(11-24-2010 10:11 AM)mjs Wrote:  

(11-24-2010 07:39 AM)insideualr Wrote:  Do we really need that paper?

To grow this program you take this board and bth as a combo and make sure that the fans showing up to the games know about one or the other. They will find bth from the board or the board from bth. People like feeling like they are part of something and UALR hooked me that way.

We had the board and the tip in club at altel. Now, Chris needs to provide a space for the tip in club to pre-game and promote the board and bth and you got a community that could grow (yes that is a big run on sentence). If anyone wants to write Chris and give advise on increasing interest, there is the formula.

Billboards and the local paper are a part but you can't count on it.

I don't see how that grows the program. You are preaching to the choir. You are providing information and resources to fans of the program, which is great, but you're not reaching possible new fans. I really think the newspaper and television are still the best ways to do that.

We grow the SCCA events from 40 drivers to 100 drivers locally by grass roots. Blytheville, AR gets three events a year that produce $350K to the local economy. I know how to make that kind of stuff happen.

Promote from inwith your on customer base 1st. All they have to do is get 25% of the people that come to games to bring one person.

Get them hooked by feeling like they are a part of something. Like we had at Alltel with the happy hour before the games (which makes UALR some extra money)

Add to the community feeling with the bth and message board, which are not in their direct control.

Get some coverage in the paper and on at least one of the local news programs. UCA has a whole show for their football.

The crown jewel would be to get the games on tv or tape delayed.

(11-24-2010 10:30 AM)insideualr Wrote:  We grow the SCCA events from 40 drivers to 100 drivers locally by grass roots. Blytheville, AR gets three events a year that produce $350K to the local economy. I know how to make that kind of stuff happen.

Promote from inwith your on customer base 1st. All they have to do is get 25% of the people that come to games to bring one person.

Get them hooked by feeling like they are a part of something. Like we had at Alltel with the happy hour before the games (which makes UALR some extra money)

Add to the community feeling with the bth and message board, which are not in their direct control.

Get some coverage in the paper and on at least one of the local news programs. UCA has a whole show for their football.

The crown jewel would be to get the games on tv or tape delayed.

I've been preaching on that for a couple of years too. But, some people on here think all I have to say is negative.

(11-24-2010 10:29 AM)LRTrojan Wrote:  

(11-23-2010 09:36 PM)outsideualr Wrote:  

(11-23-2010 09:20 PM)littlerockbred Wrote:  I hope thats not a problem. Didn't mean to step on anybody's toes.

No I was just surprised that someone on the board knew about this but didn't post it. Just goes to show you that we're afraid to put anything on here that might just offend the powers that be. God forbid we should ever know what's going on within the program. As has been mentioned many times, it's hard being a Trojan fan.

Have I not been saying that all along? Most who post, don't want the coaches or AD's office to hear what you're thinking and saying, so it's only put on the private board. Good or bad, right or wrong, the athletic department needs to know what the fans are thinking. If they don't ever hear any criticism, they think they're doing just great.

As far as scheduling, and graduating players, they're doing great. As far as growing the fan base, not so good. If I was a consultant to Chris, I would tell him to focus all his attention on increasing the fan base, whatever it takes. First we have to get media coverage. Newspaper coverage. Without that, we're stymied. And have some promotions that let people in for practically nothing. If we let 2500 folks in free one night, I'll bet we'd make enough money on concessions to offset the free tickets. Especially if it involved bringing kids in to the games.

And it goes without saying, we have to win, but not only win, we have to win playing exciting basketball and get to the postseason. That's the job of the AD. Bring in fans and hire coaches who can get us to the postseason. So far, neither of those things have happened. It's obvious that whatever we've been doing needs to be reevaluated. There is no reason to go out to our beautiful arena and see half or more of the seats empty. That's just not right. We used to draw enough fans at Alltel on occasion that would have filled up the Jack, but we're not doing it now. That needs to be addressed. We lose our home court advantage when we have 1000 folks sitting in a 5600 seat arena. So I've put it out there LRTrojan. Now they know what most of are thinking, and talking about off the board. A program can't remain static. You either get better or you get worse. Whatever it takes Chris, just do it. Like you, we all love the program and only want the best for it.
Thank you.

