Attendance problem in the Big Sky?

[jon]

Hi all,

I wrote a post asking, Does the Big Sky have an attendance problem?

Looking at the attendance figure, EWU seems to have struggled a bit last year. Is this a factor of a team that didn't play well, small arena, etc? Does the Big Sky have an attendance problem that they need to do something about to try and change? Or is it simply a fact of life of being a mid-major conference? Would love to hear your thoughts on this...

 

[nwhoops44]

Craw's Corner article was excellent and great read for all Big Sky fans.

It is getting national publicity, which can be good and bad. That is a great blog for not only Big Sky fans, but all west coast college basketball fans. They often mentions Eagle basketball, which should make all of us happy.

Jon, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

 

[Eagle1990]

It is mid major basketball period. You only draw when you win and even that is no guarantee. In the case of EWU we had a first round NBA pick and couldn't draw. In football we were in the play offs with an electrifying player in Jones and couldn't draw. Blanchette even called people out on the apathy. It is a tough sell with WSU and GU here. The true test, actually the perfect test, will be this fall. As defending national champs and the #1 ranked team in the country, will EWU see a dramatic increase in attendance? I sure hope so as there is nothing more that little ole EWU can do to prove itself to Spokane.

 

[oldtimeewualum]

Enough with the MID-major talk. We are a LOW-major and the only thing that keep the Big Sky on the fence between low and mid is Montana and Weber. If you look at dollars spent on basketball, travel accomadations, number of money games that we have to play, salaries, etc there is nothing "mid" about Eastern Washington University in regards to basketball. The mid-major conferences are ones like the WAC, Horizon, Colonial, Missouri Valley. Those schools "buy" home games. We are on the other side of the buy/sell equation. So, let's stop referring to ourselves as mid-major and accept what we really are.

 

[EWURanger]

I don't buy into the notion that we can't draw because we compete with GU and WSU. It puts us at a dis-advantage, yes, and there are a lot of variables involved, but it is primarily a function of winning. We won't draw well having more .500 seasons - case in point, the last time we drew really well was the 2003-2004 season when we won the BSC and advanced to the NCAA tournament. Great crowds that season.

I just think that the program needs a shot of adrenaline and I think Hayford will provide that. Gunna take time, though.

 

[Eagle1990]

Good discussion. Couple of comments. One, I agree that EWU is a low major. I respectfully disagree with EWURanger though. How can you say you don't buy the notion in one sentence and in the next say "Yes, it puts us at a disadvantage."? Winning helps, but at EWU, it isn't the answer. It it were only winning the stands at Roos would have been full during the season and the play-offs. They weren't.

 

[EWURanger]

Good discussion. Couple of comments. One, I agree that EWU is a low major. I respectfully disagree with EWURanger though. How can you say you don't buy the notion in one sentence and in the next say "Yes, it puts us at a disadvantage."? Winning helps, but at EWU, it isn't the answer. It it were only winning the stands at Roos would have been full during the season and the play-offs. They weren't.

To articulate - I'm simply saying that it's not as simple as saying "well, we can't draw good crowds at Reese Court because we compete with GU and WSU". That's a cop-out, and simply not true. I provided the 2003-2004 season as evidence of that fact.

Also, I think we are talking about two different things here. I'm not talking about football. There's a different dynamic to that. But while we are the subject of football attendance: Winning a NC will help some in regards to attendance. But one really succesful season isn't going to massively change things. The entire culture has to be changed. That means continued winning, facility improvements, more national exposure, etc. And all of that doesn't happen overnight.

 

[Eagle1990]

Agreed. It is a long road given our location, budget and status. Just don't know if we will ever get there. It can and should improve. The question is to what degree.

 

[nwhoops44]

The Big Sky needs better marketing of the basketball programs. It appears there is a lack of direction from league office after reading the article in Craw's Corner. While I disagree with some points they make, I have agree with the comments about Jon Spoelstra, I have read all of Jon Spoelstra's books and after reading them, it is obvious why he is a freaking sports marketing genius. Now if his son can just get the Heat going.

Big Sky basketball is good and under appreciated. Even when Portland State has their top teams, they did not sell out each game. It would be nice to see Reese sold out, it can be done with a competitive team.

The whole league needs to treat basketball on an equal basis with football. After all, where else is there going to be revenue generated.

 

[kalm]

Eastern needs to focus it's marketing on a five mile footprint first. Especially during basketball season when it's much more enticing to hunker down by the fire on a snowy Thursday night than brave the 1/2 hour drive from Spokane on icy roads and get home late on a work night.

I think we still suffer from an identity crisis going back to the 80's when we were much more of a commuter school and you were just as likely to see students wearing apparrel from a PAC 10 school as you were EWU. And all the resident students back then went to Spokane for entertainment. This might have changed some over the years, but we still get a relatively dismal amount of support from the students. And when you walk into half the businesses in Cheney you are hard pressed to find any EWU promo material.

There are enough people in Cheney that an average attendance of 3,000 should be doable for even a .500 team.