On Student Section Attendance and Interaction

[ValpoHoops]

I know there is a lot going on today, and I have much more to comment on - but that's for later perhaps. (If you remember my post-season drivel from several years back, you'll recall I can be long-winded). Here's part one.



A Mind Dump on Student Attendance and Fan Interaction



In August of 2003, a college freshman from a mid-sized Wisconsin city (and a tiny, private high school) arrived on the campus of Valparaiso University. That fall, the football team would go 8-4 and win the PFL, its best season this century. The volleyball team – under second-year head coach Carin Avery – would post a 27-8 record, win the Mid-Continent Conference and make an NCAA Tournament Appearance.

Winter sports would find a way to improve on these results as both the men's and women's basketball teams found their way into the NCAA Tournament, with the women's team giving #2 seed Kansas State a battle before ultimately falling by single digits.

That college freshman took notice at how successful the teams at his University seemed to be, and how many students came to games. Over the next four years, that student became more and more involved in the student section, trying to get more and more students to games, trying to get the rest of the crowd to be engaged and hopefully enhancing the environment at sporting events at Valpo.

While that effort led to a generally neutral effect on sports that were not men's basketball, student attendance and engagement for men's basketball increased and the ARC became a place that was consistently loud – and it became a place that opponents simply did not win many games.

Fast forward to the fall of 2007, when that student – together with a small group of others – decided to take their efforts a step beyond what they had done in the past, creating what they called "The Sixth Man Rewards Program".  These students went out and raised a significant amount of capital – both in cash and in goods – that was given away to the students throughout the year, based on how many games they attended.

That student was me.

The program we started also tracked student attendance. Numbers were up. There were 500 or more students at almost every men's basketball game. Though not all of these students sat in the student section, many did. The section was full game after game. Full and loud.

Then came February 5. The Butler game. ESPN. 1600 students. One Thousand and Six Hundred. Even the chairbacks stood and cheered. A lot.

It was special. But given how the season had gone and how students had been coming to games, it was not entirely unexpected. Maybe not to that extent, but we knew the place would be packed.

Fast forward only a decade and the expectations have, unfortunately, shifted to the opposite extreme. Fans who can't make it to the games turn to ESPN3 and see half-full student sections (at best), a chairback section who looks like they've been told that they will be flogged should they so much as make a peep and (the appearance of?) a general malaise inside the arena that is disappointing – even disheartening.

Things have changed significantly in only ten years.

It has been discussed many times that the Valparaiso and Northwest Indiana community will never fully be supportive of Valpo basketball to fill the arena on a consistent basis. While there is some truth to this, it is not fully accurate. Past games against Marquette, Butler and Purdue have seen a packed house. The recent NIT games against Florida State and St. Mary's were full to the rafters. Horizon League Championship games were played in front of a full house as well. Heck, in 2010, there were close to 2000 people in the ARC for a women's game against Notre Dame. The support does exist, it is simply (or not so simply) a matter of getting those butts in the seats.

There are myriad reasons why fans do or do not show up to games, and they are different for every group. Students want certain things. Young alumni may want different things. Families, older alumni, community members, etc. Everyone wants something different from the game day experience.

For now, I'm choosing to focus on one: student attendance and involvement. If this is improved, it has a cascade effect on all of the others. What can be done to put butts in the student section?

Going back to 2007, there are many similarities to what we saw that year and what we see now. Student attendance had hit a bit of a lull, the team was playing in a new conference that didn't have a lot of "rivalry" feeling to it (albeit that there were a couple of schools that we saw that way).

It takes a significant commitment from a fairly large circle of people to make it happen. There have to be students who are willing to commit their time for little return. There has to be commitment from the athletic department. There has to be commitment from the teams and coaches. There has to be commitment from the community. All of those, however, circle back to the first.


Who is in charge of the student section?

From the time I started in school until I graduated, there was a clear hierarchy of students who were the leaders of the student section. Frankly, I'm not sure who is in charge now or if there is even an organized model for running the section. We took the student section to the Student Senate and became a recognized organization on campus. We had a budget from Student Senate that we were able to use to fund prize programs, theme nights, bus trips and whatever else we needed to do over the course of the season. This was a huge step for us. The student section now needs to have dedicated leadership, with a vision for the future, who will not only run the section, but will prepare the next generation of leaders. It needs campus affiliation. Perhaps through athletics. Perhaps through student government. Perhaps both.