(11-24-2010 10:40 AM)outsideualr Wrote:  As far as scheduling, and graduating players, they're doing great. As far as growing the fan base, not so good. If I was a consultant to Chris, I would tell him to focus all his attention on increasing the fan base, whatever it takes. First we have to get media coverage. Newspaper coverage. Without that, we're stymied. And have some promotions that let people in for practically nothing. If we let 2500 folks in free one night, I'll bet we'd make enough money on concessions to offset the free tickets. Especially if it involved bringing kids in to the games.

And it goes without saying, we have to win, but not only win, we have to win playing exciting basketball and get to the postseason. That's the job of the AD. Bring in fans and hire coaches who can get us to the postseason. So far, neither of those things have happened. It's obvious that whatever we've been doing needs to be reevaluated. There is no reason to go out to our beautiful arena and see half or more of the seats empty. That's just not right. We used to draw enough fans at Alltel on occasion that would have filled up the Jack, but we're not doing it now. That needs to be addressed. We lose our home court advantage when we have 1000 folks sitting in a 5600 seat arena. So I've put it out there LRTrojan. Now they know what most of are thinking, and talking about off the board. A program can't remain static. You either get better or you get worse. Whatever it takes Chris, just do it. Like you, we all love the program and only want the best for it.
Thank you.

If a person never gets criticism, they don't know that the citizens aren't completly satisfied. Of course some people never get the hint, or just don't care what the public, or fans in this case, think.

As far as your statement of 1000 fans in a 5600 seat arena, the fact that we've not filled it one time since it opened, says volumes. Sounds like we've got a problem. I remember reading on the Illinois State board the other day, some of their fans watching the game on line, were talking about the "empty" arena.

If we let 2500 in free, how would we lose anything even if they didn't spend a cent at the concessions? There wouldn't be anyone in those seats anyway.

Chris isn't reading this board at all, IMO. If we want to make known our feelings, then we go to the source and write, call, or talk to him in person. Just do your homework before doing so or it will be disregarded, like in any other business.

(11-25-2010 12:28 AM)eh9198 Wrote:  Chris isn't reading this board at all, IMO. If we want to make known our feelings, then we go to the source and write, call, or talk to him in person. Just do your homework before doing so or it will be disregarded, like in any other business.

If Chris isn't reading the board, someone in the Athletic office is. Believe me, that we know for sure. However, in all fairness to everyone, I think we need to see how this season plays out. I'm not ready to write it off yet. Constructive criticism should certainly be acceptable.
I believe that most of what has been written on the board, even sometimes a little harshly, is a result of frustration because all of us are really committed to this program and want it to be successful. It's not just bitching and griping for the sake of bitching and griping.

If you have money invested in a company, and it continues to lose money every year, you want changes to be made or you sell your stock and invest in another company. We don't have that choice. We only have one company in which to invest (local D1 basketball) so our options are limited to making the changes necessary for this one company in which we can invest to become successful. It's not my place to say what those changes are. But if at the end of this year, if reasonable goals are not met, then it seems to me that the CEO is charged with the responsibility of correcting what needs to be corrected.
I hope we have a successful season, which is still a distinct possibility.
That will make everyone feel better and avoid the possibility of having to make unpleasant decisions. Go Trojans.

Doc, comparing a college athletic program to a privately owned and managed business is very poor analgy. If the Mens Trojan Basketball Program was a private enterprise, big changes would have been made long ago.

(11-25-2010 11:05 AM)DollarBill Wrote:  Doc, comparing a college athletic program to a privately owned and managed business is very poor analgy. If the Mens Trojan Basketball Program was a private enterprise, big changes would have been made long ago.

I humbly disagree. It is big business. It has to make a profit to survive.
If people don't buy tickets and hot dogs, there is no program. I'm sure that every AD evaluates his coaches at the end of every season, and also how performance affects attendance. If an AD feels like a program is stagnant and sales (attendance) is not going as he feels it should, the only change he can make is a coaching change. That's a fact. If you want to be mercenary, the only real job a coach has is to put butts in the seats. You do that by winning with an exciting style of play. Believe me, if UALR was going to the postseason every year and beating a few good teams in the tournament, we'd have most of our seats filled during the regular season. I had one long time contributor tell me that he really doesn't care about the men's program anymore. He likes the women's games. Now that's sad.

