attendance for Valpo games...

[wh]

Attendance until the last half dozen years or so was totally estimated by a person facing the chairback seats who felt it was important to recruiting to indicate a big crowd at every game, so we should view attendance figures with suspicion.  No way we were averaging more than 80 percent capacity in those years (nearly 90 percent one year).  Now, if we want to argue that we should be averaging that, it's another story.

If the purpose of your comment is to try to convince people that there hasn't been a significant fall off in attendance, you're completely distorting reality and doing a great disservice to addressing a real problem.  As someone who attends every home game and has for more than 20 years, I know full well that attendance has fallen off the table from what it was at its high point in the first few years following "the shot."  I only hope that ML isn't buying this line, since he wasn't here back in the day.  There's a pretty easy way to get to the truth.  Look at ticket revenues year by year, adjust them for price changes, and do an apples-to-apples comparison.  Then set goals for improvement, hold people to account to make it happen, and make personnel changes if it doesn't.       

[valpotx]

I can vouch that the numbers during my time are pretty accurate.  The mezz was full for pretty much every game I was at...

[a3uge]

Attendance tonight was officially listed at 3,410 (officially more than EKU game, and officially higher than every OOC game minus Georgia Southern).

It was actually the 5th highest attended game this year (out of 18).

Officially.

Attendance isn't necessarily people sitting in seats, I believe it's mostly tickets sold. The ARC seemed more empty than usual, so I'm thinking there were a fair number of no-shows due to the snow. The student section was fairly weak, but given the snow and probably the lack of promotions, it doesn't surprise me. I never got why they give out T-Shirts to the Detroit/Butler games where it's going to be packed anyways, and don't do anything for weekday games which obviously will struggle with student attendance. I understand it's the week before spring break, so there's probably a lot of finals and dumb projects crammed in that the students procrastinated on. Not really an excuse, but it shouldn't be all that surprising.

It also didn't appear that the football team was there in the front row like last game. Hopefully that clown who wrote the article on them being fans didn't sour them on going to the games. Don't think they were studying either.

And don't blame the TV. Two of the top three highest attended games were on the ESPN family, and that top game was Detroit, which would have had great attendance anyway. This game wasn't on ESPNU and more tickets were sold tonight than the EKU game. The second highest attended game was Wright State with 4860, and that was just on HLN.

[bbtds]

speaking of weather... you can check out the webcam on top of the Christopher Center... oh wait...
http://www.valpo.edu/union/webcam.php
maybe we can get someone up on the roof with a squeegie.

Who did you "talk" into going up on the Christopher Center to squeegie the webcam? The view from that camera is much clearer now, although not exactly clear. Your power of persuasion is amazing, talksalot.

[Kyle321n]

05-06 and 06-07 had great crowds.  It had been a few years since I had been to games (outside of the Butler/Conference tourny games) and this season was kind of a smack in the face on how small the crowd has gotten.

[crusadermoe]

Amen!! to your sermon, wh !!!!

The oddity in the attendance history to me is that the big drop happened in the first year of Horizon League.   Why would fewer fans come out to see the Horizon teams than to see the UMKC Kangaroos, Southern Utah and Chicago State?   

It seems that the new A.D. brought a great new league to Valpo.   But did he also bring really poor marketing techniques?   I agree with other posters that the upper deck tells all no matter what the reported attendances say.   WH is correct that the buck stops there.   No more excuses.   The players deserve better turnouts and the athletics department deserves more revenue.
 
As for the students.....can we take the students' violins away on game nights?    Or recruit some students who want future school name recognition on their resumes?    What works to get them to take a free ticket?    Maybe golf cart their lazy a**es from the dorms...or maybe golf cart them from the VUCA?

[KL31NY]

As for the students.....can we take the students' violins away on game nights?    Or recruit some students who want future school name recognition on their resumes?    What works to get them to take a free ticket?    Maybe golf cart their lazy a**es from the dorms...or maybe golf cart them from the VUCA?

