Attendance decline (free fall?)

[crusadermoe]

I think "Mr. Crafty" has nailed it.  I have said similar things, but he has the first-hand experience with Butler and Dayton.

The intramural participation numbers at Valpo might be a good indicator.   How many teams enter each sport in Valpo intermurals?   Dorms and frats sometimes had multiple entries back in the 70s,80s.  Are there intramural violin contests?  Fine by me, but hopefully not at the cost of intramural sports.

Are the greeks at Valpo not interested in sports either?   They tended to like sports more than other students in my days on campus.  The large percent of kids from Indiana also meant kids came to Valpo expecting basketball to be a focal point.

Also, you do send a message impclicitly to prospective students when you build a HUGE student union and HUGE library in which each has more fireplaces than the campus fitness center has treadmills.   

[elephtheria47]

Spitballing here but here's my thoughts.

A) horizon league operated on a Thursday- Saturday basis. This maximized Saturday attendance figures. The Missouri valley operates more on a tv schedule, creating more late games and early week games

B) Missouri valley struggled to find an identity this year. I believe Missouri State was predicted to win the league and they really struggled. Illinois State had a great season last year and struggled this year.  I'm not positive but I don't recall a Missouri valley team bring ranked this year. When we joined the horizon league they still had their identity. A top 25 team visiting the arc will bring fans out. Hell,  a sold out game against butler would equal attendance figures from 2 games combined this year. (Offtopic, bracketology has the HL winner as a 15 seed and they're the 25th best conference this year. Gross. How far that league has fallen is remarkable)

C) valpo out of conference schedule did not create any excitement this year. The home games were brutal and the two opportunities, Purdue and northwestern,  were not really much of games.

D) more tv games/online streaming. This creates more fans and national brand recognition, and I'm guessing "viewership" is likely up this year, but more people are viewing online/tv versus in person. Have a good season or two and the newer casual fan will start trickling into the arc....the effort and money just isn't there if you're not really expecting a win

E) game day experience. I know this has been discussed ad naseum but I still believe it to be true. The game day experience at valpo is lacking. I bring people with me to games and they get bored.

[VU2014]

It could be worse. Cleveland State's attendance has a completely plummeted since the Norris Cole days.

https://twitter.com/TheReserveMedia/status/966403020216029184
https://twitter.com/bigmacsnackwrap/status/966663215387172864

[agibson]

I've told the story in the past but I use to host potential students for overnight visits and not having student rec center and good fitness center was a huge issue for guys.

The fitness center isn't enormous, but it's relatively new and seems like a feature to me. Certainly more attractive now than the ARC student workout facilities were, at the time, when I was an undergrad.

I could see campus tours stopping by the fitness center and the ARC, checking out the championship banners, the trophy hall, talking about the winning tradition, the strong student athlete tradition, etc, etc. I don't know whether they do that, or not. It would probably be on the far west end of the tour, but not out of touch with e.g. Arts and Sciences, Mueller Hall (Christ College), and Guild-Memorial (still the most atmospheric dorm).

The tours should, absolutely, stop by the still rather new and shiny library (yes, with its fireplaces), the Union, the new science building, etc.

Rec intramural sports are still a going concern, certainly. There seems to be some lively competition from certain fraternities, maybe not all. I don't have a good sense of numbers, or how to compare them. But, if you're really curious I could give some raw participation numbers. (For a one-day indoor soccer tournament there were something like six teams, roughly five members a piece. I'll brag a little that my mostly-faculty team took the title! There's at least one other faculty member that does more intramurals than I do, and probably at least a couple of others who do as much as I.)

Probably not violin playing, but there are video game contests and such at the Union. And still Euchre. I'm not sure whether those go through the Rec Sports/intramural office, or not.

[agibson]

C) valpo out of conference schedule did not create any excitement this year. The home games were brutal and the two opportunities, Purdue and northwestern,  were not really much of games.

