drquigley
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Post by drquigley on Feb 9, 2016 21:55:39 GMT -5
Watching the nearly empty student section at the St. John's game made me wonder. Do we, the alumni bloggers on this website care more about GU basketball than the students currently attending GU? Granted it was St. John's but heck "WHEN I WAS A GU STUDENT" we would take any opportunity to get get drunk and wander down to McDonough to see the Hoyas get slapped around by the like of GW, Maryland, and of course Syracuse. Is it the distance to Verizon, higher drinking age, or just more mature students?
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tashoya
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
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Post by tashoya on Feb 9, 2016 22:11:49 GMT -5
Watching the nearly empty student section at the St. John's game made me wonder. Do we, the alumni bloggers on this website care more about GU basketball than the students currently attending GU? Granted it was St. John's but heck "WHEN I WAS A GU STUDENT" we would take any opportunity to get get drunk and wander down to McDonough to see the Hoyas get slapped around by the like of GW, Maryland, and of course Syracuse. Is it the distance to Verizon, higher drinking age, or just more mature students? I think the answer is as simple as it seems. What percentage of the student body, in your estimation, cares about or knows about basketball in general? Mostly well off white kids from suburbia and prep schools. It doesn't make them bad people. It just makes them poorly informed. Going to the games isn't about the sport as much as it is about being with your friends and supporting your school and your classmates and going nuts over something that is just fun to be a part of. It's fun. I didn't love the trek out to Landover but I was always glad that I had gone. I don't ever recall it being difficult to drink in Georgetown, even as a freshman, when the drinking age was 21. Dixie didn't even card then. My freshman year neighbor who looked, at best, 15 1/2, armed with money from my mother, bought a case of beer from Dixie for my 19th birthday. I remember being shocked because my mom had met him and commented on his baby face. Meanwhile, his roommate could have passed for 30. Dude had a full sweater under his shirt. Back on topic, maybe the alcohol part has changed but these are smart, resourceful Georgetown students we're talking about. If that's the explanation/excuse, I'm even more embarrassed than I was seeing the turnout for the Johnnies.
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njhoya78
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Post by njhoya78 on Feb 9, 2016 22:31:30 GMT -5
The won/loss record seems to matter far more to present day GU undergrads than it did to us, in terms of whether to go to the game.
Of course, I was spoiled by simply having to walk down the hill from Healy to McDonough. But we did have an open bar at the games. . .nothing like watching the Hoyas play Fairleigh Dickinson while drinking tequila sunrises at courtside.
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SaxaCD
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Post by SaxaCD on Feb 9, 2016 22:32:02 GMT -5
Watching the nearly empty student section at the St. John's game made me wonder. Do we, the alumni bloggers on this website care more about GU basketball than the students currently attending GU? Granted it was St. John's but heck "WHEN I WAS A GU STUDENT" we would take any opportunity to get get drunk and wander down to McDonough to see the Hoyas get slapped around by the like of GW, Maryland, and of course Syracuse. Is it the distance to Verizon, higher drinking age, or just more mature students? Maybe something they saw going "all the way to Verizon" microaggressed them, and they had to be rescued back to campus, where they could then demand more diverse representation in street signs and shop facades.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Feb 9, 2016 22:38:26 GMT -5
I think the answer is as simple as it seems. What percentage of the student body, in your estimation, cares about or knows about basketball in general? I really think this is the key question, and why it's so tough for a smaller university that doesn't have a huge state alumni base. More than ever, there are so many different things for college kids to do, that a very large percentage of students truly don't care about basketball. I am not sure that's really any different from previous eras, except that now there are probably more readily available entertainment options (not to mention you pretty much had to go to a game to see it back in the 1980s). In my opinion, except for a smaller base that are die-hards (many of whom probably become the HoyaTalk posters here today - though not in my case - my fandom started after I graduated, sadly), students are always going to be fair weather fans given everything else competing for their attention. When you win, more students will come. When you play a better team, more students will come. When you play on a Saturday, more students will come. It's just the way it is. From the "true fan" perspective, the fair weather fans are annoying (in any sport), but in Georgetown's case, if you want big attendance, you need them.
