Thousands of people are in South Bend for Notre Dame's matchup with Stanford Saturday.

As always, home football games pump a lot of outside money into the local economy.

But many businesses were worried they might see a drop in profits this year.

Between a rough season last year, and a struggling economy, businesses had cause for concern.

Before the first home game, many hotels still had a lot of available rooms for game weekends; an usual occurrence. Restaurants and other businesses were worried they'd suffer the same hit.

For the first time in years, the South Bend Marriott didn't know what to expect for the season.

“It was very slow moving. Typically we see more activity earlier in the year, but it was late this year,” said Kelly Neubauer, Director of Operations at the Marriott.

Like many other area hotels they had to adapt by dropping rates and adjusting minimum stay requirements

“We changed the way we do business, right, and a little more user friendly, less restrictions. That kind of thing,” Neubauer said.

Now, after 3 home wins, they're booked solid for the Stanford game.

“Things are much better than we thought they were going to be. We’re actually quite pleased. It’s no where near what they were 2 or 3 years ago, but they’re much better than last year… It’s more back to the norm I would say. We had a couple of unusual years and now were back to the norm,” Neubauer said.

Downtown it's closer to business as usual, too.

“When Notre Dame’s winning everyone is pretty positive about whatever it is they’re doing. As soon as Notre Dame loses, things change a little bit and that’s always the way it’s been,” said Marco Mariani, Executive Director of Downtown South Bend, Inc.

Between Friday block parties and post-game celebrations; many downtown businesses are seeing green again.

“We kind of wondered, just with Notre Dame’s season last year. But it seems like the fans are still going strong, still a lot of die hard fans,” said Kate Davidhizar, a manager at the South Bend Chocolate Company.

Or at least enough die-hards to start turning things back around.

“Last year, a tough year. But you know you gotta support your team,” said Tim Mayer, an Irish fan who continues to make the trip from New York to see games in South Bend.

The Marriott says it appears many fans were waiting to see how the season started out.

They've seen a huge increase in bookings for home games the last few weeks and are getting much closer to filling up for the other 2 games later this season.

This will be the last home game until November.