I enjoyed Utah State - it will be nice to get a Mountain West game every other year.

But, yeah, the overall non-conference home slate wasn't great. The long December road trip was rough in terms of building home attendance momentum. And the free fall (felt like it at times, at least) from the end of December sapped even some of my enthusiasm to get out to home games. I still made it to Senior Night (and seven home games altogether), but if it felt like we had more skin in the game, I probably would have made it in person (instead of online, or time shifting online, etc.) to another game or two.

A 5-4 home conference record isn't horrible - enough that even in a down season you have a decent chance of seeing a win against some very respectable competition. (And I was pleased to see us 8th in the Valley in the Pomeroy recently, even if we've nominally fallen back to 10th now. Three-way tie for 8th?). But, I'll confess that the overall mediocre performance of the team, at least in context, blunted even my enthusiasm.

Over the next couple of seasons there should be some really good conference home games - hopefully a significant step up from the Horizon League, and there were plenty of good one in those days too.

[rogerwilco]

I had a friend who went to Butler during it's glory days of Final 4s and he talked about how the applications of kids applying to the school flew through the roof because kids wanted to go to a good basketball school and probably all the free advertising they received by those 2 tourney runs. I'm not going to lie it would be really cool to see Big East basketball. I don't remember ever seeing prospective students tours checking out the ARC.

The Flutie Effect.
Valpo had a bump in applications after the '98 Sweet Sixteen run.

[Chairback]

The game experience at the ARC has become stale.  I have only missed maybe 4-5 games in the last 25 years and I didn't go to the last 3.  It's the same experience over and over.  I'm really debating on keeping my season tickets for next year.  I had heard Tom Boyt at Valpo was to head a task force at the start of the MVC play (not before the season started) to drive attendance and put a marketing plan together to get fans to the game and introduce the fans outside of the city of Valpo.  I have to assume this has failed.

-Same songs played over and over.  The music DJ should be fired.  His choices are so out of date.
-Can't hear the PA.  I have been saying this for 10+ years on this board and nothing has changed.
-Non chairback seating is horrible.  Lower bleachers for an ave. sized man is uncomfortable.
-Parking is horrible.  New fans or first time gamers have to be confused as hell.
-No dynamic ticket prices to fill seats. 
-Out of conf home game opponents are just crap.

I could go on and on.  Valpo's game experience reminds me of Teibel's in Schererville.  The fanbase is dying off and not changing with the times.  The ARC is stuck in 1998.  There is no new fanbase coming.

Sad we are letting this go.  We are spinning our wheels on this board about it also. 

[VULB#62]

The game experience at the ARC has become stale.  I have only missed maybe 4-5 games in the last 25 years and I didn't go to the last 3.  It's the same experience over and over.  I'm really debating on keeping my season tickets for next year.  I had heard Tom Boyt at Valpo was to head a task force at the start of the MVC play (not before the season started) to drive attendance and put a marketing plan together to get fans to the game and introduce the fans outside of the city of Valpo.  I have to assume this has failed.

-Same songs played over and over.  The music DJ should be fired.  His choices are so out of date.
-Can't hear the PA.  I have been saying this for 10+ years on this board and nothing has changed.
-Non chairback seating is horrible.  Lower bleachers for an ave. sized man is uncomfortable.
-Parking is horrible.  New fans or first time gamers have to be confused as hell.
-No dynamic ticket prices to fill seats. 
-Out of conf home game opponents are just crap.

I could go on and on.  Valpo's game experience reminds me of Teibel's in Schererville.  The fanbase is dying off and not changing with the times.  The ARC is stuck in 1998.  There is no new fanbase coming.

Sad we are letting this go.  We are spinning our wheels on this board about it also.

Wow.

[valpo84]

Point out game day deficiencies all you want, bud don't you dare start critiquing Teibels!

What the ARC needs is more Red Panda!

[NativeCheesehead]

Quote from the ESPN.com article on possible future conference mate GCU, from their AD:

"It's a facilities battle in recruiting now," Vaught said. "And for a mid-major, we have it as good as anybody."