In addition to not knowing who the leaders are, not once in the last ten years has anyone been in touch with the students who had built the student section to where it was. We had developed new "traditions", ideas, thoughts and procedures. Things ran smoothly. Most importantly, STUDENTS SHOWED UP AND STOOD IN THE STUDENT SECTION. Our student section lost its voice, lost connections with sponsors, lost leadership. It is a shell of itself.


What can be done?

Again, everything starts with leadership. Nothing else can happen until that is set. Then, you have to figure out how to get students to games. Usually, it takes things. Stuff. Giveaways. We had a $5 membership fee. It essentially paid for the t-shirt, but it created a little bit of buy-in (no pun intended) from a student. We set up at FOCUS days, had highlights playing on laptops, had players there to meet the incoming freshmen.

We gave out the shirts. Sandwiches from Jimmy John's (our sponsor) from time to time. A rewards program for showing up to games that included Qdoba, Inman's, Strongbow's and many other local businesses. We gave away tickets to a Colts game. Basically, you just had to show up to games and scan your ID card to get points. Enough points and you got a reward at the next game you showed up to. It took some time, but not nearly as much as some may thing. It can be done.

It is hard to compete against the hundreds of other activities on a college campus. This is reality, whether people want to admit it or not. When I was in school, I hung out with men's and women's basketball players. I hung out with volleyball and football players. Athletes were around. The students in the dorm room next to me did not know that Valpo even had a basketball team until late in the season. I wish I was kidding when I say that. Not everyone cares, and that's OK.

There is a snowball effect. Get kids to come to a game. ONE SINGLE GAME. Give them a good experience. Help them make new friends. They'll come back and bring someone else along. It simply doesn't happen overnight.

We advertised everywhere we could. We taped flyers on dorm room doors. We put table toppers in the union and the other dining halls. We set up tables in busy areas every chance we had. It was all worth it. I look back through videos of old games today and I'm still proud of those wild, crazy, loud, obnoxious and (most of all) packed student sections.

It also takes success on the court. Fans – especially students – don't support losing teams. The last few years have not been to the level that we, as Valpo fans, have come to expect. If that improves, it makes it a lot easier for all of the other things to happen.



So, to the leaders of the student section: Be leaders. Go above and beyond. Work with athletics. Work with the teams. Get to know the players (trust me, they're people, too...and they're probably not bad people to know on campus). Use every available resource – and DON'T RELY SOLELY ON SOCIAL MEDIA! Get in touch with those before you.

We created something great. It has fallen down, but we can lift it up again. And, I truly mean WE!

[VULB#62]

Fantastic assessment Hoops. In light of the current crisis (and it is a crisiis), this is just one of many important pieces of a new "Strategic Plan For The Reinvigoration of Valpo Athletics" that needs to be thoughtfully created ASAP.

[valpospartan]

Great post, Hoops.  I think that the Athletic Department should be in charge of administering the student section.  It is a crime what has happened to student attendance. 
I take exception to your comments about the chairback people.  I have sat there forever.  I do sit during the games - my age has earned that for me - but I do cheer and stand when warranted.

[humbleopinion]

Great post, Hoops.  I think that the Athletic Department should be in charge of administering the student section.  It is a crime what has happened to student attendance. 
I take exception to your comments about the chairback people.  I have sat there forever.  I do sit during the games - my age has earned that for me - but I do cheer and stand when warranted.

As I sat in my chairback this season, I missed the days when our section was maligned.  This year the chairback section displayed the greatest amount of enthusiasm.

[IndyValpo]

The first thing anyone should do is go to You Tube and search Grand Canyon student section. I went to a couple of games this year and their students are awesome. Everyone seems to be involved. A great environment

[wh]

Fitzgerald blames declining attendance and lack of engagement on technology:

https://twitter.com/RickTarsitano/status/1152431344816984065

[M]

He's not wrong

[NotBryceDrew]

Although across college athletics game attendance is down, our issues stem from 2 major issues.