Agree to the 2nd half, not so much the first. Not all 4000+ students would be interested in attending a basketball game. If some students dedicate their time to academics and their other hobbies to attending sports events, I'm fine. If a student needs the 2+ hours of time a game takes for homework, a project, test prep, a night class, that's okay. It's the students that use that as an excuse to stay in and play video games or watch the game online I have a problem with. Or they could simply do that already without needing an excuse. You'd like to think that we could get a couple hundred students to come to our games, especially when the tickets are free and the games are fun. You can play video games when we aren't at the ARC!

[truth219]

Uconns pep band has more students than our entire student section averages. The don't have classes or weather or electronics there obviously

[HC]

I've come to accept e fact that both our student population and the population of the city itself is probably quite a bit smaller then most other colleges, and definitely smaller then our conference rivals. We all like it when the kids show up and bring the noise, hopefully with continued success on the court and in enrollment the number of students at the game will keep rising.

[mj]

I don't buy the argument that kids are too busy with academics that they can't go to the games. It's 2 hours out of your night. Unless you have a major test or paper due the next day, you should be able to spare some time. Maybe Valpo is recruiting the wrong type of kids who go to the university?

[crusadermoe]

MJ, that's my bottom-line fear and concern for my alma mater.   The trend in the student attendance started even back to the early 2000s. 
Does VU recruit and bring in "joiners" any more?    When I attended, people had some loyalty to organizations.   Maybe too much so sometimes in frathernities etc.    But those students became leaders later in life even though they weren't A students.  They tuned into what was important to their "community" and got out to see their peers a lot.   In coming back to homecoming in the 90s, there just didn't seem to be any group energy anywhere.    Football games, songfest, parades etc.   Kids seemed to be lone wolves.   Fewer kids are legacy students too (kids of alumni).    There just didn't seem to be any school pride.    The Valpo team was lousy in the late 80s but kids came out strong to watch them beat Notre Dame on a night that I think was on finals week or just prior.   
The prosecution rests.

[govalpogo]

MJ, that's my bottom-line fear and concern for my alma mater.   The trend in the student attendance started even back to the early 2000s. 
Does VU recruit and bring in "joiners" any more?    When I attended, people had some loyalty to organizations.   Maybe too much so sometimes in frathernities etc.    But those students became leaders later in life even though they weren't A students.  They tuned into what was important to their "community" and got out to see their peers a lot.   In coming back to homecoming in the 90s, there just didn't seem to be any group energy anywhere.    Football games, songfest, parades etc.   Kids seemed to be lone wolves.   Fewer kids are legacy students too (kids of alumni).    There just didn't seem to be any school pride.    The Valpo team was lousy in the late 80s but kids came out strong to watch them beat Notre Dame on a night that I think was on finals week or just prior.   
The prosecution rests.

Whoa whoa pump the brakes fellas! First off, If ND came back to the ARC, the students would show up...even during finals week. And if Valpo returns to form and becomes a perennial NCAA/NIT participant, the students will show up percentage wise like they do at Duke (Whose student sections are also filled from the pool of 8000+ grad students, like myself, who attend).

I would also like to contend that current students both at Valpo and around the country are in fact, "over joiners."  Students are pressured into outrageous amounts of extracurricular activities starting even before high school to boost that resume for college.  Once they get to college it's second nature and the resume building process restarts for grad school/job searching.  For its size, Valpo offers an extremely large amount of student activities from radio to television broadcasting, Chapel and other on campus religious activities, multicultural events, singing groups, fine/performing arts, intramurals, honors societies, Greek life, Union events that run the gambit, etc. etc.  Free time burns into the college student as time "wasted" or as a sign of sloth.  I was seen as crazy for refusing to do homework after 11PM and as an old man for going to bed at midnight on week nights.  I had roommates who literally had every minute of some days booked. This is the college norm now, not the exception. You want to know why campus is quiet on weekends? Because students are sleeping and trying to recover or their off campus helping with habitat for humanity or some Greek philanthropy.  I personally am against such over commitment and the long term effect of not taking any kind of Sabbath, but I participated in it too!  It's almost impossible not to.   

