Saturday Night

[godanesgo99]

I don't know what the actual numbers are for the valley cats. I do know several people that work there that always complain to me about attendance and area support, so my comments were based on that. I do love going, and find its one of the better values in family entertainment.

[godanesgo99]

That link looks like 4,300ish per game? I guess that's better than the AHL draws, but I wouldn't call it good. $iena draws more.

[Phoenix]

That link looks like 4,300ish per game? I guess that's better than the AHL draws, but I wouldn't call it good. $iena draws more.

 

Their capacity is about 4500. They break their own total attendance record just about every year.

[bob87]

That link looks like 4,300ish per game? I guess that's better than the AHL draws, but I wouldn't call it good. $iena draws more.

Seriously $iena whose numbers are schewed by our game is your comparison . They also had 13-14 home games over 3 1/2 months while the valleycats have 38 over 2 1/2 months . Also valley cats are middle to upper middle every year in their league attendance which includes some bigger markets like ny . Fan support is just fine . Now if you friend is complaining about lack of newspaper coverage, I would agree . Half the season is playing when the tu knows nothing about any sport outside the horse track as if they aren't bad enough the rest of the year

As far as AC Yankees moving that was mostly because the stadium sucked and Connecticut built them a new park . That team in Connecticut has since moved and replaced by a team in the valley cats level which I believe the valleycats have out drawn ever year since connecticut had been at the same level .

As far as ahl , yes albany is struggling . Near the bottom of the league in attendance

Edited December 17, 2015 by bob87

[bob87]

 

 

 

Isn't the single A Valley Cats have a higher attendance avg than the AAA Binghamton Mets? May have made that up but I swear I heard they have great attendance for being such a low level.

 

 

They might. I don't know. I actually really like Bruno Stadium, and have been to a ton of games there. I wasn't knocking them at all. They do very well with what they have. That said, the attendance isnt strong enough to get a higher level team to think about coming, and we lost a AA Yankee team due to poor numbers. I am only saying that the Capital District only seems to get excited for and fully support "major" events.

 

 

It's worth mentioning that The Valley Cats are not even a full-season Single-A baseball team. They are a Short Season-A team that does not start until after the MLB draft in June; full-season A teams begin play when MLB is still in Spring Training. If all the days are warm-weather, that affects the average attendance.

 

 

 

It is worth noting that No minor leagues in the US start play before the major league season starts.

 

And it seems to me a couple of you guys are grasping as straw comparisons just to complain.

I also agree it is nice to have a game upcoming on saturday and even though some would prefer it to be on the road, I am happy to have a couple of upcoming home games

[bob87]

 

 

 

30000 is not much for that level of football and is 60% of capacity isn't people going .

They are now a basketball school more than ever . Basketball fills that place and drives the donations . Football is an afterthought and currently an incredible easy (cheap on the secondary market ) ticket

 

 

 

Football attendance numbers aren't easy to find. But looking at the numbers on the wikipedia page for the 2013 team, they maxed out at almost 49,000 for the Clemson game, and had a minimum of 33,000 for Wagner that season at home. I agree basketball is what drives that place, but they still get a lot of people to go to a sporting event in Syracuse, which is a smaller MSA than Albany, even when the team isn't good.

 

I know it wont happen anytime soon - if ever - for either $iena or Albany to make a big conference jump - but lets say hypothetically that there was news conference tomorrow that said that UA had signed an agreement to move it's games to the TUC and in conjunction with that it will start competing next year in the ACC. The home schedule would include Syracuse, Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Florida State, etc. I am pretty positive that season tickets would sell out on day 1, and the arena would be packed for every single game. Even if people thought that UA would go 0-30 on the season.

 

I guess what I am saying is that, in my opinion, a move to another - albeit higher - mid major conference like the CAA probably won't help our numbers that much. Helping those numbers will be based on marketing and continued success. If you want major area buy-in and the students to be excited - you have to go big or don't go at all.

 

 

 

Really

I looked up this years in a matter of minutes this morning for syracuse

Rhode island 30112

Wake Forest 26671

Central Michigan 27943

LSU 43101

Pitt 29832 (the game I went to this season)

Clemson 36736

Boston College 30317

 

Again that doesn't quite fit your narrative in downgrade of Albany.

 

I will also add your your previous point that Albany area goes to "bigger" events.. Who doesn't get more fans for bigger events.Just look at the demand for Duke, North Carolina or Georgetown in the past for Syracuse basketball. Also For your Syracuse baseball games you mentioned before, when Strasburg pitched I found a parking lot I did not know existed before because that was their first sold out game in their history and they used an overflow lot that was not needed for a typical 1/3 to 1/.2 filled game. Maybe a little more on fireworks, 4th of july etc.

