Crowd

[GibUtes]

I know it was hot, but why did 1/3 of the crowd leave the game at halftime. And another 1/3 trickled out the whole second half.

It wasn’t a blowout. It was getting tighter and tighter, the team needed energy from the crowd to feed off of. We let them down…

I’m not one that expects everyone to stay until the final whistle. It would be nice if people were on time for kickoff and didn’t leave until the end, but they can do what they want… It just wasn’t a good game for people to leave so early.

[Tony (admin)]

Maybe because it was a billion degrees and they were in the direct sun all day and the water and beveerage lines in the concourse were a complete and total clusterf**k? Maybe they moved to the west side or into some shade? Maybe they left to go study for upcoming tests? Ironically I was just putting the finishing touches on this little graphic…

[TruckStopTerrors]

All of this is very true. My brother said it was like a 40 minute wait for him to get water. He might’ve been exaggerating a bit but this is unacceptable at a game. I don’t like day games for this very reason.

[Tony (admin)]

Not an exaggeration. The lines were completely messed up and apparently they’ve announced that experiment didn’t work and they’ll be doing something different next game.

[AlaskanUte]

How come a lot of the congestion centered aroud the NE corner of the concourse? While my wife was in line for water, I walked to the West and the East sides. The congestion was about 30% of what it was on the NE corner. What gives, is the water better, is there a consierge service for the rest room, what is it. BTW, both my wife and I toughed it out until the end and we’re old.

[Ultimate Ute]

So, you’re complaining, about complaining.

Oops, this was supposed to go under the Tony (admin) complaint.

[Tony (admin)]

Does that mean you’re complaining about complaining about complaining? 🙂

[Kolya]

This graphic is great

I’m shocked how many fan police on this site

I’ve only been here a few days, and I see them everywhere

[RoboUte]

You should’ve been here last year. If there was any coping mechanism on display it was one of two.

1. Complain/Criticize. The mouthy armchair quarterbacks. A pretty normal reaction, can definitely get out of hand and turn the board into vitriolic poison bordering on the personal. These folks can feed off of each other and create stories where none exist. Unacceptable if allowed to fester. I think almost all people have some of this in them, just not to the point of being unhealthy.

2. Ignore all negative, chastise those with anything negative to say. The emotionally stunted carebear. These people are genuinely unable to process the concept of criticizing something you have a positive opinion of. Their brains simply cannot reconcile that level of nuance so they believe group 1 consists of only bad-actors and BYU fans. You can explain the concept to them but that only makes them more angry. Think uncontacted tribes throwing spears at helicopters, they will actively try to kill things they don’t understand because it makes them uncomfortable.

Because we as fans make the team part of our identity we have emotional responses to what goes on with it. Most people just take things in stride, as they do in normal life. The carebear will formulate unfounded and often comically implausible explanations to negative events in order to protect their ego from what I alluded to in the previous paragraph, shades of grey and nuance. Which is no small wonder, if they cannot accept it in the message boards it’s definitely not coming anywhere near their frontal lobes.

These two groups are impossible to entirely mix. It’s a fundamental difference in how they treat things that they revere. People who are entirely group 1 just get banned. Most people have traits of both. But there are pure carebears and they fly under the radar by typing nice things, which is understandable. But BOY do they come out of the woodwork when times get tough.

[Tony (admin)]

For the record, a pic from yesterday:

Saving this for any upcoming zoob level stadium smack dick measuring contests. pic.twitter.com/w7n6EOQe0L

— UteHub.com – Utah Utes community – get the app! (@Ute_Hub) September 8, 2024

[NorthernUte]

For what it is worth GibUtes, I think that was a totally understandable thing to post and you did it very respectfully. Not sure how that makes you “Fan Police” but I was wondering why the stands left after halftime as well, so thank you for asking it.

[Tony (admin)]

I may have been a little hard on GibUtes, for that I apologize. There are a lot of people who complain about the crowds and why they aren’t in their seats and where they are and all that. Seems like people love to whine about other people’s behavior. It’s tiresome to me to hear it. Zoobs especially run with this narrative to use as some kind of “proof” about how they’re better than ute fans or some stupid garbage like that. Personally I think the crowds at our games are awesome, as you can see by my photo above. If some seats are empty at the beginning of the game because it takes 45 minutes to make it through 50 yards of the west concourse, that’s not the fans’ fault. If they want to leave early or move seats then fine. The student section always compresses down closer to the field over the course of the game, leaving the top section. Anyway, GO UTES.