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jester
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by jester on Feb 9, 2016 22:47:30 GMT -5
It's really hard to have fair weather fans in a city like DC. Those that live in DC work more and those that are older it's more of a commute if they live outside.its also a pretty transient city.
To give the example of two smaller schools - locals regularly go to Stanford games in Palo Alto but that's not the case here- we just can't get that many - and when we do its hard to tell given the stadium. At Duke, there is a lot of tradition and better supply and demand (beyond location) - the school puts a lot of pressure on you being weird to not go to games. That being said, very few students show up to those early season games, it's locals - but to their credit those that do are really into it.
But winning and good players cure a lot - obviously we used to have awesome support - but agree there is just so much more entertainment and school activities.
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blueeagle
Bulldog (over 250 posts)
Win or lose, it's the school we choose.
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Post by blueeagle on Feb 9, 2016 23:02:40 GMT -5
Unless you are a fan going into the season, it is hard to be fired up about a team with a 13-11 record. Long time fans are also losing interest. Many season ticket holders in the 100's don't even bother showing up. And these are folks who have been regulars for years.
Hoping that the wins vs. Xavier and Creighton are not the only highlights of the season. Plenty of basketball still to be played.
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tashoya
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
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Post by tashoya on Feb 9, 2016 23:35:00 GMT -5
Unless you are a fan going into the season, it is hard to be fired up about a team with a 13-11 record. Long time fans are also losing interest. Many season ticket holders in the 100's don't even bother showing up. And these are folks who have been regulars for years. Hoping that the wins vs. Xavier and Creighton are not the only highlights of the season. Plenty of basketball still to be played. If you're not a fan going into the season, you're not a fan. Fan is derived from fanatic. A 13-11 season isn't going to win many new fans but it's also not going to put off actual fans as it's certainly not the norm for our program. Nice trolling though.
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Post by professorhoya on Feb 10, 2016 0:14:16 GMT -5
Attendance and ratings have been going down for quite some time now nationally in college basketball. Why do you think they put in the drastic rules changes to increase scoring and ban defense. www.kansas.com/sports/college/wichita-state/article16265834.htmlThere are a couple reasons for this. 1. Increase in Video Games playing, social media, iphones, etc 2. HDTV. Why go to the game with the associated cost and travel time when the view with HDTV video quality is almost better than being at the arena (depending on where you sit). 3. Decrease in popularity of basketball compared to the Golden Age of Basketball (Bird/Magic/Jordan) and increase in the popularity of watching/following soccer among the youth. "Soccer has surged in popularity over the last 25-30 years. A 2014 ESPN poll reported that professional soccer ranked as the No. 2 sport after, pro football, among 12- to 17-year-olds. The same survey also reported that Major League Soccer (MLS) was as popular as Major League Baseball (MLB) among the same age group. Both MLS and MLB now claim that 18% of 12- to 17-year-olds are avid fans. The NBA, NCAA football and NCAA basketball were all over 23% for the same age group." www.umbel.com/blog/sports/10-data-points-prove-soccer-has-made-it-in-america/So for those entering college, pro soccer (Premiere League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, MLS) is the #2 watched sport behind football among US 12-17 year olds. And surprisingly, the C Level US soccer league, MLS is just as popular as Major League Baseball.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Feb 10, 2016 0:20:35 GMT -5
Attendance and ratings have been going down for quite some time now nationally in college basketball. I don't doubt this is true, but for Georgetown, it's only true the last few years. The years from about 2006 to 2011ish, and even to 2013, saw average attendance in the 10,000+ range. Generally, attendance in that era was well ahead of attendance even in the 1980s. I have posted the full figures elsewhere on HoyaTalk.
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SDHoya
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Post by SDHoya on Feb 10, 2016 0:32:49 GMT -5
Esh's last season in charge, I could often show up 5 minutes late to the game and sit in the second row of the student section. Three years later, if you showed up 15 minutes early you were sent to the 400s.
SDSU a couple years ago in the wake of a couple sweet 16s, had what was considered to be one of the craziest student sections in the country. This year, there was an article in the local paper about how empty seats were costing the university hundreds of thousands of dollars. SDSU has 30k undergrads and an on campus arena. (Also, just a few years before the sweet 16, SDSU could barely get anyone, students or alums, to come out).
