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Post by gbphoenix1 on Jan 12, 2018 15:25:36 GMT -6
I am happy for NKU that they are getting a good turnout, especially relative to the past.
Two thoughts from my perspective.
1. Can they build this into a loyal following? If things slow down in the next few years will these people still come or are they just bandwagon fans. That is the real test of any program.
2. In the most meaningful home game in the NKU D1 era they still had less than 5000 people. For those fans that think the HL should go back to the old format for the tournament I present this as exhibit 1 of not all programs can fill a building. I know it is winter break, it was a Thursday night, it was regular season etc. I am just offering context that it will take more momentum to fill the other seats. No offense to NKU, I would submit that CSU, YSU, Detroit, IUPUI and UIC would have similar trouble. Milwaukee and Green Bay have been able to do it in the past, no guarantee of a repeat. Oakland has a tiny arena, super fun to attend a game at but not fair for the purposes of comparing could they fill the building. Only WSU could fill a big building right now if they had the HL tournament in my opinion. They have the best fan base in the league from where I sit.
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Post by csudave on Jan 12, 2018 16:01:58 GMT -6
So the official attendance from last night was 4,987 which was our highest of the season and also the highest since the 14-15 season when we hosted West Virginia. The attendance continues to trend up this season as we are now averaging 3,540 if you include the exhibition game at the beginning of the season and 3,643 if you dont. In the 3 games of Horizon League play we are averaging 4,292 fans a game. Now that school is in session we should be able to hit at least 4,000 the rest of the way. The student section was fantastic last night as they were able to almost entirely fill the bleachers. Excitement for Norse Basketball is on the rise! Tough loss to Wright State last night but definitely a very entertaining and fun game! The attendance numbers are great. I’m curious as to how your media coverage has been in light of the NCAA tournament run. Does NKU get any run with the Cincinnati paper and sports talk station(s)? I could imagine that with Cincy and Xavier in direct competition as well as Kentucky and Ohio State within spitting distance it can be tough to catch a break. CSU is probably the #5 (at best) basketball priority in town (behind the Cavs OSU Akron and Kent) and it’s killed us at the gate (even when we were good...before your time, but I swear it’s actually true). I’ve experienced similar issues living in Milwaukee and Chicago and was curious if it’s just an NBA shadow or if power conference universities cause the same issue. |
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Post by csudave on Jan 12, 2018 16:46:57 GMT -6
2. In the most meaningful home game in the NKU D1 era they still had less than 5000 people. For those fans that think the HL should go back to the old format for the tournament I present this as exhibit 1 of not all programs can fill a building. I know it is winter break, it was a Thursday night, it was regular season etc. I am just offering context that it will take more momentum to fill the other seats. No offense to NKU, I would submit that CSU, YSU, Detroit, IUPUI and UIC would have similar trouble. Milwaukee and Green Bay have been able to do it in the past, no guarantee of a repeat. Oakland has a tiny arena, super fun to attend a game at but not fair for the purposes of comparing could they fill the building. Only WSU could fill a big building right now if they had the HL tournament in my opinion. They have the best fan base in the league from where I sit. I would contend this is an argument against a neutral site tournament. Why would the league expect schools that can’t get fans to come to home games expect them to travel to Detroit for a neutral site tournament? Corporate tickets and local interest only go so far to filling out Little Caesar’s Arena. Fanbases have to travel. That’s one of the underrated reasons losing Valpo hurt. For all of the BS that we complain about, their fans travelled better than anyone else in the league. |
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norsefan92
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Post by norsefan92 on Jan 13, 2018 10:15:29 GMT -6
I think UC is averaging around 7000 to 7500 a game. Obviously there are some logistical challenges of getting people to NKU as its probably a 15 minute to 20 minute drive from the Clifton area of Cincinnati. I know they have been busing students up there. Obviously attendance dips when you have to drive to all of you games instead of walking on campus. Still a pretty strong turnout and i am sure the Wichita State game will be a big draw.
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norsefan92
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Post by norsefan92 on Jan 13, 2018 10:26:36 GMT -6
In respect to everyone elses questions. I think NKU is at a very early point in building their fan base. There are so many competing schools in the region that most NKU students and alumni have always had other favorite teams because NKU was at the Division II level. Now that they have gotten DI and have had some success, a lot of old and new alumni have started to get excited. The thing is that NKU actually has graduated a ton of the local media people and in fact one of the key members of our board of regents is the CEO of EW Scripps. I actually think there has been a wish by many people in the area for NKU to be competitive and it is finally getting realized. We just got our own beat reporter from the Cincinnati Enquirer who is also the reporter for the popular soccer team FC Cincinnati. They get talked about on local tv a lot more now as well. They have formed partnerships with several bars in the area to be official bars. Braxton Brewing which is a major craft brewery in Northern Kentucky has made a Norse Pale Ale which is the official beer of the Norse. The local tv station CW Cincinnati is showing the broadcast of 5 or 6 of the games this season so you can watch them on over the air television. All of these changes have happened just in this offseason. Something that is kind of fascinating is that Cincinnati is going through a major growth phase right now and is one of the fastest growing economies in the region. That growth is spilling into northern kentucky because we are much more closely tied to Cincinnati than we are to the state of kentucky in terms of culture. So there is a lot of enthusiasm and excitement for NKU. It is a step by step process but i think something to look at in terms of the attendance too is that last year we had a lot of games that were under 2000. THis season we have not had a single game under 2000 even including the exhibition game. Our average attendance has gone up by probably 700 this season alone. I think as long as the program is competitive in the Horizon League and does not tank they will be able to grow it and there are enough people willing to give money to the athletics department in the area to make sure it keeps growing.