 

As far as Albany, we lead the conference in attendance so in spite of a lot of the grass is always greener elsewhere to some , they are doing some things right.

[godanesgo99]

I wasn't putting down what UA has done. Also, I looked up the Syracuse AAA team and their attendance does suck. I was surprised at how bad it was. That said, getting 30-50k people to a game in Syracuse is impressive, even on the low end.

 

If my numbers, stats, and general intimations are exaggerated or even flat out wrong, the general point still stands.

 

Many people complain about the area sports teams and attendance numbers. People talk about the apathy of much of the region and how we can increase attendance. My point was that other markets that are either smaller (Syracuse MSA) or poorer (Buffalo MSA) have been able to do it. My point was that the only way we do it here is by going big time, or being happy with what we have. A move to the CAA or similar sized conference will not do it. People in this area will not care. The only reason to make a move like that is if it is seen as a stepping stone to the next level. It won't be a fix to getting the whole region behind something like Syracuse does with Orange. I don't think it would make even the slightest of improvements. The fans in this area will not truly embrace anything until it's the highest level.

 

That said, maybe it's better this way. I would love it if the team reached what I think is it's potential this year and is dancing again. Near the end of the conference season I could see averaging 4k per game. SEFCU is actually a great venue for watching a game when it is packed. The place feels electric. Maybe we want to be content with the big fish in a small pond mentality. I think I would rather see the program move to BCS level, complete the football stadium so it sits 30k, improve SEFCU so it seats around 10k. I think we would fill both venues if there was a top level product. With midmajor we could never come close.

[Phoenix]

If my numbers, stats, and general intimations are exaggerated or even flat out wrong, the general point still stands.

 

This is pretty awesome.

[godanesgo99]

LOL, I'll admit when I'm wrong.

 

The valley cats attendance was better than I thought, but still not what it could be. I don't know what their capacity is, but they average 4kish and their biggest attendance for a game ever was just shy of 8k per the link someone shared. I do know people there who have complained privately so I guess I thought it was worse than it is.

 

Syracuse doesn't sell out for every game, but they have sold out, and I'm sorry but averaging over 30k is impressive.

 

LCC never made the sweet 16, but back to back NCAA wins over big schools to go to the round of 32 did get people to go. No idea why I remembered them being the same year.

 

Yes Syracuse AAA attendance does suck. For some reason I thought they were doing well, but that must have been a long time ago.

 

Not sure if I made anything else up.

 

All that said, the point was the same. The average capital District sports fans won't attend or get behind something that isn't top level.

[justdrastik1]

 

 

 

 

30000 is not much for that level of football and is 60% of capacity isn't people going .

They are now a basketball school more than ever . Basketball fills that place and drives the donations . Football is an afterthought and currently an incredible easy (cheap on the secondary market ) ticket

 

 

 

Football attendance numbers aren't easy to find. But looking at the numbers on the wikipedia page for the 2013 team, they maxed out at almost 49,000 for the Clemson game, and had a minimum of 33,000 for Wagner that season at home. I agree basketball is what drives that place, but they still get a lot of people to go to a sporting event in Syracuse, which is a smaller MSA than Albany, even when the team isn't good.

 

I know it wont happen anytime soon - if ever - for either $iena or Albany to make a big conference jump - but lets say hypothetically that there was news conference tomorrow that said that UA had signed an agreement to move it's games to the TUC and in conjunction with that it will start competing next year in the ACC. The home schedule would include Syracuse, Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Florida State, etc. I am pretty positive that season tickets would sell out on day 1, and the arena would be packed for every single game. Even if people thought that UA would go 0-30 on the season.

 

I guess what I am saying is that, in my opinion, a move to another - albeit higher - mid major conference like the CAA probably won't help our numbers that much. Helping those numbers will be based on marketing and continued success. If you want major area buy-in and the students to be excited - you have to go big or don't go at all.

 

 

 

Really

I looked up this years in a matter of minutes this morning for syracuse

Rhode island 30112

Wake Forest 26671

Central Michigan 27943

LSU 43101

Pitt 29832 (the game I went to this season)

Clemson 36736

Boston College 30317

 

Again that doesn't quite fit your narrative in downgrade of Albany.

 

I will also add your your previous point that Albany area goes to "bigger" events.. Who doesn't get more fans for bigger events.Just look at the demand for Duke, North Carolina or Georgetown in the past for Syracuse basketball. Also For your Syracuse baseball games you mentioned before, when Strasburg pitched I found a parking lot I did not know existed before because that was their first sold out game in their history and they used an overflow lot that was not needed for a typical 1/3 to 1/.2 filled game. Maybe a little more on fireworks, 4th of july etc.