[DataUte]

yeah, the students always squeeze down, sometimes standing on the bleachers and rows and shoulder to shoulder. Fine with me, concentrates the sound, but then you get some open space at the top.

[Larry B]

A couple things:

First, when Rising got injured and it was clear that he wasn’t coming back, the energy of the crowd pretty much died. I don’t know if it directly caused people to start leaving, but it didn’t help.

Second, when it became clear that the game plan was to let Wilson hand the ball off and try to run 20 minutes off the clock, fans became restless, especially in the heat. I think this is when you really started to see people head towards the exits.

[The Miami Ute]

I was at the game (East Side, 55th Row) and I really don’t know what you all are talking about. I didn’t notice the stadium emptying out, even with the ungodly heat, until it looked like the game was essentially over. I fully expected people large numbers of people to leave at halftime, and that happened last week versus SUU, but it sure didn’t seem that way from my viewpoint.

[Larry B]

My view from W14 showed that the East side was half empty late in the 3rd/early 4th.

[Kellso]

You can take in a sealed water bottle. You may also take in an empty one liter or less Hydro Flask like container. There are many filling stations around the stadium. The concession lines at Rice Eccles is the worst.

[MFury]

Took in hydroflasks, filling station line for the water fountain was insane. Ended up buying water to not miss the whole 3rd quarter.

I’m glad they tried to do something different. If they don’t try it will just be the same. I hope they can quickly pivot to their next idea.

Also, hope we can get a night game or two. Everything gets better.

[NarfUte]

I left at halftime but only because my wife wanted to go to the game- which meant we also brought our near two year old. That was a mistake, way too hot.

[UtMtBiker]

The RES fan experience is pretty terrible. Getting to and from, the lines, the heat, and the higher percentage of Utah fans that bring children to football games results in late arrivals and early departure

[RedRocks]

I was not at the game, but wondered why there were so many apparently empty seats.

While watching on TV during the second half, I was thinking to myself that nobody else (besides Utah fans and maybe Baylor fans) was watching this game; it was pretty lacking in entertainment. While I personally like to watch the game until the end, I don’t fault others who do not.

After thinking about it a bit and reading other’s responses above, I realized that I needed to apply this same logic to the people at the game.

Why stay and bake in the hot sun if the team is just reverting to the standard Utah ‘waste time’ offense and ‘prevent’ defense? Football is entertainment. If it is not entertaining, go find something else to do.

[OldAsDirtUte]

I remember a very hot game years ago, I think against Boise St.. There were only four drinking fountains in the entire stadium, and one of them was out of order. You couldn’t drink enough water that day. They quickly ran out of the $3 bottles of water, and gave patrons no other help. I’ve heard no results, but I would bet that lawsuits may have been generated.

The fast-filling water stations showed up soon after that game.

(p.s.) In an emergency, you can refill water bottles from the sinks in the restrooms., It won’t be cold, but it will be wet.

I go to the stadium to watch football. Every play, if possible. On Saturday, it was so hot from the constant sun in the NEZ, that I had to go downstairs before halftime for a half-hour to cool off. Might have effectively been the hottest day I’ve ever seen in RES. 93 degrees, felt like 105.

Later in the game, from the view at the top of the NEZ, you could see 3/4 of the seats empty on the east side. The west side was packed full, especially in the shade!

So, lots of reasons for people to leave early. It’s their choice. There won’t be any more hot games like that this year. With the next game three weeks away, we might need a heavy coat!

Go Utes!

[SkinyUte]

I’ve been attending Utah games for 25 years and Saturday was the hottest game I’ve ever been to. Felt like a freaking microwave in the stands.

I gave three of our tickets to a friend who was SO excited to bring his kids to their first Utah game, and they barely made it to halftime before having to bail out because both kids were feeling sick from the heat.

While we stuck it out, I don’t blame anyone for leaving. It was utterly miserable.

[utefansince79]

Saw many fans walking up the aisles carrying about half a dozen bottles of Dasani. Saw fans with armfuls of the frozen lemonades too. My allowed liter of water I took into the game was empty by half time when my father and I went under the bleachers to escape the sun for a bit. Nearest Hydration station was too far away to even try to get to through the mosh pit and the only concession stands I could even try to get to just had soda (no thanks, that does no good for hydration) and no Dasani. (Understand that the stands that still had Dasani couldn’t keep it cold).

We made it back to our seats to watch the rest of the game. I usually don’t care for fans that don’t stay until the end, but will give a free pass this time as it was brutal.

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