During the work day, I listen to ESPN. Do you know how many commercials I hear for DePaul and UIC? More than I can count.

I'm getting sick of this same old song and dance. Why does our department not invest in advertising? This year, of all years, we should have been hitting the airwaves hard. Coming off the success of winning the CBI, we could have put a firm foot down in the City. Instead, our department chooses to hope and pray that people will come out to the games.

This is getting ridiculous.

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Cigarboy sucks!

GO, a few of us have been harping on this for YEARS !! The admin apparently does NOT understand that a news note costs nada , but paid ads do COST. Publicity good or bad gets the school in front of people. Bad pub which is really what the media loves in a way gets our name out there. Balance that with good--eg winning Hoops , our VB team leaves us a PLUS People see it. Our Admin has still not figured this out.
We need a real Sports Info Dept.

Anybody know what the chain of command is these days in terms of marketing? Who has what responsibilities ? Steve has been in for close to a year correct? With out any evidence just what is rolling around in my head I think that things became so tangled over the years that it will take a while to untie the knots and get an understandable chain of command going. In the mean time we struggle getting publicity and selling tickets. I kind of thought the turnout for Creighton was a little disappointing.

Interest in college basketball is very low in the Chicagoland area. The CBI Championship means nothing to an average fan who considers the NIT the "not included tournament". The tourney win is great for the program but only as a stepping stone and experience in post-season play for the players. I said it before, getting to the NCAA Tourney is an easier fix than our attendance issues. The biggest problem is our lack of student interest in the program for the past two decades. If those students did not care about the program when they were at Loyola there is no way they will care now. Many alums do not feel a connection with the program or the school for that matter. How do you fix that problem? You might not be able to! You may be able to get the "die hard" college basketball fans to come but even that is hard as they may prefer watching a Duke game on TV compared to a Loyola v.s. Evansville game in person though. Of the students that came over the years many of them were not "die hard" fans but rather students who came "because my friends came". Another problem is you need students that "love sports". A lot of the big sports fans choose their school based on "athletic atmosphere" and they are not going to a non-football school. They will see Purdue, Michigan, etc. on a college football gameday and pass up Loyola. You need that passion and interest group which is hard at a non football school. When I was at Loyola many students did not even like sports!

Our non-con schedule needs to include teams with a heavy Chicago alumni presence that does not play DePaul or NU. (eg. Dayton....tons of Chicago alums and a school with a huge basketball following).
The Creighton turnout was good, but their fans had two options to see them play in the area this season (at Loyola or at DePaul).

Sorry Manager. I don't buy it.

We need to be doing everything we can to bring people in, and that includes advertising.

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Cigarboy sucks!

I agree but you have to also realize what the return on your advertising investment is going to be. If Loyola put an advertisement on the front page of the Tribune this Wed. saying "GAME TONIGHT AT LOYOLA" how many more people would actually come? I by no means say don't try but it is a very very hard task.

And I absolutely get that. But the fact that we don't do it is ridiculous. Sure it may be keeping up with the Joneses but we're being "left behind." This also goes to why the media doesn't really cover our games. We're not on the tip of their brain so they don't care.

We need to get it so we are ALWAYS on the nightly news...where you see and hear ads for LU games all the time.

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Cigarboy sucks!

Go is spot on. Ad Ad Ad !! and More AD--but equally or more important IS publicity good or bad eg- the Student marches.. Our name MUST be mentioned in articles==That publicity is FREE. We MUST have a Director in charge of getting us that PUBLICITY . Most important however are Hoops WINS--A lot of them ---Last year's was a start-- This year's sleepwalk through Alaska hurt us badly--- We must string many wins to overcome this.
BTW, I hear ZIP and Flashes ads constantly on AKRON Radio . Only a constant drumbeat of wins and ads will bring out the PUB.
A good showing against ND will not hurt either.