So seriously here's the deal. You guys beat Middle the other night and on the flagship of MTSU sports it wasn't even mentioned!? Also, are ya'll making efforts at games, or on Facebook/Myspace to try and build up some support, and also drive some traffic over here to talk up Belmont?

Yeah, you guys need more posters and fans. That way it will be all the more fun when we beat you in the ASUN finals this year in Nashville. At least you wont have to travel that far to get home!

Indeed

Hell they wouldn't walk down the street last year to watch them play and had cheap tickets. I would like to see more Belmont posters though.

How many posts can we make before a belmont fan discovers this?

Atleast 6 or 7 more I'm thinking.

maybe they are on Christmas break

"Atleast 6 or 7 more I'm thinking. "

whoever had 2 posts, I guess you win the pot.

Sorry, we've been on the road following the 3 time defending Champs take on your nationally ranked orange neighbors and sadly fall just short. But we did knock off the preseason OVC favorite on the road tonight as well as the previously mentioned Sun belt fav MTSU.

All that makes things like posting have to wait till after midnight. Since you all have nothing to talk about other than us......We all wish and work for increased attendance, and since you can't rail on us for our team, I guess attendance is an easy target since it will take time to develop the kind of following you fine folks in E TN have. Since we're not meeting your expectations, lets bring some context to the evaluation.

BTW, how long have you all been playing DI sports? We weren't even dreaming about DI in your "glory" days.
How long has ETSU been around?
How many other DI programs are in your media market? (It's 8 here, 4 different conf, plus the rather orange elephant in the room)
How many pro teams are in your market?
How many people actually attend your school and live on campus?

I know we're building more on campus housing, but we still have a very large commuter base which does not typically stay around for a basketball game. Belmont used to require chapel attendance, maybe they should consider mandatory basketball game attandance.

It's going to take some time to develop that alumni base that you have that cares enough about athletics to show up more than to pound on lipscum. I wish it didn't. I wish we had 5000 people every game, but in Nashville, the sidewalk fan has dozens more options, not to mention $300 worth of Titans playoff tickets to buy at Christmas.

Scheduling the local schools has helped generate and keep interest and hopefully that will continue to happen.

As for the attendance at the championship game, I believe it was listed as around 2500. I know, I know, that's a mere pitance compared the the Southern, and again, I wish it were sold out. However, to suggest that almost no one was there from Belmont is blantantly wrong! However why ruin such a juicy post as "Hell they wouldn't walk down the street last year to watch them play and had cheap tickets." with the truth?

For ETSU's history, that may have been disappointing. For Belmonts, maybe not a dream attendance but not that bad and it was vocal. TV did not do justice visually to the crowd in the dungeon they call a gym.

I realize your experience long term has been somewhat different than it is now that you're slumming in the A-suck, which will impact your expectations of us. Our schools are in vastly different stages in our development and markets, which we are trying to overcome. Even though these differences exist, there is still an automatic bid to the tourny at stake and we will enjoy sending you home once again to lament the shortcomings that is the current state of ETSU basketball.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

---

This kid is kind of a *******....I like him

This criticism is very fair, but if you lived in Nashville I think you would understand.

I scratch my head constantly. Belmont certainly does not play a boring style. Despite the thoughts of some ETSU fans late last season (I argued with a few ETSU fans who were saying Belmont plays a slow-it-down game), Belmont plays a very exciting style. They push it up the floor. They shoot a bunch of threes, and they aren't scared to take shots early in the shot clock. I am a Vandy season ticket holder as well, and Belmont certainly plays a more fun style than Vandy on a year-in, year-out basis.

But here is the problem. I have a friend who casually follows Belmont and he despises MTSU. I called him after the MTSU game on the way home. He says to me, "I didn't even know they were playing tonight...I would have gone to the game if I knew about it." This guy listens to multiple local sports talk shows a day. He is plugged in. Belmont gets zero coverage in the local media. None. I know that is different than ETSU in the Tri-Cities. I know for a fact you get far more attention.

Though the school has GROWN to 5000 students, that is twice as big as it was when I graduated less than 15 years ago. A traditional alumni base of 500 or so graduates per year is tough. Some don't care about sports. Some are from other areas of the country and just come here for music. MTSU is enormous and they are sitting in a good sized town. They have their own paper in Murfreesboro. They can't draw either. Bottom line, Nashville is spoiled by the NFL, NHL, and SEC.

You guys are fair in ripping us for attendance though. We should be drawing 1000+ more per game in my opinion.

You are a liberal arts/religious school. There is only so far one can go with that concerning fan bases. You've been to the NCAA three years straight and your fan base hasn't really grown in any noticeable way. Some cities are just not basketball cities. I don't know why there is more potential in certain areas than others. I wouldn't think there should be a single reason that Chattanooga and Johnson City have more of an ability to attract a fan base than Murfreesboro but they do. Yet Johnson City can't produce a football fan to save its life. Chattanooga probably couldn't either. However Boone, NC can. So can Greenville, SC. Yet Furman has never had a major basketball following in the tradition of Chattanooga and ETSU.