Valpo students and Grads compared to many schools have an immense amount of school pride. I can see it in our NC alumni and even within those of us who are now at the Divinity School at Duke.  In our field as in many others, people know that Valpo turns out an exceptional brand of student and person who appreciates the journey they've taken during their college experience and is well prepared for their next stage of life, my wife experienced the same thing in the Social Work field. Just because the school pride is not always manifest in sports fanaticism should not be counted against the current students. 

The student attendance yesterday would have actually been pretty good for my soph-senior year (08-11) so I am encouraged that it's slowly getting better since the 9-22 debacle of a season which set us back.  I remember standing and screaming with as little as 30 other students (a Sunday matinee vs Green Bay), and believe me, that's embarrassing.  It's been worse, it's getting better, give the current group of sophmores and freshman time to build a reputation, an identity as a student section, and a culture of loving Valpo basketball.  But for goodness' sake, don't "prosecute" the entire student body because of a disappointing Senior night on a Tuesday night and because of your 90's homecoming experience.   

Oh, and the students are more isolated now because we're not legacy students?  Seriously?  Maybe Setshot is right to be criticizing the University's nepotism.  Take it from a non-legacy Methodits student who married a legacy Lutheran student: Valpo has a special place in the hearts of both families. 

The Defense Rests.

[historyman]

And if Valpo returns to form and becomes a perennial NCAA/NIT participant, the students will show up percentage wise like they do at Duke

Again, I think govalpogo hit the nail on the head with this one. Those former students on this board recalling their memories of the their Valpo teams remember their Valpo teams went to the NCAA tournament almost every year. The general public talked about Valpo in the NCAA tournament every year. Today's Valpo students don't have those recollections and memories of a dominating Valpo team. They heard about those teams when they were in elementary school but they haven't experienced it at Valpo yet. With God's help maybe this is the year these current Valpo students experience the thrill of traveling to an NCAA tournament game along with these Valpo student/athlete seniors playing in an NCAA tournament game.

[letsgovu]

Maybe Valpo is recruiting the wrong type of kids who go to the university?

I don't think kids come to Valpo for the basketball team.  If kids primary goal in college was to go to sporting events they would most likely choose a less expensive school in the big ten or similar.  Speaking as a parent of two current Valpo students, I can tell you that they could have both gone to big name big team schools for much less.  I don't think my oldest child there had any idea of what the sports situation was at Valpo when making the choice.  I can assume this is similar experience for many kids at Valpo.  The joy we have found in following this team has been purely a bonus.

[valpo04]

Maybe Valpo is recruiting the wrong type of kids who go to the university?

I don't think kids come to Valpo for the basketball team.  If kids primary goal in college was to go to sporting events they would most likely choose a less expensive school in the big ten or similar.  Speaking as a parent of two current Valpo students, I can tell you that they could have both gone to big name big team schools for much less.  I don't think my oldest child there had any idea of what the sports situation was at Valpo when making the choice.  I can assume this is similar experience for many kids at Valpo.  The joy we have found in following this team has been purely a bonus.

As someone who went to Valpo shortly after "the shot," the basketball team was most certainly a factor in my decision. 

I was looking at other smaller schools with meteorology programs and none of them could offer me the chance to attend D1 basketball games.

[wh]

Maybe Valpo is recruiting the wrong type of kids who go to the university?

I don't think kids come to Valpo for the basketball team.  If kids primary goal in college was to go to sporting events they would most likely choose a less expensive school in the big ten or similar.  Speaking as a parent of two current Valpo students, I can tell you that they could have both gone to big name big team schools for much less.  I don't think my oldest child there had any idea of what the sports situation was at Valpo when making the choice.  I can assume this is similar experience for many kids at Valpo.  The joy we have found in following this team has been purely a bonus.

Your story is what it is, and I don't take issue with it.  That said, Butler is an example of an academic institution very similar to Valpo (size, cost, enrollment, private) that has parlayed its success on the basketball court into increased enrollment, and correspondingly more revenue.  The following article from the Indianapolis Business Journal offers some supporting evidence:

http://www.ibj.com/hoops-success-helps-butler-avoid-enrollment-decline/PARAMS/article/36111

[chef]

I was talking to a bunch of law students circa 2001. They ALL said they had never heard of Valpo before "the shot". Thus, if not for "the shot", none of them would have been Valpo law students.

