tashoya
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Post by tashoya on Feb 13, 2013 21:06:47 GMT -5
My point is that post season success shouldn't really have anything to do with students showing up to games during the year. period. end of story The transportation issue I completely agree with. Making the games a more party environment I completely agree with. The team doing anything in the post season is a flimsy argument/rationalization for a few reasons. As you say these are "casual" fans why would they care if they went to the sweet 16 the year before? We're consistently ranked in the top 25....we have a chance to be one of very few teams to be ranked in the top 10 for what 7? 8? consecutive seasons. We're a national power. As a casual fan, you see a top 20 matchup on ESPN and you can't come out? As I stated earlier I don't expect miracles (ie a weeknight depaul or seton hall game) to attract fans. A top 20 matchup that any casual observer can see and say "huh this is a big game"; and they don't show up. THAT'S A PROBLEM! This shows a shocking ignorance of the way the casual fan operates. Most casual fans of college basketball simply don't pay attention to the sport until March Madness. Indeed, the media doesn't really go all-in on hoops until that point, at which point college basketball is basically the only thing anyone is talking about (think about all of the people who fill out brackets who probably haven't watched a college hoops game all season up to that point). People LOVE to bask in reflected glory, so when your school suddenly is getting widespread media attention for its achievements, the bandwagon can't fill up fast enough. Now flip that around. If everybody is watching, and your no. 2 or 3 or 4 seeded team craps out on the first weekend when such upsets ALWAYS lead the news, the casual fan runs away and doesn't want to be associated with failure. At a school as small as ours, playing in a building as massive and as inconvenient to get from campus as Verizon, you will need the casual fan to show up regularly in order to draw big numbers. This isn't a commentary saying this fair, only an attempt at a realistic assessment of what set apart a few years ago's student attendance (and really all attendance) from today's. If I recall, there was a somewhat similar effect in the early part of the 2001-2002 season following the surprise Sweet Sixteen appearance in 2001. This is the same reality according to which successful baseball teams sell 3 million tickets the year AFTER they go to the World Series but not necessarily the year they actually get there. I know nothing but this makes the most sense to me. That said, looking back, I wish I could go to games all over again and that's when we took buses to Landover. It's fun and it makes you feel more like a Hoya and, realistically, you don't get THAT many games on your home turf even in 4 years. Plus, if you're just a casual fan, you're guaranteed to meet new people that you're in school with. If you're a friend of a rabid fan, they're dragging you to games. If you're not that into it, give it a shot if for no other reason that you'll hang with people you don't normally hang with. Take advantage while you can.
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Feb 13, 2013 21:07:49 GMT -5
Please note that there were thousands of rabid UConn fans masquerading as empty seats in the upper deck for their beat down of hated Syracuse in Hartford tonight. Perhaps Calhoun should have sprung for some buses.... ![:P](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/tongue.png)
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tashoya
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Post by tashoya on Feb 13, 2013 21:12:39 GMT -5
As an addendum, nice to see that a player that beats women doesn't come back to the team at UConn. Maybe he should have considered Cuse instead.
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jgalt
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Post by jgalt on Feb 13, 2013 23:37:34 GMT -5
Big Dog is exactly right the last few posts. Its all about the second year, not the first. (watch the Nats this year, they will sell out probably half their games, and this is a team that could never sell out home openers the past few seasons).
The buses and Metro fares are very expensive (did a dirty calculation and its close to 200k for 2500 metro round trips). But in 06-07 having those metro tickets was a big deal for a tuesday night game against a crappy team. It just removes one more barrier to going to the game.
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Post by nnb5 on Feb 14, 2013 8:54:53 GMT -5
Georgetown should work with Arlington to put a 10,000 seat arena in Rosslyn. There have literally been 7 or 8 brand new buildings built in the area in the past 10 years. Given that land appears to be more abundant over there yet close to campus and metro, could be a good fit. I just hope Georgetown is exploring all of its options.
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Post by Problem of Dog on Feb 14, 2013 9:31:37 GMT -5
Georgetown should work with Arlington to put a 10,000 seat arena in Rosslyn. There have literally been 7 or 8 brand new buildings built in the area in the past 10 years. Given that land appears to be more abundant over there yet close to campus and metro, could be a good fit. I just hope Georgetown is exploring all of its options. Oh boy...
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Big Dog
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Post by Big Dog on Feb 14, 2013 11:24:13 GMT -5
A Rosslyn arena would be awesome for students, alums and other fans in the region, and for the Rosslyn urban center. I assume someone has thought of this and rejected it though, or it just isn't feasible. But there's kind of an untapped Northern Virginia market for college hoops (sorry Mason) we might tap into. Seems like maybe we could get Virginia or Rosslyn to kick in some dollars.
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skyhoya
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Post by skyhoya on Feb 14, 2013 11:30:30 GMT -5
Why would any Virginia government unit invest in a DC school? The place needs to work on their traffic problem, not add to it. 15 games a year does not add any revenue to the treasury it would be a big revenue loser for Arlington.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Feb 14, 2013 11:43:54 GMT -5
I think this should happen. There is not NEARLY enough construction going on in Arlington right now.
Only two of the major access points to DC are currently choked off. This is completely unacceptable. I'm calling Bane.
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Post by Problem of Dog on Feb 14, 2013 15:06:48 GMT -5
We cannot break ground on a new arena in Rosslyn until we break ground on our retractable roofed stadium for the football team in Crystal City.
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Big Dog
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Post by Big Dog on Feb 14, 2013 17:07:42 GMT -5
We cannot break ground on a new arena in Rosslyn until we break ground on our retractable roofed stadium for the football team in Crystal City. Thanks for your helpful, informative response.
