JAN 4 - JMU @ Cajundome

[Esqueleto]

Wife randomly asked if we should bring the kids.. I told her the game would likely suck because we were playing a highschool, but the tickets are $5.50 so why not. Of course we get there and the tickets are $10 each, but whatever. Then we get popcorn, a beer, and a diet coke -- $31.

Pricing aside, the gameday experience feels like the PA guy is just reading from a script.. Constantly saying stuff like "allllllriight Cajuns fans! let's show em how loud we can be!" when you have 500 people there. It's laughable to the fans and players in the stadium, and it feels like the school will put on the same production regardless of opponent/crowd size/etc.

Which tells fans: If you've been to one Cajuns sporting event, you've been to them all.

Amen! I say this every damn game. Same with that stupid tradition of standing until the opponent score. I find myself rooting for a quick bucket. So dumb to do something like this with a completely empty arena

[Turbine]

Ya'll remember in 2010 when they did the "Fear the Beard" vs Western Kentucky? Seemed like we had a nice crowd for that one?

Absolutely. Fans show up, when excitement was in the air.

Soon afterwards fans found out Marlin had troubles keeping a team together.

"Never stop recruiting."

This was long before the Portal and even longer before NIL.

[anhil8tor]

Soon afterwards fans found out Marlin had troubles keeping a team together.

13 years ago.. all the signs were there, yet here we are today.

[zeppelincajun]

Too many inconsistencies with basketball over the years. We have not been able to string consecutive competitive seasons in a long time, and people see that. If we stay competitive at least to conference play, I think we would have more show up than what we have seen these last two games.

This is a significant piece of the issue. The other piece being the promotions, concessions, atmosphere, ticketing, etc etc. But back to your point. Here are our finishes in conference since Bob has been here:

22-23 2nd
21-22 8th
20-21 4th
19-20 8th
18-19 5th
17-18 1st
16-17 6th
15-16 4th
14-15 4th
13-14 3rd
12-13 7th
11-12 4th
10-11 3rd

We won the league once. That’s an average finish of 4th to 5th. If we were consistently 1st to 3rd (which would seem fairly reasonable given what we pay), I think you would see more butts in seats, given the other side of the equation (promotions and all that) gets fixed.

[Crawfish]

Thing that gets me is we really trying to get 3K people in the dome. What standards have we fallen to. 3000 people, that’s nothing!!! I understand trying to help and promote to get more fans there, but it seems we shooting for very low expectations. Seems like we always shooting low. We won’t have 3000 people at any games this year. It’s sad to say but there is no excitement around this years team, why is that? We just won the title and the very next year we can’t get 2000 people at the game. I have heard all the excuses as to why not, but no one can come up with a real solution.

I think that post was made in jest Brad. I don't think there has been anything like that said by the university.

[jaxmc1023]

I think that post was made in jest Brad. I don't think there has been anything like that said by the university.

How so?

We're struggling to get north of 1k so far this year..

Compared to last night, 3k would feel like a March Madness game

[ManAboutTown]

Last time I can remember a ranked team was Nevada and Tennessee coming to the Dome. Around 2010. Possibly WKU around the same time.

[GeauxCajuns]

Amen! I say this every damn game. Same with that stupid tradition of standing until the opponent score. I find myself rooting for a quick bucket. So dumb to do something like this with a completely empty arena

so only do traditions when people are in the stands? got it.

how would you go about setting that up? PA Guy, "hey cajun fans, we eclipsed the 3,500 mark, which triggers our stand up tradition, lets get on our feet"

not you, but for a fan base that gripes about a lack of tradition in anything we do, we want to punt the ones that we have in place because in this specific instance it doesnt look great.

[jaxmc1023]

Why not? At least it would show people that you care about the attendance..

Right now they just carry on their normal programming as if the place is packed l

[cajun4life]

Thing that gets me is we really trying to get 3K people in the dome. What standards have we fallen to. 3000 people, that’s nothing!!! I understand trying to help and promote to get more fans there, but it seems we shooting for very low expectations. Seems like we always shooting low. We won’t have 3000 people at any games this year. It’s sad to say but there is no excitement around this years team, why is that? We just won the title and the very next year we can’t get 2000 people at the game. I have heard all the excuses as to why not, but no one can come up with a real solution.

Everyone knows the solution. But your boy won the ‘ship last year. So the solution was delayed.

Now Marlin will have to go on such a huge run to get the fans back into the dome it’s almost unachievable.