[VULB#62]

FROM THAT ARTICLE:
Butler University has seen applications spike 43 percent over the last two years even though its 2009 strategic plan warned against a coming enrollment decline.

The big difference? March Madness.

The private secular college will welcome 1,111 freshman students on Saturday, its largest class ever. Two years ago, Butler enrolled 1,067 freshmen. And before that, its freshman classes were all below 1,000 students. The school has more than 4,600 students in total.

Meanwhile, the GPAs and test scores of the incoming freshman have risen slightly over the past two years. Incoming freshman this year sport average high school grade point averages of 3.8, up from 3.7 two years ago. SAT scores have held steady at an average of about 1,740.

This reflects the benefit of such exposure - similar to the Flutie Factor at BC back in the day.  Apps went through the roof there even though the cost to go to BC was approaching Harvard-like levels.  The larger app pool allows for greater selectivity at the same time it enables enrollment growth.  Greater selectivity allows admission to freshmen with better academic credentials.  Better student credentials boosts the college's academic status.  It's an impressive upward spiral.  And it starts with that exposure that draws kids to a school in the first place. But a school must be proactive and ride that pony when it presents itself.

[oklahomamick]

Athletics are a big marketing tool for universities all over the nation.  simple as that. 

[mj]

Part of my decision to go to Valpo was due to the Division 1 basketball. I was excited to attend a school, in a state where basketball reigns king, where the entire town came out to support the team and the games had a great atmosphere. This was back in 2004, right at the tail end of the NCAA appearances. 

[oklahomamick]

This was back in 2004, right at the tail end of the NCAA appearances.

Was that because the Mid-con was weak?  Would we have made that run of NCAA tournaments in the HL?  We had some good team back then, but would we have made the NCAA's if we were in the HL??  How would those teams fair in the HL today? 

[valpotx]

I think those teams would have done well in the HL.  Each squad still would have challenged for the HL title in my school years, especially the 2001-2002 squad.  We had some dominating teams for a mid-major from my FR 1999-2000 to 5th year SR 2003-2004.  You can't compare the HL today to our Mid-Con teams back then, only MCC/HL to Mid-Con in the same years.  Butler was winning that conference, we were winning ours, and it would have been good battles each game between the two.  A good example of this is that we BEAT BCS teams in my time, including a Michael Redd OSU team in the Alaskan Shootout.

In regards to college choice, I wasn't going to play baseball at a school that didn't have football or basketball as well.  Therefore, in addition to academics, sports was a large factor in my decision as well.

[talksalot]

The Defense Rests.

.. for GoValpoGo... I hope not on this Saturday or Next Saturday or a week from Tuesday.

[bbtds]

Athletics are a big marketing tool for universities all over the nation.  simple as that.

On the other hand I think we can all agree that Valpo, specifically, doesn't use athletics as much as other universities as a big marketing tool. Think back to the last marketing tool you saw on Valpo (video, brouchure, TV commercial, etc.). Do you remember much about the athletic dept being mentioned?

Since Valpo wants to separate itself from other universities that use athletics as a "big marketing tool" there is a feeling among the administration group that they can't over emphasize athletics. Athletics is just one part of the dynamic that is Valpo. When prospective students find that athletics is overly important to them in a college choice those are not the prospective students that the Valpo administrative group is targeting especially hard.

[oklahomamick]

Athletics are a big marketing tool for universities all over the nation. simple as that.

On the other hand I think we can all agree that Valpo, specifically, doesn't use athletics as much as other universities as a big marketing tool. Think back to the last marketing tool you saw on Valpo (video, brouchure, TV commercial, etc.). Do you remember much about the athletic dept being mentioned? Since Valpo wants to separate itself from other universities that use athletics as a "big marketing tool" there is a feeling among the administration group that they can't over emphasize athletics. Athletics is just one part of the dynamic that is Valpo. When prospective students find that athletics is overly important to them in a college choice those are not the prospective students that the Valpo administrative group is targeting especially hard.

Thats called Diii