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Excellent stuff, '87. We MUST strike while the iron is hot. We cannot afford to let the momentum we've built fall apart. I know my kids love the Kids Zone.

well put 87. Thats exactly what we need to happen. Keep up the good stuff.

Another outstanding article '87. Keep them coming.

This issue of attendance has been bugging me for a couple of days now and you propose a couple of good points, specifically the family emphasis. I have two small additional suggestions that may also help out. One is to pave those damn parking lots. There is always water sitting in the huge pot holes and the gravel looks cheap and crappy. It may help to make the tailgating environment asthetically pleasing. Second, how about getting a few more team sponsers out to the game to donate little things like the window decals from this past game. Like you said, "there's something to make you glad you're there" when they give away free items, especially to a young fan.

BG needs to make it more than a game, they need to emphasize making it into an experience.

Dan:

Solid point. When you go to a Trenton Thunder game, they don't call it a game, they call it the Trenton Thunder Entertainment Experience, because the game is only half the fun.

We go several times a year (we celebrated my MBA by renting one of the lounges!) and my wife once said "I feel bad because I don't even know who any of the players are."

"That's all right," the man in front of us said. "My wife and I have been season ticket holders for three years and we don't who any of the players are either."

But they came to practically every game and had a blast!

If BG could create that sort of experience, the attendence wouldn't be so dependent on making title runs and the opponent.

We have one of the TOP Sport Management schools in the country RIGHT? Can someone explain to my why they are not heavily involved with coming up with (and implementing) programs, marketing ideas, sales, special events, etc to assist here? It would seem like the perfect scenario for the SMD students.

As a sports management minor (kinda), I couldn't agree more. Like I said, we have an incredible resource in our students. Let's use it!

Definitely well said! Something needs to change attendance wise if our program keeps succeeding as time goes along. I still can't believe we didn't pull in 17,000!!!!

We should definitely be using the students in some way to come up with a marketing plan for BGSU athletics and more specifically football attendance. It's a win-win situation!!! Students will do their best to get a good grade and BGSU athletics gets use of these resources for free basically.
Yao Ming had a group of University of Chicago MBAs come up with a marketing plan for him and now look at Yao, the most marketable athlete in the world!!!!!
I think we need to get the BGSU MBA students to work on a case study on ways to improve attendance (me being a BGSU MBA Grad!). I would have loved to work on a project like this while I was in school. This would be a great experience that people can put on their resumes as well. I am really stumped on why there hasn't been anything like this done before. I'm going to email the MBA Director with that as an idea for the coming year, since I know her pretty well.

When I was a Sport Management student at BG, the relationship between the Sport Management department and the athletic department was not very good. I am not sure why that was, but that's just how it was. I think part of the problem was the professors did not like how things worked in the athletic department. I often wondered the same thing about the Sport Management and Athletic departments working together, but for whatever reason it just never happened. Students did practicum work in the athletic department, but that was about it. It would be nice to see the two work together on a lot of the issues the AD faces. Plus, it would be great experience for the students.

Pave all the parking lots ------ good gravy, what would that cost?? There go the ticket/parking prices!!! ---- The attendance problem is easily solved. Bring in a few named teams. Look at the crowd we had a couple of years ago when Missouri paid us a visit. I for one can't get all lathered up watching BG beat up on Div IAA Southwest East Calidonia State. If UT can schedule Indiana, Purdue, and Minnisota, etc. at home, why can't BG????
Heck, even Miami (Ohio), way down there in the boondocks, got Iowa to come in two years ago. Boston College traveled to Ball State this year, Syacuse played at Buffalo, and the list goes on. IMagine the crowd BG would get if ND were to pay us a visit. I know, I'm dreaming.