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Post by oklahomamick on Jan 14, 2018 7:58:49 GMT -6
Csudave, first positive statement regarding valpo on the forum. I don’t know if valpo travel as much as it is having alumni in those cities. Most schools in the HL have a student body that consists of people living in or near the campus’s city. Valpo probably has more students/alumni from Ohio than Oakland does even though Ou is 5 Times larger. Most likely the same for students/alumni living in Wisconsin and Illinois. Valpo has had games in California and Florida and you would consistently see a good showing of gold. Valpo draws its students from the entire Midwest as most hL schools Draw from more nearby proximity. I don’t honk it’s the travel as much as it is having students/alumni being from or living in those hL cities.
Great article in the Times newspaper by P. Oren debating the move to the mvc. One argument was that we have more students/alumni from HL cities than we do mvc towns.
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Post by bear2020 on Jan 14, 2018 15:07:34 GMT -6
I think alot of that has to do with the age of school with Oakland and northern Kentucky both are pretty young schools were as valpo is much older so they have more alumni therefore more people to travel i think the Wisconsin schools are older also
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arbus
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Post by arbus on Jan 15, 2018 9:47:45 GMT -6
No offense to NKU, I would submit that CSU, YSU, Detroit, IUPUI and UIC would have similar trouble. Milwaukee and Green Bay have been able to do it in the past, no guarantee of a repeat. When Waters was here CSU was able to get a good crowd for the "big game". Problem was they would always lose that game so people weren't drawn back to the Wolstein Center. CSU has potential. Felton is going to bring a much more exciting style of play compared to Waters slowdown, defense style. Also note that there have been pretty constant rumors/talk over the lasts few years about tearing down the Wolstein Center and building an arena that makes sense for CSU. Still a long way to go for that, if it ever does happen. |
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Post by gbphoenix1 on Jan 18, 2018 12:05:42 GMT -6
I like the what CSU is doing. I don't think Cleveland State has a bad platform to work from. I think it will take a little sustained success to build it back to what it could be. I don't think for the teams I mentioned that one good year would fill a building.
I think not having teams be able to fill a building exactly leads to MCM. A lot of people say it is a cash grab and to a certain extent the league doesn't have to worry about finances when they know they get paid by Olympia versus actually having to sell tickets on campus sites. I do find the double edge sword of money funny for the Horizon League fans. Taking $20,000 from Olympia per team is bad because it isn't a lot of money. Dividing the NCAA tournament share by $20,000 per school is too much money to expand the league.
I look at Pitt as a good example of how success and atmosphere can be fleeting. They have had several announced crowds between 3100 to 5500 for home games this year. One of which was nationally ranked Miami. They only had 7500 for West Virginia and 9100 for Duke. This is a building that used to be jammed and rowdy with 12,500 fans. Things get a little down, a change happens that isn't an improvement and the next thing you know you are an after thought. I don't want that for NKU or any HL team for that matter. I just use this as an example that getting big crowds when the program is winning isn't a sign that the active fan base is growing. GB used to sell out the Brown County Arena (5500 seats) a lot under Dick Bennett. Under PMCK in the mid 2000's they were still averaging over 4000 fans per game. This year GB hasn't cracked 3000 people once. So I am living through the difference between a loyal fan base and a passive one.
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norsefan92
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Post by norsefan92 on Jan 29, 2018 19:01:40 GMT -6
The attendance for the Oakland game was 5362 and for Detroit it was 3696. We have now surpassed our total attendance from last year with 3 home games still to go. I was doing the math and our average attendance is now about 1000 more than it was last year. It has continued to grow during league play so that is another positive sign. The remaining games have a chance to draw pretty well because the next two games are during homecoming week. I think the saturday game against Green Bay is going to have a big tailgate that is supposed to have a Ying Yang twins concert in the parking lot. So hopefully we will have a couple more games in the 5000 range.
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Post by wsufan on Jan 30, 2018 10:52:06 GMT -6
Wright State had about 7400 announced for 1/26 game against Detroit. I was there and don't think there were that many actually there but it was a good crowd. The NKU game at Wright State should have a good crowd too
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norsefan92
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Post by norsefan92 on Feb 12, 2018 15:32:14 GMT -6
With 1 remaining home game we are sitting at 53,291 in total attendance for the season (excluding exhibitions) and averaging 4,099 a game. That jumped up a bit this week because on Thursday against Milwaukee we drew 4,819 and on Saturday against Green Bay we drew 6,455. The Saturday was a season high and it was nice to see our upper deck actually have a lot of people sitting in it. Last season we only averaged 2,824 a game and drew 39,539 total so there has been quite a big increase in attendance. I would imagine it is one of the larger jumps in the NCAA this season.
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Post by tommyboy on Feb 13, 2018 4:31:34 GMT -6
Wright State is currently at an average of 4,101. Not meant as anything other than how close the schools are but, I am hoping for a very nice crowd on Friday when the Norse make the short drive north. Not sure what to expect on Monday for CSU.
Congratulations to NKU for their increase.
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