Cajuns hoops crowds top SBC

[LaCajunsFan]

I ❤️ The tower. Don't be dissing her.

I do too.

[ulXrunner]

Need to find a way to harness the students. Not sure how though!

[BabbForHeisman]

False economy is a fact. The naysayers would argue not.

I ran a very successful retail business for a decade. I did not make marketing and promotion decisions on a small sample.

That's exactly what Farmer does when he said bigger names don't result in bigger crowds. You have to build your fan base one game at a time. Good ball vs good teams will build a Pavlovian stimulus and the fans will come.

Totally agree. Kansas State on a Friday night got us, what 18K. Southern gets us capacity crowd. That doesn't mean we should schedule I-AA teams to maximize the crowds.

[VObserver]

Totally agree. Kansas State on a Friday night got us, what 18K. Southern gets us capacity crowd. That doesn't mean we should schedule I-AA teams to maximize the crowds.

1. Southern is an anomaly.

2. You don't build attendance with visiting fans, you build it by playing teams your fans [and local sports fans in general] want to see. [And by winning, which should be obvious.]

[BirdofParadise]

False economy is a fact. The naysayers would argue not.

I ran a very successful retail business for a decade. I did not make marketing and promotion decisions on a small sample.

That's exactly what Farmer does when he said bigger names don't result in bigger crowds. You have to build your fan base one game at a time. Good ball vs good teams will build a Pavlovian stimulus and the fans will come.

In basketball, this has proven to be a fallacy in modern times.

In the Evans era, we drew fewer than 4,000 fans for Mississippi State.
A nationally ranked Tennesse team came in and drew just over 5,000
Last year Louisiana Tech, coming off a 26 win season and a long time rival, drew 800 more fans than Louisiana College.

It has gotten to the point in the deep South that basketball season doesn't begin until after the bowl season is over. That isn't just here. That's all around the deep south, even with some schools in P5 conferences.

The numbers don't lie.

[CrazyCajun]

Win streaks bring people.., we had what about 8k for Denver towards the end if that win streak marlin's first year? And we were fighting to get to .500

[CajunEXPRESS]

In basketball, this has proven to be a fallacy in modern times.

In the Evans era, we drew fewer than 4,000 fans for Mississippi State.
A nationally ranked Tennesse team came in and drew just over 5,000
Last year Louisiana Tech, coming off a 26 win season and a long time rival, drew 800 more fans than Louisiana College.

It has gotten to the point in the deep South that basketball season doesn't begin until after the bowl season is over. That isn't just here. That's all around the deep south, even with some schools in P5 conferences.

The numbers don't lie.

You totally missed the point. Let me put it to you in a language you are familiar with "radio" !

Worst advertising medium I used. Then I started using it in much smaller bites. Name
/and type of products recognition instead of sales specials. That worked great.

You will not bring them back with one team a year and two none division ones. You have to invest over and over again like I did with radio.

You and Farmer can point out failed individual events all you want. Nobody cares at all about Louisiana College unless you lose to them. For sure that strategy has resulted in smaller and smaller core fan base.

[CajunRebel]

What would you do differently Express?

[SlickRick]

No excuse for it not being all 5. Our numbers in Football, and both Hoops need to improve. With the success we have had the last few years we should be averaging 30K+, 6K and 2K.

VO...see my post on schedule comparisons. We have the opportunity this year to raise football attendance to new highs....if the weather cooperates and we start the season strong, i.e. 3-1, not 1-3.

[BirdofParadise]

You totally missed the point. Let me put it to you in a language you are familiar with "radio" !

Worst advertising medium I used. Then I started using it in much smaller bites. Name
/and type of products recognition instead of sales specials. That worked great.

You will not bring them back with one team a year and two none division ones. You have to invest over and over again like I did with radio.

You and Farmer can point out failed individual events all you want. Nobody cares at all about Louisiana College unless you lose to them. For sure that strategy has resulted in smaller and smaller core fan base.

False.

Our attendance figures in non conference action were small before Scott Farmer became director of athletics.

While I could show you the fact it's been a trend for a long time now, I'll simply use 2004-05 as an example.

We were coming off an NCAA appearance, and would win another championship in said year.

Home games against Rice, McNeese State and Southern Illinois (who was pretty damned good then) averaged about 3600 fans. A non D-1 game that year drew 2500.

Then football bowl season ended. Our smallest crowd after that was 4500 fans with a high of over 6000.

That has happened over and over again during the last 15 years.

Who we play at home in non conference has little to do with attendance. The numbers back up my contention.

Last year we drew about 1000 more fans for Tech than we did against Louisiana College.

It's a way of life now in the deep south. Period.

It should also be pointed out that with a couple of exceptions, we've been playing at least one non-D1 opponent for the last 15 years.

Bring in whoever you like. Non conference attendance is not going to be good, unless you bring them in after Jan.1.

And with 20 conference games, that isn't going to happen.

[VObserver]

False.

Our attendance figures in non conference action were small before Scott Farmer became director of athletics.

While I could show you the fact it's been a trend for a long time now, I'll simply use 2004-05 as an example.

We were coming off an NCAA appearance, and would win another championship in said year.

Home games against Rice, McNeese State and Southern Illinois (who was pretty damned good then) averaged about 3600 fans. A non D-1 game that year drew 2500.

Then football bowl season ended. Our smallest crowd after that was 4500 fans with a high of over 6000.

That has happened over and over again during the last 15 years.

Who we play at home in non conference has little to do with attendance. The numbers back up my contention.

Last year we drew about 1000 more fans for Tech than we did against Louisiana College.

It's a way of life now in the deep south. Period.

Even if this is true, and I have no reason to doubt you; playing a stronger OOC schedule still benefits us in ways that I believe outweigh the costs.

Say we eliminate 3 Non-D1 home games and substitute RPI savvy mid major teams. The extra 3000 [your number] in attendance offsets some of the cost, and there are two additional benefits. The first is perception among our fans that we are trying to compete instead of playing 'give-up'; which might encourage more attendance later in the season. The second is that maybe, just maybe, when we win the conference tournament, we get an 11 or 12 seed instead of a 15 or 16; which gives us a much better chance to win a tournament game.

It is not like we are talking about millions here. Not that $150K is chickenfeed, but is less than 1% of our athletic budget, an amount that we should be able to handle.

[CrazyCajun]

Everybody buy a couple extra beers... Problem solved.