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Poor STUDENT support....


FromdaBurgh

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Living in Richmond (vcu territory) with a daughter at Akron I think I get a clear perspective. winning a few tournament games means everything. VCU has been selling out their 7500 arena for several years now. The level of teams when they were in the CAA is no better than the MAC. Personally I don't think VCU has anymore talent than the zips...tho they do have excitement. Speaking of excitement...I have to view most games on line and due to the crappy digital feed I only see half a game between buffering, but it appears to me that most fans at the JAR are sitting down with head in hand. What's up with that! I drove 6 hrs to see the zips at coastal Carolina and the student section was SRO and the rest was full. Noise was not a problem...especially in overtime. GO ZIPS

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Good point about not much else to do in Athens. Teams in rural areas have that advantage. But the Zips also trailed Toledo, Ball State and Can't in average home attendance last season. The Zips only need to improve home attendance by about 350 per game to move up into second behind OU, and that should be the minimum attendance goal.

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sounds like throwing darts at the wall and making excuses now.
Yep. It's simple for OU, win an NCAA game or two. Best marketing. Same happened at Ken+ awhile ago.

40+ million people, some that don't even follow college basketball, play brackets in March. Now those people know about (name the team) basketball.

If that team is in the area and they have a chance to see them live...now you have something. Win on the biggest stage.

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Yep. It's simple for OU, win an NCAA game or two. Best marketing. Same happened at Ken+ awhile ago.

40+ million people, some that don't even follow college basketball, play brackets in March. Now those people know about (name the team) basketball.

If that team is in the area and they have a chance to see them live...now you have something. Win on the biggest stage.

Wednesday's game in Athens had 7,500 roughly. Over 4,000 were students. But remember, it's a residential campus.

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@jupitertoo, thanks for the OU estimate. That's an impressive student turnout.

@zen, it's a fact and not an excuse that rural areas have fewer entertainment options than urban areas and that college basketball competes with other entertainment options, so that's one advantage that a rural college has over an urban college in attracting students to home basketball games. No one believes that's the only attendance factor.

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Living in Richmond (vcu territory) with a daughter at Akron I think I get a clear perspective. winning a few tournament games means everything. VCU has been selling out their 7500 arena for several years now. The level of teams when they were in the CAA is no better than the MAC. Personally I don't think VCU has anymore talent than the zips...tho they do have excitement. Speaking of excitement...I have to view most games on line and due to the crappy digital feed I only see half a game between buffering, but it appears to me that most fans at the JAR are sitting down with head in hand. What's up with that! I drove 6 hrs to see the zips at coastal Carolina and the student section was SRO and the rest was full. Noise was not a problem...especially in overtime. GO ZIPS

First I want to commend you on the correct way to pick a nickname for an out of state Zip. :) And VCU does have a bit more talent, I think partially fueled by the final four run that makes potential recruits think "VCU?" Oh, yeah. Plus they have a coach with a great pedigree.

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I was wrong to say that student attendance of 700 is "beyond sad." After having done a little research on college basketball attendance, I've seen enough to convince me that 700 is not a bad number for UA playing against a 20-point underdog. The thing that really changed my mind was seeing that Duke has had problems filling its 1,200-seat student section over the past five seasons. If Duke can't attract 1,200 students for some of its home games, then UA drawing 700+ students to see Ball State is actually pretty decent.

I do wonder what percentage of OU's average home attendance of 6,000+ are students. At the very least, UA should try to be the best in the MAC.

Not to pat myself on the back or anything..

When I benchmark student sections I think Duke and Pitt.. I wouldn't guess either of those get over 1,200 per game.
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I was wrong to say that student attendance of 700 is "beyond sad." After having done a little research on college basketball attendance, I've seen enough to convince me that 700 is not a bad number for UA playing against a 20-point underdog. The thing that really changed my mind was seeing that Duke has had problems filling its 1,200-seat student section over the past five seasons. If Duke can't attract 1,200 students for some of its home games, then UA drawing 700+ students to see Ball State is actually pretty decent.

