As a lifelong VCU basketball fan and going to games since my parents could stand having a kid in the seat with them I have to say VCU has down a great job of getting student to invest in going to the games. The Siegal Center looks great on ESPN. Saw pictures of the student section at Cassell today for the game with big recruits their and it's empty.
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
Cassell's student section used to rock.
At one point, Cassell was one of the toughest home venues in which to visit based on W-L percentage.
It's all about the product.
The best thing the administration could do to engage the students is to invest in a winning program.
Early 1980s, when Tech could play Basketball. Cassell was a rock then!
Whatever happened to that kid who dressed up in full body paint like a VT 300 warrior. Used to carry a shield with him and had a fierce beard to boot. Saw him at a lot of sporting events. Me thinks that a guy like that is probably a member in here.
Graduation happened
He was a Mechanical Engineering grad student. He is now no longer a student.
He still did it for a time after graduation, but his employer eventually told him he wasn't allowed to wear costumes and be a mascot anymore.
I can confirm this. He got a security clearance and said employer deemed it imprudent for him to continue doing so.
And so another great Hokie mascot rides off into the sunset...
At least we still have the Estrada glasses guy
To a point I agree, but when VCU built the Siegal Center they planned a way to get students involved. I was one of those students, we got points for every game we went to and with those points could get VCU items ranging from simply to very nice if you went to every game. They sometimes provided food also. I say it's a half and half thing, you can still get kids to go even for a bad team IF enough work is put in.
I like the concept. It seems as it may dovetail with new AD's comments on creating 'memorable experiences.'
In my old day, we would get a free cheeseburger from McD's with a ticket stub if the Hokies scored 100+-(it wasn't that rare, actually.) That was gold to a hungry college kid.
For a few years while I was there, there was a deal for a free 6 inch sub at Subway if you brought your ticket to them. My friends and I would wait until the game was over then go throughout Cassel picking up all the tickets people dropped on the ground. We ate a lot of free sandwiches. They stopped doing that after the second year I think.
When VCU went to NCST for NCAA tourney I got a student ticket in the lottery. It was actually an excused absence from classes. VCU really pushes student participation.
I think there are three main contributors (I can't really rank them in order but just listing them) to energy of any basketball student section:
1) Easy. Team success.
2) Team playing style. If you play fast-paced, you're going to be fun to watch. VCU does this on both sides of the ball.
3) Pep band. VCU's pep band mopped the floor with our band just about as badly as their basketball team did. I know people who would go to Rams games just for the band even if the team was having a down year.
Like Shoog said, Cassell can get really fired up. Unfortunately in my years at VT (09-13), it only really happened a few times for big ACC (and that awesome one vs OK State) games like UNC/Duke but it was still great. We just haven't seen it very much, if at all, this year.
Our pep band for the VCU game this season was not the same as our home game pep band so that was why there was such a difference between the two. If I remember right, it was a mix of students in the pep band in the Richmond area or that could make it to the game and some band alumni.
This is only an excuse. It was Xmas break for VCU too and their band showed up. I'm sure they could have recruited enough band members by giving them a $100 stipend and a free night's stay in Richmond. Instead we went the cheap route and just offered local people free tickets to the game to play.
Find a way to convince athletics to pay for a hotel for 60 people and $100 per diem and then you might have have an argument. I'm pretty sure they got just a little over $20 for being there. Considering it was essentially a home game for VCU, nobody is surprised that they had a band there. You have a school from Richmond where many of the students live in the Richmond area against a school that is 3 hours away. Regardless of who lives where, nobody from Blacksburg or few if anyone really from NoVA is going to go down to Richmond to play at a game where our team is going to get crushed just to get paid $20 if they have the choice.
lol...just remember, the people don't show up because the pep band isn't good enough. Not that our team is the worst in the ACC.
Just about everyone who goes to VCU is from Richmond or very close by. Not only that but a lot of the VCU grads stay in the Richmond area also. So when you have a basketball game in Richmond there is virtually no travel required.
No reason for the down vote!
I didn't downvote...but I can see why someone might. That's asking a lot for your unpaid band members to travel on their own free time and perform for a very small amount (25 dollars or so) to see a very crummy game. The band doesn't exactly receive the same benefits as the athletes playing the game.
No need to point fingers at band members who work darn hard without any compensation.
VCU has had Several NCAA appearances, and a final four run in recent memory. Also they apparently give a crap about the students/fans.
So, it's not really a valid comparison at all. Want students to show up? Win games, make the tourney, be relevant, give them something to cheer for.
Personally I think students especially for a weekend game should be showing up regardless of the product on the court. Secondly what does Tech offer students who attend games? The admin needs to engage not just hope that the product is good enough to draw people. He last two times I was at Lane I wasn't that happy with the student section there either.
There's no incentive to show up. The team stinks, they're not fun to watch, they're literally losing by 20 every game. So there's nothing on the court to entice them, the AD isn't doing anything to get then there. There's nothing.
Sports is entertainment. In 2014 entertainment options have never been more various, instant, or available. Suggesting that students choose to bore themselves for 3 hours on a Saturday literally goes against human nature.
They give out VT gifts to students for some of the games. This year I think I saw they were giving out bobble waist (not quite a bobble head) hokie bird figurines, and a scarf and probably one or two others. Not to be sexist, but the majority of basketball fans are males and not many guys are enticed to go to a basketball game for a scarf. Still, I would hope more students would show up to a free game, especially one as big as VT.
Can we compare the student section of Lane Stadium to the student section of the Siegal Center? Probably a more valid comparison until VT puts a reputable product on the court.
i have a funny feeling if vcu was struggling through their third straight losing season having not made the dance since 07 then all those tatted up art majors wouldnt be nearly as raucous for their rams. look, i like vcu. i have a lot of good memories and stories of hanging out down there, but this is kind of unfair and a whack premise for a thread.