 

As far as Albany, we lead the conference in attendance so in spite of a lot of the grass is always greener elsewhere to some , they are doing some things right.

 

 

I disagree with your statement that because we have better attendance than those in our conference, that translates to our school doing some things right. It's like having the nicest house in the projects, as the expression goes. You're comparing attendance with schools like Vermont, UNH, Maine, UMBC, Hartford, etc. These are not locations where collegiate sports are big, sans hockey, or another random sport. And for the football example above, except for LSU, you're not naming schools that are known for being popular in football, or having a massive following - at least not in the same breath as Ohio St., Bama, Georgia, etc. A lot of other schools have CRAZY attendance. In fact, you can almost increase general attendance around the area by 50% of stadium capacity, as so many people cannot get into the games due to lack of tickets, but still come and tailgate.

 

We've won 3 straight AE chips in a row - all of which were very good games. Within roughly 9 years, we've been in the dance 5 times. We are coming off arguably the biggest shot in school history to get there, and also had insane press coverage on the team. Hooley was on SC for days - how we have not capitalized more is crazy. We had an INCREDIBLE lax trio, and arguably the greatest lax player(s) of all-time as well. Certainly Lyle, and definitely a case can be made for Miles to be in that convo. They have their OWN SNEAKER, and are in Nike ads with some of the greatest athletes of the world. There should just be lifesize cutouts of these guys all around campus, with TVs showing highlight reels (sorta kidding.. sorta serious)

 

Schools like ours have a very finite time to catapult themselves to the next level. Look at VCU, for example. It's not enough to be satisfied with mediocre improvements.

 

The product is there. We may not be Gonzaga, but our athletic teams are very competitive. It's time for the appropriate amount of resources and expertise to be dedicated to marketing the programs.

[bob87]

LOL, I'll admit when I'm wrong.

 

The valley cats attendance was better than I thought, but still not what it could be. I don't know what their capacity is, but they average 4kish and their biggest attendance for a game ever was just shy of 8k per the link someone shared. I do know people there who have complained privately so I guess I thought it was worse than it is.

 

Syracuse doesn't sell out for every game, but they have sold out, and I'm sorry but averaging over 30k is impressive.

 

LCC never made the sweet 16, but back to back NCAA wins over big schools to go to the round of 32 did get people to go. No idea why I remembered them being the same year.

 

Yes Syracuse AAA attendance does suck. For some reason I thought they were doing well, but that must have been a long time ago.

 

Not sure if I made anything else up.

 

All that said, the point was the same. The average capital District sports fans won't attend or get behind something that isn't top level.

 

 

Still disagree with your assertion that 30K for a top 5 conference football team is impressive

[bob87]

 

 

 

 

 

30000 is not much for that level of football and is 60% of capacity isn't people going .

They are now a basketball school more than ever . Basketball fills that place and drives the donations . Football is an afterthought and currently an incredible easy (cheap on the secondary market ) ticket

 

 

 

Football attendance numbers aren't easy to find. But looking at the numbers on the wikipedia page for the 2013 team, they maxed out at almost 49,000 for the Clemson game, and had a minimum of 33,000 for Wagner that season at home. I agree basketball is what drives that place, but they still get a lot of people to go to a sporting event in Syracuse, which is a smaller MSA than Albany, even when the team isn't good.

 

I know it wont happen anytime soon - if ever - for either $iena or Albany to make a big conference jump - but lets say hypothetically that there was news conference tomorrow that said that UA had signed an agreement to move it's games to the TUC and in conjunction with that it will start competing next year in the ACC. The home schedule would include Syracuse, Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Florida State, etc. I am pretty positive that season tickets would sell out on day 1, and the arena would be packed for every single game. Even if people thought that UA would go 0-30 on the season.

 

I guess what I am saying is that, in my opinion, a move to another - albeit higher - mid major conference like the CAA probably won't help our numbers that much. Helping those numbers will be based on marketing and continued success. If you want major area buy-in and the students to be excited - you have to go big or don't go at all.

 

 

 

Really

I looked up this years in a matter of minutes this morning for syracuse

Rhode island 30112

Wake Forest 26671

Central Michigan 27943

LSU 43101

Pitt 29832 (the game I went to this season)

Clemson 36736

Boston College 30317

 

Again that doesn't quite fit your narrative in downgrade of Albany.

