BSU

[BGorDeath]

My observations:

1. Kudos to the athletic department for utilizing all entrance possibilities in parking fans. It was fun to sit in a single line with my premium parking pass for section BB while waiting on people who are paying to park in CC. I guess it wouldn't make sense to have a line for CC and a line for AA/BB or utilize the gated entrances for BB. Stroh Center has been around how many years and this is still an issue?

2. High five to the athletic department advertising $1 concessions...oh, wait, I found out about it after sitting down. HOWEVER, for the first time in 25 years, they had fresh popcorn.

3. Agee is the only reason to pay admission to see this team. Every game the dude is playing balls out.

[guest44]

The parking last night was next level incompetent. If making the least money, making people park as far away as possible, and pissing off your season ticket holders was the plan, they did really well. I’d fully expect it to improve when the administrators are no longer attending games as a parent. Then again, they might use the additional time in the evening for more side jobs to make additional income.

[guest44]

How can you be paid this much to be sub .500 in a 1-bid league over 8 years? Like seriously. I could do the job just as poorly for a quarter of the pay.

The guy coaching Whitmer high school could do this job much better also. Many local high school coaches could do a better job.

As far as how does it happen? It takes a completely in over his head person like Bob Moosbrugger to be in charge of a department. It take as assistant AD named the Con Man who is executing most of the actual actions while knowing Bob or other people will take the fall for those actions. All while hoping he lands another job. Con Man is at Holy Cross after years of searching, the other is begging SDSU to take him back.

[mbenecke]

I just want competence. I want a coach that makes logical decisions and players that will compete hard. I want a department that considers fan input and makes the best possible decisions. I don't feel like any of that is too much to ask.

[guest44]

Most of us have wanted just that for the better part of the last twenty years. We thought the Frack money would change that. Instead the coach gets paid more, has more shoes, and is held to a lower standard than ever. I become more confident every day nobody on this board will see BGSU play in an NCAA Tournament unless they start allowing all teams to make it. If money can’t change standards, nothing will.

It’s February, time when our transfers begin to question the coach and players magically stop playing, quit or get dismissed.

[hammb]

I think we all know the product on the floor being mediocre to bad jades our feelings towards everything else there. Still, the parking situation at the Stroh Center is one of the most insanely idiotic things I've ever seen and it has been for years now. One of the major selling points of moving to a new arena was the ability/availability of close on site parking. When they first opened the building they took advantage of that, it was like $60 or so to add a parking pass to your season ticket package and maybe you couldn't park in the close sections of the lot, but at least you were in the right lot.

Then the morons in charge of the Dept decided that they should stop selling parking passes and instead make it a perk of Falcon Club membership. This effectively doubled the price of parking. Now we all park across the street for free because they've made the actual Stroh parking lot some exclusive rights club that nobody wants to join. Attendance doesn't matter, every single game that giant parking lot, that holds enough vehicles to fill the building, sits 75+% empty. Walked in with some retirement age BSU fans that were flabbergasted at how far they had to walk saying "We don't do this at BSU". Then they get all the way to the building and had to go BACK outside because they entered the North entrance which doesn't have a will call/ticket booth.

We actually did know it was $1 night, largely because we circle that one on the calendar every year. It's the one time we let the kiddo load up on concession stand food (I'll be damned if he didn't eat 3 hot dogs).

We went to the Toledo game on Saturday. Before the game was even over I received an email thanking me for attending a UT game and a short survey about the gameday experience. Yesterday I received a text message from somebody in ticketing asking about coming back for a 5 game package for the back of the MAC season (this led to a fun back and forth BG/UT banter). I've been a season ticket holder since Anderson and bought single game tickets for nearly every home game for years prior to becoming a season ticket holder. At no point in the past 2 decades has anybody from BG EVER asked about the gameday experience. I doubt they'd do anything about it if they did take a survey, but it's worth mentioning that our peers at least pretend to give a damn.

Oh, we also didn't have to park as far away from Savage as we do from the Stroh. Nor did we walk through 1000 empty parking spots being held hostage.

[Flipper]

Hammb...what you are describing..the texts and email.. are CHEAP and effective ways of marketing your product. This is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing as a matter of course, but we don't.

Haven't been to a hoops game since the year the Stroh opened...don't know if I want to now. It sounds like they make it as difficult to attend as they can.

[hammb]

Hammb...what you are describing..the texts and email.. are CHEAP and effective ways of marketing your product. This is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing as a matter of course, but we don't.

Haven't been to a hoops game since the year the Stroh opened...don't know if I want to now. It sounds like they make it as difficult to attend as they can.

Yes, very cheap. My mistake as the survey came in a text, not an email. I didn't bother taking it, but they point out that completing the survey will make you eligible for a special ticket offer...probably discount of some sort or whatever. Woah...see what people think of your product AND do something to try and bring them back. All for the low cost of an automated text system and a followup from some low level intern/student employee a few days later? Brilliant concept.

