Autumn Saturdays in many college towns across the country are no longer simply a day for alumni and fans to sing the alma mater and lose their voices cheering first downs and touchdowns. Game days on many campuses have been elevated to event status, with four quarters of football sandwiched between laser light shows, hot dog-eating contests and celebrities singing the national anthem.

Indeed, the "color and pageantry" of college football isn't the same in 2004 as it was in 1974. Competition for the public entertainment dollar has translated into intensified marketing in revenue sports, with athletics departments determined to keep the stands full every week. After all, one marketing expert says, nothing improves the feel of a game more than a stadium full of cheering fans.

"There's nothing that makes a better atmosphere at a game than a full house," said David Brown, Ohio State University assistant athletics director and past president of the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators.

But the traditional pep rallies, parades, mascot antics and acrobatic cheerleaders may not be enough to get the job done anymore. Officials at some schools say it's getting more and more difficult to fill the stadiums and arenas. Much as the proliferation of cable channels hurts television ratings, the growth of leisure activities is pulling people away from college sports. The only way to get people in the stands, some say, is to have a "hook" -- sometimes in the form of a giveaway; sometimes in the form of additional entertainment before the game, after the game or during halftime.

"It just seems like you have to do more and more," said Gail Moseley, director of marketing at Kent State University. "Instead of just having a football game, you have to give people more value for their dollar. Money gets tighter and people want to make sure they're getting the most for it."

Institutions market big-time college sports for different reasons. Football powers that traditionally fill large stadiums at every home game have different motivations for marketing than smaller schools might.

Kent State, for example, has different challenges than Ohio State. A new attendance criterion that requires an annual average of 15,000 for Division I-A teams in fact has Kent State and others marketing aggressively to make the bar. At the team's first home game September 11, Kent State brought in MTV's "Rock the Vote" traveling campaign to register students to vote. Promoters gave tickets away free to veterans and offered a discount for their guests. Young fans received a special treat when they were invited to form a tunnel for the Kent State players to run through before taking the field. Ten high-school bands performed a patriotic halftime show with the Kent State band and, after the last play, the laser show began.

"We don't meet the 15,000 at this time, and that's why we have to do all of these kinds of things to get people to come," Moseley said. "As our program improves, we hope people will come to a football game just for the football. Of course, we have high hopes that things will change."

Entertainment encroachment

Some schools have no trouble filling the stands on game day, even if it's not necessarily for the football. That doesn't mean they always forgo providing extra entertainment for their discerning fans who, some say, simply expect more than they did a few years ago.

At the University of Kansas' first home football game, officials enticed Jayhawks fans to come to the game by telecasting an exhibition game between the school's very successful basketball team and the University of British Columbia squad on the stadium's video board, with tip-off coming several hours before kickoff. Buying a ticket to the football game was the only way to see the basketball game. After the basketball game was over, fans were encouraged to tailgate in the stadium parking lot and return with their ticket stubs to watch the football game later that evening.

"In our case, we attempt to leverage the success of our men's basketball program to drive new business and generally create a better game-day atmosphere," said Andrew Steinberg, assistant athletics director for marketing at Kansas. "You're always trying to provide a better game-day atmosphere. We want to go ahead and develop new customers and get people excited about Jayhawks athletics.

"We're in the entertainment business, and the challenge is to provide people a value for their dollar."

Steinberg said the marketing department makes an effort to keep the spotlight on the student-athletes on the field, not on entertainment extras during the game, and his department recently launched a new Web site touting Jayhawks athletics as an attractive form of sports entertainment.

"We really want to focus on our atmosphere and our tradition," he said, noting that the Kansas stadium is the oldest west of the Mississippi River and "one of the most beautiful, picturesque settings on a college campus."

They'll use that setting to frame an October 9 jump by the U.S. Army Golden Knights skydiving team and hot-air balloons on November 6 and 13. Kansas fans also will have the opportunity to take part in the Richard Petty Driving Experience at both the October 9 and November 6 games.

The giveaway takeaway

Jackson State University football "sells itself," according to Deidre Jones, sports information director at the historically black institution, but the marching band's halftime entertainment at football games certainly draws a crowd. But even with the band's influence, the school still struggles to get a younger crowd to take in a basketball contest.

