• AggieFinn
    629


    1. What's it take to get students in the stands these days?
    2. Do you see a bump in attendance should the Aggies take on stadium renovations and increase capactiy to say 20,000+ - along with a Mountain West home game schedule? This would take at a minimum 3 to 4 times the student involvement in my opinion to get the stadium marginally full for a game against say Air Force, Wyoming, Hawai'i, Northern Illinois, San Jose State, UNLV, UTEP...New Mexico.
  • DrMike
    877
    we have to have a big non-student attendance increase since that’s revenue. But, I agree, more students means a better game time atmosphere which, one hopes, rings more paying fans
  • DrMike
    877
    Ask Darius if anyone had ever list the hidden balls under the three hat game. I contest they win every time because there is a ball (horseshoe?) under all 3 hats!
  • SochorField
    291
    silent students don't help either. There's nothing a visiting team loves more than a silent student section.

    Aggie Pack needs to educate those first years and build the student culture just like the coaches are building the football culture. They will catch the bug the first moment they discover they are impacting the game. Thats when it gets fun!

    ......I seem to remember for a few years they were doing rallies and teaching/practicing "Aggie Fight" and gameday stuff (It appears that 9/10 Davis 1st years have never been to a college game).
    Are they still doing this?
  • SoCalAggie
    86
    I loved the jersey combos that year. The gray and gold was awesome.
  • yolohw
    53
    Do they even still have the Aggie Pack in same form in which it existed in the 90s-00s ? I thought someone on here (Jdur?) said it was either very reduced or no longer existed ? My internet search only turned up articles from the Ron Gould era and earlier.

    You're fighting a huge uphill battle to get students interested in, let alone passionate, about sports. If they didn't attend or particularly enjoy them in high school, how do you motivate them ? It used to be that the Aggie Pack could lure lots of students with the promise of free stuff-what were they competing with ?

    Now, regarding sports, I think UCD students are more like my very old cat. She used to lose her mind when I'd mention cat treats and even claw me if I didn't get them out fast enough. Now I can mention them, shake the container, and bring the treats to her; but she still doesn't care more than half the time. And like my cat the students of today want to hide under the furniture and dramatically cough up hairballs.

    You can promote the sports to death, and it still won't be enough. You need some kind of sports marketing genius to think of something so powerful it can overcome all the suffocating apathy. Build it bigger (spend more money) and make it fancier just doesn't work anymore. Short of telling the students that the opposing team is Israel, which wouldn't have been acceptable even in less P.C. times, I don't know how you get a bunch of yelling students there.

    Maybe social activism is the key? If students thought they were doing some good by attending it could combat some of the apathy. You could hypothetically scale back the giveaways to save money + then hold that savings up as a carrot. Students could also donate to the pot. The more students that attend, the greater percentage of that money that goes to a cause of more universal interest, like the homeless. Any leftovers roll over to the next event. Like a 50-50 raffle but you don't win anything.

    There are some real challenges with this approach too. For one thing, you would have to only pick causes that are not politically-charged. Homelessness is a fine cause; nobody likes to see or smell them. Providing aid to Gaza presents the possibility of students yelling, "Free Palestine" instead of "Go Ags", and that risks alienating the townies, whose money you want to attract. You already have the students'money.

    Also, scaling back giveaways could have a negative effect on local businesses. Would Steve's Pizza have been around as long as it has without the powerful advertising of their product being given away at basketball games to students ? Whenever I go there it is not packed with townies. So perhaps reducing giveaways is not the way to fund social activism. Could UCD raise the funds by eliminating redundant/under-performing sports that are poorly attended and reallocating that slice of the pie ?

    As I stated, you need a sports marketing genius to tackle this problem. It's fine to have ideas for the profesionals to kick around, but the members of a message board don't come close to having all the answers.

    I do think, if it's not doing so already, the university should be polling students to find out what causes students care about the most, even for just general purposes. The current approach of

    THERE IS A FOOTBALL GAME
    ADMISSION IS FREE FOR STUDENTS
    WE'LL BE GIVING STUFF AWAY

    doesn't work so well anymore on its own.

    So you manage to get them to come-how do you get them to care about the game ? If they don't care they won't be loud in a way that supports the team. I don't know how you can instill that in people. You either care or you don't. I cared. I cared about UCD winning every contest, even if it was something minor like volleyball. I had cause to dislike volleyball too.
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