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+----- Thread: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? (/thread-731066.html)
Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - Stay Cool - 03-16-2015 03:12 PM
I don't want this to come off the wrong way, but it's fairly obvious student support isn't where it should be for NIU athletics. I know the idea of catering tl students (and let's be honest, they are a big portion of who should be attending games) repulses some of you, but what are some ideas you all have to stir up some interest from the student body to attend football/basketball games?
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - UnknownScout - 03-16-2015 03:42 PM
I think the students do a pretty good job of attending football games. I also think that the biggest issue with basketball is the team isn't exciting to watch. We're just not that good. Football attendance will increase, or it damn well better with better opponents that we're bringing in now. Changing conferences would help, but we've speculated that to death, so we're stuck with conference schedules we have. We need to get better to draw more people. If we were winning 18-20 games a year, people would come because hey the team is good and playing exciting basketball.
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - Lord Stanley - 03-16-2015 03:58 PM
Win and make sure the players, coaches and facilities are approachable and engaging.
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - Stay Cool - 03-16-2015 04:05 PM
(03-16-2015 03:42 PM)UnknownScout Wrote: I think the students do a pretty good job of attending football games. I also think that the biggest issue with basketball is the team isn't exciting to watch. We're just not that good. Football attendance will increase, or it damn well better with better opponents that we're bringing in now. Changing conferences would help, but we've speculated that to death, so we're stuck with conference schedules we have. We need to get better to draw more people. If we were winning 18-20 games a year, people would come because hey the team is good and playing exciting basketball.One of the biggest knocks i see from other boards about why NIU shouldn't move on to a new conference yet is lack of fan support at games. This is mostly critiqued at our football games. We need to up the ante if we want to be taken seriously for a real conference jump. I think a move to the AAC is doable with what we bring now and that it will help to bring fans to the games, but to go B12 after that? We will need more fans in the stands. Students will be a big part of that, so how do we get them in the game? Plenty of them tailgate before the games, but just as many leave after tailgating to go drink at home at watch the game. How do we go about getting them to go in the stadium instead of going home?
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - Stay Cool - 03-16-2015 04:06 PM
(03-16-2015 03:58 PM)Lord Stanley Wrote: Win and make sure the players, coaches and facilities are approachable and engaging.I think that's a great step, and the master plan stadium should help in that regard. We've already got the winning part down
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - Dog Fan - 03-16-2015 04:08 PM
The stadium improvements under the Master Plan will help a lot. Once the students are finally convinced that that we are a real FBS team playing in a real FBS college football stadium, they should be excited. I would hope the adults from the community will be excited, too.
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - armour248 - 03-16-2015 04:22 PM
Why would you even consider what some random person on another school's message board has to say about our athletic attendance? People are stupid...keep that in mind.
Basketball doesn't draw because the team has been beyond horrible for 10 straight years. If they put together two 20 win seasons in a row they will be drawing 3k and it will be a great venue.
All things considered our football games typically have great student turnout. If our home games didn't consist of Cal Poly and weeknight MAC games in November we would post much better numbers.
These numbers are from 2013 but NIU is 48th out of 79 teams that turned in data.
http://graphics.wsj.com/college-football-attendance/
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - dekalb222 - 03-16-2015 05:14 PM
Two 20 win seasons and they are drawing 5k. Football, I have no idea how our attendance can be so bad!
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - Lord Stanley - 03-16-2015 05:18 PM
(03-16-2015 04:06 PM)Stay Cool Wrote:(03-16-2015 03:58 PM)Lord Stanley Wrote: Win and make sure the players, coaches and facilities are approachable and engaging.I think that's a great step, and the master plan stadium should help in that regard. We've already got the winning part down
The Football team has winning down but no one else does, unfortunately. So winning is still Job #1.
I would not count the NIU Athletics Master Plan eggs until the NIU Athletics Master Plan chickens have hatched. Money is tight, administrators are hired away, administrative and fundraising priorities change..... I am not pessimistic. Just realistic. I'm crossing my fingers that NIU has the faculties, the foundation, and the wherewithal to see the Master Plan through to completion
To me, the secret to attendance lies not so much with the students but with the local DeKalb and Sycamore community and a general square of Rockford to LaSalle, Aurora to Sterling. Within this square, make supporting NIU generational with communities regardless of whether those families attend NIU..
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - huskie1stdown - 03-16-2015 05:31 PM
To me, the secret to attendance lies not so much with the students but with the local DeKalb and Sycamore community and a general square of Rockford to LaSalle, Aurora to Sterling. Within this square, make supporting NIU generational with communities regardless of whether those families attend NIU..
Bingo
I think the students do a great job for football. You can't expect them to fill up the whole East side. We need more paying customers. How will it look when the upgrades are in place and the student section of the end zone is packed but the rest of the stadium is half full.
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - HuskieJohn - 03-16-2015 05:34 PM
Student support for the football games is by far outstanding when you compare to other FBS schools...even P5 schools. Yes most of the students going to P5 schools are paying for their tickets by choice but realistically for football games we are lacking much more for better support from the DeKalb/Sycamore locals AND the NIU Alums.
For basketball I would guess is where the student interest needs to increase first and forth most. I had very little interest in showing up to games as a student from F99-Sp05 so I would be interesting in hearing ideas.
