Hope it works out. I know LU has for so long tried to get the neighborhood not only involved but turned around. There were always opportunities if you were an employee to get help with buying in the neighborhood. I really do not know how successful that has been. I walked down Winthrop to Granville the other day and it was interesting that LU has turned almost the whole two blocks into LU dorms.
I know it is not rational but I equate the health of the U with turnout at Bball games. It seems like it should be a great rallying point for past and present and the local community as well as our place in Chicago.

Word has it that LU cut ties with the ticketing company in November. They had been in charge of reaching out to the neighborhood and organizations. Since that time, it's been students. Starting with the new year, there is a dedicated individual taking over that position.

As ahunte said, they are offering 2 comp tickets for the MSU and SIU games. Hopefully it helps things along with increasing ticket sales. That said, the ticket office has similar concerns as us and are working to correct the issues. Nelson Taylor isn't hiding from the situation. I'm sure his positive attitude will pay dividends soon.

_________________
Cigarboy sucks!

Don't just give the tickets away - make sure they are used! If that means paying to bus school groups or other groups in, do it. Find a way to involve the grammar school students and their parents. I know the half time games with grammar schools are "lame", but it brings in the students AND their parents. Also, why not school groups singing the Anthem - parents will come to hear them. There are so many different incentives that can be offered to the grammar schools. Whatever is done has to be organized so that the group's experience is enjoyable and runs smoothly!

Don't worry about setting a precedent where people expect free tickets. Fill the gym NOW. We worry about TV coverage, but when we are covered the gym is empty. What kind of image is that? Put people in the seat and create some excitement in the gym. That should give us more of a "home court" advantage and perhaps the players will feed off it.

Let's wait until we have a program that we can "sell" before we start thinking about what people may expect in future years! Right now we don't have much to "sell" so we have to be creative! So, sell the experience of a NCAA Div. 1 basketball game!

I'd say that was a good move. Looked more into this Ticketing Company.. Founder left - or deserted - his own company and now is now working in the NBA. - Good Job, Good Effort.

I agree with Go, LU administration is working very hard to get more people in the seats.

So, unless you want to get off your behind and volunteer to work for the Ticket Office - I'm sure they would love to have all you attendance experts - How about we put a moratorium on attendance talk?

GO RAMBLERS.

I wish we could put a moratorium on the attendance talk. However, if you go over to the MVC board, you'll see that it dominates the discussion...it all comes down to attendance. It's bad enough that we embarrassed ourselves in non-conference play...the last thing we need is to have the schools regret our joining the conference. And we are getting dangerously close to that.

All of that said, if each of us on this board encouraged a handful of people to come to each game, we may be able to slowly (but surely) get the place filled. Certainly we all know folks that may want to come to games but don't.

_________________
Cigarboy sucks!

No offense to anyone else here, but i'm somehow not surprised that LadyBee makes the most logical and compelling case...

I posted a few things on the MVC board about attendance that didn't go over too well. Essentially, I said there's no solid correlation between attendance and on court performance, which is apparently some sort of blasphemy. I pointed out that the A-10 has lower average attendance than the MVC, and the West Coast conference is also higher ranked in conference strength than the MVC, but has 30% lower attendance. When I posted it, there were actually two West Coast Conference schools with average home attendance well under 1000 per game. The only reason the West Coast isn't 35 or 40% below the MVC is because they recently added BYU, which averages 12k. But attendance is a point of pride for MVC schools, especially Wichita State, which dominates the message board conversation over there. So the fainting couches were all fully occupied.

Look, there aren't that many urban college basketball schools that average more than schools in college or minor league towns, for fairly obvious reasons. For many MVC fans, their objections to having us in the conference--- as some may have figured out from some of the rhetoric--- is almost as much based on fear and loathing of large urban areas as it is on our well below average on court performance. Good attendance has been a point of pride for quite some time in the MVC, so it's a core tenet of their worldview. So I was probably naive in thinking I could try to use logic or facts to explain that we shouldn't be evaluated on how our attendance compares to Wichita or Peoria, and that (at least at first) comparing our attendance to George Washington, San Francisco, Portland, Loyola Marymount, or Fordham would make more sense. But they would have none of it, and why would they? Attendance is something they can pull out and use against us any time they need to discredit us.