[FieldGoodie05]

The game experience at the ARC has become stale.  I have only missed maybe 4-5 games in the last 25 years and I didn't go to the last 3.  It's the same experience over and over.  I'm really debating on keeping my season tickets for next year.  I had heard Tom Boyt at Valpo was to head a task force at the start of the MVC play (not before the season started) to drive attendance and put a marketing plan together to get fans to the game and introduce the fans outside of the city of Valpo.  I have to assume this has failed.

-Same songs played over and over.  The music DJ should be fired.  His choices are so out of date.
-Can't hear the PA.  I have been saying this for 10+ years on this board and nothing has changed.
-Non chairback seating is horrible.  Lower bleachers for an ave. sized man is uncomfortable.
-Parking is horrible.  New fans or first time gamers have to be confused as hell.
-No dynamic ticket prices to fill seats. 
-Out of conf home game opponents are just crap.

I could go on and on.  Valpo's game experience reminds me of Teibel's in Schererville.  The fanbase is dying off and not changing with the times.  The ARC is stuck in 1998.  There is no new fanbase coming.

Sad we are letting this go.  We are spinning our wheels on this board about it also.

Wow.

Please elaborate "wow".

[VULB#62]

Merely my reaction to Chairback's detailed, summary indictment of the ARC coming from a long-standing, bleeds Brown & Gold, Valpo BB fan.  He says it all.

I thought this analogy was eye-opening:

"Valpo's game experience reminds me of Teibel's in Schererville.  The fanbase is [literally] dying off and not changing with the times.  The ARC is stuck in 1998.  There is no new fanbase coming."

[VU2014]

Love Professor Boyt. One of my favorite teachers that I've ever had and a great man. Tom has had an incredible career and is a true leader but I'm not sure I'd choose him to lead a marketing campaign.

They needed to be more targeted with their marketing effort. They should be marketing directly to the 219. Valpo has a really tough task because there are so many in-state schools.



To be honest what might be more important then marketing is investing in improving the ARC:
-comfortable chairback seating around the 3 side of the court (other then the student section)
-improve concessions. Move them off the main floor of the court and make them quicker
-make it not such a hassle to attend a game for the casual fan (parking)
-improve the dated concourse
-fix the speakers system (improve the music choices and restore the pep band to it's glory days)

I don't even know why I talk about it anymore because it's like shouting into the wind with this administration. Even the Student Section Thread got shut down because a few individuals didn't want to hear it.

[mj]

Was a reason ever given why the Student Section thread was shut down?

[VUGrad1314]

Can we get an estimate on how much each of these things (as well as AC for the ARC) would cost? It could help us target donations so that we can start off with small improvements while moving towards bigger ones and show recruits we're serious about competing at this level. This idea that we have to do it all at once or wait until building X Y or Z is built isn't productive. The seating the PA system the music and pep band  These are all things that could be addressed before the rec center and at a  fairly cheap cost relative to other university projects.

[VU2014]

Can we get an estimate on how much each of these things (as well as AC for the ARC) would cost? It could help us target donations so that we can start off with small improvements while moving towards bigger ones and show recruits we're serious about competing at this level. This idea that we have to do it all at once or wait until building X Y or Z is built isn't productive. The seating the PA system the music and pep band  These are all things that could be addressed before the rec center and at a  fairly cheap cost relative to other university projects.

Getting central AC in the ARC wouldn't be cheap and that's probably the last thing you'd add to the ARC after renovating the Arena. Renovations seems so far down the priority list of this Administration.

[valpo04]

Was a reason ever given why the Student Section thread was shut down?

Accidental lock. Reopened.

[VU2014]

Valpo had better attendance for all of our home games compared to the White Sox game the other day haha

https://twitter.com/sportingnews/status/983811257684852737
https://twitter.com/sportingnews/status/983775642394165248