Paul Brown Stadium A Success In Hosting UC-Miami

One of my biggest concerns coming into this year was how well the Bearcats would draw playing downtown at Paul Brown Stadium during the renovation of Nippert Stadium.  The atmosphere for games against Louisville and West Virginia in 2011 left much to be desired, as those crowds were spread relatively thin throughout the 65,535-seat home of the NFL’s Bengals.  I speculated that UC’s move to close the upper decks at PBS would help improve the stadium atmosphere (especially over that 2011 game against Louisville), but I did not see this coming: Through two games, the Bearcats’ attendance, support, and atmosphere at their home away-from-home downtown has been better than good.  It’s been amazing.

Paul Brown Stadium during the 2014 Battle for the Victory Bell between Cincinnati and Miami University.

Photo Credit – Ben Levin, Cincy On The Prowl

Closing the upper decks has reduced capacity at Paul Brown to roughly 43,000 seats, which is the perfect size for UC football at this time.  The 41,926 who attended last Saturday’s regional rivalry game between Cincinnati and Miami University filled just about every seat in the lower and middle levels at PBS, and the result was an electric and exciting atmosphere for college football.  It wasn’t Nippert, but it was close – a huge improvement over the 2011 PBS experiment.  Further, student turnout for UC has been outstanding this year, which has been a pleasant surprise.  UC students set and then re-set the student attendance records for a UC football game in the first two games of 2014 against Toledo and Miami U.  10,333 students attended the Battle for the Victory Bell, and the crowd of almost 42,000 was the largest in history of the series between UC and MU.

This has reinforced my opinion that the athletic departments of Cincinnati and Miami should consider playing for the Victory Bell at Paul Brown more often.  This game was such a success from an attendance standpoint that to not at least consider it would be neglectful.  Attendance at MU home games in Oxford has never been impressive, so it would make a lot of sense (and dollars) for MU to consider moving their home games to Paul Brown Stadium as this series goes forward.  MU’s Yager Stadium only seats 24,286, and Miami has only approached selling out that figure when hosting the Bearcats.  The possibility of Miami selling 40,000+ tickets should have the MU athletic department drooling after the turnout we saw on Saturday night.  With Nippert set to be expanded and modernized, it would be ideal for UC to play it’s home games at Nippert, but this game could even become a permanent neutral site game and continue to be a success at the ticket office for both schools.

I would love to see this game played at Paul Brown more often, and I have said before that I think it should be the season opener every year.  With UC’s program continuing to rise, Miami makes a perfect season-opening opponent – it would bring much more excitement than playing a school from the FCS, plus the rivalry and trophy bring excitement to the game.  This format has worked very well for other non-conference rivals, namely Colorado and Colorado State, as well as Kentucky and Louisville.  BYU and Utah will also move toward the beginning of the year next year.  Even if this series stays on campus, I would love to see it become the season opener every single season.

In addition to the great attendance for the Miami game, UC playing at Paul Brown Stadium has also solved what was a huge problem last year – student attendance.  Well, technically not attendance, but rather retention of attendance.  Much to the chagrin of everyone who cares about UC football, the student section would mysteriously disappear about halfway through games last year.  And this isn’t a problem contained to UC.  Even mighty Alabama has had problems with the student section leaving early.  Playing off-campus at Paul Brown Stadium isn’t an ideal atmosphere for college football.  As I said, it isn’t Nippert, and never will be.  But one unexpected benefit of playing off-campus is that it’s harder for the student section to leave early.  It sounds stupid to say, but I’m okay with that.

Props to the record 10,333 UC students who showed up at PBS on Saturday, and more props to the 70% or so that stayed for the whole game.  Hopefully this sets a tone for the Grand Re-opening of Nippert next year.  I’ll be extremely disappointed if students start leaving early again next year, just because it’s again easy for them to walk home in 5 minutes.  What makes Nippert a special place – what makes it such a great home field advantage – is 35,097 screaming fans (40,000 next year).  Leaving games early is disgraceful, unless the score differential is 30-plus.  PS – getting there late is, too.  And that goes for all UC fans, not just students.  I’m tired of the stadium being half full at kickoff because you only started cleaning up your tailgate 10 minutes before the game, or just wanted to nurse one more Bud Light in the parking lot.  In every other sports town in America, the stands are 85-90% full for the National Anthem and intros, but at any given Bearcats football/Bearcats basketball/Bengals/Reds game, they are usually still less than 50% full halfway through the first quarter.  Get your shit together, COME EARLY, be loud, and wear black.

Okay, end rant.  And seriously, Miami and UC, If you’re reading this, move the Battle for the Bell to Paul Brown Stadium more often.