So, Why Don't YOU Come to the Games?

[MsProudSooner]

I live in Tulsa. I was there on Saturday but I can't make weeknight games.

Anyone who uses the LNC as their excuse for not attending is just looking for a convenient excuse. However, I completely support reconfiguring the seating area and moving the students to courtside. The students who do attend do a good job. We just need more of them.

8:00 on a weeknight is a bad tipoff time for a lot of people. Wednesday night is bad for some. If I lived in Norman or OKC, I would have been there.

 

[opsooner]

While glancing at tonight's box score I noticed the following numbers:

Attendance: 10,674
Estimated Attendance: 5,632

I'm no mathematician, but that's 5,642 tickets sold to someone who couldn't be bothered to show up.

You are no mathemetician but you were close (off by 600).

Is that the biggest problem for most people? Do people want to be able to buy a seat and not just anticipate that they will get a no-show seat? I guess by now they should realize they will get a good seat but the process seems a little ridiculous to me.

 

[Boomer]

I love going to the games, but having an 21 month old had put a stop to that for the time being. When he gets a couple years older, I am definitely going to take him to some games.

 

[p230]

I live in Lubbock, so I see them when they come here. I guess put me in the "too far to drive" camp. We used to come to OKC more to see family but as our kids have gotten older and started sports and all the other activities that come with teens and pre-teens I don't get home near as often. I plan to once they are on their own.

 

[SoonerBounce13]

You graduate, then leave the region for a real economy.

lol. like california?

 

[SoonerBounce13]

Well, it's a pretty big deal for some recruits, and the lack of attendance reduces the value of a home-court advantage - including the extra call or two per game from the refs.

I was just making a joke. My post was how 04 has been posting lately

 

[DenverSooner]

I live in Austin. If I lived in OKC/Norman I would go to every game. If I lived in Tulsa I would go to a few games but I wouldn't drive 2 hours in each direction for every game.

 

[Dave4OU]

I live in Bartlesville, attend 2-3 games a year on average

 

[SoonerSpock]

As an OU graduate who has been attending OU BB games for 53 years with season tickets for 25+ years I can tell you for certain that OU is not a good basketball school from the fan support perspective. That being said during the Tubbs and Sampson eras I have seen a few great years when attendance was very good and the crowd was intimidating.

What I see impacting attendance today more than anything is poor usage of corporate season tickets and little student involvement. Continued winning and competition for the conference championship will help increase both. However I think the biggest key is a proactive promotion by the university soliciting greater student involvement.

Utilizing promotions directed at the Greek houses and other campus organizations could improve student attendance by several hundred students per game. Lowering the price of student tickets (make them free if necessary) and attract a few more hundred students to LNC. With continued winning in a big way and student promotions OU would easily attract an additional 1,500-2,000 students. Even with that increase student attendance would be less than half of what you see in Lawrence, KS. It is achievable.

Add the student attendance increase and you will get more noise and opponent intimidation which will generate a couple more wins a season. Get the noise factor up and improve the winning and games at LNC would be elevated to "event" status. Once games be come "events" customer and employee demand for the unused corporate season tickets will grow exponentially and most of those 4,000 unused tickets will be used. Lets say 75% of them or 3,000.

OU's average attendance for the last five home games was 7,721 versus 11,938 tickets sold or 4,212 unused tickets. Get 3,000 of those unused tickets used going to an "event" and add 1,500 students to the attendees and suddenly you have an average attendance of 12,221 which would be an official sellout. Factor in an over estimation of my assumptions by 50% which would lower my estimation of increased attendance by 2,250
and average attendance would still be approximately 10,000 with a probable low attendance of 7,500 and a high attendance of 13,000.

Kruger has the winning going in the right direction. Now the university needs to do whatever is necessary to get the students involved to create the game time excitement necessary to attract the 10,000 fans nightly. The ball is in Castiglione and Boren's court.

 

[Sooner04]

I love going to the games, but having an 21 month old had put a stop to that for the time being. When he gets a couple years older, I am definitely going to take him to some games.

