I’ve been going to sports stadiums and arenas since I was little, and my favorite part of those experiences isn’t the games themselves, even though I love them.
It’s the environment and the fans that I love. The rowdy fans cheer for their team and cause the stadium to erupt when something exciting happens.
empty or students leaving events halfway through. Photo by: Sam Mulder|Torch Photographer
Now that I’m a college student, I try and go to as many home Ferris games as possible. I’m slightly disappointed at how few people attend the games, which in turn causes the environment not to be what I believe it should be. Opposing teams visit us, and they aren’t met with boos from our fans, because there aren’t many fans there.
Football and volleyball are the exceptions for two very different reasons.
College football is the staple of Saturdays and college kids, who either love football or have nothing better to do, pack the stands and the student section behind the end zone to cheer on the Bulldogs, even if they didn’t stay the whole time. As the season went on, Ferris kept winning and moving on in the playoffs en route to winning the national championship.
Volleyball is a sport that I didn’t know much about coming into college, and after going to a few matches, I found that it’s a very entertaining sport. The crowd is always filled when the team is on a winning streak.
This season, Ferris continued to win, leading to their undefeated regular season and having home-court advantage up until the Elite Eight, where they lost. In the last few regular season home games and the playoffs, the arena was packed, and with every point Ferris won, the crowd cheered and chanted.
It’s disheartening to see students only stand by our teams when those teams are doing well. Obviously it makes sense that the teams have better turn out when they’re doing well, but as students we should stand by our teams regardless. There are much fewer attendees at Ferris’ games than possible. Men’s basketball games pack the stadium a little more, but there are still a lot of empty seats at those games.
For the first few games, Ferris hockey would put people in the seats, but once the team started to struggle, fewer students went to the games, and even fewer stayed for the entirety, leaving family and a select few students to cheer on the Bulldogs.
I think there are a few reasons why students aren’t going to sporting events. One main one is that not everyone on this campus likes sports. As a lifelong, die-hard sports fan who plans to get a job in sports, I tend to think that everyone likes sports like I do, but ultimately, that is not the case.
Another reason is that people either have class or work at these times and can’t go to games because they have other and better priorities. Certain classes are later in the day, and they take attendance, so skipping these classes for a game isn’t allowed.
Why are people not going to hockey games? Hockey is the only sport we play in DI, while the other sports are DII.
It might have something to do with the fact that the team struggled this year, as I mentioned above, as well as struggling the past few years. They won their first two games in an overtime shootout, but after that, they went 6-12 to end 2024, and some of those losses were by three or more goals. Now that head coach Bob Daniels is retiring, there could be some changes in the future.
Basketball and hockey playoffs are almost here, and the Bulldogs need everyone there.