College basketball: Shooting itself in the foot

[DenverSooner]

Yes. When I was in Michigan last summer, I went to several Detroit Tigers weeknight games, because every seat was about $5-$10 cheaper than for weekend games. Contrary to popular belief on this board, not every single one of the 1.2 million people in the OKC metro area has a job that requires them to work until 5 or 6 p.m. on weeknights. Make ticket prices slightly lower on weeknights, and more people will come to games.

Heck, let students in for free to all of the winter break games. I'm not in Oklahoma over winter break, but I'm sure a decent percentage of OU's student body lives within driving distance to the LNC. Kids get bored over break. If you let students in for free over break, maybe they'll show up, have a good time, and then pay $5 to attend games when school is back in session. ksSooner13 and I have a friend who was dead set on not going to any basketball games at the start of the season. We gave her an extra ticket that someone gave us for the Baylor game, and guess what...she enjoyed the game, and has come back for other games. Mindblowing, I know. But this is how you build a fanbase.

THey should let High School Students in free. If they are worried too many will show up, let the first 2,500 or something like that. Lets assume that 50% of those kids would come from Norman. Lets assume they attend two games a year for 4 years. Perhaps you create 100 fans per year. Perhaps they are life long fans that want to go to games.

OU doesn't care and the universities don't care because the money side of basketball is not based on attendance.

 

[campbest]

Times change. HDTV, DVR's, ESPN3, etc offer a better experience than going to the arena for most games. Especially basketball where there are so many games.

Football is a different animal due to the limited number of games mainly played on weekends where people make an entire day out of the event.

No harm, no foul. Who cares if the program is paid for from TV revenue or attendance?

Mark Cuban wrote a blog post about game experience, even though I despise the Mavs, it is really insightful. In this new age of digital media, you have to entertain, someone's allegiance to the program or team will not be enough to consistently draw a good crowd.

 

[tycat947]

I don't think the 6pm start we had the other night was OU's choice. Isn't that a conference/tv decision?

Still doesn't matter. I think this is a non-issue. 6:00 starting times happen once or twice a year??? Out of 365 days? The time is known well in advance so for that once or twice it happens, the vast majority of time planning can take care of the issues. I think when the games are on TV all the time it just makes it easy to have an excuse.