 

I will also add your your previous point that Albany area goes to "bigger" events.. Who doesn't get more fans for bigger events.Just look at the demand for Duke, North Carolina or Georgetown in the past for Syracuse basketball. Also For your Syracuse baseball games you mentioned before, when Strasburg pitched I found a parking lot I did not know existed before because that was their first sold out game in their history and they used an overflow lot that was not needed for a typical 1/3 to 1/.2 filled game. Maybe a little more on fireworks, 4th of july etc.

 

As far as Albany, we lead the conference in attendance so in spite of a lot of the grass is always greener elsewhere to some , they are doing some things right.

 

 

I disagree with your statement that because we have better attendance than those in our conference, that translates to our school doing some things right. It's like having the nicest house in the projects, as the expression goes. You're comparing attendance with schools like Vermont, UNH, Maine, UMBC, Hartford, etc. These are not locations where collegiate sports are big, sans hockey, or another random sport. And for the football example above, except for LSU, you're not naming schools that are known for being popular in football, or having a massive following - at least not in the same breath as Ohio St., Bama, Georgia, etc. A lot of other schools have CRAZY attendance. In fact, you can almost increase general attendance around the area by 50% of stadium capacity, as so many people cannot get into the games due to lack of tickets, but still come and tailgate.

 

We've won 3 straight AE chips in a row - all of which were very good games. Within roughly 9 years, we've been in the dance 5 times. We are coming off arguably the biggest shot in school history to get there, and also had insane press coverage on the team. Hooley was on SC for days - how we have not capitalized more is crazy. We had an INCREDIBLE lax trio, and arguably the greatest lax player(s) of all-time as well. Certainly Lyle, and definitely a case can be made for Miles to be in that convo. They have their OWN SNEAKER, and are in Nike ads with some of the greatest athletes of the world. There should just be lifesize cutouts of these guys all around campus, with TVs showing highlight reels (sorta kidding.. sorta serious)

 

Schools like ours have a very finite time to catapult themselves to the next level. Look at VCU, for example. It's not enough to be satisfied with mediocre improvements.

 

The product is there. We may not be Gonzaga, but our athletic teams are very competitive. It's time for the appropriate amount of resources and expertise to be dedicated to marketing the programs.

 

 

 

 

As far as what I named about, I didn't make the Syracuse schedule, I was only disagreeing with his assertion that their attendance is impressive compared to similar schools

 

I also Disagree with your assertion that they have limited time to capitalize and that apparently it is easy to get to level of schools with 100 years of tradition. It will take time, but they have done well considering they weren't even division 1 in the late 90's. I expect they will continue to make progress . Obviously not as fast as some of you want.

[godanesgo99]

I wasn't saying it was impressive for similar schools. Never thought I even hinted at that. What I was saying is that it is impressive for a town the size of Syracuse that is located in the northeast which as an area is not known for supporting football. Highschool or college level. The Albany MSA is larger population wise and disposable income wise (based on the MSA study posted in the Albany Business Review a few years ago) and I don't see our population giving that type of support.

[Eli]

I wasn't saying it was impressive for similar schools. Never thought I even hinted at that. What I was saying is that it is impressive for a town the size of Syracuse that is located in the northeast which as an area is not known for supporting football. Highschool or college level. The Albany MSA is larger population wise and disposable income wise (based on the MSA study posted in the Albany Business Review a few years ago) and I don't see our population giving that type of support.

 

He does have a point.

 

We don't live in Texas where HS teams have 20k fans. In NY, 30k is a LOT of fans for a non-NFL team. There are schools in TX (HS) that have better stadiums than BoFo. They make BoFo look like University Field.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Stadium_(Allen,_Texas)

 

 

As was stated, we have the teams/programs competing at high levels. We now need to market the crap out of them (Benson has already done some good things) so that we build fans. This will in turn create an environment where the best players want to play, so we'll STAY at a high competition level instead of having years where we win 8-9 games (in BB for example). THEN, you move up to CAA (or whatever), and go forward. At least that's how I see it happening...

 

98% of our fans are within a 25 mile radius of Albany I would guesstimate. We don't have fans driving 1.5hrs for a FB or BBall game on a weekend. We have the occasional alums (people mostly on this board) who would be willing to 'come home' for a game at least once a year, but not much more than that. How many people drive 2-3hrs to see their favorite NFL team 2-3x a year?

 

We have a 100 mile radius of being the only big time D1 sports school. We need to carve out a market for ourselves where every gas station from here to Utica has UA gear, etc. just like it is in Kentucky where you can find Wildcats gear in mom and pop shops.

Edited December 17, 2015 by Ilko

[ZLK]

All of this is pretty hilarious.

 

Why would anyone want the basketball program in the CAA?

 

Not sure where these dreams of grandeur are coming from but everyone needs to pump the breaks for a second.