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In going over the opposing team's media notes one theme keeps coming up......the fact BG moved to the Stroh & out of Anderson Arena AKA "The House That Roars"
every home game so far it's been great to have that AA feeling on the east side of campus

Let's vow to continue the "roar" that was Anderson
Especially Sunday against EMU
LOUD constant positive cheering from all parts of the house Let's keep the clamor coming! 2pm start Dollar Days
divisional leaders collide
Hardwood Heaven!!!

Really looking forward to this game; if we win this we make a huge statement that BG is gunning for the championship. We'll need to work hard on the defensive end to contain Tavelyn James, who IMO will probably win MAC player of the year and could even get a shot as a free agent in the WNBA. But, given the impressive defensive effort our guards did on Osborne in Miami, I think we can handle her.

A few times this year the Stroh has shown it has the capacity to "Roar"... let's bring in the crowds + the energy tomorrow and show the MAC that the "roar" never stopped!

Sounded great today but..............WHERE MY FALCON students AT?

Time to get on the bandwagon students. Don't want to hear any of the old sorry excuses it's time to enjoy a new facility with the same old W's and same old noise level. If you can eat at Chipotle, shop at Meijers or simply live in apartments that are closer to the Stroh than the library then you can make it to the games.

FalconTurf wrote:Sounded great today but..............WHERE MY FALCON students AT?

Time to get on the bandwagon students. Don't want to hear any of the old sorry excuses it's time to enjoy a new facility with the same old W's and same old noise level. If you can eat at Chipotle, shop at Meijers or simply live in apartments that are closer to the Stroh than the library then you can make it to the games.

I have to agree. At AA, I assumed the students were blending in with everyone else but at the Stroh it's apparent that they just aren't there in the numbers that this program deserves.

There were more high school students there paying a dollar for their seats than BG students getting in for free. BG students do still get in for free, don't they?

BigGibber wrote:

FalconTurf wrote:Sounded great today but..............WHERE MY FALCON students AT?

Time to get on the bandwagon students. Don't want to hear any of the old sorry excuses it's time to enjoy a new facility with the same old W's and same old noise level. If you can eat at Chipotle, shop at Meijers or simply live in apartments that are closer to the Stroh than the library then you can make it to the games.

I have to agree. At AA, I assumed the students were blending in with everyone else but at the Stroh it's apparent that they just aren't there in the numbers that this program deserves.

There were more high school students there paying a dollar for their seats than BG students getting in for free. BG students do still get in for free, don't they?

No they don't. They continue to pay a few hundred dollars a semester in General Fee dollars (more than 50%) to get into all regular season athletic events. It has been this way for some time. Nothing is free.....

It's the Journey... wrote:

BigGibber wrote:

FalconTurf wrote:Sounded great today but..............WHERE MY FALCON students AT?

Time to get on the bandwagon students. Don't want to hear any of the old sorry excuses it's time to enjoy a new facility with the same old W's and same old noise level. If you can eat at Chipotle, shop at Meijers or simply live in apartments that are closer to the Stroh than the library then you can make it to the games.

I have to agree. At AA, I assumed the students were blending in with everyone else but at the Stroh it's apparent that they just aren't there in the numbers that this program deserves.

There were more high school students there paying a dollar for their seats than BG students getting in for free. BG students do still get in for free, don't they?

No they don't. They continue to pay a few hundred dollars a semester in General Fee dollars (more than 50%) to get into all regular season athletic events. It has been this way for some time. Nothing is free.....

Not to mention the $50 a semester they pay for the Stroh Center.

I'd have to agree, though, that maybe students weren't blending in at AA after all. As a recent grad, I can tell you that even in the last five years, it always seemed student attendance wasn't huge. I think it's just more obvious now that they have their own bleachers.

Looked like a strong crowd overall on the ESPN3 feed but noticed the student end was lacking.

Curious as to how a student was allowed in with what appeared to bea flag on a flag pole. Surely if Dustin's tin soldiers wont allow Graamma Mae to bring in her carabeener key ring a flag pole makes the "cannot fly" list??

ccollin13 wrote:

It's the Journey... wrote:

BigGibber wrote:

FalconTurf wrote:Sounded great today but..............WHERE MY FALCON students AT?

Time to get on the bandwagon students. Don't want to hear any of the old sorry excuses it's time to enjoy a new facility with the same old W's and same old noise level. If you can eat at Chipotle, shop at Meijers or simply live in apartments that are closer to the Stroh than the library then you can make it to the games.

I have to agree. At AA, I assumed the students were blending in with everyone else but at the Stroh it's apparent that they just aren't there in the numbers that this program deserves.

There were more high school students there paying a dollar for their seats than BG students getting in for free. BG students do still get in for free, don't they?

No they don't. They continue to pay a few hundred dollars a semester in General Fee dollars (more than 50%) to get into all regular season athletic events. It has been this way for some time. Nothing is free.....

Not to mention the $50 a semester they pay for the Stroh Center.

I'd have to agree, though, that maybe students weren't blending in at AA after all. As a recent grad, I can tell you that even in the last five years, it always seemed student attendance wasn't huge. I think it's just more obvious now that they have their own bleachers.

I keep saying, "It's not free, it's prepaid."

I keep saying - the folks here at the forum are fans. Some students would no sooner be caught dead at an athletics event than many of you would be caught dead at a planetarium show, a band, orchestra, or choir concert, an art show, a swim meet, a gymnastics meet, a track meet, a theater production in the new facility called The Wolfe Center, or running around campus shooting zombies. And people who attend those things probably think you / we are giving the same old sorry excuses about not attending their programs (except for the zombie shooters who probably wouldn't want us there anyway.) A lot of you don't care about some of that rot, and a lot of students think various athletic events are rot and don't care about it. Easy as that.

