UA to Renovate the JAR

[zippypitt]

This would be a HUGE upgrade over our current game experience. I will take it!

[Balsy]

I think something like the Gentile Center could be done with the JAR. It does look like a cozy place, but frankly I feel like that's what we need. The JAR is not a cozy environment...at all...and if we're stuck with the JAR, giving everyone a good seat is a must.

[Dave in Green]

The Gentile Center looks pretty nice from all the images I can find. I see only two problems. Number one, we don't know how the architecture of the buildings differ. It may or may not be possible to do the same thing with the JAR that was done with the Gentile Center. Number two, any all-chairback renovation of the JAR will result in about 3,000 bench seats turning into about 2,000 chairbacks, reducing capacity from about 5,500 to about 4,500. If average attendance at the JAR had dropped 25% over the last 10 years like the rest of the MAC, that might be reasonable. But JAR attendance is up 25% over the last 10 years. Reducing JAR capacity to 4,500 would put a cap on further UA basketball attendance growth.

Loyola can get by with less seating than UA because they have 10,000 fewer students and only average about 2,300 attendance per game, about 1,300 per game less than the Zips did last season. So 4,500 capacity makes sense for Loyola but not necessarily UA. While attendance at college basketball games has been falling slightly overall, it has increased at schools with consistent winning programs and in the bigger conferences. Locking the Zips into a 4,500-seat arena should only be done if everyone agrees that Zips basketball is never going to get any better, is never going to end up in a bigger conference and is never going to have an attendance increase beyond the 25% growth over the past 10 years.

[skip-zip]

I actually tried to hide my eyes when Dave just pointed out that we averaged 3,600 per game last year.

We just got 2,700 for our conference opener, in a revenge game, against the defending champs, with a soccer reunion. We did about the same for Marshall and Middle Tennessee, who would represent the other two opponents of any relevance to the fans. I guess we have to be fortunate that Bluffton brought some fans, or I don't think we've even exceeded 3,000 for any single game, which likely makes us have to pull in some HUGE crowds for the high profiles games to even get within maybe 500 or so of last year's average.

It sucks, especially when we want to make seating capacity an issue as we discuss renovations and a possible new arena in the future. I don't look at those numbers very often, but someone indicated that we peaked in attendance about 2-3 years ago. This is not the time to be trending downward.

[Dave in Green]

JAR average attendance peaked at 3,782 just the season before last when the Zips had their best team with the long winning streak prior to a certain point guard exercising extremely bad judgment. Last season, when the Zips were not as good a team overall as the previous season, average attendance fell less than 200 per game to 3,609.

It's too early to draw any conclusions about this season's attendance. Last season's MAC home opener drew only 300 more than this season's, and last year the Zips had already won two conference games on the road before the home opener. Individual game attendance is affected by weather, whether or not students are on campus, and many other variables. If the Zips can create a little buzz this season they will draw more fans. Right now a big buzz killer is that Tree is gone and some may be assuming the Zips are toast.

By the way, the number I gave above for Loyola's average home game attendance was from 2012-2013. Last season attendance fell from about 2,300 per game to less than 2,000 as the Ramblers won 5 fewer games than the previous season. So that beautiful arena renovation by itself is not enough to increase attendance if the team doesn't continue winning.

[skip-zip]

Dave, I won't do all of the math, but I do have enough of a statistical background to know that if we are averaging something like 2,800 (a guess) right now through half of our home games, then we'd need to AVERAGE 4,400 per game the rest of the way to match the 3,600 from a year ago.

It seems we'll fall far short of that number. And as I stated, trending downwards is not a good position for us to be in right now with everything that we want to accomplish concerning renovations and/or a new complex.

I think this is a call-out to our fans. If any of you were here in 1985, we had a big campaign to "Fill The Bowl", which was instrumental in helping us reach the 17k average needed to take us to D-1A in Football. With the hopes and dreams of the future of our basketball program on the line right now also, I think it's time for people to respond.

[skip-zip]

Let me add a little more to what I said above. It's time to rally the fans!!

Here's the attendance for the last 9 games of last season.....

Miami - 3000

Toledo - 4500 (I wish we had this Saturday game on our schedule again this year)

BSU - 3200

EMU - 3000

NIU - 3600

BG - 4000

Canada - 3200

OU - 4900 (will this even be a big game anymore?)

Ken+ - 5400 (this will not be a Saturday season finale game, like it was last year..unfortunately)

AVERAGE = 3,800

See my post above. We'll need to average about 4,400 over the last 9 games this year to match last year's per game average. So, we'll need about 600 more per game than we achieved during the same stretch last year, and the schedule does not look as favorable.

Lets Go Akron. If we want to elevate our program, this is the time to respond!!

