Week 10: Northern Arizona @ UC Davis A few comments about the gameday experience that I didn't around to last night.
1. They oversold the high school band section and when I walked in they didn't have a seat. I was ready to get mad but the event staffer I talked to was super professional, called a deputy AD over, and he got me a new ticket. Apparently they tried to call everyone in that section, but it being election season I haven't been responding to unidentified calls for the last few weeks. I can't bring myself to be too critical because they handled it so smoothly.
2. Cutting off Jen Gross at the start of the interview was not a good look. Women's Basketball was the first of the revenue sports to achieve consistent dominance in the last few years and deserves every ounce of respect the department can muster. I'm not sure exactly what the best way to avoid that would have been, but surely there was a slightly larger timeslot available somewhere else in the schedule. (They did give WBB the spotlight eventually, but the team had to just awkwardly stand in a line on the field for another half quarter for the opportunity to present itself.)
3. Student showing was really bad. There were some yard signs about the game around campus and apparently they did a ticket distribution at the MU again, but whatever marketing they did wasn't enough. I will however give the marketing folks a little slack because I saw that there was some Resource Fair inconveniently on the quad at noon (with free food; you know how that draws students) and some freshmen told me there was a formal event in the evening that I think had to do with Greek life. The Greek students are probably a more active and spirited than the general population so that might have actually been a significant loss. (I'm assuming many decided to skip the game in order to not have to rush home and change and prepare.)
4. Agreed, the new MC is really good. Exudes energy and Aggie Pride. Also, it's a really good look to have the same face of the gameday experience as the Sacramento Kings; they put on a pretty good show over there from what I saw at a preseason game.