1. Poor performance (record of team)

2. Poor game times (compared to last few years in the Horizon, 2pm on Sunday isn't great)

14-15, 15-16, 16-17 the student section was packed for all major games so it's as of late that there is an issue.

Completely agree Athletics Dept. needs to more actively promote and manage.

Maybe the HappeningHoops kid can turn it around seems like it would be a great fit.

[4throwfan]

I'm curious as to how far the downward trend of attendance goes.  Does it level out at some point?  Do we get to a point where some teams (college or pro) don't have publicly attended venues any more?  In other words, could a team like the Miami Marlins say "why have a stadium if no one comes?  All of our revenue comes from broadcast, so let's only broadcast the games, and save some money.  We can play at a purpose-built field with very little invitation-only seating."  Are colossal stadiums like at Ohio State a thing of the past, or would Ohio State build a new stadium 1/3 or 1/4 of the size?  I could see low-major and mid-major colleges abandoning single-purpose arenas altogether (many don't have it now), and not even promoting in-person attendance.

I would think that conference membership requirements such as home venue seating capacity are antiquated.  The proper measure would be number of broadcast viewers rather than seat count.

I would also think that the downward trend will level out somewhere.  I just hope that the atmosphere of an at-the-game experience is not lost too much at that point.

[VUBBFan]

Hopefully we have leveled off some. Just eyeballing it, last year was an improvement over the previous year that was a disaster. I'm talking about the student section only.


Last year the student attendance for the first basketball games were solid and then tapered off a bit. Then the frats picked it up and they finished fairly strong. The student section was not packed but was definitely much better than the previous year when I counted 38 and 57 students in the stands at two of the games. Of course over the breaks they aren't going to be there but that can't be controlled.


This coming year I expect it to start out like it ended. The students that were most instrumental in getting out the students and coordinated the Frats last year are seniors now and hopefully this year they'll groom some underclassmen to take up their mantle in the future.

[4throwfan]

I looked at the stats going back to 2001-2002 season, which is all that is on the VU website.  I am extremely rusty on some math functions, so my math might be wrong.  But, I did a linear regression on the average attendance per year.  A linear regression yields a linear approximation of the data.  In other words, for scattered data points, it gives a person a way of determining an estimated y for a given x on an x-y chart based on the data.  Bottom line is that the slope of the line for the data points was -82, which means that VU is losing an average of 82 attendees per year.  Frankly, I thought it would be worse.  But, you can look at it this way: in 2018-2019, the average attendance was 2821.  If the decline in attendance continues at the same rate that it has since 2001-2002, then the average attendance in 10 years should be expected to be around 2000 (2821-10x82).  I know that calculation assumes that the 2018-2019 attendance figure sits on the line, but you get my drift.

I know that I did a terrible job of explaining this, so if someone who understands can explain better (or correct me if my math was wrong), I have no pride of authorship.  Also, if someone wants me to take another stab at explaining, just let me know.

[4throwfan]

I thought that the student attendance and enthusiasm was better at the Toledo game than it has been in a while.  Some of the cheering from the student section was directed toward the Crusaderettes, which I thought was nice.

Last night's game was pretty exciting.  Hopefully, those in attendance will pass along to their classmates and friends. 

Attached is a link to a youtube video showing student ritual (haka) at the beginning of a New Zealand rugby game.  Apparently, the haka is ingrained in New Zealand culture.  The New Zealand national rugby team (the All Blacks, which is an exceptionally successful organisation) perform this, to wide acclaim.  I've also attached a video showing their version, just for kicks.

It would be nice if our student section could do an abbreviated version like the NZ students do.  Would be different.  I would volunteer my chairback colleagues, but I think we would just look weird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP_LSAD8N8A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgF8IVPeR48

[VULB#62]

Great post. We  (Valpo) are scrambling to establish an MVC MBB identity at the same time we are trying to establish an institutional identity there as well. Our goal should be the Duke approach. I believe the Duke undergraduate population is among the smallest in the ACC (don't know about Wake).  Their student section rocks. They make Camron a pit in the eyes of people across the country. That's the goal Valpo should strive for in the ARC, cuz it brings in coverage. BOTH end lines should be set up as student sections. An intense indoctrination (probably a poor term)  program needs to be institutionalized that puts pressure on students to attend and support MBB ( and all sports, actually) with gusto.