I do wonder what percentage of OU's average home attendance of 6,000+ are students. At the very least, UA should try to be the best in the MAC.

And the other way to look at this is that the cost of college sports is often cited to be worth it for the "quality of life" for the students. If the size of the student population being served is only 5% or so even at some of the biggest basketball schools in the country, maybe that should be re-examined too.

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And the other way to look at this is that the cost of college sports is often cited to be worth it for the "quality of life" for the students. If the size of the student population being served is only 5% or so even at some of the biggest basketball schools in the country, maybe that should be re-examined too.

5% of the student population at a school like Akron is orders of magnitude larger than the amount of students that most clubs or activities serve.

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Absolutely true - now compare their budgets. :)

It would be more accurate to compare how much the basketball program spends on the students. Promotions at the games and marketing are really all that applies there. I bet that the amount spent per student is quite a bit less than what other university funded clubs or activities spend.

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@jupitertoo, thanks for the OU estimate. That's an impressive student turnout.

@zen, it's a fact and not an excuse that rural areas have fewer entertainment options than urban areas and that college basketball competes with other entertainment options, so that's one advantage that a rural college has over an urban college in attracting students to home basketball games. No one believes that's the only attendance factor.

What does Akron have that Athens doesn't?

Swensons & Tangiers?

Yep! Boys, you can find me at swensons, you can forget that ballgame.

[edit]Oh, and I'll be at Luigis later.

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And the other way to look at this is that the cost of college sports is often cited to be worth it for the "quality of life" for the students. If the size of the student population being served is only 5% or so even at some of the biggest basketball schools in the country, maybe that should be re-examined too.

uhh if we are complaining about basketball. why not bring up tennis and rifle? Where virtually 0% of the student population is "being served"

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What does Akron have that Athens doesn't?

Swensons & Tangiers?

Yep! Boys, you can find me at swensons, you can forget that ballgame.

[edit]Oh, and I'll be at Luigis later.

The Aeros, a real downtown, a minor league nba team in very short driving distance, Cleveland, along with the Browns, Cavs, Indians, Monsters, and Gladiators, as well as a lot of commuters.

anything else?

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The Aeros, a real downtown, a minor league nba team in very short driving distance, Cleveland, along with the Browns, Cavs, Indians, Monsters, and Gladiators, as well as a lot of commuters.

anything else?

Wait! We talkin about students???

When I was at UA, I found the zipstrip more interesting (and more convenient) than "downtown". Oh, uhm, The Vault had 3 floors. LOL

I don't really understand how "...a minor league nba team in very short driving distance, Cleveland, along with the Browns, Cavs, Indians, Monsters, and Gladiators, as well as a lot of commuters...." is keeping students from supporting the basketball team more in Akron than in Athens. Even my stupid allusions to Tangiers and Swensons really have no affect on this.

Don't get me wrong. I'm starting to take this point/thread far enough to sound like an OU apologist/sympathist. I'm nothing of the sort. I just believe that there are other factors far more comparatively relevant here. Getting a few rounds into the NCAA tourney last year is one of them.

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..... Don't get me wrong. I'm starting to take this point/thread far enough to sound like an OU apologist/sympathist. I'm nothing of the sort. I just believe that there are other factors far more comparatively relevant here. Getting a few rounds into the NCAA tourney last year is one of them.

OK, so to prove your point, all you have to do is show that OU's home basketball games have produced a dramatic increase in student attendance since their NCAA tournament run vs. prior to that. If the Bobkitties drew more than 4,000 students to watch freaking Northern Illinois Wednesday, how many students did they draw to a similar home game before they made their NCAA tournament run? You think it was even close to the 720 students the Zips drew for the Ball State game? @jupitertoo can referee the OU attendance discussion, and I promise I won't question the reffing if he rules against me. :D

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