(12-21-2009 11:07 PM)LR Alum Wrote:  

(12-21-2009 10:59 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(12-21-2009 10:49 PM)Scotto Wrote:  It's pretty simple. Get to the NCAAT.

I wish it were that simple. The year after we beat Notre Dame we opened up at Barton the night after the pigs sold it out for an exhibition game. We had about 1500 announced. I remember Newell was absolutely disgusted. And that was after an incredible upset (Notre Dame) and even more incredible "almost" upset (NCState). We go to the NCAA as a 15 seed and lose by 20, do you really think we'd see a big jump in attendance?

That is sad. I'm not a long time fan as you mjs. So my question is what do you think happen when UALR did have big crowds in the past? Was it the team we played, ticket prices, etc.? I'm just curious because I heard you older fans talk about how UALR did have some good numbers every so often at Barton. I even heard about the bologne sandwiches and RV rides from my man with The Wisdom of the Woof. Sound like you all had fun times.

Certainly winning regularly helped but it generally didn't guarantee big crowds either. Not sure if Ynocpirt is on the board, but I know he'll concur that some of our biggest crowds were in games promoted by Jerry Davis and Affiliated Foods. We joked that all we needed was someone to give away free groceries to get people out to Barton. I can't remember exactly but he typically had discount tickets in the paper, a chance to win free groceries, and maybe even the chance for someone to win a pickup. So I guess it supports eh9198 that good promotion can work.

While we constantly bitched about Barton, the pregames at the Farm and Ranch building were fun for all. Free beer, free hot dogs or bologne sandwhiches before every game provided by Affiliated Foods. Rick Mello stopped it the year before we moved to Alltel, telling me "We've got to be the only program in the country that feeds all their fans". He knew we could no longer do that at Alltel. It certainly created a comradery and friendship among some of us older fans who still make up the majority of the contributors to this board. We just don't get that at the rather "sterile" environment at the Stephens Center. Great place to watch a game, but I generally get there at tip-off and leave when the buzzer sounds.

Too bad I was too young for the bologna and beer. Barton did definitely have it's charm, though.

Not that I'd give away the beautiful Stephen's Center, mind you...

Why not have a big giveaway? Promote, promote, promote!

Where is our administration?!

The problem at most Sun Belt schools, UALR included starts at the top.

When people perceive you are merely fielding a team rather than trying to win championships and national respect they will respond as if you are just putting a team on the court.

One of my favorite sayings is "You get what you tolerate."

We can all talk about wanting to go to the NCAA Tournament but what is being done to get there? Coaching is always talked about as "What have you done for me lately" or "You are only as good as your last game" do you see that in practice? I know I sat through Nutt getting nine years of bad to meh seasons because he made one NCAA trip. The fans saw it and it gutted attendance.

Sports by their very nature are a competition to prove the best. In basketball unlike football, you control your own destiny. You enter each season with a chance to play in the last game. You may not have been able to recruit the players to make that a realistic goal but you aren't in the boat Cincinnati, TCU, and Boise were in where they had to have people above them lose to get a shot. Run the regular season table and the conference tournament in the Sun Belt and you will at worst be a 4 seed and can be higher depending on other teams, but you get your shot no matter the seed. Do you see anyone projecting that attitude?

At UALR I blame part of the malaise on Wimp Sanderson. He was hell bent to convince people the Sun Belt was a one bid league and nothing would change that. Ronnie Arrow proved that wrong. Sanderson I understand wanted to give UALR a shot but the whole come out if the Hogs aren't playing thing was wrong-headed. I promise you the Mets don't market their games by suggesting if the Yankees aren't in town, come on out. I follow Mark Cuban's brother on Twitter, he openly roots against the Cowboys. The Cuban brothers want the Mavericks to be the passion in Dallas and they aren't interested in being the area's second choice.

I don't think I'll see the Mavs being the most favorite DFW team in my lifetime but I know the Mavs are a far stronger franchise today because the leadership of that team expects to be in the hunt and won't tolerate anything less. A drastic change from the past when it was an inept franchise with middling support.

Thanks for the input. This is the same thing the Hilltopper2K has said in the past, and obviously WKU is proof that a similar attitude will work.

(12-22-2009 09:29 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  I don't think I'll see the Mavs being the most favorite DFW team in my lifetime but I know the Mavs are a far stronger franchise today because the leadership of that team expects to be in the hunt and won't tolerate anything less. A drastic change from the past when it was an inept franchise with middling support.

+1 on the Mavs. Back in the early-mid 80's I would go on a weekend trip to Dallas with my Jr. High basketball team every spring to see a Mavericks game. Even with most of us boys being Cowboy fans, we would always root for the visiting team. The Mavs were a joke. Now they are fielding a competitive franchise that people can actually respect.

If we were to do this nowadays we'd probably go to Memphis since it is closest to Little Rock...and cheer for the Mavs or the Lakers. LOL

(12-22-2009 10:24 AM)Robert C Wrote:  

(12-22-2009 09:29 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  I don't think I'll see the Mavs being the most favorite DFW team in my lifetime but I know the Mavs are a far stronger franchise today because the leadership of that team expects to be in the hunt and won't tolerate anything less. A drastic change from the past when it was an inept franchise with middling support.

+1 on the Mavs. Back in the early-mid 80's I would go on a weekend trip to Dallas with my Jr. High basketball team every spring to see a Mavericks game. Even with most of us boys being Cowboy fans, we would always root for the visiting team. The Mavs were a joke. Now they are fielding a competitive franchise that people can actually respect.

If we were to do this nowadays we'd probably go to Memphis since it is closest to Little Rock...and cheer for the Mavs or the Lakers. LOL

Memphis is actually 12-8, after an 0-7 start. Be nice if there was a decent NBA team a couple of hours away. Looking forward to going over and seeing Derek there on Feb. 1.

Lots of good stuff in this thread.

(12-21-2009 10:37 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(12-21-2009 09:41 PM)eh9198 Wrote:  Well, LRTrojan, I'm still not sure. It may help a little but correct me if I'm wrong, but even Wimp's run and gun teams didn't draw a whole lot. As much as I like the idea of midget wrestling (good one), I just think we need to spend more on good, quality advertising, and getting our name out there more (a la schedules in businesses across town, that sort of thing).

Winning will increase things, no doubt, but even that never seemed to bring the whole kit and kaboodle to the table. We need both, IMO.

I really don't have the answer at this point. We have had ups and downs in attendance but never really drawn consistently well. The only season we averaged over 5000 (announced) was the year after the chancellor threatened to shut down the program (because of poor attendance) if we didn't sell out our season tickets. I was heavily involved in the ticket drive (as were others on this board) and we supposedly sold 5200 tickets at $75 a piece (the 5 tickets I bought then cost me less then one ticket now). We had great attendance for one year, until 65% of those people didn't renew the next year. We've never really come close to that in attendance again. People have blamed the facilities, the lack of Arkansans on the roster, competing with the Chickenhawgs, and now the style of basketball. Certainly the facility, Arkansans on the roster, and the Chickenhawgs, are not factors in our poor attendance now. I've heard ticket prices blamed, but Newell lowered tickets to $2 and $3 and that didn't help. While our good seats are overpriced, as long as you can get an endzone seat of $6 I don't think you are pricing anyone out of the arena.

eh9198, I certainly agree with you in theory that better promotion, etc. would help. I'm just not sure how much at this point. I think the staff at UALR do a lot of promotional stuff we are not aware of. For example, I got an email that was sent to State Employees offering discount tickets to all games. I think they do stuff with the elementary schools as well. But I think there can never be too much promotion and we need to do more in this area.

Would scoring 80 points a game (instead of 70, or whatever we average now) really bring out more folks? I wouldn't bet on it. I keep hearing winning will do it, but it will probably be a decade before we win 23 games again and that didn't do it either.

So like I said. I really don't have the answer and at this point I've decided to leave it to the people who are getting paid to get folks to the arena. Luckily, the way Stephens was built, 2500 folks create a pretty decent college basketball atmosphere. That same amount of folks at Barton felt like a ghost town.

I don't know anything about the supposed number of season ticket holders in the past, and nor do I today. I haven't seen any numbers released of season tickets sold. But, I'm not blind, and I can tell when both sides of Barton Coliseum were filled for most of the games when Mike Newell was the coach. We still had much bigger crowds most of the time Wimp was here than we are drawing now. I don't know how many both sides held, but they damn sure held more than are coming to games at the Jack. And we had some very loud crowds. If James Scott, Jr. had returned(as he promised)the tapes of his dad playing that I loaned him, I could show any disbelievers, or those who can't remember the much better days of this program.

It's not an exact science as to why the attendance is down below the Newell years, and even the Wimp years, but, I believe that the quality of basketball played might be a good place to start. I know some of you don't want to give Newell credit for anything, but facts are facts, what he accomplished here as the coach , he did while having to do the dirty work(money raising)too. Those who want, can dislike Newell all you want to, but you can't take away the wins, the excitement, and the fact that practically every basketball fan in the state(and especially pig fans)knew who Mike Newell was, and that the Trojans were someone to reckon with in this state.

And eh9198, stand corrected, because Wimps teams did have bigger crowds than we've been drawing at the Jack. And they weren't as large as the crowds when Newell was here. I don't have the ability to estimate numbers for attendance purposes, but I can look at a crowd that has both sides pretty full at Barton, and then see a very sparse crowd at the Jack to be able to tell that these crowds(if you could call them crowds)aren't nearly as big as the ones we had at Barton.

Advertising is evidently a waste of money. I've seen billboards around town, we have an ad in the paper the day of home games. I don't think that there is anything than can be done to improve attendance unless a coaching change is made, and we bring in a good young assistant from a good program who can sell "iceboxes to Eskimos," and who plays an exciting brand of basketball.

Some of you say "winning will improve attendance." Many of us like to brag that we've won several Western Division championships in recent years. We won 23 games last year. Did anyone see the Jack even close to full for any games? No. It didn't happen, and won't until some changes are made to excite the basketball fan in this area.

The fact that tickets were much cheaper in the Newell days is true, although gas, bread and milk were a lot cheaper also. But, I don't know if we could get many more to games now if the tickets were free. When I couldn't come to the Harding game, I couldn't give my tickets away.

I realize I'm a lone voice in the forest on this subject. I don't know why I'm the only one on this board who will speak out on this unpopular subject, I know that some others feel the same way. Several who post here have told me so. I guess they don't want to get banned.

(12-21-2009 10:57 PM)LR Alum Wrote:  

(12-21-2009 10:49 PM)Scotto Wrote:  It's pretty simple. Get to the NCAAT.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner.

Yes we won 23 games but that didn't get us anywhere because to the NIT and NCAA we didn't have any signature wins. We beat Creighton but last season was a down year for them. Our SOS last season was poor. If we had 23 wins this season with our current schedule we would possibly be knocking at the door of the NIT or NCAA.

I went and check the NCAA Final RPI ranking for the 08-09 Season. We beat #40 Creighton and then our next highest win was against #130 UNT, then #147 USA. Not to take anything away from our last season team but I can see why we were not selected by the NIT. I like this season's schedule. The next step is recruiting the players that have a shot of winning a tougher schedule.

Truly, maybe we should do a study or poll in town to ask random people why they don't attend UALR Basketball games. Could be a good project for the students, and pay dividends for the basketball program.

(12-22-2009 09:10 PM)eh9198 Wrote:  Truly, maybe we should do a study or poll in town to ask random people why they don't attend UALR Basketball games. Could be a good project for the students, and pay dividends for the basketball program.

A better, more positive way, would be to ask them what it would take to get them to attend games.

(12-22-2009 09:14 PM)outsideualr Wrote:  

(12-22-2009 09:10 PM)eh9198 Wrote:  Truly, maybe we should do a study or poll in town to ask random people why they don't attend UALR Basketball games. Could be a good project for the students, and pay dividends for the basketball program.

A better, more positive way, would be to ask them what it would take to get them to attend games.

Nah, they would lie or just kid themselves about what it would take.

To answer the top question, our program is in a tailspin right now.

(12-21-2009 10:49 PM)Scotto Wrote:  It's pretty simple. Get to the NCAAT.

+100

(12-22-2009 12:22 AM)eh9198 Wrote:  Too bad I was too young for the bologna and beer. Barton did definitely have it's charm, though.

I suppose it might if you're a horse, cow, or bull.

Some years ago Temple was in danger of missing the I-A attendance requirement. They went all over the Philadelphia area promising any group that if they would promise to have 30 or 35 people show up at a designated point they would send a bus to pick them up and take them to the game for free and the tix would be free.

No reason to go quite that far but why not work a deal with LR Tours or another bus company to make a deal with Maumelle Lions Club, Sherwood Rotary, NLR Chamber of Commerce or whomever that for $10 a head that a bus will meet them if they promise the magic number and take them to Jack? Why not partner with the Argenta area group to run a bus from that area that will drop you off in Argenta for post-game celebration? Why not do it with the Rivermarket as well?

People want EVENTS. Basketball doesn't lend itself well to tailgating in this climate, so a bus to post-game would be a great subsitute. Get those people to wearing UALR apparell and having them flood the bars and restaurants of an area post-game would be huge for UALR awareness.

(12-23-2009 10:40 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Some years ago Temple was in danger of missing the I-A attendance requirement. They went all over the Philadelphia area promising any group that if they would promise to have 30 or 35 people show up at a designated point they would send a bus to pick them up and take them to the game for free and the tix would be free.

No reason to go quite that far but why not work a deal with LR Tours or another bus company to make a deal with Maumelle Lions Club, Sherwood Rotary, NLR Chamber of Commerce or whomever that for $10 a head that a bus will meet them if they promise the magic number and take them to Jack? Why not partner with the Argenta area group to run a bus from that area that will drop you off in Argenta for post-game celebration? Why not do it with the Rivermarket as well?

People want EVENTS. Basketball doesn't lend itself well to tailgating in this climate, so a bus to post-game would be a great subsitute. Get those people to wearing UALR apparell and having them flood the bars and restaurants of an area post-game would be huge for UALR awareness.

Like always, you have great ideas ArkStfan. Unfortunately, many of us have had "ideas" for years but no seems interested in listening.

While I support my team regardless of their record, most folks around here only seem to have interest in a team if they are winning big. Probably hard to get people to see UALR as an "event" when we are losing big. That's the double-edged sword with a tough schedule. If we played a bunch of patsies, and were 9-4, it would be a lot easier to promote the team in this town where most folks wouldn't know a Wright State from a Widener U. (a Div. III school in Pa.). Like Michaelspappy said yesterday, a win at Wright State wouldn't have meant a thing to 99% of the folks in Central Arkansas but it actually would have been a heck of a win on the road.

(12-23-2009 01:06 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(12-23-2009 10:40 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Some years ago Temple was in danger of missing the I-A attendance requirement. They went all over the Philadelphia area promising any group that if they would promise to have 30 or 35 people show up at a designated point they would send a bus to pick them up and take them to the game for free and the tix would be free.

No reason to go quite that far but why not work a deal with LR Tours or another bus company to make a deal with Maumelle Lions Club, Sherwood Rotary, NLR Chamber of Commerce or whomever that for $10 a head that a bus will meet them if they promise the magic number and take them to Jack? Why not partner with the Argenta area group to run a bus from that area that will drop you off in Argenta for post-game celebration? Why not do it with the Rivermarket as well?

People want EVENTS. Basketball doesn't lend itself well to tailgating in this climate, so a bus to post-game would be a great subsitute. Get those people to wearing UALR apparell and having them flood the bars and restaurants of an area post-game would be huge for UALR awareness.

Like always, you have great ideas ArkStfan. Unfortunately, many of us have had "ideas" for years but no seems interested in listening.

While I support my team regardless of their record, most folks around here only seem to have interest in a team if they are winning big. Probably hard to get people to see UALR as an "event" when we are losing big. That's the double-edged sword with a tough schedule. If we played a bunch of patsies, and were 9-4, it would be a lot easier to promote the team in this town where most folks wouldn't know a Wright State from a Widener U. (a Div. III school in Pa.). Like Michaelspappy said yesterday, a win at Wright State wouldn't have meant a thing to 99% of the folks in Central Arkansas but it actually would have been a heck of a win on the road.

I don't know how good Widener is, but I would only schedule them in an exhibition game. You're right that most people have no idea who Wright State is. Many, including my own son, and lives in Missouri, wasn't even aware that Missouri State was a D1 school. Most probably only know of the Razorbacks, North Carolina, Kentucky and Kansas. After that, they probably have no idea as to affiliations.