Why?  All kids enroll in schools that they want to be proud of when they are there and after they graduate. A rep in music or meteorology goes only so far. A national rep in sports transcends all of that, because people around the country RECOGNIZE THE FREAKIN NAME -  musicians and business grads etc. can fill in the specific details about how good their programs are after people outside the central midwest say, "Oh, yeah, Valpo, great school."

The university has to get its head out of their "ivory towers" (euphemism alert) that they are stuck in and recognize that the bigger the brand, the bigger the pride. The bigger the pride, the bigger the profile. The bigger the profile, the bigger the application pool.  Yaddah, yaddah.

I monitor multiple news feeds from all over the country every day. Many strings, but one string alarms me:  there is a declining college enrollment crisis across the country.  Valpo has got to be proactive and MBB is the only vehicle they have left.

[FWalum]

I believe the Duke undergraduate population is among the smallest in the ACC (don't know about Wake).

Wake's undergrad enrollment is about 1,400 less than Duke's. Their undergrad enrollment is about 5,225.

[valpo84]

And Wake's FB (smallest undergrad population of FCS schools with Rice) is Ranked #19 this week. (sorry, had to talk a little about them as it's the highest ranking they've had since they went to the College Football Playoff rankings). 

[FWalum]

And Wake's FB (smallest undergrad population of FCS schools with Rice) is Ranked #19 this week. (sorry, had to talk a little about them as it's the highest ranking they've had since they went to the College Football Playoff rankings). 

We had a great time in 2006 when they won the ACC, got to go to several home games that season with our daughter when she was at Wake.

[4throwfan]

Great post. We  (Valpo) are scrambling to establish an MVC MBB identity at the same time we are trying to establish an institutional identity there as well. Our goal should be the Duke approach. I believe the Duke undergraduate population is among the smallest in the ACC (don't know about Wake).  Their student section rocks. They make Camron a pit in the eyes of people across the country. That's the goal Valpo should strive for in the ARC, cuz it brings in coverage. BOTH end lines should be set up as student sections. An intense indoctrination (probably a poor term)  program needs to be institutionalized that puts pressure on students to attend and support MBB ( and all sports, actually) with gusto.

Why?  All kids enroll in schools that they want to be proud of when they are there and after they graduate. A rep in music or meteorology goes only so far. A national rep in sports transcends all of that, because people around the country RECOGNIZE THE FREAKIN NAME -  musicians and business grads etc. can fill in the specific details about how good their programs are after people outside the central midwest say, "Oh, yeah, Valpo, great school."

The university has to get its head out of their "ivory towers" (euphemism alert) that they are stuck in and recognize that the bigger the brand, the bigger the pride. The bigger the pride, the bigger the profile. The bigger the profile, the bigger the application pool.  Yaddah, yaddah.

I monitor multiple news feeds from all over the country every day. Many strings, but one string alarms me:  there is a declining college enrollment crisis across the country.  Valpo has got to be proactive and MBB is the only vehicle they have left.

62, I agree with you, but would phrase what you're saying a little differently.  I would say it as the University needs to establish a stronger culture that can give students and the community something to rally behind.  People like to be a part of something bigger than just themselves.  If the University establishes a stronger culture, then it will lead to greater student and community turnout and enthusiasm at all events (athletics, arts, academic clubs, community service, etc.).  The upshot is that establishing strong culture doesn't cost much.

I agree with that.

Speaking of culture, I learned of the haka in the videos that I posted from the book "Legacy", which is about the culture of the New Zealand All Blacks.  I suggest it as a good read for anyone who is a leader, or who wants to be.  In reading that book, it's easy to see some parallels, and contradictions, between the very successful All Blacks and last year's VU team.

[VALPO LI]

I thought that the student attendance and enthusiasm was better at the Toledo game than it has been in a while.

If the enthusiasm is still not what we are looking for perhaps hire this energetic fan to get the crowd going.

He's not cheap though.

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/28021752/the-outrageous-life-cameron-hughes-professional-fan

[hailcrusaders]

Felt good about today's game and delved into some attendance numbers. I won't claim to be a statistics expert, but I took a few graduate classes on the subject and stayed at a Holiday Inn Express recently, so I'd like to think I'm within shouting distance of competent.