"We have a problem with getting students to come to a basketball game," she said. Jones said the fans -- both students and community members -- are starting to expect more than just the pure match of skilled student-athlete against skilled student-athlete and, of course, the band. They want something they can take home with them other than just the memory.

"When people come to the game, they expect to get something for free," Jones said. "If we don't do something, I hear about it. I try to do it on key games. I think they expect giveaways to be thrown at them, and if we don't do it, they're upset."

Giveaways or opportunities to win free items, once common only at professional sporting events, are becoming a staple at college events as well. Everything from magnetic schedules and pocket footballs to a semester's free tuition and a free computer are given away at college events, depending on what demographic the marketing department wants to attract.

At halftime of a Jackson State basketball game, for example, Jones has arranged for shoot-outs sponsored by a local restaurant with a top prize of $1,000. She's also been known to lure students -- her target audience -- with book vouchers, tuition vouchers and even a free computer once in a while.

Tommy Riggs, assistant athletics director at Division II's Pittsburg State University, said people who come to Gorillas home games seem to have the same expectations -- freebies as a side dish to their football.

"I think that society has come to expect it. People like incentives, they like memorabilia, they like things with their school's logo, even if it contains some type of corporate logo," he said.

The Gorillas have a "First 1,000" promotion, which gives the first 1,000 people in the gates at games a commemorative item such as a Gorilla T-shirt or a Pittsburg State football magnet schedule.

Sometimes the demands come from within a school's own program. Jones said sometimes coaches get stars in their eyes over something they see while playing another larger (and larger-budgeted) institution. The smaller, less-cash-flush schools just can't keep up with the trends, she said.

"We do all we can with little or no money. The bigger programs have larger marketing budgets, and it makes it hard for us to compete, especially when coaches see (more events). A lot of times we can't do it," she said.

The ideas come from all over. Jones, a Dallas native, got some of her ideas from the Dallas Mavericks, a professional team she said struggled to fill the stands while she was growing up. Kent State's Moseley works with several departments on campus to brainstorm marketing ideas, though she thinks the originality in promotions and marketing is a thing of the past.

"I don't think there's a new idea out there. It's all been done, we just add our stamp on it," she said. Kent State also has tried to attract its students to football games with a raffle at the end of the year for students who regularly attend home contests. The prize? A $12,000 check toward tuition expenses.

Demographic dynamic

The target market is becoming something more people in promotions and marketing are paying attention to -- whom do they reach? Whom do they want to reach? What would they like to see at the games? What kind of music would they like to hear? What kind of half-time show do they want to see?

The answers to those questions can affect everything people see and hear at a game, from what stadium staff hands out free to people at the gates to what kind of band they hire to play in the parking lot.

"We pay attention to our demographics. We try to cater to who we're trying to reach. This year, we're trying to reach students, so we'll do book vouchers and lots of giveaways," said Jackson State's Jones. "Last year, we brought in an up-and-coming R&B group for pregame, halftime and postgame. They basically had a concert."

Ohio State's Brown said demographics and market research need to be a higher priority for marketing professionals in athletics departments overall.

"It's important for us (at Ohio State), and I don't think you see that enough in college athletics," he said. "Professionals have a budget and understand the importance of it better than we do, but they have one sport or maybe two and it's a lot easier for them to gather that information. For us, we have 36 sports, 20 that we actively market. You're guesstimating who your audience is, and a lot of times you're right on, but it would be nice to know if you're correct."

Brown said that when he began his marketing career at a different school, he was surprised to discover that the audiences weren't what he assumed. One evening when the men's basketball team was on the road nearby and the women's team was playing at home, marketing officials were sure attendance at the women's game would be dismal. They were wrong.

"It's not the same people who are diehard men's basketball fans who come to those games," Brown said. "It actually was a bump in attendance that night."

The experience changed the way that Brown looked at marketing and target audiences.

"We know a certain video board promotion will appeal to a different crowd. You cater to your crowd," he said.

Drawing a crowd, drawing a line

Catering to the crowd and swelling superfluous entertainment is addressed in the NCAA strategic plan. In a section that seeks to anticipate developments over the next five to 10 years, the plan speculates: "The nature of contests may move away from the competition itself and increasingly focus on the events surrounding the contests. Colleges may compete to produce increasingly complicated athletically related events."

