Men's Basketball attendance solution

[ezsoil]

I just got back from the U of Houston - LSU game in the newly renovated Basketball Arena on the U of H campus .. the crowd clearly made the difference in this close as it was loud and clearly made it difficult for LSU down the stretch.... this is same U of H facility that I have seen a dozen games in over the years and rarely did they ever have more than a thousand people in attendance.... prior to tonight, tha last game I attended was the U of H vs Cincinnati game which was a key conference game in determining the regular season conference championship and it was so dead, the facility was dingy and run down, a quiet and pitiful crowd ... there simply wasn't the atmosphere that created a home court advantage.

That was then and tonight, I saw a newly renovated arena that REDUCED the number of seats and moved the crowd closer to the court by making the rise more steep. There wasn't a bad seat in the house and the usually apathetic fan base made it a loud intense place similar to how the Hump was for last year's South Carolina vs MSU women's game....

All of that being said, there is hope that the hump renovation will incorporate some of the same key elements and then come up with a seating plan and ticket exchange requirement that will return the hump to a rowdy packed house that no visiting team wants to travel to.....

trust me if U of H can do it....I KNOW MSU can.

 

[wtw2400]

A new facility can draw in people for a few games. But I am not sure it fixes the long term solution. Take Ole Miss. When they opened up the pavilion, they had great crowds the first few games, but now it is dead.

What the Hump has to do is devolop a student section that they neglected during the last reseating under Byrne, and make them the priority. You have to prioritize local fans in basketball. It is that simple. State for whatever reason does not. Houston TX certainly has a lot more population to draw from a short amount of distance than we do. It is just amazing to me that we continue to prioritze Jackson or the Coast and act like we are shocked that people are not driving 4 hrs to watch State play Basketball. Hell it is about the same distance to Atlanta from Starkville as it is to the coast

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

1. Reseat Students- give them courtside seats.
2.Ticket Exchange
3. WiFi that works.

 

[ronpolk]

The basketball team just needs to keep winning. If they do that, people will show up again. This is the first year in nearly a decade where we have not sucked.

 

[CagerMania]

I went to a game a Michigan State this year. The students get the first 10 rows around 75% of the floor (except behind the press table, where I’m sure they seat big donors). The atmosphere in a half empty building was awesome. Of course, students have to show up. But if they have seats that allow them to impact the game, I think they would show in much better numbers.

The best alumni seats are only 11 rows up, which are arguably better than being on the floor from a viewing perspective. If you provide a little rise between them and the students, you can also have the students standing the whole game without interfering with anyone’s view.

This seems like a simple solution that would have very little, if any, monetary impact.

 

[aTotal360]

Right now, our lower bowl is like a Bowl Game experience. It's 95% owned by big money that rarely attends.

I'm 100% in favor of giving the students the floor seats. Problem is we will have to do it in phases because there will be a ton of pissed off donors that don't show up to game that will get pissed. Getting season tickets in the lower bowl is next to impossible because companies, donors and big money have gobbled them up.

Of course winning helps. But we can't control that. The atmosphere and experience is something that can be improved without having to rely on a 5 kids putting a ball through a hoop more times than the other 5.

 

[engie]

The renovation is going to put many of those high $$ prime tickets into club levels/luxury boxes where no one can really tell if they are there or not and free up the floor space to fix the student section without losing money to do it.

 

[RocketDawg]

I watched the second half of that game, and the atmosphere really was amazing. Houston being one of only a handful of undefeated teams, as well as playing LSU who is probably somewhat of a rival, surely enhanced the crowd, but it looked like a fun place.

We're not the only place with slack crowds early in the year though. I saw a little of a UNC game last week, and there was hardly anybody there, at least in the lower seats that are visible. And there's not a lot of argument that UNC, being an elite basketball school in a basketball conference, is a bit higher on the scale than we are.

 

[Misfit]

Parking is the biggest problem

There are a lot of people who live within 30 minutes of Starkville who do not attend enough games to justify buying seasons tickets, but would attend a lot more games if they didn't have to drive around for another 30 minutes looking for a parking space, end up parking 1/4 mile to 1/2 mile from the Hump and then have to walk, often in the rain this time of year, while the lots around the Hump are 3/4 empty.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

The renovation is going to put many of those high $$ prime tickets into club levels/luxury boxes where no one can really tell if they are there or not and free up the floor space to fix the student section without losing money to do it.

This is the key.

 

[StarkVegas Steve]

The students have to show up as well. Right now they can't even fill the lower bowl of the student section. That may change once SEC play starts, but judging by last year I doubt it will.

 

[8dog]

4. Schedule teams that people want to see
5. Also remember that its hard to make good seating a low barrier to entry and also hire the ben howlands of the world.

