If you worked in the OU Basketball marketing department

[OUHoops]

What would you do to get students to the games?

 

[bocabull]

$1 beers.

 

[kbsooner]

they barely stay until half time of the football games anymore, thus there is little hope for bball... but $1 beers would be a start!

 

[WTSooner]

I know people like to look at questions like this as having a good, or workable answer, but realistically, I'm not sure there is one. I don't know that there is anything they can do to get the kind of student support we are all looking for. The best thing the program can do is get back to winning. Win, play in Big Monday type games, and go from there. JMO.

 

[seniorsooner]

Just like you said, we have to win games and be featured in meaningful games on national TV. The marketing department can only do so much to generate interest in a 16-15 team.

 

[perryj74]

My suggestion would be to do kind of what Coach Kruger has already been trying to do. To make this team/program personable with the student base. More people are likely to go to the games if they feel like they know who is playing or feel like they have some sort of connection.

 

[AdaSooner]

As WT said, winning will definitely help. Trying to promote a program that has struggled to win games the past three seasons is an exercise in futility. Only the most dedicated of fans show up, and as we all know that does not include the majority of OU students.

I also agree with what perryj said about establishing a connection between the team and the students. Bigtime, Sam, and several others who were part of promoting attendance on campus a few years back had the right idea. But an initiative like that takes a lot time, hard work and an ongoing effort from volunteers who want to see the program succeed.

Kruger has done a good job of connecting with students since his arrival, but it's an impossible task for one person. My suggestion for the marketing department is to form a committee made up of students from every organization on campus, and then challenge the various leaders/captains of each group to a contest with a prize(s) at the end that members of their respective organizations can't resist. So what if the cost is high! The reward is selling more tickets and putting more butts in seats.

My suggestion is similar to the contest involving the Greeks when the Capables were active, only with a bigger reward when it's over. If you're going to hire a $2 million per year coach to rebuild the program, you can't skimp on the cost of giving him a hand in his efforts to selling it to students, or any other group for that matter.

I would also make tickets so cheap the students can't resist going to games. I'm not for making the tickets free, unless it's to promote one or two games each season. Free cheapens the offering.

I'll add one of my pet peeves. Stop ripping people off at the concessions! If I take my wife to a game and she wants a bottle of water, I don't expect to pay almost as much for one bottle as an entire case of the same brand would cost me at the local grocery store. I don't object to paying reasonable prices for anything. I do mind being ripped off because the businesses doing it know they can get away with it.

 

[WTSooner]

I do agree with the cheap student tickets. The first couple hundred of them should be dirt cheap, if not free. OU athletics isn't going to lose money by giving those tickets away. Do that, or make the tickets cheap and give away a free hotdog and coke for each student ticket.

 

[BigTime]

Lon just needs to keep doing what he is doing...

 

[stoops4pres]

$1 beers.

:clap :clap

Would have loved for this to happen during my tenure there.

 

[campbest]

$1 beers.

This x1000.

As was stated previously, there is only so much you can do to pump up a students for a 16-15 team. Win games, schedule interesting match-ups, playing meaningful conference games in Jan/Feb/March. That is the only way.

 

[hoopsaustin]

This x1000.

As was stated previously, there is only so much you can do to pump up a students for a 16-15 team. Win games, schedule interesting match-ups, playing meaningful conference games in Jan/Feb/March. That is the only way.

P.S. Camp, was it you who told that hinrich story? LOL i remember reading about that either here or the old board. classic :clap

 

[DFWHoopster]

this brought back a memory. I grew up going to some Baltimore Oriole games at the old Baltimore stadium. One night they had $1 beer night AND they combined it with a free baseball bat giveaway. You can guess how that one turned out... Lots of arrests- fortunately no deaths.

 

[DenverSooner]

$1 beers.

I think this younger generation would go for free bong hits over $1 beers. Both are illegal (at least for most students) so whats the difference. Heck offer both if it packs the house.

 

[campbest]

I think this younger generation would go for free bong hits over $1 beers. Both are illegal (at least for most students) so whats the difference. Heck offer both if it packs the house.

Yeah because college kids in the 70's wouldn't care for free bong hits.

 

[campbest]

P.S. Camp, was it you who told that hinrich story? LOL i remember reading about that either here or the old board. classic :clap

Yes, Kirk Hinrich is a stallion.

 

[61sooner]

Even NW fills up their old 8,000 plus seat dumpy arena for a team that has never gone to the NCAAs. There are so many marketing guys looking for jobs, there has to be someone out there who can come up with ideas to get people into LN. If they can do it in the Chicago area which has a lot more distractions than Norman, it can be done at OU. Winning is part of it but not everything.

 

[NMSooner'80]

I do agree with the cheap student tickets. The first couple hundred of them should be dirt cheap, if not free. OU athletics isn't going to lose money by giving those tickets away. Do that, or make the tickets cheap and give away a free hotdog and coke for each student ticket.

I think back in the Stone Age (my years at OU, which were also years 2-5 of the LNC), they just gave us a punch-card that cost something like $20 for the whole season. And, back then, they just played 10-12 home games total. That's almost hard to believe now.

 

[campbest]

Even NW fills up their old 8,000 plus seat dumpy arena for a team that has never gone to the NCAAs. There are so many marketing guys looking for jobs, there has to be someone out there who can come up with ideas to get people into LN. If they can do it in the Chicago area which has a lot more distractions than Norman, it can be done at OU. Winning is part of it but not everything.

Fills up? Not when they aren't playing somone who doesn't have a large alumni base in the Chicago area. They put 2,300 in there for a NIT home game and around 5,000 for games against Penn St and Nebraska.

Never been to Evanston, but I would bet those sell outs against IU, UI, Mich, Mich. St, Wisconsin, etc have to deal with the visitors more than Carmody's Cats.

 

[OKUman]

Open up the lower bowl to first come first sit. Give the ass kissers who pay and don't come on section from top to bottom for them not to come to the games and sit in them.