MBB attendance VS performance

[stuball888]

based on our early season results I have come to this conclusion. We have played our 3 best games on the road. At home we have played in front of average crowd of 1,300. This team plays uninspired ball in front of the home crowd. Uninspired play also means people will not come out and watch the team. one feeds off the other. maybe Evan can do this. Imtoo lazy and frankly dont have the patience. But I would bet donuts to dollars that we have the worst home attendance in the CAA. maybe Drexel will have the worst but this is the CAA preseason favorite we are talking about.

[ProudofPride]

It's on the CAA website. Under team stats, and then the misc. tab. We're the second worst in attendance, only Elon is worse.
http://www.caasports.com/stats.aspx?pat ... &year=2015

[stuball888]

Actually I just looked it up
UNCW-3,818
CofC- 3,032
JMU 2,750
NU 2,332
W&M 2,262
Drexel 1,826
UDel 1,587
Towson1,540
hofstra 1,313
Elon 987
So lets see we spent 3.2 mil for results like this.

[stuball888]

Todays attendance 1,293 for first conference game. This drops our avg attendance for the year to 1,314.

[bobe13]

Poor attendance was one of the reasons we dropped football. Without students on campus there are too many other things for the general populates to do on LI.. I include myself in this case.

[ZMAN3]

I have an extra ticket which I use for coats - will start having it scanned also (lol)

[Flying Dutchmen]

Who wouldn't want to watch us play Canisius, Molloy, Florida Atlantic, and Sacred Heart?

[garyg]

Hathaway and company had better wake up and come up with better way to market program before they drop to D-III

[Jojogunne]

Hofstra was advertising MBB on WFAN a few days ago.

[Dooku25]

Playing a Division II opponent, having a 5 week hiatus between home games, playing the likes of an FAU and Sacred Heart, and having the conference home opener at 1pm on New Years Eve of all days, are not recipes for success for drawing good crowds.

The program needs some breakthroughs if it wants to turn around attendance issues. Win the CAA. It's been FIFTEEN years since the last NCAA tournament appearance. Land a big time talent that will get students and fans excited. A guy like JG would be a home run. Get more opponents like Kentucky to come here. These are all things that will generate buzz. They can build off that type of momentum and sustain it. Better marketing can only help so much. But until these types of breakthroughs occur, I think we will continue to see poor attendance.

[Flying Dutchmen]

Playing a Division II opponent, having a 5 week hiatus between home games, playing the likes of an FAU and Sacred Heart, and having the conference home opener at 1pm on New Years Eve of all days, are not recipes for success for drawing good crowds.

The program needs some breakthroughs if it wants to turn around attendance issues. Win the CAA. It's been FIFTEEN years since the last NCAA tournament appearance. Land a big time talent that will get students and fans excited. A guy like JG would be a home run. Get more opponents like Kentucky to come here. These are all things that will generate buzz. They can build off that type of momentum and sustain it. Better marketing can only help so much. But until these types of breakthroughs occur, I think we will continue to see poor attendance.

Totally agree.

Beyond getting some brand name schools to the Island, how about just getting more locals like Manhattan, Iona, and Fordham on the schedule? There is always a bit more local buzz for those games, it should get the attendance over 2000 for November/December games.

I think one of the identity problems with Hofstra is that most people don't know how good (or bad) this team really is on a year to year basis. 9-4 looks good, but if you replace Sacred Heart and Florida Atlantic with LIU and Manhattan, it just creates more local awareness and local coverage for the team.

We still have not fully recovered our reputation from the laptop scandal, attendance is as bad as I can remember. A good year this season will go a long way, but it needs to be followed with continued success.

[stuball888]

Here are some attendance figures
JMU 2,296
Delaware 1,469
Towson 1,294
UNCW 1,047
Hofstra 1,314
so according to these numbers our attendance looks OK. Only problem is that Hofstras total is avg attendance for our mens teams. Those other figures are for the womens teams of our CAA counterparts. our womens team after 5 home games avg 166 last in the CAA. Men only draw an avg of 280 better than Elon who is last in the mens attendance.