[MDZip]

You know if the game experience could be improved for say $10M or so, it might make sense to make a renovation now, while waiting (hoping) for an improved new arena. That improves the game experience, maybe draws a few more fans because of it, but fact are facts, fans only rarely fill the JAR now. Even if the JAR dropped to 4,500, it would still accommodate most games and would make it look like more demand, which might get more people to buy tickets if they are worried about being shut out. I believe that Outback purposely undersized their restaurants when they started because it always looked like there was big demand because people would be standing outside. I think 4,500 would be serviceable for a while as long as a giant investment in the JAR is not made right now so that an argument couldn't be made against a new arena if one was possible. And if the Zips were selling out a very comfortable 4,500 seat arena, I think it would be harder to argue against a new arena. I don't think dropping capacity right now will hurt in the long run as long as the fan support shows up. Nor do I think it says the Zips are giving up on bigger dreams, the JAR would have to be replaced to join any bigger league anyway. You can only put so much lipstick on this pig before someone recognizes it's still a pig. Do the lipstick, but save on plastic surgery.

[skip-zip]

Even if the JAR dropped to 4,500, it would still accommodate most games and would make it look like more demand, which might get more people to buy tickets if they are worried about being shut out. I believe that Outback purposely undersized their restaurants when they started because it always looked like there was big demand because people would be standing outside.

Great point. From a marketing perspective, it's the old "less supply = more demand". We might even have scalpers for big games!!

I've made the point many times that shutting out a few people for a couple of games per year is a very, very small price to pay for improvements for the fans that will be there for multiple games every year. Having a packed house that's closer to the floor is a much better atmosphere too.

The only downside is that ticket prices will certainly increase. But, that means that the U will be able to make up the difference in the lost revenue for those couple of games where more total fans would have been in attendance.

[Dave in Green]

Personally it doesn't affect me if the JAR's capacity is reduced by 1,000 because I'll still have my season tickets and reserved seat. My concern is for other fans and students who might get shut out of big games. UA needs to think this through very carefully and not be surprised by unintended consequences resulting from inadequate vision and planning.

[footballzip]

Staying in the MAC as a mid major, A 4500 seat renovated JAR would be fine. If I'm not mistaken, we haven't had 4000 fans in there yet this year.. The only games we may get over 4k is OU and Cant. Cant will sell out like it usually does because of the rivalry. OU has been a second place rival to us and than maybe Miami in third The new JAR seating maybe only effected with a big name opponent and the Can't game We may be able to play a big name opponent in the Q.. As far as I concerned renovate the JAR, I'm sure it will be nice when done.

[Dave in Green]

Over the past 2 seasons the Zips have had 8 MAC home games with more than 4,500 attendance and a few more just under 4,500.

[skip-zip]

Over the past 2 seasons the Zips have had 8 MAC home games with more than 4,500 attendance and a few more just under 4,500.

We're going to need about 5 or 6 of those this year.

[Zip_ME87]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think UoA currently provides up 1000 "tickets" to students for Mens Basketball games in the JAR. If the capacity is reduced by 19% does the number of student tickets available get reduced by 190 (to 810)?

[skip-zip]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think UoA currently provides up 1000 "tickets" to students for Mens Basketball games in the JAR. If the capacity is reduced by 19% does the number of student tickets available get reduced by 190 (to 810)?

I'd give up some of MY seats if we could get 1,000 students to a game!!

[zippy5]

We did for multiple games 2 years ago. Although I've been told winning won't bring more fans in

[ZachTheZip]

I'd give up some of MY seats if we could get 1,000 students to a game!!

It's certainly possible. A big part of the attendance two years ago came from a few games with very large student turnout, including setting the student attendance record twice. I have no idea what they did to get that kind of student turnout, though.

[Balsy]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think UoA currently provides up 1000 "tickets" to students for Mens Basketball games in the JAR. If the capacity is reduced by 19% does the number of student tickets available get reduced by 190 (to 810)?

Technically yes. But I'd be willing to bet that more students would be let into games if there were 1000 there and not all tickets were sold.

It's certainly possible. A big part of the attendance two years ago came from a few games with very large student turnout, including setting the student attendance record twice. I have no idea what they did to get that kind of student turnout, though.

Winning will do it, and not having games over winter break. (but I know the second is unavoidable). We had record student attendance when Akron was on the 19-game winning streak, and I remember there actually being Buzz on campus about the Zips basketball team.

Also improve the freakin student section. While I was a student, the "ZipZone" changed locations three freaking times.

[skip-zip]

We had record student attendance when Akron was on the 19-game winning streak, and I remember there actually being Buzz on campus about the Zips basketball team.

Bingo. It was the longest winning steak in the country at the time. Those are the kinds of SIGNIFICANT things that will get people's attention. I always harp on this because I think many people are under the false notion that "just winning games" against the normal MAC teams is having any measurable impact on fans outside the normal circle.