The A-sun would be a much more enjoyable experience for ETSU fans if Belmont could get a worthy fan base but I don't see it happening. Instead our fan base is dwindling down to your ranks mainly because ETSU fans are bored.

Maybe you don't notice the fan base growth from a numbers-on-paper perspective. However, the energy in the Curb has been growing every year since I first started at Belmont in 2004 (graduated this past May). I'm now a young alum season ticket holder and the group of those people are die-hard fans and recruiting more year by year.

The growth will be slow, but we've never experienced this before. Outside of the music business school and the recent debate, what success has come from Belmont before to garner national attention? Nothing. We're all adjusting. It's frustrating to everyone else in the league, but know that Belmont is doing it's best to represent the A-Sun when it is called upon.

Next time, I promise not to let a thread like this go long without putting my eyes on it. We care. Maybe we're all just trying to figure out how to save the music industry! Ha!

Fukk the music industry...save the film business

"This kid is kind of a *******....I like him " Uh thanks Gold...I think.

Belmont is also fighting against our own past and what we once were and others perception of what we were. That is starting to change. There has been a shift this fall in the attitude of at least the talk radio shows. I have heard comments on both FM afternoon shows. Willie Daunic expected us to compete with UT and it wasn't patronizing. He saw us play MTSU and said these guys will give UT a hard time. We'll never get the coverage of UT or Vandy nor should we expect to. But it is up to "us" as a school and fan base to generate enough interest to have people want to talk about us.

As for the rest of the Asun, I don't think too many schools ave much more than we do for conf games. ETSU does I'm sure, but quite honestly I haven't looked although I'm sure some one around here has and could offer some more insight.

BSF agreed the energy is a bit better and does matter to the atmosphere. However, the stat line doesn't offer a column for energy....attendance 4567 energy 16% or attendance 1234 energy 67%. As for the Music Industry, good luck with that. that horse may be out of the barn.

I would agree with Belmont Super fan in the fact that over the last couple of years our fan base has started to grow. By no means to we have the support we should and it does frustrate me. Schools like ETSU have built a fan base but it takes time. I can tell you, however basketball have become much more of a focus at Belmont than it has in the past.

I do live in Nashville. The billboard at the Wedgewood exit isn't cutting it. Don't use the Predators as an excuse either, according to Howard and Plaster the Preds have played the least amount of home games in the NHL to date. There's enough students and alums to atleast draw between 2500-3000 consistently. Plus with all the musicians involved there, there should be a postgame concert after EVERY HOME GAME.

(12-23-2008 11:13 AM)Northside Bruin Wrote:  This criticism is very fair, but if you lived in Nashville I think you would understand.

I scratch my head constantly. Belmont certainly does not play a boring style. Despite the thoughts of some ETSU fans late last season (I argued with a few ETSU fans who were saying Belmont plays a slow-it-down game), Belmont plays a very exciting style. They push it up the floor. They shoot a bunch of threes, and they aren't scared to take shots early in the shot clock. I am a Vandy season ticket holder as well, and Belmont certainly plays a more fun style than Vandy on a year-in, year-out basis.

But here is the problem. I have a friend who casually follows Belmont and he despises MTSU. I called him after the MTSU game on the way home. He says to me, "I didn't even know they were playing tonight...I would have gone to the game if I knew about it." This guy listens to multiple local sports talk shows a day. He is plugged in. Belmont gets zero coverage in the local media. None. I know that is different than ETSU in the Tri-Cities. I know for a fact you get far more attention.

Though the school has GROWN to 5000 students, that is twice as big as it was when I graduated less than 15 years ago. A traditional alumni base of 500 or so graduates per year is tough. Some don't care about sports. Some are from other areas of the country and just come here for music. MTSU is enormous and they are sitting in a good sized town. They have their own paper in Murfreesboro. They can't draw either. Bottom line, Nashville is spoiled by the NFL, NHL, and SEC.

You guys are fair in ripping us for attendance though. We should be drawing 1000+ more per game in my opinion.

I feel like some of you guys aren't aware of the type of students who attend Belmont University. They are not your typical state college type of students. Belmont is first and foremost a music oriented school (over 60% of the student body is involved in a music related major). That is why students go there, for the music. They are not interested in the sports teams at all because they're in Nashville purely for the music connections. If you walk around Belmont's campus you'll see students playing guitars, writing lyrics, talking about local music and concerts, or talking about how the sound guy sucked at the dive bar they played at last night. If anything, these are the type of people who were the minority in high school and didn't go to sporting events....all convened in one place.

Believe me, I'm just as frustrated as anyone about this, but it's the truth. I was on the MOB Council (Motivational Organization of Belmont) for a year and our primary job was to get students to come to sporting events. Believe me when I say we tried EVERYTHING: pep rallies, bonfires, musical entertainment, games with prizes, etc. and it just didn't work. Hell, we even do a half court shot for a semester of free tuition each game and that still doesn't draw extra students. I quit because I was so frustrated. I truly believe that Belmont doesn't grow like we expect because the students just aren't the type that likes to go to games.

I know the Belmont crowd very well. Most of them are communists