Booooo! My daughter just turned two and she's been to at least 15 games with me since she was born. It's like free babysitting because the spectacle keeps them entertained.

They don't even need a ticket!

 

[campbest]

It's going in the right direction, a winning program some of the problems.

Part of the issues is the game isn't "entertaining" for the casual fan, which is the fan you need in order to sell out. Mark Cuban wrote a good blog post about his trip to Moody Coliseum (SMU) last week. It's FUN to go to those games and Cuban models his entertainment on items that don't happen on the court. As Cuban says in his blog, it's not the message board posters who are the problem.

http://blogmaverick.com/2014/02/23/...what-i-learned-from-smu-basketball-this-week/

The in home viewing experience has become too good to pass up, that's part of the deal when you get new TV contracts.

If OU wants to increase attendance for games, they're going to have to spend the money to do it.

 

[badger]

Booooo! My daughter just turned two and she's been to at least 15 games with me since she was born. It's like free babysitting because the spectacle keeps them entertained.

They don't even need a ticket!

I can't wait to take my own young daughter, but the tulsa to norman drive is longer for a toddler than for adults, so I'm going to aim for next season instead. She voiced her disapproval every time we took her to Norman for football, so I ended up staying home most of those games too

 

[oketex]

I live in Memphis - I usually make at least two games a year but due to some health issues not this year.

 

[Boomer]

Booooo! My daughter just turned two and she's been to at least 15 games with me since she was born. It's like free babysitting because the spectacle keeps them entertained.

They don't even need a ticket!

If his attention span was longer than 30 seconds, I would do it. It would be a less than enjoyable experience for me at this point. Soon though.

 

[Soonerman]

Baby steps. We're going in the right direction, and we couldn't ask for two better men in charge with Kruger and Joe C.

I live in Dallas (better economy and all ), that's why I don't go to the games anymore. But when I was in school, you could find me usually on the front row of the student section. I'll be in Norman on Saturday visiting friends, wish we had a home game then instead of being in Fort Worth.

 

[Paperclip]

Season ticket holder here. Seems to me that OU just doesn't have enough people who care about basketball. The hour/arena/etc. are lame excuses. If OU played a football game at 8:00 on a Wednesday there would be 80,000 people there. I do admit I missed one home game this year. I couldn't make the one (TAMU-CC, I think) where they moved it to an afternoon game because of the weather.

 

[IndySooner]

Life has gotten in the way for me. I'm at the age where my kids have activities, wife needs help with them, etc. I made it out to a handful of games, including last night. In my defense, my attendance at baseball and football games has declined at the same time. I just don't have time to commit to a 1 1/2 hour total commute down to Norman for sporting events on a consistent basis. That will likely change again as the kids get older.

 

[quick release]

It's easy for you out of towners to say you would be at every home game if you lived in the area. There's no real accountability there. Like Indy said though, life happens and sometimes its tough to make it to every game, especially later weeknight games. I live in Edmond and i've been to 90% of the games but sometimes stuff comes up. I've always made sure i give my tickets to someone who will go though.

 

[Chaser728]

http://m.espn.go.com/general/blogs/blogpost?blogname=dallascolleges&id=4687730

If SMU can do it then why can't we? It makes utterly no sense! The people of Dallas have plenty of other things to do then go watch the Mustangs, but they have 7 sellouts this year (actual butts in the seats). I don't buy all this well OKC has stolen our fans, look at SMU for a debunking of that theory. It's just plain disappointing.

 

[Bk2X]

It is quite obvious that local residents don't care about OU basketball. I have 20+ people over every weekend to watch the OU football games but can't even give a basketball ticket away if I have an extra one. Last night was a crappy night and late game so I wasn't expecting much but the students of which we have ~30k only a handful show up when it is free and then over half leave before halftime. This thread is just preaching to the choir though, if you have the desire to talk on an OU bball message board, you care more than nearly every OU bball fan.