 

[thekimmer]

The reseating issue I'm sure has some effect but the biggest issue by far affecting attendance is that we have not yet recovered from the program being brought to a historic low by the stans/ray debacle. We had some success last year but not enough to get us back to where we once were. The remoteness of our location will not result in pulling in very many casual fans. The women's team has demonstrated that if the men continue to do well in SEC play the fans will eventually come around but not before.

 

[maroonmania]

Did seem we had a large group that was bought into Rick Stansbury much more than they were MSU basketball.

 

[patdog]

Good point. That will be a win-win for both the high dollar and low dollar ticket buyers. Ultimately, the answer is win consistently and the fans will come. Attendance will pick up once SEC play starts. It's always going to be difficult for us to draw well in basketball in December.

 

[fishwater99]

The basketball team just needs to keep winning. If they do that, people will show up again. This is the first year in nearly a decade where we have not sucked.

Did you watch any games last year? NIT run, yeah we really sucked...

I guess you are still pissed we ran Stans off too.

 

[fishwater99]

Did seem we had a large group that was bought into Rick Stansbury much more than they were MSU basketball.

And they are still mad he was run-off. They buy tickets and don't show up.. WTF..

 

[Junction John]

This is pretty much what Ole Miss did with Thuh Puh-villllion.

We make fun of a lot of stuff they do, and rightfully so, but they got that part right. The students are on the floor basically 3/4 of the way around the court. They can carry the crowd, make it loud on the court (and on tv), which they did the night I went. And it was probably a 2/3 full house.

 

[patdog]

NIT run, yeah we really sucked...

NIT wasn't good enough for you and a lot of others a decade ago. I was in favor of Stansbury moving on, but in hindsight, it didn't work out well for us. I still wish he had taken the Clemson job a year earlier. Would have been much better for both him and us.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

I just got back from the U of Houston - LSU game in the newly renovated Basketball Arena on the U of H campus .. the crowd clearly made the difference in this close as it was loud and clearly made it difficult for LSU down the stretch.... this is same U of H facility that I have seen a dozen games in over the years and rarely did they ever have more than a thousand people in attendance.... prior to tonight, tha last game I attended was the U of H vs Cincinnati game which was a key conference game in determining the regular season conference championship and it was so dead, the facility was dingy and run down, a quiet and pitiful crowd ... there simply wasn't the atmosphere that created a home court advantage.

That was then and tonight, I saw a newly renovated arena that REDUCED the number of seats and moved the crowd closer to the court by making the rise more steep. There wasn't a bad seat in the house and the usually apathetic fan base made it a loud intense place similar to how the Hump was for last year's South Carolina vs MSU women's game....

All of that being said, there is hope that the hump renovation will incorporate some of the same key elements and then come up with a seating plan and ticket exchange requirement that will return the hump to a rowdy packed house that no visiting team wants to travel to.....

trust me if U of H can do it....I KNOW MSU can.

Three things were key contributors to attendance drop:

1) Chaos (late Stans) and turribleness within the program
2) Lost the entertaining Hank Flick, who made it fun even when BBall wasn't great (I think Anthony has grown into it and enough time has passed to make this moot)
3) Giving students crappy seats in deference to people who pay more but attend less. If you do go as a student, you don't feel part of the game, like we did. (courtside with signs made up for TV/Shaq are a thing of the past)

All that said, it was a perfect storm that drove away students. Get them a section back courtside with all of the students in the same proximity, even if they all can't be courtside. Creates demand, and students will maybe even get there early to get good seats. As it is there are no good student seats...

 

[fishwater99]

1. Re-seat the Hump and give the students need at least half the seats court-side and not just on end-lines.
(Look at any school has a great atmosphere and you will see this at them all)
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/top-10-arenas-college-basketball
2. Add lower level luxury boxes on one side and end-line. (look at Univ of Pitt, sideline)
View attachment 11953

3. Make the games more fun for the students
4. Have a MSU ticket-exchange that works
5. If you have season tickets and someone isn't using your seats 75% of the time, you will be re-seated in the upper-deck the next season.
6. Just Win Baby!!!

 

[engie]

TBH, the women's program being where it is is also hurting the men's attendance IMO. People have gotten heavily vested in seeing the ladies play and rightfully so. One midweek trip to Starkville is a grind but two is insanity. Many that are more than willing to invest in the season tickets still can't spend 4 days a week in Starkville watching basketball. People are having to choose. And are currently choosing the ladies.

Winning cures all however. It just takes awhile. It took Cohen years of winning before people even really started to buy back into the baseball program with their butts in seats. We won 50 and went deeper than we ever have before -- and there was still no one there to see it at that point. We weren't really back to what we were "before" IMO until he handed it off to Can.

