Win or lose, Wisconsin football fans still booze, just maybe not at Camp Randall as much as they used to... According to John Steppe of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, alcohol sales are "down 19.2 percent in the first five home games." Steppe's findings show Wisconsin is down $400,000 in alcohol beverage revenue based solely on the first five home games of the season last year for the Badgers.
These metrics directly tie into the poor play on the football field. The only time the Badgers exceeded $400,000 in alcohol sales came during their lone sellout of the season thus far, a 37-0 home shutout at the hands of rival Iowa... Even more damning, attendance numbers are down, both digitally and at the gate. It may be down some 6,000 on paper, but is it down nearly 25,000 at the gate each weekend.
So yes, people cannot be bothered to show up to Wisconsin games any more. If they are imbibing alcohol on fall Saturdays, they seem to be more inclined to take their business somewhere else. In times of good and bad, people typically consume a lot of alcohol, either as celebratory or as a coping mechanism. But when apathy has set in like it has under Luke Fickell, people just really do not care...
The primary, secondary, tertiary and even ancillary effects of bad football are all starting to add up.
Luke Fickell is responsible for driving regulars away from Camp Randall
While the Virginia rebuilding plan could conceivably work in Madison, there is one prerequisite to making it work. That is having the right head coach. Tony Elliott built up a ton of equity for how he conducted himself in a trying time for Virginia football. He and his program are being rewarded for having one of its best seasons in ages. Wisconsin has the money to spend, but not the head coach.
Fickell may be a huge problem, but he is really only a symptom of something much bigger at play. Chris McIntosh is a disaster of an athletic director. He was Barry Alvarez's hand-picked successor. If it was good enough for Alvarez, then it clearly was good enough for university president Jennifer Mnookin, because we all know she does not care about the sad state of the Wisconsin football team.
Truth be told, Wisconsin fans are so sick and tired of being sold a bill of goods. One day, this program will return to its former glory. In the meantime, the Badgers are merely a pastime to spend in between drinking. Rather than celebrating with the Badgers or drowning in their sorrows, Wisconsin fans would rather take their ball, as in their wallet, and go home, preferably to a place that is not this depressing.
People do not always put their money where their mouth is, but this is a sign people are fed up with it.