Lack of HU Sports Advertising/Marketing is UNACCEPTABLE

[garyg]

JAM can plead all he wants on show encouraging people to attend games but what kind of impact do you think that will have on increasing student attendance?? 95% of listeners to his show are probably people on this board...point is they have to get out and mingle with campus community and the Long Island community...

[stuball888]

Campus Community should be easy its the outside of of Hofstra where I think Hofstra has its biggest problem.

[joeg1]

I get the impression JH and JM don't think it's their job...fair enough.

The team should be talking up the games in class, dining halls, dorms, etc to encourage their classmates.

The admin. should spend some cash to bribe the students to show up....free tickets, food, misc swag-whatever it takes to fill the seats. I will be embarrassed for the players if we get the typical handful in the Lion's Den

[stuball888]

Joe1 we are avg under 1,300 getting another 200 students alone will not fix this problem. Hofstra has to establish a presence outside of hempstead and draw people at least 15 minute ride away. Again this might hurt a few peoples feelings but SBU drew 2,940 in bad weather. Only about 400 students showed. That means 2,500 outside of the SBU community showed up. Now I am sure that most were not banjo strumming , backwood hicks out in the middle of nowhere.

[Flying Dutchmen]

We do need more local support from the community, but the students set the energy level of the Mack for these games, we need a HUGE showing from the students on Thursday.

My biggest issue is that the crowds we've had are dead. When I'm screaming at the ref, he probably hears me!! We need the students to be loud and into the game, it will bring the crowd into the games, and it will make it more memorable for the other fans in attendance. We need to sell a product that the people want to buy, not something that feels like is being force-fed to them!

[joeg1]

We do need more local support from the community, but the students set the energy level of the Mack for these games, we need a HUGE showing from the students on Thursday.

My biggest issue is that the crowds we've had are dead. When I'm screaming at the ref, he probably hears me!! We need the students to be loud and into the game, it will bring the crowd into the games, and it will make it more memorable for the other fans in attendance. We need to sell a product that the people want to buy, not something that feels like is being force-fed to them!

Agreed...we should have that whole section full. About 700 students. They bring the noise and energy, and that gets the team fired up. Hoping for the best tomorrow. If we have 2,500, and 500+ of them are students, the place will be loud. When the building was near-full, (4,000+) the atmosphere was electric, deafening. We need that again.

Having said that...I am as excited about this team as I have been since #22 was wearing the Blue and Gold

[EvanJ]

Another thing, in the past two weeks I have seen at least a half dozen commercials I believe on FSNY for Fairfield University basketball.

FSNY (Fox Sports New York) changed its name to MSG Plus years ago.

[stuball888]

official crowd for the Elon game was 1,124. Students are back weather was good team in first place in the CAA and we still cant draw flies. Our avg attendance for mens basketball slips to 1,264. Congrats there are now three CAA womens teams that are outdrawing our mens team JMU 2,301 Delaware 1,562 and UNCW 1,266. This is our flagship sport that we are sinking 3.2 million in. Whats the excuse now?

[HUSID80]

Pathetic...There is an electronic sign on Hempstead Tpke just before the turn to the north campus and it had an ad for our DEC 28 GAME VS SACRED HEART! Come on! No promotions to welcome the students back...How about a t shirt and free pizza??????? NOTHING??? Even watched the guy who took the halfcourt shot...they put a shirt on him for the shots and THEN TOOK IT BACK! WHATS GOING ON HERE?

[Hofstra]

It's just pathetic.. The fact that they can't generate buzz for a Thursday night home game for OUR first place squad is just pathetic..

Some things will just never change.. Glad we won tonight.

[stuball888]

Joe1 you say the players should get out and talk up the games. They have to play, practice ,go to class, study etc. Thats not their job. You say Jam and JH its not their job, OK. Then who's job is it? Like I said, it starts at the top and works it's way down. Its not just spending the money but how its spent. Evidentally we are not getting any bang for our buck. With JG and AT and Koon leaving next year do you think things will magically turn around. They may actually get worse. We have 4 home games left. Do you see us having an avg of over 1,850. I dont. If we dont hit that number we will have to worst attendance since we opened the MACK.
At what point does rabinowitz hit the panic button. Will he wait until the attendance drops below 1,000. We have had 3 games where we didnt draw 1,000 this year.

[EvanJ]

official crowd for the Elon game was 1,124.

The attendance was bad, but considering it was a weekday and Elon isn't a longtime rival, it shouldn't be surprising that the attendance was lower than our season average. If we had the CAA as of when we joined (take out Northeastern, College of Charleston, and Elon and put in Virginia Commonwealth, George Mason, and Old Dominion), do you think our attendance would be better or worse now?

[Wags]

Joe1 you say the players should get out and talk up the games. They have to play, practice ,go to class, study etc. Thats not their job. You say Jam and JH its not their job, OK. Then who's job is it? Like I said, it starts at the top and works it's way down. Its not just spending the money but how its spent. Evidentally we are not getting any bang for our buck. With JG and AT and Koon leaving next year do you think things will magically turn around. They may actually get worse. We have 4 home games left. Do you see us having an avg of over 1,850. I dont. If we dont hit that number we will have to worst attendance since we opened the MACK.
At what point does rabinowitz hit the panic button. Will he wait until the attendance drops below 1,000. We have had 3 games where we didnt draw 1,000 this year.

