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Post by dmac80 on Dec 7, 2016 12:23:55 GMT -5
EDIT 2/28/17: updated with final numbers.Big Ed has been pleading with the fans of late to come out. The numbers are noticeably down in OOC thus far, with URI being a notable exception. I'll update this occasionally as the season rolls along. Please forgive the crude excel cut and paste hack job. I grabbed some of these from screens from old threads I posted. Also should note the Butler game in 13-14 and Depaul game in 14-15 were severely impacted by major snow events.
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Post by yankeefriar on Dec 7, 2016 14:10:55 GMT -5
No doubt the attendance is down. With no star power (Dunn) coupled with some crappy start times and with the weak opponents (URI exception) it is easy to see why. If this team continues to play like they have been, they will win the fans over starting with G'Town in early Jan.
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Post by dmac80 on Dec 7, 2016 15:03:29 GMT -5
The big names don't want to come in....The Gavitt games will help. Hopefully with continued success Ed can land someone else of note in the coming years. But as a general rule, the OOC slate is what it is. And that's the case for almost every other high major D1 program. Yeah the biggest names will get someone else big to visit them for 1 game, and will make an occasional visit to another big name once a season. But the rest of their OOC slate is filled with cupcakes too. That's how it works. Pile up the wins in the OOC at home, travel to a neutral tourney and hopefully play some big names, and then go into conference play and hopefully pack the house. That is our current formula. Hopefully we will grow enough to fill up those early and midweek OOC games in the future (Target of 8k-8500 avg is reasonable and would be awesome). I have to imagine they want 10k avg on the season, which they came close to last year -just 297 more people per game x 17 games would have done it. I think at this point Ed needs to make the sweet 16 or beyond, and or win the conference regular season to get to that next level of excitement and support.
For this year, let's hope they can draw well for Sat for UMASS, then they have the following Sat vs Wagner and finish with a tues night before Christmas game with Maine. You've got to think the target number is 20k combined there, which would match them to last year's OOC gate, with 1 extra game (notice home OOC games are now 9 up from 8 up from 7 from a few years ago). Not sure they're gonna hit 20k unless they kill it with UMASS and Wagner, which are noon starts.
I do have to commend their marketing and sales efforts. I got robo call from coach cooley on my cell, emails all the time with deals and specials -actual deals. They put me on the email list with game results and they advertise the next game in there with a link for tickets. The 4 tickets/4 dogs/4 drinks pack for $44 is enticing for a family with kids. The $12 upper endzone seats are also a great grab as are the 3 game mini packs and 5 packs. I feel like they've fine tuned this in the last 2 years and are making the effort.
I'd love to see them give all students an opportunity to FREE tickets on a per game basis. Make a big deal out of it and hold a lottery that the kids can enter prior to the upcoming week, then pull different names for those games that week and distribute the tickets, making sure none go unclaimed. Rinse and repeat... Bus them and drag them down there, consult Hillary's get out the vote team, whatever it takes.....Both baskets should be full like the URI game, that's my dream. That's when we've arrived. I don't know the logistics but I know Xavier and Butler do this (read this from their fans on the Holy Land board awhile back). So should we.
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peeps
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Post by peeps on Dec 8, 2016 1:29:06 GMT -5
some awful competition and 630 start times? nuff said
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Post by dmac80 on Dec 10, 2016 16:00:59 GMT -5
7815 for UMASS
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thefriarman
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Post by thefriarman on Dec 10, 2016 17:30:43 GMT -5
Didn't seem like that many. UMASS fans were louder at times in this one. Friar fans were subdued even when UMASS was closing the gap. Perhaps more students would have got people going. That will pretty much do it for opportunity to see lots of students at games until end of January as they head out on break after exams this week.
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Post by kmitch on Dec 10, 2016 17:47:38 GMT -5
It's a joke that the students don't show up consistently. I understand there are games that they can't get to because they go home for break, but this has been an issue for years. It's so sickening seeing fans show up for the URI game, or Big East games and the rest of the season half the Dunk is empty. It's not just the students, but they should be the one group that should be counted on to show up to every game. It's a joke.
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Post by dex on Dec 10, 2016 18:09:15 GMT -5
Exams start monday and a noon game on saturday...I wouldn't have gone either back in the day
it was umass not Louisville
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Post by kmitch on Dec 10, 2016 18:19:40 GMT -5
And that's the problem. Don't buy season tickets as a student if you don't plan on attending or finding someone to attend every game.
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Post by yankeefriar on Dec 10, 2016 19:07:30 GMT -5
Exams start monday and a noon game on saturday...I wouldn't have gone either back in the day it was umass not Louisville 4pm pre exam, pre last weekend of drinking with the bros and co-ends, 10,000. Noon gets poor student attendance, resulting in 7800, with UMASS fans. Who comes next week at noon vs. Wagner besides the guy with the the bad hair, who sits behind the TV announcers Dex and WTM?
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Post by dmac80 on Dec 10, 2016 20:19:20 GMT -5
I really hope they get 6500 against Wagner. They need 12k between Wagner plus Maine to match last year's OOC gross total, and that's with one extra game. Not gonna happen. Sad.
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Post by thewalk on Dec 10, 2016 21:01:27 GMT -5
I'll take under 6500.....in fairness, I've got plenty of friends with kids who are diehards in the RI area...they're season ticket holders....if you have more than one playng any sport at any level, noon pretty much eliminates you. Even late afternoons are a crapshoot, Are the nighttime starts done for us with fox?
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Post by charl on Dec 11, 2016 17:46:09 GMT -5
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Post by dmac80 on Dec 11, 2016 18:49:39 GMT -5
I mean here's the thing, our numbers are still excellent compared to peers in the overall game. Out of 350 plus or minus D1 basketball schools in America we ranked 44 last year. And PC has to be in the bottom tier of all the schools in terms of enrollment size. Couple that with the fact we play in the Northeast which is a softer college sports fan market, and have no big name football program to bolster us, it's incredible. UCLA has struggled in recent years to average 8k for the whole year. The PAC 12 schools draw notably less than our league does. The Big East is right up there with the rest of the Football 5 and notably above the American and the A10 and then the mid major tier. They'd be doing backflips to average over 5k in Kingston and they're 4 times the size enrollment and exponentially larger alumni base. But they play in a middling program in a non power conference. Attendance is down everywhere compared to 15-20 years ago....the landscape has changed with all the internet, television and myriad of other entertainment options.
But every year under Big Ed attendance has grown and this year it's slipped back a bit. Gonna be a tall order to match last year's stellar Big East numbers but of course that's the goal. I wish I could make more games, but with 3 little ones at home that's not gonna happen. I generally cherry pick the better game to attend so I'm part of the problem. The students and those who have seasons really should be there for every game though. If they can get rid of the 4200 and 5000 games and pump those up to 7500 and sustain 10k and higher for Big East games now were talking.
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friar82
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Post by friar82 on Dec 13, 2016 22:41:34 GMT -5
Prepare for a dip, as the students leave for the holidays on Friday (if not before). Hopefully, the team will continue on its roll in the coming weeks, and wake up the fanbase to the fact that this Team is not only entertaining, but competitive. Come mid-January, I hope that folks will have woken up to the notion that this is not the 9th seeded team in the NBE. By then, the students will be back - with some of the energy that they've carried over from last season.
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