While the Association takes no official position on the types of entertainment, the strategic plan says the NCAA is committed to the collegiate model of athletics, "in which students participate as an avocation, balancing their academic, social and athletics experiences." In other words, intercollegiate athletics complements education.

Some marketing directors worry that the extra events might be starting to overshadow the game itself, something that is becoming common in professional sports.

"It is eclipsing the game somewhat for a smaller school like (Jackson State)," Jones said. "I think people are going to get so caught up in the entertainment that they're going to overlook the actual talent of the athletes. They want to be entertained, and if they're not entertained by the game, they'll focus on something else."

That something else is what marketing directors strive to produce -- without going overboard. Brown said that striking the balance between showcasing the game and taking away its limelight is tricky.

"It's always tough ... It's the old saying, 'I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.' (In this case, it's) I went to a concert and a baseball game happened. You have to be careful," he said. "If we're going to do a concert at a baseball game and we know we're going to attract a lot of people who would never come to a baseball game, is it worth it? We're trying to expose that product to somebody that would never have that opportunity or that chance, but is it worth it?"

Ohio State has even reduced some of the promotions for its basketball games, after some fans complained that it was too much.

"They'll tell you, 'If I wanted to go to a (Columbus) Blue Jackets (professional hockey) game, I'd go to a Blue Jackets game. I want to come to a collegiate event, and I want to come to a game for the game, not for all the extras,' " Brown said. "Sometimes we try to be the Blue Jackets and duplicate what they do. It doesn't always work for college athletics, and that's one thing you have to keep in mind."

Kansas officials make a concerted effort to have any promotions or entertainment extras occur during a dead ball or timeout, or before the game, at halftime and after the game. They will have a fan pavilion and a kid zone with inflatable moon jumps and other child-friendly entertainment and hospitality events, but mostly before kickoff and seldom when there's any action on the field.

"We rarely deviate from the traditional entertainment during the game: cheerleaders, mascots, the Spirit Squad," Steinberg said. "We want to keep the nostalgia and the pageantry and the spirit of the game the way it has always been."

Not everyone thinks the expansion of entertainment extras around game day is a concern. Pittsburg State's Riggs says he's glad to see the events around the game continuing to grow.

Tailgating in the Gorilla Village outside Pittsburg State's Carnie Smith Stadium will sometimes begin more than 12 hours before kickoff. The school usually hires a band of some sort -- salsa music one week, country the next, a polka band for Oktoberfest, catering to its audience, which Riggs says ranges from "10-year-olds all the way up to 90-plus-year-olds." A 50-foot inflatable Gus the Gorilla stands guard over the north end zone. Most people don't actually enter the stadium until just before kickoff, trying to squeeze in as much tailgating as possible.

For the last seven years, the team has participated in the U.S. Cellular Miner's Bowl against rival Missouri Southern State College, a school only 25 minutes from Pittsburg, Kansas. The game is preceded by pep rallies and a commemorative coin toss -- and the winner receives a trophy to keep for a year.

The Gorillas' big draw this year will be the annual clash against Northwest Missouri State University held for the third straight year at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, home of the Kansas City Chiefs. Riggs said the Fall Classic has become "quite a game," drawing more than 20,000 each of the first two years. He said about 5,700 attend the average Pittsburg State home game.

"I don't see it as a bad thing. I see it as a great thing," he said. "Even though there are tons of things going on other than just football, it's still bringing us recognition and giving us exposure. I think it will continue to do nothing but grow."

Moseley at Kent State said she doesn't really think too much about the entertainment getting too colorful, though she admits it might be happening in some cases.

"I still think college athletics is so much more pure than professional sports," she said. "The student-athletes are out there because they love the game."

Most administrators agree that's what they're out to protect, even though the color and pageantry of 2004 is brighter and bolder than it was 30 years ago.

NCAA President Myles Brand in fact, in his support of the collegiate model, has said that intercollegiate sports are meant to be entertaining, but that they don't exist solely as entertainment.

Most marketing people in intercollegiate athletics would agree that the extras at a football or basketball game are intended only to draw people to return to the stadium or arena for another game, not to become the game.

"I think that the promotions we do certainly add to the experience, but the main focus of the game and the main focus of the fan interest is the team, and we always have to keep that in mind," said Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director for external affairs at Kansas. "The object is once people see what a good time it is, not just watching football, but the whole experience, that they'll want to come back."