Bigs"R"Us
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Post by Bigs"R"Us on Dec 31, 2018 10:08:56 GMT -5
The team is fun to watch again. The frosh have helped in this regard. We need more pieces to climb the rankings. Folks will come to games once there is more of a buzz. Need to have realistic expectations though. Even if we’re top-20, the lesser games will not be well-attended.
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Post by capcenterhoya on Dec 31, 2018 10:45:47 GMT -5
I know attendance is down, but the concessions situation for games has been atrocious this year. Consistently long lines and limited food selection is very frustrating for us loyal fans.
Do people think the excitement for our freshmen will move the needle enough to draw 10k plus fans going forward? Just miss the energy we used to get for home games.
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drquigley
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Post by drquigley on Dec 31, 2018 11:21:02 GMT -5
Winning would be the best improvement to the game attendance and atmosphere issues re: Capital One. Attendance was strong after G-Town made its last Final Four run. The slow decline over the past decade has worn down both season ticket holders and the casual fan. Also the departure of the football schools from the Big East has really hurt attendance -- Syracuse, UConn, Pitt, and WV all were big games b/c of the large alumni bases of those schools. Good riddance to them! Once the Hoyas start winning, fans will come back. The fact is that this style of basketball is more entertaining to watch than the JT3 era. The team needs to relevant -- in the AP rankings, in March ... etc. One other point: have you met any undergrads recently? Georgetown students are, by and large, not the sports fans of yesteryear. These young people are all seemingly renaissance types -- students, musicians, humanitarians, artists, etc. -- not the type of kid who watches multiple basketball games every week. I think you really hit on something, something that truly needs further discussion (maybe even its own thread). I have two grandsons in college (not GU). They play lacrosse and enjoy watching, lacrosse, hockey and football. Basketball (and baseball) hold no interest for them. Whereas 50 years ago when I attended GU we were all in for basketball and packed McDonough. We also were all male, white, and predominantly Catholic middle class kids, many of us first generation and first in the family to attend college. Not much different than other Catholic Universities like Fordham, Boston College, Villanova, etc. Tuition was less than $2,000 a semester and off campus housing could be found for less than $100 a month ($50 with a roommate). When I visit campus today it is a different world. WOMEN! MINORITIES! And with tuition at $50,000+ a year and god knows what housing costs you can assume that there aren't many children of school teachers, shoe salesmen, cops and firemen attending classes. And oh yeah, the drinking age for beer and wine was 18. Besides intramurals and playing pinball at Weismillers getting drunk and throwing up was our most popular weekend activity. And this is a good thing. Face it we were a bunch of naive, Catholic school educated boys who had never had any serious social interaction with African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. And the only girls -- women -- we met were either nursing school students, the few East Campus female students, or the girls who taxied over to the Tombs from Marymount, Trinity, Dunbarton JC etc on weekend nights. In short, the college (GU) experience today is much better than it was in my day and probably than it was at the height of our BE basketball dominance. And you are right the young people today attending GU are not the type who live and die by the exploits of our basketball team. Add in the pressure they are under to succeed in this global economy and you can understand why you aren't getting more than a few hundred students willing to commute over to Penn Quarter on weeknights to watch a basketball game. So as we continue this discussion on how to increase attendance at Cap One it is important for us (especially older alums) to keep this in mind.
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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 Dec 31, 2018 15:02:36 GMT -5
YOUR CLASSMATES WORK VERY HARD show up at the CAP CENTRE TO SUPPORT THEM no rides needed out to freaking Landover any more FILL THE OLD BOOTH<,
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McBricks
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What Rocks.
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Post by McBricks on Dec 31, 2018 15:23:38 GMT -5
I agreed that winning will solve a lot of this. But let's be honest. The team has to win for 4-5+ years to turn this around. And then, a couple down years and we start all over again. We just don't have the luxury of being able to withstand down seasons.
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drquigley
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by drquigley on Jan 2, 2019 17:56:50 GMT -5
Anyone watch the St. John-Marquette game? How small is the Johnnies field house? I'm guessing it holds no more than 6,000 and GU could easily renovate McDonough to hold as many people. Anyone know the field house size?