Yesterday, I heard Stony Brook star Jameel Warney in a recorded message on rock station The Shark 94.3 telling people to check out his team at their home games.

Hofstra USED TO do things like that with its players, but I haven't heard it for years anymore.

[Wags]

Pathetic...There is an electronic sign on Hempstead Tpke just before the turn to the north campus and it had an ad for our DEC 28 GAME VS SACRED HEART! Come on! No promotions to welcome the students back...How about a t shirt and free pizza??????? NOTHING??? Even watched the guy who took the halfcourt shot...they put a shirt on him for the shots and THEN TOOK IT BACK! WHATS GOING ON HERE?

All of that its just ridiculous and flat our embarrassing. Taking the shirt back is crazy.

And It's better to have NO advertising at all that to advertise a game that took place a month ago.

Those are clear signs that some people in the marketing department simply aren't doing their jobs and they're getting away with it.

If they are, these types of things should NEVER happen, even in a season like the one a few years ago, when HU had six D-1 wins and as many player arrests. But for this to happen THIS season? When you don't capitalize on the success of a preseason favorite being in a two-way tie for first place at the midpoint of the conference schedule??? That's simply inexcusable. Who the hell keeps tabs on this type of stuff at the top? Where the hell is the accountability?!?!?!? Don't the people who are in charge of this type of stuff have people they report to? Apparently, no one higher up is making sure they're doing their jobs. Start with that if you want to know why HU can barely break 1,000 fans per game in a season when the interest level should be one of the highest in many years.

And I mean this in all seriousness -- some of the ideas presented by many here are very good and very creative. A lot of you deserve the jobs HU athletics marketing people have more than they do.

[joeg1]

Joe1 you say the players should get out and talk up the games. They have to play, practice ,go to class, study etc. Thats not their job. You say Jam and JH its not their job, OK. Then who's job is it? Like I said, it starts at the top and works it's way down. Its not just spending the money but how its spent. Evidentally we are not getting any bang for our buck. With JG and AT and Koon leaving next year do you think things will magically turn around. They may actually get worse. We have 4 home games left. Do you see us having an avg of over 1,850. I dont. If we dont hit that number we will have to worst attendance since we opened the MACK.
At what point does rabinowitz hit the panic button. Will he wait until the attendance drops below 1,000. We have had 3 games where we didnt draw 1,000 this year.

Stu how can I say this tactfully? Don't be obtuse!

I'm not suggesting the players hold rallies or hand out leaflets on Hempstead Tpk. I do think they could try to influence their peers - fellow students who they go to class and eat and live with - by talking up the games. You know, nudge their friends a little.

As far as the remaining games - maybe the AD could find $300-$400 a game to buy the students some pizzas and t shirts? I bet you could get a few hundred to attend that way. Or maybe the Pride Club? We're talking less than 2 grand! Maybe we could try to crowdfund "Cash for Student Swag" to induce student attendance? We aren't talking large sums. Hell, I bet if the Pride Club put out "poor boxes" in the lobby for student game-day spirit funding, we could raise that. It is an embarrassment.

[ProudofPride]

JG posted on twitter before the game yesterday wanting students to come, and HofstraU retweeted it, adding a comment.
https://twitter.com/JuanyaGreen/status/ ... 9448016896
https://twitter.com/HofstraU/status/692793184787808256

Maybe the team could all get together during common hour (11:15-12:15 on Wednesdays) and talk to students in the student center. There are no classes for anyone at that time, so it's a very popular time for friends to get together for lunch, and the student center is the busiest it is all week.

[Wags]

While we're doing all of this (deserved) bashing on the marketing, I just want to say one positive thing that at least in a very small way, helps to market the team as well:

The gohofstra.com website is very good now. Way better than it or past HU athletic websites used to be.

The layout, the graphics, schedules, stats breakdowns, stories, the very fast speed at which things load are all great. I use it quite often and it's always a great experience. So at least they're getting something right, and in a terrific way. Not sure if anyone else feels that way, but if you do, let's give credit where it's due along with bashing the much broader marketing issues.

[daHUPride]

shame the support their fellow students provide this team - the HU student section use to have some characters - fat guys doing stripteases,pouring water on themselves as if in a wet tee-shirt contest - all in the name of distracting the opponents foul shooters - they were classics

maybe anyone with any inkling of supporting a team sport isn't coming here anymore -

[HofstraPride1]

I of course also agree that attendance should be much better for a team playing this well, but on WAGS point also want to give credit where credit is due and say pep band has improved tremendously last couple years both in size and sound. It is still far away from other schools, but much much better than a few years ago and hopefully their continued enthusiasm will boost the Lions Den atmosphere and lead to increased student attendance.

[Cards]

Likely that next Thursdays game against UNCW will be a battle for first place. If HU cant play that up and turn some people out (students and others) even on a Thursday night, it would truly be a shame. Its embarrassing watching game highlights and seeing such a nice facility with only a smattering of people at each game.