Go -

You make an excellent point. Also, thank you for proposing a realistic solution that can actually work.

Everyone should reread that last portion of his post again and again.

That is all.

Not to defend anyone from that board as I haven't posted there in a couple of years due to how the place is run, but for the better part of a decade, the MVC has had good attendance numbers and the more successful programs have had good numbers as well.

I'll admit that to WSU fans, attendance numbers have always been a source of pride. Even during the Lost Decade (90's) we averaged over 6k in what was easily the worst basketball the university has ever seen. We've taken a lot of pride in our past and our tradition and support is a big factor as to why. Schools that get good attendance tend to make more money and have a better overall financial leg. Too many MVC schools can only pay so much for a coach and at the first sign of success, they leave for bigger paychecks at jobs that really aren't any better when it comes to winning or having post season success. If Wichita is "stuck" in the MVC, they want others to improve and keep their coaches longer. Packing an arena helps. 3G has said on a number of occassions that it'll be hard to ever leave Wichita as they have a packed arena every game, great support from the community, boosters that'll pay to help the program out and he's rewarded financially for his hard work.

You point to the WCC but it's full of small private schools who for the most part, on that good. Gonzaga has kept Few around a long time and pay him well. SMC has recently come onto the stage and I have no info on their coaching situation. BYU is a whole other animal. But for the most part, the rest of that conference blows. There is from time to time a school or two that has a decent one or two year run but no staying power. Gonzaga also had to pimp itself out for years to rake in money so they could pay their coach. It's not as bad today since they won their fair share of games and can put together a decent schedule now and have built a reputation.

As for the A10, there's also been a lot of fluctuation among many of those and very little stability in success. Teams rise and fall and there are some really horrific programs at the bottom of the conference. And typically, those programs that don't have strong attendance numbers don't have staying power or the financial ability to elevate their programs to the next level of competition. They can have some good runs, but there's very little sustained success.

And I'm not going to lie, strong attendance equals a better game day atmosphere which helps recruiting both fans and players. Both of which can help the long term health and success of a program.

_________________
The Roundhouse

I agree with all those points, however we are a private school in an urban environment that would almost certainly be in the West Coast Conference if we were in, say, Seattle or Sacramento instead of Chicago. There's not much we can do about that. The most similar school to Loyola that has managed to buck the prevailing factors we're up against on attendance has been Marquette, which has been outdrawing us by far since the 1950s or before, and is now in the Big East. They had some lean years in the 1990s, but a National Championship in the late 1970s, consistent tournament appearances, and a Final Four run in 2003 helped sustain them to the point where they're drawing 14-15k.

The point I would make on attendance, and one that you allude to in your post, is that it is mostly a trailing indicator that follows, not preceeds, sustained success. Fifteen years ago, Butler was drawing crowds in the high 3000s in 10000-seat Hinkle Fieldhouse. After a decade of making tournament appearance and getting ranked, they're pulling around 7500 per game for conference games. Around 2006-07, we were drawing pretty good (for us), with an overall average close to 2800 or so and occasional crowds over 4000 (against Butler, UIC, and high profile non-con games) when we finished in the upper half of the Horizon for three years in a row. If we could put together a solid run in the top half of the MVC for three to five years, maybe with a postseason tournament appearance mixed in there, I truly believe we could get close to 3500 or more on average, which would be a nice atmosphere in our smaller venue. I think that's a reasonable, achieveable target to shoot for. Stars, planets, comets, and all the other heavenly bodies would have to align in bizzare, unlikely ways for demand to constantly exceed the current capacity. Besides, I'd prefer to concentrate on the more pressing matters at hand, like the mammouth task of putting together a solid, sustainable program and reversing a couple of decades of bad or mediocre basketball.