I performed a multivariate linear regression on regular season attendance numbers against D1 opponents over the last 18 seasons from the athletics website. There were 226 total games, and I'd be glad to send the spreadsheet to anyone interested. My goal was to determine if attendance has in fact decreased while holding other factors constant. I included five explanatory variables:

1) Valpo's Sagarin rating as an approximation for the "hype" surrounding the team. Better on-court products draw better crowds.

2) The opponent's Sagarin rating. Because better opponents also draw better crowds. Stipulation with the Sagarin ratings is that I used end-of-season ratings for both Valpo and the opponent.

3) A binary variable representing whether or not the game was played over the holidays. I defined "holidays" as the Saturday before Thanksgiving to the Sunday after, or anytime between Dec 10 and Jan 10 (inclusive). I realize this is a rather liberal definition of "holidays", but I loosely based it off of VU's academic schedule.

4) A binary variable representing whether or not the game was played on a weekend. I defined "weekend" as a Friday or a Saturday (but not Sunday).

5) and finally, season. Idea being that a significantly negative coefficient for this variable indicates that attendance is decreasing over the last eighteen seasons even while holding the above factors constant.

Here are the coefficients, with brief explanations. They were all statistically significant.

Valpo Sagarin: -3.751. For every spot lower Valpo's Sagarin rating is, expect nearly four fewer people to attend a game, holding other factors constant. If we improve 100 spots this year on last year's end-of-season Sag rating (196 to 96, for those of you keeping score at home), we can expect average attendance to have increased by about 375 people, according to the data, and holding other factors constant.

Opponent Sagarin: -3.759. For every spot lower our opponent's Sagarin rating is, expect nearly four fewer people to attend the game. Now again, I'm only using Sagarin as an approximation for strength of opponent, but the idea that higher quality competition attracts more people to the ARC is no surprise.

Holiday game: -454.21. Games during Thanksgiving week or winter break will have about 450 fewer people in attendance, all else equal. Variance was fairly high for this factor, probably in part because of my loose definition of "holiday" and I'm not sure about how students are factored into attendance totals.

Weekend game: 551.10. Games on Fridays or Saturdays draw over 550 more fans than Sun-Thurs games, with all other factors taken into account. This is important because we only had three reg season weekend home games vs. D1 opponents all of last year, and only two (!) the year before. Compare that to seven each during the '14-15 and '15-16 seasons. This is what prompted me to run this analysis: is attendance down simply because of lack of Fri/Sat games?

and, the moment you've all been waiting for...

Season: -72.45. Attendance is down by about 70 people per season, even while taking quality of team/opponent and timing of game into account. This is about 10 people less in magnitude than 4throwfan's trend, a difference attributable to the other factors I took into account with the four variables listed above. Even so, standard error for this coefficient was 9.38, so this difference is not significant.

Now, if you're statistically inclined, you can probably find some drawbacks here: linear regression may not be the best fit for the data (although the residual plots were a lot better than I expected), Sagarin ratings are imperfect, nearby opponents bring fans, weather, giveaways/ceremonies, etc. The adjusted r-squared for this model was 0.434, so there's certainly plenty of variance I was not able to account for. But the big takeaway, and I think it's valid, is that attendance has been decreasing, even while taking quality of team/opponent and timing of home games into account. We also should play more weekend games.

I didn't include this year's two D1 home games in the analysis, but the model predicts 2987 for Toledo (actual attendance was 2412) and 2212 for North Dakota (2504 announced) using the latest Sagarin rankings.

[vu84v2]

I can't say that I look at the forums for too many college teams, but this is the first time that I have ever seen someone post the results of a multivariate linear regression on a fan website. Pretty incredible!

This looks really good. I assume that you ran a standardized regression - otherwise the coefficients (and your estimates on effect size) have little, if any, meaning. I might have added dummy variables for Valpo's conference and, perhaps, a dummy variable for whether the opponent was in the NCAA tournament the previous year - but, to some extent, you capture those factors with the opponent's Sagarin rating. You are right that it is a limitation that you needed to use the end-of-season Sagarin ratings, but it would be a ton of work to do otherwise (and may not meaningfully change the results).

