The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Serious only. If you make a mockery of this it will be split and you will be subject to a warning.

Promos!

I remember one of my first UAB games as a kid they gave out full size green and white basketballs to the kids. The players signed them after the game. Still have it inflated on a stand in my office.

25 cent hot dog night, Thirsty Thursday for all thursday night games, etc.

Don't just call it a white out, green out, gold out or whatever...have 8500+ t-shirts on hand to give out as people walk in.

Bring back the bobblehead dolls...we have a group of guys that everyone would want a bobblehead of. Especially the local guys who have friends and fans from high school all over the place.

Some type of promo for students who get there early...I remember sitting on the couch on the baseline one game when I was a student because I was first at the door. Bill Armstrong came and sat with me to eat some chips during the early shoot around. It was great!

Concert series for tailgating in front of the arena. Bring in some popular local acts to entertain on the concourse in the hours before the game to increase the pre-game buzz

I agree with the promos idea. Who doesn't like free stuff? A good product helps out, but promotions can put new butts in seats as well.

Promos is the way to go. Anyone up for a Full Moon t shirt night? Etc.

(01-10-2016 01:29 PM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  Promos is the way to go. Anyone up for a Full Moon t shirt night? Etc.

Me and I want a Ha Ha bobble head

Promos do help. But with money being tight in the athletic department, who's going to pay for the give aways?

Have local rec. leagues deliver the game ball to the officials, get pictures with the team, stand with the team as starting lineups/intros/national anthem are done. Plenty of kids playing in leagues that would love to do that. Fosters good will in the community and just might make a fan for life.

Saturate the news with stories about our guys. Make an emotional connection somehow, someway with our community. If our guys are out doing some type of community service, get cameras there (even if we do it ourselves) and send footage to local stations before games. Give sportscasters access to do human interest pieces on our guys lives growing up. People like to hear stories...we need to start writing some stories to tell. This goes for all sports.

My son's team/league will be at the North Texas game.

Even if the new marketing person turns out to be good at her job, she's not even listed in the staff directory yet and might not have any impact this season.

So it's probably best to look for things we can do without official involvement/investment (as promo giveaways, for example, would require). We brought back football over their objections, so with even a little cooperation on their part we can achieve much.

For starters: a Virgin Blazer program (with a better name). A season ticket holder who buys a ticket for a first-time guest and brings them to a game gets a pass to the Green and Gold room for yourself and your guest(s), personal autograph session, whatever other stuff can be tossed in (but Ray Watts stays the hell away from it). Will it be abused? Of course it will. Accept that as the cost of doing business, of bringing in new customers.

The AD will have to cooperate to set that up, but the legwork is done by us.

(01-10-2016 01:34 PM)BandGrad Wrote:  Promos do help. But with money being tight in the athletic department, who's going to pay for the give aways?

You recruit sponsors for it. I.e.: Full Moon T shirt night. Channel 42 hat night. It's what Gene Bartow did.

UAB cannot be marketed like any other program out there. It is a unique situation. Gene understood this and our current administration does not.

(01-10-2016 01:34 PM)BandGrad Wrote:  Promos do help. But with money being tight in the athletic department, who's going to pay for the give aways?

Advertisers. You integrate it with a sponsor (as Attalla says with Full Moon). Probably needs more coordination than is possible for this season; for one thing, needs a price tag before a potential sponsor's going to listen to the pitch.

Have student giveaways per game. For example one student will be selected to win an apple watch or something else good thats worth more than 50 bucks. That way you don't have to spend a lot of money on everyone. The thought of possibly winning is enticing enough to get some students to come. I know they have done it a lot for soccer games. I second the idea of promo nights with discounted drinks/food and also think local basketball teams should be given free tickets at least enough to put butts in seats in the upper bowl.

I also think the family 4 pack deal that was in place for the SFA game should be for every game. Not sure financially if the department wants to do that.

Quite honestly student attendance is not the problem. When school is in session it's been better than its been since we played in the BJCC.

We need paying customers in season ticket and single game sales (not to diminish the importance of student attendance) we need to drive the bottom line as well to make ourselves frugal.

(01-10-2016 01:23 PM)iam4uab Wrote:  Promos!

Concert series for tailgating in front of the arena. Bring in some popular local acts to entertain on the concourse in the hours before the game to increase the pre-game buzz

As a student, I would love this.

(01-10-2016 01:34 PM)BandGrad Wrote:  Promos do help. But with money being tight in the athletic department, who's going to pay for the give aways?

Promo items are almost always sponsored by one or more corporate sponsors.

The thing about promos and give-aways is to deliver on what is announced. UAB hasn't had a great recent record of ensuring announced offers are fulfilled...such as last Thursday PA announcement regarding samples of Pepsi products as you exited the Arena.

Lower ticket prices for upper level endzone seats to $5.00. Seats are always empty anyway. Would you rather have 1000 people giving you $5.00 or 100 people giving you $15.00? Bottom line is demand being low, you adjust pricing. Right now we are asking a man to bring his wife and two sons to watch Seattle College, USTA, etc.. and spend $60 on tickets plus another $20 or so on concessions. We can't do anything about this years schedule but we at least need to make coming to Bartow as attractive as possible. Remember this isn't about most of us on here, this is about expanding our fan base.

(01-10-2016 01:43 PM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  UAB cannot be marketed like any other program out there. It is a unique situation. Gene understood this and our current administration does not.

That cuts both ways: it also opens the door to doing unusual, minor-league-baseball type stuff to make UAB unique. But that's going to require a certain vision in Bartow East that I don't see.

On the other hand, we've already proven that we don't need them to get things done. We should seek ways to drive home the lead-follow-or-get-out-of-the-way message for basketball as we have done for football.

I'm being serious about this (and I know it won't happen, but as a theoretical): Selling beer.

Thirsty Thursday at Bartow Arena? Yeah we'll be selling more tickets.
Bonus? Doesn't cost anything. Would increase revenue

If you want to target students, do a student section give-away every game.

Use kindle fires (the 50 dollar kind). They come in a 6 pack from amazon, perfect for the remaining 6 home games. That's only 300 dollars in prizes, and you could probably get one of the UAB schools to sponsor it (I think the collat school of business gave away an ipad mini one game?) Advertise it heavily to students.

Have there been hot wing eating challenges as much these days? Those were always fun. Get Wing-Zone to sponsor or something.

Give away free t-shirts to the first x number of students will always be popular.