hoyatables
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Post by hoyatables on Feb 20, 2010 10:17:42 GMT -5
I'm all for rewarding those that do not sell their seats to other teams' fans and in someway punishing those that do, but how do we pull it off? I saw Casual's article and read the responses on the seats Hall of Shame. I don't know if anecdotal evidence can be used by the athletic department, though it is fine for us. How do you lookout for that? Our tix are scanned when we get there, but are they traceable? And even if they are, how do we associate them with who walked them in? Visual scans are no good and we can hardly go around asking everyone their affiliation. As for our fans being classier, they can do that on their own time. The word "fan" is short for "fanatic". I don't see any of that in us. True, we are in a disadvantage as opposed to some other teams (DC never having had a "home" team and all) but that should not explain the lack of enthusiasm. I perused the CasualHoya list last night and noticed some errors around my seats. It is not exactly a perfect solution. And we also witnessed another bizarre thing Thursday night. At halftime, a 20-something guy came up to our section, dressed in a Georgetown athletic zip-up, to talk to some Syracuse fans next to us. He told them that he was "three rows behind the Georgetown bench" and invited the three Syracuse fans to join him there. Coast and I looked at him like was crazy and called him out on it. His response -- wearing Georgetown gear, mind you -- was "I'm not a Georgetown fan. I'm a BC fan." Wolf in sheep's clothing, indeed. Ridiculous.
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Post by hoyadestroya on Feb 20, 2010 11:20:25 GMT -5
I do think the school could do a better job marketing the program to locals. I didn't go to GU nor did anybody in my family. I grew up a big fan - having season tickets as a kid and staying loyal to Gtown basketball even while I was an undergrad at UVA (in the mid-90's when we actually had a decent program). Returned to being a season ticket holder a few years ago. Gtown basketball is a good product, and I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for the team to become DC's team or at least get a lot more local interest. I think a good place to start would be to de-emphasize the "We are Georgetown" mantra. Even as a life long Hoya fan, it makes me feel like a bit of an outsider at the games - just seems elitist/exclusionary. 100% agree! I'm a huge Hoya fan but have no affiliation with the school. I grew up in upstate NY , an hour out of Syracuse. Its the product on the court that drew me in, not anything else. Ewing, Zo, Mt. Mutombo, JYD, etc was the reason for my allegiance. I felt the hoya paranoia. I feel like many Hoya fans feel entitlement because of the school they go to and that other schools' fans are hicks, thugs, etc. Well, whatever they are, they are making for threads like this. I also feel the "We are Georgetown" chant excludes many Hoya fans. The basketball program is back and the fans need to embrace it. Do we want to see the product go back to the late 90s , early 00's? I know I don't. Fans need to cheer from minute 1, not after down 20.
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Post by onceahoya on Feb 20, 2010 12:12:41 GMT -5
By contrast, when you go to the holiday Georgetown games where half the lower bowl is comp tickets to local groups, you will find many of them cheering against Georgetown. This isn't out of any affiliation with the opposing school - I rather doubt the boisterous gentlemen singing Jeremy Lin's praises behind me in December were Harvard boosters. But for various reasons (and yes, there is a significant racial component to this), we are not DC's team and, absent a run of extended dominance that produces a massive bandwaggon effect, I don't think we ever will be. I had a different experience with the pre-conference schedule this season (in contrast to the last few years). Lots of seats around me were filled by local non-alumni, and most of them were rooting for Georgetown. I overheard more than one conversation discussing Chris Wright and Austin Freeman's high school days. Four of our starters this year are locals, and that could well be the case next year too. This should be an opportunity for the athletic department to generate some interest in the team from people who have no affiliation with the university. Re the Cuse game, is there a reason that the ticket office didn't offer an advance sale for season ticket holders like they did for Duke? They may have been able to fill all or most of the 200-level with that method and relegated the Orange to the rafters. I called and emailed several times asking about requesting additional tickets for both Cuse and Nova but (oddly) never got any responses at all.
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lichoya68
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
OK YOUNGINS ARE HERE AND ARE VERY VERY GOOD cant wait GO HOYAS
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Post by lichoya68 on Feb 20, 2010 12:58:12 GMT -5
NUF SAID LETS ACT AND FILL THE BOOTH WITH HOYA FANS SELLOUT THE LAST TWO GAMES STUDS AND ALUMS AND FANS ALIKE THESE GAMES ARE HUGE THATS REALLY REALLY BIG i was disappointed a few foul shot and we coulda finished a great 23 point comeback against a possilble final four team SOOOO very proud of them they didnt fold and tired legs probabley made a differnce but time to MOVE MOVE MOVE AND MOVE ON fill the booth for BOTH FINAL HOME GAMES THES GUYS DESERVE IT and by the way HOME GAME AT MCDONOUGH VS NOTRE DAME WHY SHOULD NOT IT BE SOLD OUT FOLKS SOLD OUT students come on down hope i cant get a tix when i show up this pm at 2 pm cause youve SOLD IT OUT these ladies deserve it too AND THEY GOT A LEGIT CHANCE TO PULL IT OFF let always sell everything out WE ARE GEORGETOWN beat nd then be the ville ITS FEBRUARY FOR REAL ;D ;D ;D ;D
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Feb 20, 2010 13:38:57 GMT -5
ITS FEBRUARY FOR REAL ;D ;D ;D ;D Nice to see you are alive. No posts in over 24 hours after the SU game had me worried that you had been abducted, bundled up, and put in a van back to upstate NY.
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71hoya
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Post by 71hoya on Feb 20, 2010 14:53:04 GMT -5
Until Georgetown stops supporting that illegal (it certainly should be) scalping stub-hub, there is not much that can be done to stop one from selling their ticket. With good and sometimes large profits to be made by selling their ticket, you can't blame students and young alumni from selling theirs. I looked at stub-hub and saw that tickets for the Duke and Nova games were going for over $200. If you can't make the game, that is hard money to turn down. If all you could sell it for is face value you would be more inclined to make sure it went to a Georgetown fan. People used to get arrested for doing what stub-hub does and on top of that it is encouraged by Georgetown! Not sure if Georgetown gets a piece of the profit from stub-hub.
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Feb 20, 2010 18:08:05 GMT -5
The principle for success with GU was the Duke game (or the Villanova game, where a snowout only allows loyal psychotics inside). GU should try a gray-out every year for the SU game - emphasize selling tickets to Hoya fans. To emphasize, this really isn't the athletic department - it's evil fans whose heart secrets bile rather than healthy blood.
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hoyahoyasaxa
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Post by hoyahoyasaxa on Feb 20, 2010 19:45:28 GMT -5
In my view this is issue number one for the basketball people in the athletic department this offseason. Since I was an undergrad (Esherick era), the team and atmosphere have improved dramatically. For "big games" we'd have half of the number of students attend that come now. There were almost always more opposing fans. Now the team is exponentially better and so is the atmosphere. However, it's time for the athletic department to take the next step and drastically cut the number of seats that are being resold. The university needs to end the ridiculous partnership with Stubhub. It's insulting to get the Stubhub insert with my season tickets every year (really, I'm being encouraged to sell my tickets?!-- on a website where 75% will end up with opposing fans). It sends completely the wrong message. Then they need to make a condition of season ticket purchasing that tickets can't be resold to opposing fans. Getting caught once gets you a warning. Getting caught twice means you lose your priveleges for the next year. Even if it is lightly enforced it will make people think twice. People who still choose to sell their seats will have to tell the buyers to keep a low profile, keeping the opposing fan idiot quotient to a minimum. Finally, I want to make clear that this is not a criticism of Alleva and his small staff. They do a first class job. This is a bigger policy decision that needs to be made at the top levels of the athletic department.
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Feb 21, 2010 12:58:53 GMT -5
By contrast, when you go to the holiday Georgetown games where half the lower bowl is comp tickets to local groups, you will find many of them cheering against Georgetown. This isn't out of any affiliation with the opposing school - I rather doubt the boisterous gentlemen singing Jeremy Lin's praises behind me in December were Harvard boosters. But for various reasons (and yes, there is a significant racial component to this), we are not DC's team and, absent a run of extended dominance that produces a massive bandwaggon effect, I don't think we ever will be. I had a different experience with the pre-conference schedule this season (in contrast to the last few years). Lots of seats around me were filled by local non-alumni, and most of them were rooting for Georgetown. I overheard more than one conversation discussing Chris Wright and Austin Freeman's high school days. Four of our starters this year are locals, and that could well be the case next year too. This should be an opportunity for the athletic department to generate some interest in the team from people who have no affiliation with the university. Re the Cuse game, is there a reason that the ticket office didn't offer an advance sale for season ticket holders like they did for Duke? They may have been able to fill all or most of the 200-level with that method and relegated the Orange to the rafters. I called and emailed several times asking about requesting additional tickets for both Cuse and Nova but (oddly) never got any responses at all. To emphasize on this, the South Florida attendees from the community were cheering much louder than the traditional season ticket holders. GU is too small a school to define true fans as people who went there - it's really a bigger tent. Oh, and almost every college has a partnership with some scalping site. I don't really like it, but they give GU money and provide the occasional hilarity at halftime.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Feb 21, 2010 16:45:26 GMT -5
I had a different experience with the pre-conference schedule this season (in contrast to the last few years). Lots of seats around me were filled by local non-alumni, and most of them were rooting for Georgetown. I overheard more than one conversation discussing Chris Wright and Austin Freeman's high school days. Four of our starters this year are locals, and that could well be the case next year too. This should be an opportunity for the athletic department to generate some interest in the team from people who have no affiliation with the university. Re the Cuse game, is there a reason that the ticket office didn't offer an advance sale for season ticket holders like they did for Duke? They may have been able to fill all or most of the 200-level with that method and relegated the Orange to the rafters. I called and emailed several times asking about requesting additional tickets for both Cuse and Nova but (oddly) never got any responses at all. To emphasize on this, the South Florida attendees from the community were cheering much louder than the traditional season ticket holders. GU is too small a school to define true fans as people who went there - it's really a bigger tent. Oh, and almost every college has a partnership with some scalping site. I don't really like it, but they give GU money and provide the occasional hilarity at halftime. I agree that it should be a much bigger tent than just students/alumni/those with direct ties to the school. In practice, though, I think the tent isn't very big, at least in terms of "come out to Verizon and cheer on the team." And I think that there are certain systemic, economic, and societal factors at play that conspire to prevent the tent from increasing too much, abent an extended streak of dominance. We seem to have had fairly different experiences. From my seat at the USF game, for instance, the only locals making noise were a couple of guys whose primary concern was seeing how many points Dominique Jones could score. Their primary comment about Georgetown was that the team was soft and that "Junior there needs to stop recruiting all these private school brothers and get him some (insert racial term here) from the hood like his Pops had." An extended discussion followed about how no DC public school kid would ever be caught dead on the Hoyas these days and how big of a shame that was, compared to the days of AI. Still, even if my thinking is colored a bit too much by anecdotes like that one, I can't help but feel that we are a long way away from claiming any real loyalty from the greater community of DC-area natives and residents.
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hoyahoyasaxa
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Post by hoyahoyasaxa on Feb 21, 2010 16:53:26 GMT -5
The season ticket card suggested by the editorial on the front page is an excellent idea. Seems that the technology is there and it could be implemented painlessly (i.e. it's all about the barcode-- you're just limiting the amount of possibly transferrable items to one). Plus the card could be used for all types of incentive programs-- something others suggested to encourage people to get to all the games. Link added: www.hoyasaxa.com/sports/bball.htm#news
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Post by gamp on Feb 21, 2010 19:49:29 GMT -5
There is only one answer to this, an on-campus arena, and that will never happen. Give Steve Alleva that, and this thread would disappear.
I do not know who any of you are, but I do not think you have the right to tell me who I can bring to a game, or who I can give my tickets to if I cannot come. No offense meant, but this is America is it not?
I do wish we would focus more on conference games than non-conference games; Syracuse rather than Duke.
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RusskyHoya
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In Soviet Russia, Hoya Blue Bleeds You!
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Post by RusskyHoya on Feb 21, 2010 20:28:36 GMT -5
I do not know who any of you are, but I do not think you have the right to tell me who I can bring to a game, or who I can give my tickets to if I cannot come. No offense meant, but this is America is it not? Yes, it is. And in certain parts of America, reselling tickets for a markup is illegal (see www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/new_yorks_ticket_resale_law_ex.html)Moreover, tickets obtained through contractual arrangements like the Hoya Hoop Club are subject to all sorts of restrictions, including a prohibition on resale. Also, the reason why the UK uses those cards for soccer matches is that in the United Kingdom resale of football/soccer tickets is illegal under section 166 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 unless the resale is authorized by the organizer of the match.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Feb 21, 2010 20:30:05 GMT -5
Since this is America, Georgetown can choose to set the terms of ticket ownership any way they want, I'd think.
Me, I'd personally focus on the actual scalpers -- those tickets for sale every game -- before I went after folks who can't make every game.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Feb 21, 2010 20:47:49 GMT -5
Hopefully MCI would be amenable to the season ticket card idea just as something like the student wristbands. It would add to entrance lines but would be worth the annoyance factor IMO.
One other wrinkle is that it may deter sales to businesses in the area. Someone would have to take responsibility in each office to keep/distribute the card. You take a client or business partner to the game, and you have to remember to get the card back. Maybe this is trivial mechanically, but some people at first blush may be turned off by the idea when considering their company's freebies for the year.
I don't expect to see too much institutional support for the idea given that we need to scratch and claw for whatever revenue we can come across. There's virtually no question that you'd lose ticket sales as a result of something like this while it improves the experience of diehard fans. Is that something that McD could pitch to the powers that be? I don't think so.
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lichoya68
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
OK YOUNGINS ARE HERE AND ARE VERY VERY GOOD cant wait GO HOYAS
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Post by lichoya68 on Feb 21, 2010 20:58:27 GMT -5
WE JUST NEED TO FILL THE BOOTH FOR THE LAST TWO HOME GAMES WITH HOYA FANS STUDS ALUMS ET al PLEASE lets support these guys as they try to finish positive its february ps i was not hiding after the cuse game was outa town for twenty four hours doing my sons wedding planning stuff im ALIVE AND WELL actually got back in time to see the lady hoyas BEAT UP ON THE NUMBER FOUR NOTRE DAME LADIES HOW SWEET IT WAS fill mcdonough for their remaining games come on studs there were more four to ten year old girls rooting for the lady hoyas than there were students.. go hoyas beat the ville go ladies keep on rolling no let downs ever again..
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joey0403p
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Post by joey0403p on Feb 22, 2010 11:25:01 GMT -5
some of this is a little over the top and annoying people. If i bring a friend or co worker to a game and they are a fan of the opposing team that is well within my rights. I'm not saying the person should be respectful. But give me a break here guys. If i lived in upstate NY i wouldn't be getting cuse tickets - but i'd be really thankful if a friend invited me to a game when g town was playing.
I believe it all really boils down to the MCI center - it is huge. period. Cameron indoor has what? around 10k....MCI has around 20k. Plus as mentioned DC is a large city with a TON of transplants.
it is a reality - deal with it.
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NCHoya
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Post by NCHoya on Feb 22, 2010 11:39:53 GMT -5
I am all for putting in place marketing and sales ideas that atrract the local market to support Gtown sports, but I have to agree with the minority on this issue that restricting sales is non-sense. I use Stubhub for my trips down to DC to watch the Hoyas because I do not want to 1) Scalp the day of the game which is an uncertain proposition or 2) Sit in the 400 level because those are the only seats available through ticketmaster.
Many of my friends do the same thing. Stubhub is not all that bad. Like it or not, fans or alums like me that live outside of DC, rely on Stubhub to get tickets to the games because getting season tickets with preferred seat locations makes no sense. Besides, if I bought season tix, I would have to sell the weekday games on Stubhub to unknown parties. Except I would really not feel bad doing it and the card solution would really add inflexibility that would limit season ticketholders even more.
This is a reality you get with a small school playing in a 20K seat arena. GU needs to do a better job appealing to the locals, period. Do not punish the freemarket system just because a bunch of opposing fans show up. Make people WANT to go to the game, so they do not sell their ticket. It seems to work for many other teams.
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TC
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
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Post by TC on Feb 22, 2010 12:21:38 GMT -5
I went to the Providence game and decided to go on the Sunday before that Tuesday night. Since the University was closed for snow and I couldn't get through to the Georgetown ticket office, I called the Providence ticket office, who put me in a seat near the floor. The good Providence seats have markers on them saying who owns them (some construction company, a law company, etc). It'd be awesome if Georgetown marked the seats somehow so we could know who owns those seats and shame their businesses.
Also, I hope everyone gives the ticket holders in their section who did sell their tickets a hard time. Peer pressure them into stopping.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Feb 22, 2010 12:37:04 GMT -5
While this season has been great with big games (Nova, Duke and UConn) scheduled on weekends, can we just go ahead and mandate that Syracuse not be scheduled midweek. When it falls on a weekday it pretty much kills any chance us out-of-town season ticket holders can make it. We haven't had a home weekend game against Cuse since 2006. I understand scheduling is particularly difficult for Georgetown and that the dept did particularly well in getting so many marquee games on weekends this year, but can we start with Syracuse on a weekend and build the schedule around that in the future? They are our biggest rival.
2010 - Thursday 2009 - Wednesday 2008 - Monday 2007 - N/A 2006 - Saturday 2005 - N/A 2004 - Saturday 2003 - Saturday 2002 - Monday
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