There was a published study around 2013 that did a similar analysis for another mid-major team (I have read the paper, but cannot seem to find it online). It is not as rigorous as what you have done here, but the findings on quality of team and quality of opponent were similar (but lacked the effect size calculations that you have included).

[valpo64]

That was a "Pep Band" yesterday???  How many members?  Maybe 10!!!!   And, their music must be at least 10 years old.   As has been stated before on this forum, grant credit to students who play or pay them.  Our gameday operations are as disaster!!  Thirty-five minutes prior to tip - off  I waited 10 minutes in line at the floor concession stand  before I got served.  And there were very few people in the arena.  The sound system again is TERRIBLE.  The student doing the  promos on the floor and near the stands should have stayed home...he was VERY hard to understand. That situation needs to be improved quickly.  Good idea but DO IT RIGHT!!!!  The concession situation appears to be getting worse instead of better.  For crying outloud  Mr. LaB and Administration,  I have seen elementary schools run concessions better than we do it.  We are now in "The Valley"...let's act like we belong and deserve to be there!   Unfortunately,  the improvements that have been made this season are being under-mined by major problems that need improved and/or corrected.  However on the positive side, it was great to see a much more exciting brand of VU basketball.  GO VALPO!

[VULB#62]

I can't say that I look at the forums for too many college teams, but this is the first time that I have ever seen someone post the results of a multivariate linear regression on a fan website. Pretty incredible!

This looks really good. I assume that you ran a standardized regression - otherwise the coefficients (and your estimates on effect size) have little, if any, meaning. I might have added dummy variables for Valpo's conference and, perhaps, a dummy variable for whether the opponent was in the NCAA tournament the previous year - but, to some extent, you capture those factors with the opponent's Sagarin rating. You are right that it is a limitation that you needed to use the end-of-season Sagarin ratings, but it would be a ton of work to do otherwise (and may not meaningfully change the results).

Um... yeah, what he said.  Definitely what he said 

[vok22]

The concession stand is downright shameful. They said at the season ticket holder dinner that we would see an improved concession stand. So far, the lines are longer and I can say with certainty that isn't because attendance is up. I don't know who is running it now but it is awful. Ordered the "loaded nachos" (I believe a dollar more than the regular "nachos") and got a bag of chips in a plastic container with a little bit of cheese. I asked why the "loaded nachos" were an extra dollar over the basic nachos if they were just basic nachos, and the cashier said "I'm not sure".  So I asked what comes with the basic nachos if a bag of chips with cheese was "loaded". The person filling drinks informed me that the basic nachos were just the chips. Last time I checked, a bag of chips is a bag of chips, not nachos.

[4throwfan]

Last time I checked, a bag of chips is a bag of chips, not nachos.

This is the funniest thing I've read on this board in a long time.  Thanks for making my day.

[wh]

That was a "Pep Band" yesterday???  How many members?  Maybe 10!!!!   And, their music must be at least 10 years old.   As has been stated before on this forum, grant credit to students who play or pay them.  Our gameday operations are as disaster!!  Thirty-five minutes prior to tip - off  I waited 10 minutes in line at the floor concession stand  before I got served.  And there were very few people in the arena.  The sound system again is TERRIBLE.  The student doing the  promos on the floor and near the stands should have stayed home...he was VERY hard to understand. That situation needs to be improved quickly.  Good idea but DO IT RIGHT!!!!  The concession situation appears to be getting worse instead of better.  For crying outloud  Mr. LaB and Administration,  I have seen elementary schools run concessions better than we do it.  We are now in "The Valley"...let's act like we belong and deserve to be there!   Unfortunately,  the improvements that have been made this season are being under-mined by major problems that need improved and/or corrected.  However on the positive side, it was great to see a much more exciting brand of VU basketball.  GO VALPO!

The only thing worse than ignoring an ongoing fiasco is giving lip service to it and then ignoring it.  BTW the popcorn I had yesterday must have been 2 or 3 days old (probably popped and packaged on Thurs. or Fri.).  I thought I was chewing Styrofoam.   I believe it was Emily Dickinson who once said, "If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves."