The unofficial online home for fans of the Old Dominion University Monarchs. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

(03-02-2023 03:03 PM)monarchfan4life Wrote:  

(03-02-2023 02:05 PM)MonarchManiac Wrote:  

(03-02-2023 01:59 PM)Monarchist13 Wrote:  

(03-02-2023 01:32 PM)Mo Blue Den You Wrote:  

(03-02-2023 10:18 AM)Monarchist13 Wrote:  I understand that we all draw from personal experiences to help develop our opinions. But you dont live in the area, rarely get to attend games and you went to college a long time ago. So none of these will help give you a great look at the realities of the current state of our fanbase.

But we have actual data we can draw from like attendance and donations, two areas where we are doing pretty dang good compared to our peers.

Monarx I agree 100% with this opinion and feel the exact same. I would even say its been more than 4 years of Alum we've lost.

Whether he rarely attends games or hes there every home game doesnt matter. Those 2 hours of entertainment behind a ticket value are exactly that and only that to many who attend games. Whether the team is losing or not its still an entertainment outlet and people will attend because of that.

Again mentioning attendance and donations. He said earlier the donations of our older big donors (Likely fans from D2 and Top 10/Wendy days) will inevitably come to an end. That hasnt happened yet so yes, attendance and donations have not hit the wall. When that generation is gone and myself and countless others are in their 50's/60's then I hope the same level continues. Just dont think there are enough of us now.

I love ODU basketball. Started when my bro first attended in 2002 and we hit every game at the dump. The JJ era may have lost some of us and I dont think thats too harsh to say with what we've watched over his past tenure...

Its sad but hey just another opinion.....go ahead and tear it apart.

Lets win a basketball game tonight though. That would be cool.

This is all fair. I cant argue your feelings about the program since it's a personal thing.

But if we are going to use your feelings to identify it's a problem with the entire fanbase, we would need data points to prove that it's not just an anecdote.

Is there anything that is not anecdotal that you can point to support that this is a widespread belief?

I think looking at the overall decline in student engagement since about 2011 is one important measure. We used to have a raucous home student section. That has completely dried up and now when they do show up (which is far less frequently than it used to be), they are sitting on their hands.

No culture of winning = apathetic student base.

Apathetic student base = limited future donor base.

I obviously don't have access to the numbers on new ODAF members and "Young Alumni" donors etc. But if I were going to bet, I would say those numbers have trended down during JJ's tenure.

The student section has not completely dried up; in fact, it has been great for most of the season.

Compare it now to pre 2011. Yes it has. I'm not just talking about butts in seats. I'm talking about engagement and excitement.