sense, these Games could be on the moon and people would still tune in."

How hard did Husker fan apathy hit attendance at Nebraska home games? This hard | Big Red Today blog | omaha.com
Ranked Ohio State. Night game. And just 67,400 scanned tickets, the lowest total of any 2017 home game. That’s for kickoff. Imagine how many fans actually populated the stands after halftime.

Northwestern announced attendance: 89,721. Scanned tickets: 68,996.

Iowa announced attendance: 90,046, Scanned tickets: 69,436

Wisconsin football: Badgers raising student section ticket prices - Bucky's 5th Quarter
Plus, more talk on getting the students in on time.

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I realize we haven’t done a lot of football articles lately. The reason for that - everything about football right now is pretty much speculation. Granted, most of the time the offseason is speculation, but this year is more speculatory than in the past.

We could do some “What Did Scott Frost Have For Breakfast?” articles if you want.

NEWS

Crouse Named Big Ten Gymnast of the Week - Nebraska Huskers
Sienna Crouse was named Big Ten Gymnast of the Week on Feb. 19, announced by the conference, after posting a career-high all-around score of 39.550 against No. 1 Oklahoma last weekend.

Tristen Edwards Named Big Ten Player of the Week - Nebraska Huskers
Nebraska softball outfielder/infielder Tristen Edwards earned Big Ten Player of the Week, announced by the conference on Monday afternoon, for her performance over the weekend at the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. It's the second straight weekly conference honor for Edwards, as she was named co-Big Ten Player of the Week on Feb. 12.

Q&A: Jerry Palm sizes up Big Ten in NCAA field « Big Ten Network
Nebraska and Penn State play each other at the end of the regular season in Lincoln. That’s basically an elimination game. If they both aren’t eliminated already, the loser of that game pretty much has to win the conference tourney to make the NCAA field because by the time you get enough good wins, you’ve won the conference tournament.

Wohoooooooo!

PJ Fleck with all the buzzwords! There’s phrases, and more phrases, and even a siren in the background at the beginning! If you cannot get excited about this you must be a dead man (or a guy who’s overdosed on marketing goo whose tolerance for cliche’s is so high that you are unaffected).

Indiana Baseball Opening Weekend: The Good, The Bad, and The Weird - The Crimson Quarry
The Hoosiers opened up the season with a strong showing in South Carolina.

Cannizaro Removed as Diamond Dog Coach
Mississippi State will officially terminate the second-year baseball coach's employment Tuesday morning. Cannizaro’s dismissal is per sources with cause though University officials have yet to state on record what said cause is.

Alabama reportedly hires defensive line coach Craig Kuligowski away from Miami - SBNation.com
The Tide just upgraded.

Jacson McGowan Named Big Ten Baseball Player of the Week - Hammer and Rails
The junior had a great opening series vs. Western Michigan

Cyclones, Hawkeyes, Panthers: Last place times 3 | The Gazette
Unprecedented rotten year for Iowa state schools in men's hoops

Is it myth or reality that Kansas gets a favorable whistle at Allen Fieldhouse?
Fraschilla said the favorable calls Kansas receives at home are no different than those Kentucky, Duke, Arizona or other elite teams get in their buildings.

“When you play in a tough environment on the road against a team that is very good and has great fan support, it’s human nature on the part of some officials to get caught up in the atmosphere of the game,” Fraschilla said. “It’s no different at Kansas than it is at other places. There’s a small segment of officials who don’t want to be booed.”

I tried to eat every hot dog at the NBA All-Star Game and lived to tell the tale - SBNation.com
Why would you eat all the hot dogs at Staples Center? Why not?

Then There’s This

IRS Scam Leverages Hacked Tax Preparers, Client Bank Accounts — Krebs on Security
In one version of the scam, criminals are pretending to be debt collection agency officials acting on behalf of the IRS. They’ll call taxpayers who’ve had fraudulent tax refunds deposited into their bank accounts, claim the refund was deposited in error, and threaten recipients with criminal charges if they fail to forward the money to the collection agency.

Why Pepperoni Pizza Is So Popular in Advertising - Eater
Unlike veggies and sausage, this topping is visually appealing and instantly recognizable