Fact is, those of us who post on this board are fanatics. We pretty much will show up regardless of the state of the team/program. When the team is having a rough go of it, we vent here---but we still care (too much) about them. For the vast majority of people, the way they deal with dwindling success and lessening excitement about the team is to stop caring because they have better things to do with their lives. This is true with pretty much every sport pro and college.
The solution to get fans back in the seats and engaged is simple. Make a deep NCAA run. Easier said than done, I know.
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Post by professorhoya on Feb 10, 2016 0:38:12 GMT -5
Esh's last season in charge, I could often show up 5 minutes late to the game and sit in the second row of the student section. Three years later, if you showed up 15 minutes early you were sent to the 400s. SDSU a couple years ago in the wake of a couple sweet 16s, had what was considered to be one of the craziest student sections in the country. This year, there was an article in the local paper about how empty seats were costing the university hundreds of thousands of dollars. SDSU has 30k undergrads and an on campus arena. (Also, just a few years before the sweet 16, SDSU could barely get anyone, students or alums, to come out). Fact is, those of us who post on this board are fanatics. We pretty much will show up regardless of the state of the team/program. When the team is having a rough go of it, we vent here---but we still care (too much) about them. For the vast majority of people, the way they deal with dwindling success and lessening excitement about the team is to stop caring because they have better things to do with their lives. This is true with pretty much every sport pro and college. The solution to get fans back in the seats and engaged is simple. Make a deep NCAA run. Easier said than done, I know.Time to make that phone call to Happy Kuykendahl.
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Post by practice on Feb 10, 2016 8:04:22 GMT -5
I'd venture to say that our basketball program is not one of the top reasons that our current student body decided to attend Georgetown. Most are nerds. The others and bandwagoneer millennials who are only interested in the "experience." If we win they will come. Just winning in the regular season, regularly, will increase fan attendance. Also, let's not forget the impact of Super Bowl Monday on a SJU-GU game.
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bostonfan
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Post by bostonfan on Feb 10, 2016 8:15:18 GMT -5
As a parent of a current student I can tell you that many of the students who would normally go to as many games as they could are not motivated to go this season because of the teams' performance. Having to leave campus to go to the games does not make it any easier for the kids. What would be a 3 hour time commitment if the games were on campus becomes a 4 -5 hour event to get to the Verizon Center and back. All of the students are busy at Georgetown with their academics, clubs and other interests and giving up 4 -5 hours of time to watch a disappointing team this year play against a really bad St John's team on a Monday night is just not that attractive to many of the students.
I am told that the watch parties in the student center are pretty well attended and are generally a pretty good time(and take less time that traveling across the city) so many of the teams students go to those events instead of the game.
Not having any of the games on campus does not help attract the casual fans to the games. My clild went to the NIT game that was played in McDonough two years ago and said the atmosphere was tremendous and that a lot more kids would go if the games were on campus, but that is not happening any time soon. If you want the kids to give up time in their busy schedule to go to games across town, you need to be winning games and putting out an entertaining product and that is not happening this year.
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Elvado
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Post by Elvado on Feb 10, 2016 8:34:35 GMT -5
It is simply a matter of priorities and options. In the 80s the product was better but we jackassed on freezing cold buses to Landover. We also had many fewer entertainment options and did not have screens and phones in front of our faces 24/7.
Simply stated, there are many more options for kids today and the absence of a compelling product means you will not draw from around the margins.
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blueeagle
Bulldog (over 250 posts)
Win or lose, it's the school we choose.