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Jan 2, 2019 18:01:19 GMT -5
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drquigley
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by drquigley on Jan 2, 2019 18:48:16 GMT -5
Thanks. Gotta believe McDonough could easily be renovated to that level for OOC and occasional BE games.
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Elvado
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Post by Elvado on Jan 2, 2019 19:51:51 GMT -5
Thanks. Gotta believe McDonough could easily be renovated to that level for OOC and occasional BE games. As one who went to Missouri ‘82, this must happen on some level.
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DanMcQ
Moderator
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Post by DanMcQ on Jan 2, 2019 19:55:09 GMT -5
There's a difference between "could easily be renovated" and getting permits to easily renovate. There also has to be institutional will to do so and some deep pocket$ to make it a priority.
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Elvado
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Post by Elvado on Jan 2, 2019 20:23:40 GMT -5
There's a difference between "could easily be renovated" and getting permits to easily renovate. There also has to be institutional will to do so and some deep pocket$ to make it a priority. All true and when you add in GU’s well-developed institutional inertia maybe we see it for the 50th anniversary of Missouri...
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Post by JohnnyJones on Jan 2, 2019 22:59:53 GMT -5
I thought the Big East had a 6k minimum for conference games? Is that not true?
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LCPolo18
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Post by LCPolo18 on Jan 2, 2019 23:08:08 GMT -5
I thought the Big East had a 6k minimum for conference games? Is that not true? I think the belief is that the rule was adjusted for the new big east.
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turbohoya
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Post by turbohoya on Jan 4, 2019 11:00:45 GMT -5
Does anyone have the season ticket stats rather than the attendance stats?
While I know we want to focus on attendance, I suspect we have sold more than 4-5k season tickets... meaning what you are seeing is out of town season ticket holders like me not trekking to DC for a crappy OOC slate hurting attendance but still generating some dollars for the program.
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kbones17
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Post by kbones17 on Jan 4, 2019 12:42:10 GMT -5
Random thing that's perhaps relevant to this discussion: Somehow I'm still on a Seton Hall mailing list from buying a ticket at Prudential several years ago. I happened to notice in their emails, and then I checked into their Athletics website, that they're marketing tonight's game against St. John's as a sell-out: shupirates.com/news/2018/12/28/mens-basketball-3-things-about-saturdays-sold-out-big-east-opener.aspxNow, what they mean by that is a "lower bowl sell-out", so they're probably expecting around 10-11,000 tonight rather than the full 18,700-something. Still, it's worth noting that Seton Hall has been using the lower bowl strategy as far as I know since they moved into the Prudential Center. One of the benefits of this is they can get away with claiming a "sell-out" in a situation like this(*)...something that at least SOUNDS good when you read it (I at least though "huh, I guess SHU-SJU is a bigger deal than I'd have expected" and I imagine it fools enough people). (*And in one of their promo materials I believe they referenced having seven lower bowl sell-outs at Prudential) Of course, we've discussed many times before the possible benefits of consolidating your fanbase into the lower bowl. 10,000 fans in the lower bowl tonight will sound/look way better than even a couple thousand more spread everywhere. And of course SHU won't always get to 10,000 fans (in the first five years of the Big East, we've cleared 10k less than half the time, and less often in the past couple years), so keeping everyone in the lower bowl makes it look/sound better for the TV. I agree with closing off the upper level and reducing capacity to consolidate the fans. Creates a more lively environment. Different sport, but Tampa Bays just announced today they are doing this to create atmosphere. Oakland A’s already do it. I realize that this moves a few season ticket holders but have crack a few eggs to make (improve) the omelet. I’m sure there some accommodations made to keep them happy. Honestly if we end up “selling out” some of the bigger games and fans can’t walk of the street and get a ticket than that is a good thing. Makes the students and casual fans more on the ball about getting tickets in advance and makes some of the lesser games more in demand and more energetic.
