[Goose]

We did that though! We were in Rose Bowls and Orange Bowls and with Heísman candidates on a yearly basis, and still weren't filling the stadium.

More community outreach or advertising or special ticket deals wouldn't have helped. Maybe a little on the margins but not enough to make up for being a small, elite private school in a part of the country that is not very interested in college football.

When the super league comes, we won't be in it, and neither will any other small private school like us.

I think college football and the media overlords are unfortunately locked in a vicious spiral. The super league may be really interesting for the fans of the biggest and best football schools, but culling all the other schools will cut back on overall viewers. They will have to charge more and more to those super league fans for an add on package, but I don't think the price raises will make up for the volume they are losing.

Hopefully once it all blows up things can be rebuilt in a way where Stanford can have relevance in football but I doubt that.

Agree with your thoughts here. I do believe that Stanford should attempt to create a football program that is compatible with "what is possible" today, if only to preserve what can be saved for future developments. It isn't going to be the Big-10 or it's successors. What it will be is TBD.

Unlike some have suggested, I don't see Stanford football as anything like "1/3 of the University". It is an asterisk. It is important to me, and I want it to continue at a high level, but I have no illusions about how it fits in the "pecking order". It does contribute to the "character" of the University. However, as things in college football have changed, what football can contribute to said "character" has changed too, and not for the better IMO. It has become increasingly difficult to see any role for it in educating students. Whatever Stanford football ends up becoming, it needs to migrate away from the "NFL minor league" model or else IMO it has no place at Stanford.

[Goose]

We did that though! We were in Rose Bowls and Orange Bowls and with Heísman candidates on a yearly basis, and still weren't filling the stadium.

More community outreach or advertising or special ticket deals wouldn't have helped. Maybe a little on the margins but not enough to make up for being a small, elite private school in a part of the country that is not very interested in college football.

When the super league comes, we won't be in it, and neither will any other small private school like us.

I think college football and the media overlords are unfortunately locked in a vicious spiral. The super league may be really interesting for the fans of the biggest and best football schools, but culling all the other schools will cut back on overall viewers. They will have to charge more and more to those super league fans for an add on package, but I don't think the price raises will make up for the volume they are losing.

Hopefully once it all blows up things can be rebuilt in a way where Stanford can have relevance in football but I doubt that.

Agree with your thoughts here. I do believe that Stanford should attempt to create a football program that is compatible with "what is possible" today, if only to preserve what can be saved for future developments. It isn't going to be the Big-10 or it's successors. What it will be is TBD.

Unlike some have suggested, I don't see Stanford football as anything like "1/3 of the University". It is an asterisk. It is important to me, and I want it to continue at a high level, but I have no illusions about how it fits in the "pecking order". It does contribute to the "character" of the University. However, as things in college football have changed, what football can contribute to said "character" has changed too, and not for the better IMO. It has become increasingly difficult to see any role for it in educating students. Whatever Stanford football ends up becoming, it needs to migrate away from the "NFL minor league" model or else IMO it has no place at Stanford.