 

[maroonmania]

Plus the fact you can sit at home and live stream every game for free.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Agree that this, streaming and other things have become reasons that it continues to languish. I was more trying to think back to how it got to that point so quickly from having packed out Midnight Madness.

 

[HotMop]

The solution is right under our feet...NEMETODES!!!!

 

[msugolf]

I’d attend a lot more games if the time slots were better. The Espn/sec deal really didn’t do the attending fan any favors. A lot of the midweek games used to start at 6 and weekend games in the afternoons. Now it seems like we have a lot of 7:30-8 starts, even on weekends. Doesn’t seem like much but there’s a big difference in getting home at midnight vs the other when you have kids. Also, in Jan-Mar the weather is usually crappy so people are begging for things to do during the day on weekends. Nights not so much.

 

[Go Budaw]

Baseball attendance still hasn’t come back. We had SEC games last year when you couldn’t even see a human being in attendance sitting in the grandstand in the camera view from behind the pitcher (which are the best seats in the house) in a brand new ballpark. We had a half full grandstand and only about 8,000 PAID attendance 3 years ago when we were playing Arkansas for the SEC title....on a Saturday.

The simple fact is that we are victims of our own multi-sport success as far as attendance goes. Think about it. All of the Big 4 sports are now Top 20 programs, and will remain there for the foseeeable future. All of them. Most people probably never thought we’d ever be in this situation, but the problem now is we don’t have the demographics to allow us to even fill up 80% capacity for 4 sports unless they are high profile games or marketed events (like SBW). Football is always going to take priority for most fans and command a good attendance base as long as we are winning 7-8 games per year....and we can typically cover one other sport too (right now, that’s women’s basketball). We’ll have big crowds in MBB for your UK’s and your UT’s and your Auburn’s, and big crowds for baseball at SBW and maybe 2 or 3 other weekends. Other than that, it’s gonna be pretty sparse for both. Folks just need to get ready for it.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

7. Early Season Men’s/Women’s Double Headers.
8. Yearly games at Southaven, Jackson, Biloxi...imagine the crowd a Men’s/Women’s DH would draw at Southaven this weekend.

 

[Trojanbulldog19]

7. Early Season Men’s/Women’s Double Headers.
8. Yearly games at Southaven, Jackson, Biloxi...imagine the crowd a Men’s/Women’s DH would draw at Southaven this weekend.

i mentioned this to someone at work the other day. now that women's basketball carries so much fan support, they need to schedule some double headers this time of year to help with attendance for both.

also, like everyone else. They have to go back and place the students in priority seating. They are the ones actually on campus and get the loudest when they show up. As much as the rowdies were annoying when I was there, they usually showed up every game and had that place loud. Maybe students don't care as much anymore. They seem to be a little more lethargic, but sucking in basketball the past 8 years can do that. it was on the back end up the Stansbury tournament teams when I was there. It can get there again if they win and they re prioritize the students. i'm looking now and don't see season ticket holders reselling seats low but yet they won't be there either. Put the students in those seats. They will be there. If you win, you will still get the donor dollars lost from those seats. The other thing is the tv coverage. The SEC network deal has help in money, but hurt in attendance. It's way to easy to sit at home than drive 2-3 hours for a 730pm game. don't have to get home late and can do other things leading up to the game at home. Lot more people would drive up for a midweek game before tv if they really wanted to watch. Plus those games used to be 6pm. just a lot of factors that have played in to the attendance and environment.

 

[CochiseCowbell]

6. Beer

I'm only half kidding. Haven't found the half sarcasterisk key yet.

 

[thekimmer]

Another thing that might be hampering the men from regaining support is that the BB landscape is different now. At the time the men's program fell into the abyss they were the only game in town. Women's basketball was not even an afterthought. Now as the men emerge from hypersleep they find they have competition with a very popular women's program. The women's team will take some of the play from the mens team and as the men gain traction they might just pull a little away from the women as well.

 

[kired]

The late starts are basically a no-go for me on weeknights. But I think we only have two of those this year. I'm perfectly fine with late starts on Saturday nights.

 

[ll Martain ll]

The good news is, the same company that did the Fertitta center is working on the Hump Renovation.

 

[ezsoil]

7. Early Season Men’s/Women’s Double Headers.
8. Yearly games at Southaven, Jackson, Biloxi...imagine the crowd a Men’s/Women’s DH would draw at Southaven this weekend.

that would work as well as sandwiching games around the November football weekends ...
one thing that has hurt the men's team is that they schedule crappy teams at home early rather than going on the road and playing quality opponents like the women do... the women play very few 200+ RPI teams at home in the pre conference schedule....and the women seem to have a nice home and home with Texas and Oregon.

 

[ronpolk]

Did you watch any games last year? NIT run, yeah we really sucked...