Does anyone remember what some of those student record crowds were? Numbers wise?

Also, remember something. Akron needs MONEY. I would be surprised if the student allotment of passes would ever be increased at any time where there was a projection that tickets could be sold to get us to capacity for any given game.

[ZippyRulz]

You know if the game experience could be improved for say $10M or so, it might make sense to make a renovation now, while waiting (hoping) for an improved new arena. That improves the game experience, maybe draws a few more fans because of it, but fact are facts, fans only rarely fill the JAR now. Even if the JAR dropped to 4,500, it would still accommodate most games and would make it look like more demand, which might get more people to buy tickets if they are worried about being shut out. I believe that Outback purposely undersized their restaurants when they started because it always looked like there was big demand because people would be standing outside. I think 4,500 would be serviceable for a while as long as a giant investment in the JAR is not made right now so that an argument couldn't be made against a new arena if one was possible. And if the Zips were selling out a very comfortable 4,500 seat arena, I think it would be harder to argue against a new arena. I don't think dropping capacity right now will hurt in the long run as long as the fan support shows up. Nor do I think it says the Zips are giving up on bigger dreams, the JAR would have to be replaced to join any bigger league anyway. You can only put so much lipstick on this pig before someone recognizes it's still a pig. Do the lipstick, but save on plastic surgery.

Perfectly stated, IMO. And then we should actively try to schedule a couple big opponents at the Q; it could only help our visibility in NE Ohio and with Cleveland potential recruits. I'm sure quite a few local Clevelanders attend the MACC there and would also come out to see Akron vs. B1G/ACC/A10, etc.

[Dave in Green]

Here are the 5 games from 2 seasons ago where the Zips exceeded 4,500 at the JAR. Note that the Zips had won only 10 in a row when they drew the big crowd for Buffalo and that the 19-game winning streak ended before the Miami and Can't games. Note also that the OU and Can't games exceed the listed capacity of 5,500.

Jan 26 Buffalo 5,403
Feb 2 Ohio 5,770
Feb 16 Bowling Green 5,247
Mar 5 Miami 5,189
Mar 8 Can't State 5,699

[skip-zip]

Here are the 5 games from 2 seasons ago where the Zips exceeded 4,500 at the JAR. Note that the Zips had won only 10 in a row when they drew the big crowd for Buffalo and that the 19-game winning streak ended before the Miami and Can't games. Note also that the OU and Can't games exceed the listed capacity of 5,500.

Jan 26 Buffalo 5,403

Feb 2 Ohio 5,770

Feb 16 Bowling Green 5,247

Mar 5 Miami 5,189

Mar 8 Can't State 5,699

Looks like the OU game exceeded capacity also.

It's time for another big winning streak.

[Balsy]

Wasn't the buffalo crowd also the LBJ bobblehead night...that does play a roll in attendance...

[ROCK1]

A couple of comments about Savage Arena have been made in the Toledo game thread. I thought it was appropriate to discuss in more detail in this thread. My first impression was that it's a lot nicer than the JAR. Then again, most arenas are. My second impression is that the seating on the team bench side of the arena has a much shallower pitch than the other side, and even shallower than the JAR. The rows go up at such a shallow angle that the last row at the top is miles away from the court. It's far from optimum for basketball.

I saw other details that smacked of renovation rather than new construction. My overall impression is that even though it seats 7,300, it's not as fan friendly as the 5,100-seat TD Arena where the Zips played in the Charleston tournament. Savage Arena was originally built in 1976, a few years before the JAR, with seating for 9,000. It's not only much bigger than the JAR, it's built with long span trusses that allowed renovation into wraparound seating without the 4 big pillars in the corners that limit how much renovation can accomplish in the JAR. But it's still a compromised design compared with new, modern arenas, and the renovation cost a healthy $30 million in 2008.

The JAR is so bad that almost anything looks better, and Savage Arena is certainly a quality renovation starting from an original design that was already superior to the JAR. But I've yet to see a renovation that compares with the best new, modern designs.

Some things I like about Savage Arena are the huge glassed in weight room, suites, restaurant overlooking the court, practice court on the lobby level and the fact that it's attached to their indoor practice facility. Nice center hung video board too. It has high ceilings that make it look bigger, as opposed to some mid-sized newer arenas that have to use end wall video boards because they don't have the ceiling height.

[Sportsjunkie330]

I'd give up some of MY seats if we could get 1,000 students to a game!!

The moon has to align right with the glare off of the empty bleachers at Info to get the students to come to the games.

It is a joke to see 46 students sitting behind the basket for games (yes, I counted at the Western game) .... and no band....and 1/2 of a cheer leading squad....and no Zippy. Christmas break or not, it's a joke.