Attendance and Atmosphere

I would go with the villanova model; they play mostly weeknight games on campus and then weekend games at wells fargo. I think creighton was weeknight but the rest are on weekend. They have been doing this for a while. Maybe 5 big east msg and 4 on campus. Throw in holiday festival and an non conference game that is 7 msg games.
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Selfishly speaking, in no way do I want to see that happen. I live in the City, and I rarely make it a campus game on a weekday. The commute is dreadful.
 
I know that it is not the main factor, but having 0 players from New York doesn´t help.
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Come on Gonzalo. How many NY'ers you think would be like "Oh Whitehead is on SJU. Lets go to a game." Once they see the ticket prices its a moot point. Whitehead or any NYC HS player doesn't have 5k friends, family or fans.
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No, that's not the complete answer, but it would help Moose. Getting the one big local stud who got a lot of press in HS would help with the casual nyc basketball fan. But, a lot of things would help:

- history of recent success
- cheaper tickets
- better game times
- more high profile opponents (but heaven forbid we play Syracuse who, ya know, we have an actual 30yr rivalry with and guarantees a near sell-out).
- more nyc players
- outsourcing ticket sales from the athletic dept

Do all those things and our attendance would be fine. But for a variety of reasons not all those things are/can happen.
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Desco, I agree that everything on your list will help with attendance. But the number one thing, which I don't see on your list, is a top program now. Not recent success, but current success on the court. I think that trumps everything. You can do all the items on your list, and attendance may increase, but without a current winning program, it won't matter that much in attendance. It's been said many times on this board, winning solves a lot of problems.
 
I know that it is not the main factor, but having 0 players from New York doesn´t help.
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Come on Gonzalo. How many NY'ers you think would be like "Oh Whitehead is on SJU. Lets go to a game." Once they see the ticket prices its a moot point. Whitehead or any NYC HS player doesn't have 5k friends, family or fans.
Click to expand...

No, that's not the complete answer, but it would help Moose. Getting the one big local stud who got a lot of press in HS would help with the casual nyc basketball fan. But, a lot of things would help:

- history of recent success
- cheaper tickets
- better game times
- more high profile opponents (but heaven forbid we play Syracuse who, ya know, we have an actual 30yr rivalry with and guarantees a near sell-out).
- more nyc players
- outsourcing ticket sales from the athletic dept

Do all those things and our attendance would be fine. But for a variety of reasons not all those things are/can happen.
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We got Harkless a few years ago. Did attendance spike because he was here? No. But to be fair you can't really signify it because there are loads of variables. We sucked so people didn't come.

We could have players from Luxumborg as long as we win people will show.
 
I know that it is not the main factor, but having 0 players from New York doesn´t help.
Click to expand...

Come on Gonzalo. How many NY'ers you think would be like "Oh Whitehead is on SJU. Lets go to a game." Once they see the ticket prices its a moot point. Whitehead or any NYC HS player doesn't have 5k friends, family or fans.
Click to expand...

No, that's not the complete answer, but it would help Moose. Getting the one big local stud who got a lot of press in HS would help with the casual nyc basketball fan. But, a lot of things would help:

- history of recent success
- cheaper tickets
- better game times
- more high profile opponents (but heaven forbid we play Syracuse who, ya know, we have an actual 30yr rivalry with and guarantees a near sell-out).
- more nyc players
- outsourcing ticket sales from the athletic dept

Do all those things and our attendance would be fine. But for a variety of reasons not all those things are/can happen.
Click to expand...

Desco, I agree that everything on your list will help with attendance. But the number one thing, which I don't see on your list, is a top program now. Not recent success, but current success on the court. I think that trumps everything. You can do all the items on your list, and attendance may increase, but without a current winning program, it won't matter that much in attendance. It's been said many times on this board, winning solves a lot of problems.
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Spot on, it really is about winning. I don't disagree that the current ticket prices are out of touch and don't help maximize the amount of fans we can draw. But even if we lowered the price of single-game tickets to $10, how many more fans are we going to draw as a result for Butler or Xavier on Tuesday nights? We'll get more fans, but it won't solve the problem.

It's a secondary issue because if we ever do get back to being a Top 25 caliber team, prices will (perhaps justifiably) be raised as demand increases. So ticket pricing will always be part of the equation. But if we're winning at a high level we'll draw more fans than we are now even with prices substantially higher.
 
I don't think you can blame it on our new Big East opponents. Our attendance took a nosedive in 2013, the last year of the old BE, according to this article :

"St. John’s has experienced a shocking 24.4 percent decline, going from an average crowd of 8,428 last season to 6,375 this year."

http://www.syracuse.com/orangebasketball/index.ssf/2013/02/big_east_basketball_attendance.html
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Well Lav's 1st year attendance skyrocketed like 35% or something. I think it was Top 3 improvement in college hoops. We were winning. Knocking off all those ranked teams.

2nd year we had highly ranked class and some carryover from the previous years's success. So even though the team was bad people still came.

Last year we were coming off bad yeah with Lavin out with cancer so attendance nosedived as the team continued to struggle.
 
What do you guys think for Sunday? 7-8K? less?
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Less
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Yet I'm on ticketmaster and the cheapest ticket is $45. Dont' see how a casual fan would consider paying that for a marginal product.
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Room, I think you are absolutely correct and you support my belief that if we were a top 10, or even a top 25 team, that $45 wouldn't seem as being of low value.
 
But if we're winning, the fans come out a aplenty.

I know this because I am President of the Association of Fairweather Fans of St. John's Mens Basketball or AFFSJMB for short (you may have seen our banner at the Gtown game this year - and only the Gtown game).

If you're wondering why we don't come out for say Penn State in Brooklyn or why our memories of the 1985 walkons are sharper than our recollection of 3rd-alltime-in-assists Eugene Lawrence (how the hell did that ever happen?!?), I'll just leave you with the preamble to our bylaws:

"There is more to life than piss poor basketball."
 
What do you guys think for Sunday? 7-8K? less?
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Less
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Yet I'm on ticketmaster and the cheapest ticket is $45. Dont' see how a casual fan would consider paying that for a marginal product.
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There is a code for Ticketmaster for half price tickets- STORM.
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I'll be at the game, I don't have a problem paying for a ticket. I'm referring to the casual fan who probably has no idea about the coupon code or anything like that. They just see the cheapest ticket available is that much.
 
What do you guys think for Sunday? 7-8K? less?
Click to expand...

Less
Click to expand...

Yet I'm on ticketmaster and the cheapest ticket is $45. Dont' see how a casual fan would consider paying that for a marginal product.
Click to expand...

There is a code for Ticketmaster for half price tickets- STORM.
Click to expand...

I'll be at the game, I don't have a problem paying for a ticket. I'm referring to the casual fan who probably has no idea about the coupon code or anything like that. They just see the cheapest ticket available is that much.
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Gotcha, I'll be there too.
 
But if we're winning, the fans come out a aplenty.

I know this because I am President of the Association of Fairweather Fans of St. John's Mens Basketball or AFFSJMB for short (you may have seen our banner at the Gtown game this year - and only the Gtown game).

If you're wondering why we don't come out for say Penn State in Brooklyn or why our memories of the 1985 walkons are sharper than our recollection of 3rd-alltime-in-assists Eugene Lawrence (how the hell did that ever happen?!?), I'll just leave you with the preamble to our bylaws:

"There is more to life than piss poor basketball."
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How? By being coach's pet and starting for 4 years!
 
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