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Post by strummer8526 on Feb 21, 2013 7:52:04 GMT -5
Pathetic again last night. 11th-ranked team in the country.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Feb 21, 2013 9:07:07 GMT -5
Any arena that isn't easy walking distance from the heart of campus is NO BETTER than Verizon. What is makes up for in presumably cheaper rent/Sat night availiability it loses in the 3-5 games a year we would be losing lots of money for the 16-18K games. And don't tell me we are going to go that far, spend all that money we don't have and STILL play the most important games at Verizon, losing whatever homecourt advantage we promised we would achieve. If realistically we are still talking about a bus/shuttle ride, it doesn't work at all. If we could build it literally within a few blocks of the Key Bridge and make it like 12K maybe. But that is pie in the sky stuff.
I know it was DePaul...but 9K last night for a late season BE game is bad. I feel like back in the Green/Hibbert era a BAD BE game still drew 12-13K.
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Buckets
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Post by Buckets on Feb 21, 2013 9:36:11 GMT -5
I know it was DePaul...but 9K last night for a late season BE game is bad. I feel like back in the Green/Hibbert era a BAD BE game still drew 12-13K. They didn't: espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=260170046espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=260400046espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=270240046espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=280360046espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=280580046The 06-07 home slate was: Sat ND, Mon Nova, Wed DePaul, Sat Cinci, Sat Marquette, Mon West Virginia, Sat Pitt, Sat Conn. So five Saturday games, West Virginia, and Villanova all put people in seats. The midweek game against DePaul... worse announced attendance than last night. EDIT: That DePaul team was 9-7 in the Big East that season, too. They weren't even bad.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Feb 21, 2013 11:20:59 GMT -5
OK, gotcha. I have to keep reminding myself that 9K is pretty good for a smallish school playing a in a so so game....just looks/sounds like crap in an NBA arena.
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Dhall
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Post by Dhall on Feb 21, 2013 11:25:42 GMT -5
Student attendance was horrible last night. I gave them a pass for the Seton Hall game because it was the third, less attractive, game at home in a week sandwiched by two Saturday home games.
It makes sense to simply sell student tickets on one side of the court. The other section could be sold as the second most expensive seats to donors, generating tons more cash for the school. The seat donation level would be in the thousands for the lower seats and several hundred for the upper. Why sell expensive seats for cheap to students who don't go?
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rosslynhoya
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Post by rosslynhoya on Feb 21, 2013 11:45:50 GMT -5
It makes sense to simply sell student tickets on one side of the court. The other section could be sold as the second most expensive seats to donors, generating tons more cash for the school. The seat donation level would be in the thousands for the lower seats and several hundred for the upper. Why sell expensive seats for cheap to students who don't go? What? Seats directly behind the basket are garbage compared to the rest of the lower level and arguably worse than center-court 200-level sections. The only reason to want to be in them are because you're a student (or Young Alum) who wants to be in them with other people like you. There's a reason these are the seats that are sold for half-price on LivingSocial during the holiday break and/or distributed to faculty and staff. More importantly, even if these seats weren't THAT bad, you'd really just be re-distributing current donors from their current seats and the accompanying donation level, not creating new donors from scratch, so the marginal gain for the program won't be "big bucks" but something much more modest. You can make an argument for going back to 2006 in terms of student seating, but the money aspect isn't the most compelling.
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lichoya68
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Post by lichoya68 on Feb 21, 2013 11:50:02 GMT -5
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Dhall
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Post by Dhall on Feb 21, 2013 11:53:44 GMT -5
It makes sense to simply sell student tickets on one side of the court. The other section could be sold as the second most expensive seats to donors, generating tons more cash for the school. The seat donation level would be in the thousands for the lower seats and several hundred for the upper. Why sell expensive seats for cheap to students who don't go? What? Seats directly behind the basket are garbage compared to the rest of the lower level and arguably worse than center-court 200-level sections. The only reason to want to be in them are because you're a student (or Young Alum) who wants to be in them with other people like you. There's a reason these are the seats that are sold for half-price on LivingSocial during the holiday break and/or distributed to faculty and staff. More importantly, even if these seats weren't THAT bad, you'd really just be re-distributing current donors from their current seats and the accompanying donation level, not creating new donors from scratch, so the marginal gain for the program won't be "big bucks" but something much more modest. You can make an argument for going back to 2006 in terms of student seating, but the money aspect isn't the most compelling. You're wrong on pricing - take a look at the Wizards season ticket pricing. I see your point on redistribution, but it would be something.
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Post by strummer8526 on Feb 21, 2013 11:55:15 GMT -5
It makes sense to simply sell student tickets on one side of the court. The other section could be sold as the second most expensive seats to donors, generating tons more cash for the school. The seat donation level would be in the thousands for the lower seats and several hundred for the upper. Why sell expensive seats for cheap to students who don't go? What? Seats directly behind the basket are garbage compared to the rest of the lower level and arguably worse than center-court 200-level sections. The only reason to want to be in them are because you're a student (or Young Alum) who wants to be in them with other people like you. There's a reason these are the seats that are sold for half-price on LivingSocial during the holiday break and/or distributed to faculty and staff. More importantly, even if these seats weren't THAT bad, you'd really just be re-distributing current donors from their current seats and the accompanying donation level, not creating new donors from scratch, so the marginal gain for the program won't be "big bucks" but something much more modest. You can make an argument for going back to 2006 in terms of student seating, but the money aspect isn't the most compelling. Yeah, I don't think confining current students to one section will generate more money. I do like the idea of the young alums getting one side, though. The Stonewalls section looks like fun, and I think others would get into that spirit. Also, it would help avoid the awkwardness of most, but not all, young alums wanting to stand all game. It would be known and expected that if you sit behind the basket, you'll be up.
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