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Post by blueeagle on Feb 10, 2016 8:58:10 GMT -5
Unless you are a fan going into the season, it is hard to be fired up about a team with a 13-11 record. Long time fans are also losing interest. Many season ticket holders in the 100's don't even bother showing up. And these are folks who have been regulars for years. Hoping that the wins vs. Xavier and Creighton are not the only highlights of the season. Plenty of basketball still to be played. If you're not a fan going into the season, you're not a fan. Fan is derived from fanatic. A 13-11 season isn't going to win many new fans but it's also not going to put off actual fans as it's certainly not the norm for our program. Nice trolling though. This is exactly my point. The question originally posed was why current students have not shown up for home games. I think it is safe to assume that many of them were not fanatics going into the season and so have not packed the phone booth. If you read between the lines, you would deduce that I consider myself a fan and so still attend home games and notice the absence of regulars in my section. So not trolling. Just stating my opinion and my observations.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Feb 10, 2016 9:06:00 GMT -5
It is simply a matter of priorities and options. In the 80s the product was better but we jackassed on freezing cold buses to Landover. We also had many fewer entertainment options and did not have screens and phones in front of our faces 24/7. Simply stated, there are many more options for kids today and the absence of a compelling product means you will not draw from around the margins. Right on target as usual, but I'd add two more points: 1. Georgetown sends a tacit message to students that men's basketball is the only sport that matters. Whereas other schools promote sports as community building initiatives all year long, it's not the case at GU. Below are the home attendance figures for team sports - remember, this is a on-campus population of over 5,000 at this point: Men's Basketball: 8,919 (down 20% in four years) Football: 2,482 Men's Lacrosse: 999 Men's Soccer: 959 Women's Soccer: 701 Women's Basketball: 547 Field Hockey: 349 Baseball (off-campus): 312 Volleyball: 194 Softball (off-campus): 114 2. There is a visible lack of student leadership when it comes to team support. It's too easy to call them self-indulgent individualists, but the days of Hoyamotion and even Hoya Blue are ancient history to people who are more worried about making their brunch reservations at Clyde's than whether they should be razzing Ben Bentil or Kris Dunn. The "student section" is out-hustled by the Stonewalls every game. As for the other sports, even worse.
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Elvado
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Post by Elvado on Feb 10, 2016 9:26:18 GMT -5
It is simply a matter of priorities and options. In the 80s the product was better but we jackassed on freezing cold buses to Landover. We also had many fewer entertainment options and did not have screens and phones in front of our faces 24/7. Simply stated, there are many more options for kids today and the absence of a compelling product means you will not draw from around the margins. Right on target as usual, but I'd add two more points: 1. Georgetown sends a tacit message to students that men's basketball is the only sport that matters. Whereas other schools promote sports as community building initiatives all year long, it's not the case at GU. Below are the home attendance figures for team sports - remember, this is a on-campus population of over 5,000 at this point: Men's Basketball: 8,919 (down 20% in four years) Football: 2,482 Men's Lacrosse: 999 Men's Soccer: 959 Women's Soccer: 701 Women's Basketball: 547 Field Hockey: 349 Baseball (off-campus): 312 Volleyball: 194 Softball (off-campus): 114 2. There is a visible lack of student leadership when it comes to team support. It's too easy to call them self-indulgent individualists, but the days of Hoyamotion and even Hoya Blue are ancient history to people who are more worried about making their brunch reservations at Clyde's than whether they should be razzing Ben Bentil or Kris Dunn. The "student section" is out-hustled by the Stonewalls every game. As for the other sports, even worse. The attendance level for the soccer team, a national power at this point, is staggeringly low given that most kids could throw a rock from their dorms and hit Shaw Field. Even if soccer is not your thing, how do you not get behind a bunch of classmates who are so good at what they do? Full disclosure: I am a huge fan and the team and Coach are great friends to my son.
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sleepy
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
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Post by sleepy on Feb 10, 2016 9:29:51 GMT -5
Clearly its an admissions problem. I blame the staff and their ability to recognize talent. Just what kind of questions are alumni recruiters asking?
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Post by flyoverhoya on Feb 10, 2016 9:45:47 GMT -5
It's really hard to have fair weather fans in a city like DC. Those that live in DC work more and those that are older it's more of a commute if they live outside.its also a pretty transient city. To give the example of two smaller schools - locals regularly go to Stanford games in Palo Alto but that's not the case here- we just can't get that many - and when we do its hard to tell given the stadium. At Duke, there is a lot of tradition and better supply and demand (beyond location) - the school puts a lot of pressure on you being weird to not go to games. That being said, very few students show up to those early season games, it's locals - but to their credit those that do are really into it. But winning and good players cure a lot - obviously we used to have awesome support - but agree there is just so much more entertainment and school activities. Cameron also demonstrates the appeal of something we'll never have - an on-campus arena seating a little under 10,000.
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