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - Stay Cool - 03-16-2015 05:39 PM
(03-16-2015 05:34 PM)HuskieJohn Wrote: Student support for the football games is by far outstanding when you compare to other FBS schools...even P5 schools. Yes most of the students going to P5 schools are paying for their tickets by choice but realistically for football games we are lacking much more for better support from the DeKalb/Sycamore locals AND the NIU Alums.I'm all for pitching ideas about helping NIU's basketball attendance. My GF's friend is the manager for the team (same guy who uploads all the highlights to youtube and made the CMU dunk video go viral) so these ideas have a real chance of being heard by someone who can do something to apply them
For basketball I would guess is where the student interest needs to increase first and forth most. I had very little interest in showing up to games as a student from F99-Sp05 so I would be interesting in hearing ideas.
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - HuskieJohn - 03-16-2015 05:40 PM
(03-16-2015 05:14 PM)dekalb222 Wrote: Two 20 win seasons and they are drawing 5k. Football, I have no idea how our attendance can be so bad!
Because...
1 The university had an extremely poor relationship with DeKalb/Sycamore
2 So few Alums who were at NIU from 84-98 have any fond memory of Huskie football and have any desire to come back. Because the team sucked for 15 years and had no conference identity for 10 of those years we lost a lot of potential Alums and their families who would have been coming to the games.
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - PrideinthePack - 03-16-2015 05:52 PM
I don't think the student support is all that great for football. More than half of the students leave before/at halftime.
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - MaddDawgz02 - 03-16-2015 06:37 PM
(03-16-2015 04:05 PM)Stay Cool Wrote:(03-16-2015 03:42 PM)UnknownScout Wrote: I think the students do a pretty good job of attending football games. I also think that the biggest issue with basketball is the team isn't exciting to watch. We're just not that good. Football attendance will increase, or it damn well better with better opponents that we're bringing in now. Changing conferences would help, but we've speculated that to death, so we're stuck with conference schedules we have. We need to get better to draw more people. If we were winning 18-20 games a year, people would come because hey the team is good and playing exciting basketball.One of the biggest knocks i see from other boards about why NIU shouldn't move on to a new conference yet is lack of fan support at games. This is mostly critiqued at our football games. We need to up the ante if we want to be taken seriously for a real conference jump. I think a move to the AAC is doable with what we bring now and that it will help to bring fans to the games, but to go B12 after that? We will need more fans in the stands. Students will be a big part of that, so how do we get them in the game? Plenty of them tailgate before the games, but just as many leave after tailgating to go drink at home at watch the game. How do we go about getting them to go in the stadium instead of going home?
As long as that ESPN deal is in place, we will never have huge crowds. Asking people to pay for season tickets when they can only go to 2 or 3 games is a tough sell for most people.
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - Illinoisan - 03-16-2015 07:30 PM
Why wouldn't people support such a recently successful program?
I'm not even an NIU student (I've got my list down to 3 schools), NIU isn't one of them but I really enjoy NIU football!
It's a shame if the kids wouldn't come out to watch such a great brand of football.
I grew up an Illini fan, but NIU football caught my eye about 3 seasons ago and i've loved watching ever since.
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - HuskieAlumnus03 - 03-16-2015 08:06 PM
I think student attendance is pretty good! Got to work on getting the townies and surrounding cities to the game. Student attendance is a major problem for even the biggest programs (Oregon, Bama, etc.) I think the bigger issue is getting kids to stay the entire game, most college kids want to continue boozing. Good thing NIU has a reentrance policy.
I think most NIU alums and students between 35 y.o. and current college are excited/proud of our football team. Well... because they've been good, and most of us have fond memories tailgating and watching games. Older alums maybe not so much, because their time in school, the team sucked.
Basketball games is a different story. I would say it's the reverse.
UofI is the reverse to NIU, in regards to football and basketball attendance.
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - HuskieJohn - 03-16-2015 08:09 PM
(03-16-2015 05:52 PM)PrideinthePack Wrote: I don't think the student support is all that great for football. More than half of the students leave before/at halftime.
It's the same even at Alabama.
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - HuskieJohn - 03-16-2015 08:20 PM
(03-16-2015 07:30 PM)Illinoisan Wrote: Why wouldn't people support such a recently successful program?
I'm not even an NIU student (I've got my list down to 3 schools), NIU isn't one of them but I really enjoy NIU football!
It's a shame if the kids wouldn't come out to watch such a great brand of football.
I grew up an Illini fan, but NIU football caught my eye about 3 seasons ago and i've loved watching ever since.
The NIU students do show up as good as anyone in the country. The problems of students leaving after halftime happens all across the country...even at top programs like Alabama.
It's the locals and alums that need to support it better.
RE: Ideas to drum up student interest in athletics? - PrideinthePack - 03-16-2015 08:38 PM
(03-16-2015 08:09 PM)HuskieJohn Wrote:(03-16-2015 05:52 PM)PrideinthePack Wrote: I don't think the student support is all that great for football. More than half of the students leave before/at halftime.
It's the same even at Alabama.
Bama addressed the problem. They suspended several student organizations for leaving early. It's no longer a problem.
Alabama doesn't have a fan support problem. NIU does.