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Let's be frank. When in the history of Akron athletics, other than for Acme Zip games and a rare and brief run of an individual team, ever engaged the average Akron area sports fan? You'll find greater allegiance to the Browns, Indians/Guardians, Buckeyes, Cavs, college alma maters, Notre Dame and high school teams among the average Summit County folk sports fan than you'll find for the Zips. One place I see an improvement that may help a little is the Beacon's new approach to Zips athletics. The basketball coverage this year has been a vast improvement with great coverage. Actually providing the average area fan with relevant info about the team can help spark interest. Is it going to fill the JAR or Infocision, no, but maybe it will get dad to grab his son and head down to the JAR some night to see the good things that are happening.

I like this

Yeah, you can't do that. Honestly, the "big picture" issue with this Athletics Administration IMO is they don't put any effort into connecting with the average fan. Everything is focused on top donors - "The Summit Circle" being the latest example. They'd rather sell less tickets at a higher price than create deals/promotions at a lower "get in" rate to more people. Watch which people the AD mingles with at games and the picture gets much clearer.

or at least call off the few remaining old guard ushers that chase students out of completely empty upper blue seat sections during the weeknight games. They act like they get a bounty for every student they toss.

Why can’t we at least do this???

Watching now. This alone is worth the price of my ESPN+ subscription.

In essence, the athletic depart is subsidizing the cost of parking through cheap season ticket prices.

I get the need to engage and keep big donors happy but yeah, have people on your team dedicated the other fans. If budget is tight, get some GAs with energy and enthusiasm.

In what world is a $10 GA ticket considered expensive?

They even run students out of the Zips side upper deck at football games. It does not encourage attendance.

Top Drawer Soccer is now reporting that the zips have added a 3rd fall recruit from Canada. Defender Jamai Royer from the same team as Forward Remi Agunbiade. Keep up the great work in recruiting, zips coaches!!! https://www.topdrawersoccer.com/college-soccer-articles/2024-mens-division-i-international-signees_aid52747

Lack of height In OL doesn't bother me. The best interior lineman I ever watched play was Dave Remington (yeah, the one the award is named after). Wearing spikes and a helmet, he very well may have measured in at 6'3" or 6'4". But, standing right next to him in street clothes I looked down at him because he was only about 5'11", maybe 6'0'. Granted, he was more than twice as wide as me. And I seem to recall many football experts claim that the line that gets the lowest is going to control the line of scrimmage, so short is good.

Our IOL recruiting has definitely been on the shorter side than our OTs, but most of them seem to have a fairly long reach. I expect to see Blanchard at LT, K. Davis and Seymore at OG, and T. Williams at C. If Chambers returns, he’s probably our RT. Kindred and Shor definitely have more athletic ability and upside, but neither have proven anything at this level. If one of them can claim the RT spot, that should be a substantially better OL than what we’ve seen. I’m still concerned about quality depth for an extended period of time. Would like to see a at least one more portal transfer with experience. I expect we’ll add another HS lineman in the 2nd signing period too.

Reason ten thousand I'm glad we are not KSU or YSU. I'd imagine with all of this cheap parking, they are drawing overflow crowds.

I don't think that the actual $10 is as much the issue as is way it was handled. There was no head's up that I am aware of until after the GA tickets were ordered and sent out. The deck parking was always a part of the GA season ticket and that was the expectation for many going in. I think a better solution would have been a good head's up with the option to add on a parking pass. With the way it was handled it has become a matter of principle for some rather than a matter of affordability. This position has been further aggravated by the "parking police" being a private entity.

Post of the year of the day!

Post of the Year!

Comparing Savannah Bannas to UA sports is not bolstering your argument. SB is a scripted theatrical production. The baseball version of the Harlem Globetrotters.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the cost of a basketball ticket to Hudson High School. It costs $8.00 for an adult to attend a high school basketball game. The quality of play at the mid major level shouldn't even be compared to a HS, but some think tickets should cost less. It's utter insanity.

I don't know and I don't care. The first time I went to a Wake Forest football game with the luckiest woman in the world, Mrs. GP1, we bought two tickets and parked at the basketball area across the street from the stadium where single game ticket holders park. There was a huge line to get into the lot. When we got to the front, we realized they were charging $8.50 to park and it was taking the morons taking the money forever to make change because of the coins and singles. It was stupid beyond belief. My wife was livid at the stupidity and said she would gladly pay an extra $1.50 up to $10 to avoid the line. She didn't say they should round down to $5.00. Akron has a very good mid major basketball program, in a competitive conference with entertaining games. The prices they are changing are not unreasonable in the least. If you want cheap tickets and free parking, maybe high school games are more your speed.