I guess you are still pissed we ran Stans off too.

I watch all the games. Also, I have season tickets, which I bought during the Rick ray era. How many games you been to this year or last year or during the Ray era?

Do you believe that people just decided to start supporting the women’s team for the hell of it? Or maybe was it because they started winning? What about the baseball team, you think it’s a coincidence that people started attending games again after Cohen started winning?

And as for your stans question, knowing what we know now, I would have certainly kept Stans over Ray. But I’m satisfied with where the program is.

 

[[email protected]]

You realize the club seats are going to be lower level mid court.

The renovation is going to put many of those high $$ prime tickets into club levels/luxury boxes where no one can really tell if they are there or not and free up the floor space to fix the student section without losing money to do it.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

Baseball attendance still hasn’t come back. We had SEC games last year when you couldn’t even see a human being in attendance sitting in the grandstand in the camera view from behind the pitcher (which are the best seats in the house) in a brand new ballpark. We had a half full grandstand and only about 8,000 PAID attendance 3 years ago when we were playing Arkansas for the SEC title....on a Saturday.

The simple fact is that we are victims of our own multi-sport success as far as attendance goes. Think about it. All of the Big 4 sports are now Top 20 programs, and will remain there for the foseeeable future. All of them. Most people probably never thought we’d ever be in this situation, but the problem now is we don’t have the demographics to allow us to even fill up 80% capacity for 4 sports unless they are high profile games or marketed events (like SBW). Football is always going to take priority for most fans and command a good attendance base as long as we are winning 7-8 games per year....and we can typically cover one other sport too (right now, that’s women’s basketball). We’ll have big crowds in MBB for your UK’s and your UT’s and your Auburn’s, and big crowds for baseball at SBW and maybe 2 or 3 other weekends. Other than that, it’s gonna be pretty sparse for both. Folks just need to get ready for it.

Aren't you in Huntsville? 3.5 hours away, why don't you come be a part of the solution? You can always tell the loudmouths that have a big opinion based on what they see on the WatchESPN app. Same guys who came hard in the past based on Live Stats. Not to mention you are probably watching weekday games where there is really no attendance anywhere in the country, then factor in our coaching situation plus the fact that the team wasn't that great for 90% of the year. Your comments about 2016 simply aren't valid, we were #3 in paid attendance in the country. 8,000 is an incredible attendance for any baseball weekend nationally, and pretty damn good for us for a game that isn't postseason or SBW.

Watch the attendance this year. New ballpark without a bunch of lifetime ticket holders who don't show up, with a stadium where anyone can come at anytime and have a place to go (at MINIMUM, can walk around the concourse. Not to mention a new coach with an Omaha team that returns most of its starters.

I mean, give people a break. Especially a clown like you that sits in his den and watches on his phone.

 

[Go Budaw]

Aren't you in Huntsville? 3.5 hours away, why don't you come be a part of the solution? You can always tell the loudmouths that have a big opinion based on what they see on the WatchESPN app. Same guys who came hard in the past based on Live Stats. Not to mention you are probably watching weekday games where there is really no attendance anywhere in the country, then factor in our coaching situation plus the fact that the team wasn't that great for 90% of the year. Your comments about 2016 simply aren't valid, we were #3 in paid attendance in the country. 8,000 is an incredible attendance for any baseball weekend nationally, and pretty damn good for us for a game that isn't postseason or SBW.

Watch the attendance this year. New ballpark without a bunch of lifetime ticket holders who don't show up, with a stadium where anyone can come at anytime and have a place to go (at MINIMUM, can walk around the concourse. Not to mention a new coach with an Omaha team that returns most of its starters.

I mean, give people a break. Especially a clown like you that sits in his den and watches on his phone.

Go 17 yourself. I’m not clowning on our fanbase at all and I attend games every 17ing year. I was at the damn game in 2016 looking at a half-full grandstand on a Saturday with an SEC title on the line. Read the damn post. There aren’t enough fans to sellout every game in every sport or even come close to it. Fans have to choose. That is the point....so folks can quit melting every time we have 5,000 at the Hump for a “big” men’s basketball game. You are lumping me in with the wrong crowd.

 

[Bulldogg31]

My one request right now is to AT LEAST put our student section under the visitor’s goal in the second half.

How in the hell did someone think it was a good idea to put all the old people under the visitor’s goal in the second half?

Seriously, someone consciously made that decision.

 

[bruiser.sixpack]

The 2 ton elephant in the room.

No Target. All of the students go home on the week nds so they can shop at Target. Not only do we need a Target. We need a Target “on campus”. Next to the Hump.

Not sure if y’all are aware, but Publix built a grocery store ON Campus at UCF. We have a business school. Let’s build Retail Shopping right smack dab in the middle of campus.