They eat at Chipolte and shop at Meijers because they want to. They don't come out to the Stroh because they don't want to. Easy as that.

I don't mean to make an issue with Falcon Turf just because he wrote it, because there are plenty of people that feel the same way. They ain't gonna get on a band wagon that don't go where they wanna go, and they sure ain't gonna get on a band wagon that goes where they don't wanna go.

The secret, it seems, is to figure out how to get them interested.

For what it's worth, I think there were more students mingled in at AA, at least in the area where I sat. Some of them came because they wanted to see the games, and some, I suppose, just wandered in to see what all the commotion was about as they walked across campus. Do off campus students have to pay to park at the Stroh? None of the students have to pay to park at Meijer or Chipolte, that's for sure.

"Are you listening to the words coming out of my mouth?"
Are you reading the words coming off of my keyboard?

Bubba Bo Bob Brain wrote:Do off campus students have to pay to park at the Stroh?

If they tried to park there for a game they would most likely have to pay, but hopefully they are smart and remember that they can park in the ice arena lot since its a commuter lot, or in one of the faculty lots by harshman since commuters are allowed to park there after 5:30pm

FWIW, Greg Christopher said in this week's "Ask the AD" that student attendance at basketball games is UP. He didn't specify women's or men's basketball on the issue of student attendance, though he did mention attendance overall for both sports is up.

This is surprising to me, but that's what the man with the data says. The student bleachers still look pretty depressing to me, though it's been great to see a few groups of "Fanatics" in the last couple of games.

Bubba (and other interested in this discussion),

This is not an attack on your ideas - many of which I agree with. My question has to be why does it appear that the percentage of students interested in athletics (attending games specifically) appears to be lower at BG than other institutions at this time? We have a strong Sports Mgt program, a strong education program that produces teachers who often coach and we must have people of other majors who enjoy athletics as well. This would indicate to me on the surface that we are no different that other colleges/universities throughout the US.

My observation from live viewing and TV viewing of men's and women's games at BG we have a small student section in comparison to other schools I watch on TV. I would think comapared to some of the other non-BS schools on TV we would be considerably higher in student attendance considering the success of the program.

I think there is a problem with student interest and possibly marketing. Maybe I'm wrong but if we had booming attendance at the Wolfe, planetarium or some other venue on campus I could understand. I just can't believe that out our 18,000 students we can't get 400 to 500 to help the band fill the student section for a couple of women's games considering the success of the program.

I go to basketball games to watch the game. If I had seats in the student section or the choice of a better seat, guess which one I'd take?

While it's nice to have a reserved seat in the Stroh Center, I'm not all that sure that a couple of rows of GA seating wouldn't hurt. Clearly the $1 ticket packs them in, why not offer half price walk-up tickets? While it may cheapen my AC seats, I don't mind seeing more fans in the stands.

HoopsFan

FalconTurf wrote: I think there is a problem with student interest and possibly marketing.

I don't know about the marketing, but the big question seems to be "How do we get them interested? / How do we get them interested in anything outside their own little spheres of current interest?" This is a great time in their lives to experience new things before they get bogged down in a routine of post-college life. You are correct in implying that none of the activities I mentioned get packed, which I am sure is equally frustrating to the programmers.

Unfortunately, I don't have the answer, having watched various student activities dwindle over the past quarter century. Our once thriving Student Activities and UAO have become less and less active over the years. (It grew from Union Activities Organization to University Activities Organization, and then the new student union had a programming board of its own 10 years ago which I believe is now defunct.) The Greek system seems less and less able to fill their houses. Student attendance at athletic events ... Well, I guess that's where this part of the discussion began.

I guess this is the part where we all start brainstorming together.

Maybe we can have a 3 credit course offered every Wed at 7 and your requirement to receive an A is attend the game and bring with you 4 friends. For a B you take 3 friends, a C you take one, and if you don't go you get an F. And then you write a two page summary of the game. In the Fall semester, class participation would be attending football games. And the other semester you could choose Men's basketball and Women's basketball.

A good way to increase your GPA, as well as get students involved at the games. Now of course football only has 5 or 6 home games so you would also need to attend some soccer matches or preseason/non conference basketball of hockey games. I think attending 10 athletic events with friends would be suitable to receive an A.

When I went to college back in early 90s people were taking cupcake courses to bolster their GPA.

gmartin wrote:Maybe we can have a 3 credit course offered every Wed at 7 and your requirement to receive an A is attend the game and bring with you 4 friends. For a B you take 3 friends, a C you take one, and if you don't go you get an F. And then you write a two page summary of the game. In the Fall semester, class participation would be attending football games. And the other semester you could choose Men's basketball and Women's basketball.

I don't know what makes a college student tick nearly 20 years after I left my undergrad years behind. I don't think that I could easily come up with a promotion that works with today's student but I have an idea for a marketing class based upon your idea.

I would like to see a marketing class (business or sport mgt.) that puts the students to work on an individual or a group project to generate attendance. It seems to me the student(s) could create a promotion, implement the promotion and be evaluated by fellow students & instructor(s) who observe the implementation - similar to Celebrity Apprentice. The class could have other grading components such as exams and research papers with this project holding significant weight in the final grade.

Two factors that work here: 1) students best know what moves students and 2) the creativity with the control of grades would hold students to a standard.