[stuball888]

BTW with the 90-58 drubbing of Towson we have now played our 4 best games on the road. Maybe we should just play in our blue uniforms for the rest of the year.

[ProudofPride]

Stephen Gorchov's tweet proves that thus far, our two basketball teams combined make us the school with the best basketball program at this point in the season. I just don't understand why we don't have the attendance to support that. Both teams are undefeated at home, yet both are at or towards the bottom in attendance.

DYK: @HofstraMBB/@HofstraWBB have combined for @CAABasketball-high 20 wins & #Hofstra is only school in CAA at 3-0 combined. #RoarWithPride
https://twitter.com/StephenGorchov/stat ... 1404880896

[Polito]

It's very simple to me:

HU has done JACK SH!T to market this team - I have seen absolutely NOTHING - not a single marketing tool outside of free social media postings - that is disgraceful, pitiful, shameful, and every other similar description - someone or some company needs to be shown the door and they need to friggin do something about it - CARING about it would be a great first step, because it doesn't seem like the admin gives 2 sh!ts about the lack of marketing and the lack of attendance that has gone with it - DO SOMETHING - it's embarrassing for the staff and players who (no matter how frustrated we may get) put their hearts out there on the floor day in and out - just asking people to come and continuously saying 'i don't get it' is not going to bring the fans in - you have to actually MARKET this - for goodness sake, get someone in here to DO SOMETHING

The other thing is the really poor scheduling - don't wanna hear it JM, just fix it.

The home schedule and the timeline of all games was pretty awful. C'mon, stop the excuse making - figure out how to improve it, just like we see MANY others do - the AD also needs to get this part of the dept in gear - he should be wheeling and dealing - use other sports as collateral - pay people - I don't care what they do, just figure out how to give the fans something worth spending time and $ on - and no, it isn't just wins - that is of course the 1st step - but wins over a bunch of weak opponents no one in the ti-state gives a rip about isn't going to pack the mack

This is NY, you are just going to have to do better than that - I know the local mids don't want to play, SCREW 'EM - go find OTHERS.

INCENTIVIZE for goodness sake - how you ask? E A S Y, just like in grade school you give credit to those with perfect attendance:

Students: You offer a program that incentives them with FREE FOOD based on attendance (because anyone should know outside of free booze, THAT'S what they want)
Community: You offer them a similar deal with FREE TICKETS or FOOD for families (because anyone should know the community cares about saving $)

This is not rocket science - it just takes some ACTUAL EFFORT and WORK -

You know how to fix this? You find out how other schools do it - why don't they ask a few schools how they manage to get attendance for WOMEN'S games and start there? Its one of the toughest attractions to sell - but some do it - FIND OUT HOW - I mean sheez, it makes you feel crazy to see the lack of effort, accountability, results, and care across the admin on this topic.

<sigh>... rant over for now.

[garyg]

I agree Polito...current administration has attitude that people will just show up without any effort on part of administration.

[stuball888]

heres what gets me Polito JMU and Delawares womens teams are outdrawing our mens team. I can understand if it is UConn Notre Dame or maryland but these are teams in our own conference.We have arguably the best mens and womens team in the conference and we cant draw flies. I dont want to hear excuses either. Both teams have come off 20 win seasons and a post season berth. Our mens budget is 3.2 million a year and this is what we have to show for it. Football was dropped because it avg 4,000 in attendence and it cost the school 4.5 mil. Do the math and football was no worse than what mens basketball is now.

[garyg]

When is the Rabinowitz contract over??? Hopefully before he has a chance to drop basketball to D-III level

[bobe13]

By the way when SBU played Columbia at home a few days ago the reported attendance was something like 3700 and their students are on break as well.

[stuball888]

Stony Brook avg attendance for mens basketball is 3,218 for Hofstra its 1,314. Stony brook womens attendance is 667 Hofstras is 166. Thats embarrassing.