Quote Originally Posted by NorthernBison View Post
Forget the budget and Title IX issues and concentrate on just the question of attendance.

If you are a Force fan who says NDSU Hockey could draw, will you now suddenly increase your hockey attendance 100% and go to both?

If not, then either NDSU hockey will fail to gain a following or the Force will suffer.

Or maybe the fan suppport for NDSU hockey will come from the people who are now attending basketball games at the BSA. So basketball attendance will suffer and you're advocating hockey at the expense of basketball. (actually there is an excellent example of that in the region already)

Somebody has to lose in this whole discussion because neither the BSA or Scheels Arena sell out consistently.

BTW, have you seen the initial attendance figures for MLB? Teams are setting records for empty seats. This might be the future for plenty of sporting events.
Since D1 Hockey is a much higher level of play we would hurt the Force. Guarantee it. But basketball is underperforming. There were years we averaged 8k fans as a D2 team so the potential is there. I think hockey is a different market. If it's done right we could sell out the BSA, Scheels Center, and Fargodome. The Force are doing well because they are the only option.