Ways to improve attendance

[B9j2j6s]

Hey had an interesting idea and wanted feedback on it. On this board there has always been a debate as to why a state university with over 18k students and 2-3k staff members can't fill an arena that sits 4.5k. I purpose a strategy to improve attendance, give those students who attend games priority in on-campus housing. For every game a student attends they shall receive a 10 person bump on the housing priority list. To be fair we would need to do this for all sports or else have a lot of bad blood in the athletic department so lets have a count.

 

 

 

So say we have

12 m basketball

13 women basketball

5 football games 30

11 Baseball (DH count as one) 41

5 Field Hockey 46

7 M Lacrosse

8 W Lacrosse 61

10 M Soccer

10 W Soccer 81

11 Softball (DH count as one) 92

13 Tennis 105

8 Volleyball 113

1 Cross Country 114

1 Track and Field 115

 

If a student went to every on campus sporting event they could improve their housing status by 1150 positions (assuming my count was accurate). Incorporating all the grades and AP credits need to be done first. After that you can add the number of event credits. I really believe with time and effort this could work. What do you think?

[UAalum72]

Can you do this without setting athletics against the rest of the university (drama, music dept., Writer's Institute)? Let alone against the anti-athletics groups. Or do you expand it to include any school-sponsored activity?

 

Sports like softball, baseball and I assume track don't have a gate or any way to track attendance.

 

I'm not even sure that students are the bulk of the attendance at any major college sports event - you get a lot more fans from the surrounding counties than the dorms. This isn't high school in a small farm town.

 

Best way to increase attendance: win early, win big, win for a long period of years. Fans are frontrunners.

[DanesRGood]

Give away free stuff to students who go to games. Maybe gift certificates to the book store or meal cards or something. Free food at the games, tailgate parties for students, etc... I loved free stuff when I was a student.

[McFan]

A novel approach and something that certainly needs to be addressed, but people need to want to be there.

 

Some improvements that I see could be done but always there is a $ commitment.

 

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More concession areas. When we do have decent attendance it's impossible to get concessions w/o leaving early or going up during the game. I'm sure the number of fans we have consistently doesn't warrant additional people and investments, but that's not the way it works. You need to have people (students, community members, families) have an enjoyable experience if you want them to come back. As a season ticket holder, I'll be there. But when I bring the family it's just not easy.

 

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Parking/shuttles. Make it easier to get there during games. I understand many can/should walk from anywhere on campus. But they don't. Ramp up bus runs around campus for an hour before through an hour after the games. Again, this is an investment and financially wouldn't work until people show up. Chicken v. Egg.

 

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As stated above, win and win often.

 

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And I'll beat my dead horse. Style. If your going to be a .500 team. Do it with some offense and entertainment. This isn't baseball where you can enjoy a 2-1 pitchers duel. 55-49 games are in general boring and usually aren't the result of good D, rather poor/innefective O.

 

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Personality. This team needs a personality. This may start from the top. I think even the biggest CB supporters will agree that his "on air" personality is not the greatest. I don't know him personally and he may be the greatest guy in the world, but on camera and radio he just doesn't come across that way. Jamar was great and had star qualities. Big smile. Good interview etc. Levi was a tough guy. I'm not sure what/who the personalities are on this team. To use coach's words, "they're nice kids". Again winning makes it easier,and those teams were speacial, but there is just something different.

 

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Local talent. If possible grab some local talent. That doesn't have to be Albany only. There is plenty of low D1 talent w/in driving distance of UA. This will not only put a few friends/family in the seats but should drive some local media coverage (hopefully positive). L. Jordan certainly helped. The mid west connection is great but no connection to community or school. Maybe more from LI or NYC, the area where our students come from.

 

My 2 cents and more.

[danefan]

Win

[KingDane]

An LA Times article in January reported a 37% increase in attendance for schools using topless cheerleaders. Not sure if that was for just SoCal, or schools. Climate may be a factor.

[madDOG]

Maybe adding some pre-game festivities like destroying cars, throwing old TV's off balconies, kicking in windows and doors, calling cops a-holes and making sure lots of videos of it wind on on youtube. oh wait...

[DanesRGood]

Maybe adding some pre-game festivities like destroying cars, throwing old TV's off balconies, kicking in windows and doors, calling cops a-holes and making sure lots of videos of it wind on on youtube. oh wait...

 

This may be the funniest post I've read on this board. Still laughing while typing this.

[danefan]

Maybe adding some pre-game festivities like destroying cars, throwing old TV's off balconies, kicking in windows and doors, calling cops a-holes and making sure lots of videos of it wind on on youtube. oh wait...

 

 

The University should never pay for construction demo again.

 

Leave a keg outside whatever building needs to be demo'ed and give UPD the night off.

 

Saving tax payer dollars.