It's cheaper to go see OSU or Dayton MBB than Akron and I don't think it should be.

I agree. Can the university execute on both?

I find it quite hard to believe that there is an even slightly significant group of people that are willing to spend $7 but not $10 on a ticket. If you can't justify dropping a $10 bill, you probably aren't going if the tickets were free. Which gets back to the bigger problem, that there aren't enough fans that believe that a Zips basketball game is worth their time at any price. The struggle is increasing the value, not decreasing the cost.

Agreed but $10 parking probably doesn’t help GA sales. It's been mentioned on this site by several other members in addition to the issues with campus/athletic event parking in general. The deck used to be free then $5 and now $10. When I try to get friends and co-workers to games it is often mentioned as a reason not to go. If you are looking for research data and parking polling numbers, I don't have it but when I go to games and see more and more empty seats each year it is probably part of the problem. When people are griping about ticket prices it is not a stretch to think parking factors into the conversation. I did modify my original post above.

You can barely see the game going on from those seats. To watch them play Delaware State, NJIT, Presbyterian and Charleston Southern? Going from $10 to $7 is meaningless. Going from $10 to $13 would be equally as meaningless.

Sibling Revelry in Westlake. Kent grads run it, apparently. Fortunately, Zips beer is much better and actually brewed in Akron. The Kent stuff is a trashy waste of grain and hops. They will have the advantage of wider distribution, but Akron did better this time around. Many years too late.

Then what should the price be? A friend of mine made a good point to me about price increases last week. He said the only difference between a 5% and 10% price increase is the noise from the channels. People are always going to complain about pricing. If the price was $1.00 per ticket, there would be a certain number of people who complain. The worst seats for a Wake Forest basketball game are further away from the court than the bleacher seats in Akron and in the upper deck behind the basket. They are also the cheapest at $40 per seat plus a parking fee per game. The price of GA tickets at UA is peanuts. A family of four can attend a game for $40. That same family of four would have to pay $160 at Wake.

I would think Finley has to be penciled in as the starter with Tahj a situational running option

I guess the question is "why not both?" Frankly, George Van Horn an Larry Williams were notorious for only courting the biggest of donors. However, they did have assistants, Brock Kline and Tim Faix, who did reach out to the smaller donors and developed relationships with them. Guthrie on down are imports, and you know they aren't going to be here long. On the other hand, Tim and Brock moved on as well. The Summit Circle and name recognition for larger donors is important, and they should be recognized for their commitment. Most of the Summit Circle members are successful Akron grads. Which leads to my next point: The focus should be more student outreach. Gets the students hooked now on Zips basketball. Of course, the basketball schedule falls smack in the middle of holidays and Winter break.

The next battle is actually getting eyes on these Beaven articles, a challenge in itself.

In a world where people aren't buying them.

so looks like these are seats available for purchase on the bench side. That's a lot of blue. You add in the ticket holders who don't show up and that's even more blue.

Sounds like we got a 2 for 1 on that this weekend.

On attendance: - Home games have been Southern Mississippi, Heidelberg, Bradley, Miami-Hamilton, Gardner-Webb, and Bowling Green. Which opponent is going to draw the average fan to the game? - Pricing is still too high. Looking at next Friday at Buffalo, it's $10 for a GA bleacher seat, $20-$50 for reserved, and $100 for floor. Good luck drawing the average fan. - Promotions are scarce and when there is one, it's barely promoted. We sat in the student section last night, taking advantage of the $10 winter break deal, and my wife asked why so many people would pay $10 for GA instead of $10 for a lower level ticket and I told her they probably didn't know. Why not do a Freeman t-shirt giveaway and give him half of the proceeds for NIL? Why not offer a free kids ticket with paid admission of an adult? Why not partner with a local business to do some type of giveaway? The effort, quite frankly, is embarrassing.

The dynamics of college athletics attendance around the country have changed in the past 10 years. One mistake universities are making is selling expensive tickets for the sake of selling the tickets. No consideration is given to whether or not anyone shows up. The tickets exist just to fun athletics but not benefit the athletes students alumni fans and general community. It's as gross as most everything that goes on in college athletics. These tickets get sold to companies and older people who tend to have more money. You guys see this at basketball games. I see it at Wake Forest football games. They had three "sold out" games last year where the stadium was half empty. I would ask the following questions. 1. Do we have a problem selling tickets? 2. Do we have a problem getting season ticket holders to the games? 3. If both are a problem, which one is more important to solve? 4. Is it possible to solve both at the same time?

I think we’re at the cusp of tarping-over the bleachers and moving home games to Florida.

We're witnessing arguably the greatest Zips basketball player of all time and a program that has consistently been at the top of the MAC for like 20 years. People don't seem to give a damn and it makes no sense.