This is about what it looks like on the TV - it's an experience for THEM and their approach to CFB, which is about 8th on their list of concerns.
I don't want to intrude on your post nor make a new one that nobody will read, but let me throw in here with my experience at the Harvard Stadium yesterday because it was...well, it was interesting and one I'm glad I experienced although a mid-level Alabama high school team would wipe the floor with either Harvard or Penn.
1) The stadium is in the inner-city.
Boston is one of the most walkable and nice (and historical) cities in the US. I walked down JFK Street to the stadium, walked over the Charles River at a narrowed point, and walked down into the entry way. No line to get in, either.
2) The game was - sort of - for the Ivy League championship (this will be important momentarily)
A Harvard win, they capture the Ivy League for the first time since 2015.Had Penn won, next week would have been their championship weekend, with a possible 3-way tie for the league champion.
So important was this that a whopping 7,302 fans attended, meaning my brother, his son, and I pushed them over 7300.
3) The stadium holds 25,000 people and they clustered them together.
I seriously doubt the Penn side had even 1,000 fans on it. I got perfect 50-yard line seats at the last moment, three tickets for less than ONE SEC ticket to the Arkansas game at BDS in 2013.
4) The stadium had a nice, Romanesque ancient feel - and the seats are nothing but concrete.
yes, I'm hurting this morning. It was kind of nice to be there to breathe it in and take it all, but the mostly empty stadium was more for me to observe than anything else.
5) There were no breakaway plays the entire game.
There was pretty much zero football talent on either side. It was a bunch of mostly incredibly slow white dudes (with the occasional black player) afraid to take a basic hit and playing a backyard version of the 70s wishbone or veer. There was not a single play that gained 30 yards and only two that gained over 20 yards. Their QBs would run towards the sideline - this was on both teams - and rather than throw the ball away, they'd actually try to toss it sideways to a teammate or throw slightly upfield even if the receiver was behind the LOS.
You got the idea that none of those guys EVER even played on their high school teams.
6) On the flip side there were no serious injuries - and very few penalties.
There were six total penalties, and the only 15-yard one came when a Harvard kid celebrated or something his TD (we missed it), but it cost them the PAT and wound up causing the overtime. Nobody hobbled off, it was like flag football with some light tackling.
7) The overwhelmingly white crowd also looked like something out of the 1940s, maybe the 30s.
What I mean is this: the PA system DID play a couple of upbeat "dance" tunes (YMCA I recall and another I don't know the name of)...and not even a little bit of finger snappipng or swaying....NOTHING!! not even a couple of old or young geezers who tried to spell out YMCA, nothing. It looked like they'd been brought in from solitary confinement and forced to watch the game. The kids, they were there because Dad was a graduate back in 1959 or whenever. Or maybe Granddad.
Also - the stadium is NOT easily accessible by wheelchair.
Having said all of this, much of it with a joke look, I'm glad I went at least once just to see it. It's kind of what the sport USED TO BE given those guys down there really are student-athletes, some who probably had an exam either in the morning or maybe even this morning. So it did have that kind of throwback appeal, but it also had a bit of snobbery - expected, of course - about it.
And there were a lot of fans near me keeping up with the Penn State-Michigan game, too.