And what has propelled the women's program. Winning. But your men's program still has to carry their weight. And it kills me to come out to our beautiful arena and see a thousand fans in the seats. At some point, push will come to shove. You can do all the promoting you want, but if you don't have a program people want to see, it does no good. I can hardly ever find anyone to give my tickets to when I have extra ones. They'd all rather do something else than come to a UALR game, even if it's free. And that's the unvarnished truth. Nobody gives a damn about a program that doesn't win league championships. Just we few hard core fans. And are we enough to keep it afloat? We need new blood. Got to find a way to attract new fans.

Become relevant.

(11-25-2010 11:28 AM)Scotto Wrote:  Become relevant.

And a relavant never forgets!

I would not define a business that does less than 2 million a year in gross sales as big business. Did you think the BB program does more than 2 million a year in gross sales?


Just asking. I makes no real difference, but I want you to see that the program does not bring in some huge amount of money.

Just for reference I have a close friend that has a small business and they do about a million a month. I have another friend that owns some Chick-fil-a's and they do about a million A YEAR, not a month in gross sales at each location. So, if you own 5 it does 5 mill a year.

Either business may do 10% profit after everything is paid for (net). UALR has overhead too.

Just saying

The poit I was trying to make is if we on the board hope affect any real change we would go to Chris with real, tangible, implementable ideas that can be executed (perferably without any effort of their part). Just like a business. Doc's idea abut the flyers at the game is one such idea. A great one in my opinion.

Just writing on the board "UALR sucks, we need a new coach" isn't going to be taken seriously by anyone who reads this.

Students get in free. Last year they got in free and got a free drink and hot dog. I don't know if they do that this year. But they get in free. I don't see any harm in letting others in at greatly reduced prices. You are not making money on an empty seat. Airlines and cruise ship companies know this. My brother-in-law bought a half a cow together. The supplier threw in some hot dogs and summer sausage. We just bought our second half a cow and we did not get any free hot dogs or summer sausage. My brother-in-law asked about it and the supplier said he threw that stuff in for free as a hook to get us to buy again. Guess what, it worked.
Let's fill the empty seats.
Burn The Horse!

Letting folks in for free cheapens the seats and seems to me would reduce income (why pay $1000 when I can get in for nothing) and undermine one of our three guiding principles: sell tickets, stay out of the paper, and graduate student athletes.

We're averaging close to 3000 at a game (half full). Don't fix something that ain't broke.

Win the big games and they will come.

(11-25-2010 12:21 PM)Scotto Wrote:  Letting folks in for free cheapens the seats and seems to me would reduce income (why pay $1000 when I can get in for nothing) and undermine one of our three guiding principles: sell tickets, stay out of the paper, and graduate student athletes.

We're averaging close to 3000 at a game (half full). Don't fix something that ain't broke.

Win the big games and they will come.

Wait a minute Scotto. Are you using UALR's count, or yours? I can't remember last time we had 3,000 for a game other than ASU.

It's in the stats. Close to 3,000. Check that one off the list.

(11-25-2010 12:41 PM)Scotto Wrote:  It's in the stats. Close to 3,000. Check that one off the list.

It may sound easy, but it really is not. Like mentioned above, giving away tickets, regularly, cheapens the product and eventually will lead to folks who pay big money for seats to rethink their investment. I think "targeting" certain groups, for a specific game, is okay and won't upset hardly anyone- ex. all students under 14 with an "A" on their report card get in free; military get in free; UALR Alumni get in free, etc. Looks like we already missed a great game for a promotion tomorrow. There won't be many there. Telling parents that they could drop kids under 14 at Stephens with free admission, while they shop at Target or Park Plaza for a couple of hours, may have got some kids(with cash to buy concessions) in the door.

I don't really have the answers and its not my job (thank goodness). I did send someone on staff a list of suggestions a couple of years ago. Don't think any implemented. Maybe they weren't any good. I did think, at least, a couple of them were quite good but what do I know.

(11-25-2010 01:02 PM)mjs Wrote:  I don't really have the answers and its not my job (thank goodness). I did send someone on staff a list of suggestions a couple of years ago. Don't think any implemented. Maybe they weren't any good. I did think, at least, a couple of them were quite good but what do I know.

We missed one of the best opportunities when we failed to have a 20th reunion for the NCAA team that beat Notre Dame.