GameDay ops at the Stroh are the same dumpster fire they are at the Doyt. Parking is asinine, just park at Waffle House or BWW like everybody else does. (I usually park and walk from the other side of alumni drive, which technically is also a paid lot, but not if you come from around the ice arena past the hill). Concessions are BGSU concessions, yesterday for dollar day was the first time they've opened the stand near us this year, but that's largely understandable give the fact attendance is god awful. The pep band was there yesterday effectively tripling student attendance for the game. FOr the first time in my memory at the Stroh Freddie & Frieda haven't once visited our section this season, my son actually went up onto the concourse last night because he hadn't met them yet this season. They made printing roster/stat sheets intermittent earlier this year until I overheard another season ticket holder arguing with marketing and they were adamant they hadn't printed them since COVID (wrong, for sure). Since that time I have not seen a single printed sheet.

Yadda, yadda. We have fun bitching about the team and hearing sneakers squeak. The on court product sucks, but it's still basketball. Go in expecting it to be run worse than your local HS and set the expectations accordingly. Hell, driving past BGHS last night on the way to the game they may have had more folks in attendance than BGSU.

[Tricky_Falcon]

It's funny, we have/had a top sport management program at BGSU. The things brought up are simple things our classes suggested when I was on campus from 01-05. Not sure why the athletic department doesn't utilize some students in the program and get their ideas or talk to some of the professors.

Receiving feedback and following up on the feedback should just be a given. Along with following up with ticket sales. It should be easy since at point of service they acquire email and mailing addresses, etc. How hard is it to reach out?

It just seems like we continue to do the opposite of the logical thing and continue to alienate fans while rivals are happy to show us how things are supposed to be done.

[TommyG]

That whole Falcon Club thing to park is because ADs have had bonuses tied to memberships. Greg Christopher started implementing some of that stuff when he was here and then they have continued to try and find ways to force people to sign up.
Christopher was also the one who got caught taking falcon club donations made for various sports and putting the money toward Football ticket sales to hit then 15,000 per game attendance mark.
A few people caught wind of that after 2 or 3 years and they stopped because there was discussion of legal action.

For whatever reason gameday ops have struggled in all sports for a long time. Elsasser used to be in charge of it, but not sure if it is still under him or not. Since Krebs left, the administration has always just deflected blame by making as many excuses as possible. Really 90% of the problems we see on that are a lack of effort and preparation and just incompetence.
Things aren’t always going to run perfect and there will always be issues, but BG just has the same stuff game to game and year after year.
My favorite is always the football referee microphone. That thing wouldn’t work 90% of the time. You’d think they’d fix it between games or even between seasons…nope. Every game is the same.

[hammb]

That seems about right. Screw the fans and do something that makes zero sense to line the pockets of incompetent administrators. Makes perfect sense.

Probably worth noting the UT 50/50 drawing was over $6700 pot, so the simple effort of running a drawing led to > $3000 in revenue. Sure, that was a rival game with a good attendance figure and we know BG 50/50 drawings were routinely bringing in only a couple hundred bucks. Still, seems like a strange thing to stop doing.

I'm with you though Tommy in it just being blatant incompetence/lack of caring. Many of the things we have complained about over the years take zero effort. Like getting popped by the health dept for unsafe pizza. They have giant expensive commercial grade warmers. Set them to the proper temperature and do it early enough that they are up to temp before the pizzas arrive. Winning is hard, especially with the budget constraints many of our sports have. Most of the recurring ops issues are simply effort.

[Flipper]

According to Huger...Curtis "tweaked something" in practice and was ruled out shortly before game time

[Falcon Fryed]

While complaining about operations. My favorite part of dollar night was that they hit a certain amount of the dollar hot dogs sold and then started selling them for $4. I thought the guy working the concession stand was joking after I made a joke about the Whitmer High School colors he was wearing matching UT colors.

I would have respected if they were sold out of hot dogs. That is fair. Having hot dogs and then jacking the price back up to $4 mid game is wild.

I am BG Basketball through and through but every long walk through the empty rows of the Stroh parking lot makes me question my attendance every drive back home to Toledo. I have even thought about how fun it would be to be a Toledo Basketball fan.

[mbenecke]

While complaining about operations. My favorite part of dollar night was that they hit a certain amount of the dollar hot dogs sold and then started selling them for $4. I thought the guy working the concession stand was joking after I made a joke about the Whitmer High School colors he was wearing matching UT colors.

I would have respected if they were sold out of hot dogs. That is fair. Having hot dogs and then jacking the price back up to $4 mid game is wild.

I am BG Basketball through and through but every long walk through the empty rows of the Stroh parking lot makes me question my attendance every drive back home to Toledo. I have even thought about how fun it would be to be a Toledo Basketball fan.

To be fair, even though it’s ridiculous, I think the “dollar concessions” stipulation has always been centered around time windows and not for the whole game. I seem to remember it was from 6:00-8:00pm for a 7pm tip. Seems ridiculous, but I’m pretty sure it’s something they have always done.

[TommyG]

I heard they will extend $1 thru the end of the game next year if you sign up for the Falcon Club. If you’re already a member you have to buy a 2nd membership, but if you want the perks you gotta pay.