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kbones17
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Post by kbones17 on Jan 4, 2019 12:44:11 GMT -5
Random thing that's perhaps relevant to this discussion: Somehow I'm still on a Seton Hall mailing list from buying a ticket at Prudential several years ago. I happened to notice in their emails, and then I checked into their Athletics website, that they're marketing tonight's game against St. John's as a sell-out: shupirates.com/news/2018/12/28/mens-basketball-3-things-about-saturdays-sold-out-big-east-opener.aspxNow, what they mean by that is a "lower bowl sell-out", so they're probably expecting around 10-11,000 tonight rather than the full 18,700-something. Still, it's worth noting that Seton Hall has been using the lower bowl strategy as far as I know since they moved into the Prudential Center. One of the benefits of this is they can get away with claiming a "sell-out" in a situation like this(*)...something that at least SOUNDS good when you read it (I at least though "huh, I guess SHU-SJU is a bigger deal than I'd have expected" and I imagine it fools enough people). (*And in one of their promo materials I believe they referenced having seven lower bowl sell-outs at Prudential) Of course, we've discussed many times before the possible benefits of consolidating your fanbase into the lower bowl. 10,000 fans in the lower bowl tonight will sound/look way better than even a couple thousand more spread everywhere. And of course SHU won't always get to 10,000 fans (in the first five years of the Big East, we've cleared 10k less than half the time, and less often in the past couple years), so keeping everyone in the lower bowl makes it look/sound better for the TV. I agree with closing off the upper level and reducing capacity to consolidate the fans. Creates a more lively environment. Different sport, but Tampa Bays just announced today they are doing this to create atmosphere. Oakland A’s already do it. I realize that this moves a few season ticket holders but have crack a few eggs to make (improve) the omelet. I’m sure there some accommodations made to keep them happy. Honestly if we end up “selling out” some of the bigger games and fans can’t walk of the street and get a ticket than that is a good thing. Makes the students and casual fans more on the ball about getting tickets in advance and makes some of the lesser games more in demand and more energetic. Meant to say “walk off the street at tip-off time...”
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Post by centercourt400s on Jan 5, 2019 17:30:31 GMT -5
Pretty good crowd of 11000+ today for St. Johns. I don't know if it came off the same way on tv but it seemed like it was pretty loud and the crowd was into it. If we can stat pulling crowds like that regularly I think much of this hand wringing will fade. Unfortunately all the extra late starts on the upcoming schedule aren't going to help in this regard.
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FLHoya
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Post by FLHoya on Jan 5, 2019 17:59:14 GMT -5
Pretty good crowd of 11000+ today for St. Johns. I don't know if it came off the same way on tv but it seemed like it was pretty loud and the crowd was into it. If we can stat pulling crowds like that regularly I think much of this hand wringing will fade. Unfortunately all the extra late starts on the upcoming schedule aren't going to help in this regard. Ticketmaster wasn't selling any tickets in the 400 level for today's game, except for 416-418 and even then only a very small number. Far as I can tell, for the next few games the only tickets outside 416 are re-sells (and again, only a very small number). Helps out a lot to get 11,000 almost all into the lower two sections, and might as well do so given the likely attendance projections for the rest of the year. In other news: Cap One remains laughably understaffed and slow on security to get in the arena.
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mchoya
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Post by mchoya on Jan 5, 2019 18:16:03 GMT -5
Pretty good crowd of 11000+ today for St. Johns. I don't know if it came off the same way on tv but it seemed like it was pretty loud and the crowd was into it. If we can stat pulling crowds like that regularly I think much of this hand wringing will fade. Unfortunately all the extra late starts on the upcoming schedule aren't going to help in this regard. Ticketmaster wasn't selling any tickets in the 400 level for today's game, except for 416-418 and even then only a very small number. Far as I can tell, for the next few games the only tickets outside 416 are re-sells (and again, only a very small number). Helps out a lot to get 11,000 almost all into the lower two sections, and might as well do so given the likely attendance projections for the rest of the year. In other news: Cap One remains laughably understaffed and slow on security to get in the arena. On the plus side, they at least opened all of the main concession stands on the lower bowl. Hope that’s a permanent development.
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LCPolo18
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Post by LCPolo18 on Jan 12, 2019 12:34:56 GMT -5
Not sure if it started this game against providence or I didn’t notice it before, but they started showing frequent replays (sponsored by Geico) here in the stadium.
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