Not a fair comparison. The last time Tech students had something to be excited for was Duke three years ago and I guarantee you that Tech's student section was louder than VCU's is on average that night. If Tech becomes relevant again the student section will come back.
You can say the same thing about ODU's student section versus ours. Everything about the experience from the venue, to the team entrance, visiting team intro, they just have fun with it all. I haven't been in a couple years, but I can't imagine it has changed all that much, but students not only show up, but are heavily involved. Fans come for the most part whether they are playing bad or not because the Constant Center is a nice venue. The Women's program for the longest time would actually draw more than than the Men. Having a fun environment as well as a decent product will always sell. Right now, Cassell is rather stale because of the product on the floor and the shortcomings of marketing ideas.
I think Hokie Fireman makes a valid point: the poor product on the floor and the shortcoming of marketing ideas was directly, IMHO, related to the prior administration.
I've been to games where I didn't sit the entire time and couldn't speak above a whisper for 2 days and I've been at games where I could have curled up and gone to sleep and missed nothing.
It's about time to put the fun back into Cassell, but it requires the administration to get creative and put some money behind the program.
Basketball isn't a money maker, but it can be a large part of the VT experience.....at least it was for me.
It's just not fun now. Same thing, to some extent, for football for the past few years.
As sophomoric as 'Stick it in' and the Hokie Pokie are, it's fun and was part of the craziness that was VT.
The experience has been purposefully sterilized to some extent.
Look, we're Hokies.....not eagles, tigers, dogs, or felines playing at 'death valley' or in the 'bowl.'
We are based on silly made up random stuff.
65,000 people dancing the Hokie Pokie and doing pelvic thrusts and jumping up and down to Metallica while making gobbler sounds and shaking their keys wearing Maroon and Orange in a tiny town in the mountains of western VA?!
Like WTF?
But sign me up because it works, and it's fun.
We just need a little push and space from the new Admin to get back to being Hokies and having fun.
(I don't know.....this just seemed appropriate.)
^^^THIS^^^
I hope this gets to Babcocks office..pronto
Id argue with the bball not being a money maker. UK grossed the most in the SEC and their football team sucks. Not saying we will ever be on UK's level but there is a significant amount of money to be made here. Give me the guarantee of a good team and Ill throw some of my loan money at Babcock to make it happen
Castle is not very big though when compared to UK, however we still can't fill ours to 50% in conference play. :(
In other news, Syracuse sets record with 35,446 in win over Duke.
OT: I was getting weird looks at Hattie's Chicken Shack this afternoon (saratoga springs, NY), then realized I was wearing this:
Immediately I thought "Oh yeah, Syracuse..." as the Virginia Tech was less than predominant on the front.
Nice!
The best way to cure all of this? Win. 3 years ago when we were good Cassell was packed. Now we suck, so it's empty. We're a football school, if the basketball team isn't good nobody is gonna care. At basketball schools that's flipped.
I second this. Recent proof of this is the OK State game last season. We were doing well and riding that start of season undefeated streak and Cassell was hoppin'.
I understand the correlation here, but I get the impression from the "older" Hokies that it didn't matter quite so much back in the day. That our past down year attendance was better and more enthusiastic than current down year attendance. Can someone in the know comment directly on this? It would seem to me that between tickets, cheerleading, gimmicks, advertising, pride, etc., something gets a minimum amount of people in the seats regardless.
I think it partially has to do with today's generation of students. It seems to me like back in the 80s and 90s the way students socialized were games and events. Now that everyone has access to a smart phone, netflix, and online videos, they spend less time going out to events. I think there are just more options for kids to use their time now then their used to be.
Well that and the fact that at any point during a college game day you can watch every single game that's being played. Back in the day you'd have access to 2 or 3 games and one of those is probably the local college. So naturally it'd be more enticing to go to the actual game. Now if two Top 25 teams are playing and you're team is going to get hammered it's easier to excuse yourself to staying home and watching other, more interesting games.
I think one way we could get good student involvement would be to reward a certain "average decible level" within the stadium. This would encourage people to not just show up and leave, but stay, and be loud the whole time. Furthermore, this adds to the homecourt advantage in the stadium. Throughout the game, the video boards could update the fans on their progress in the volume department, and if the average was met, maybe everyone gets the coupon to mcdonalds or whatever then. This works in the administrations favor too, because they can kinda fudge on whether or not the crowd met the "average" without them really knowing if a regular hostile environment at Cassell became too costly.
This seems like a great idea.
Step 1: The basketball team has to start winning for anyone to show up.
As a student, I think the student section at our basketball games sucks. Some coordination by the Cassell Guard generals would really do wonders, this year the only group doing any type of unified cheers are the pep band. I also hate that we can't have signs/props in the stands. I'd also like to see a change in how they do seating for students. Let some students continue buying season tickets for the best seats, then make the rest of the student section open seating where it's first come first serve.
Great point. I also want to bring my giant Bill Nye cut out head to a game before I graduate....it's up to you Babcock.
As a general i think you would be surprised at all the coordination we actually do. We start cheers every possession, you may just not notice. The major problem was that before yesterday both our basketball teams had lost something like 16 straight games combined. The rest of the students stopped coming because the games aren't close and don't care about cheering when they are watching a team losing to an average team by 20. When we have promotions students walk in, grab the free item, and then leave.
I guess that's part of the problem, I don't sit far behind y'all and haven't been hearing much. And frankly, a lot of the cheers that have existed are boring. I know this year is pretty challenging, but if you are still a general next year I'd love to see some new stuff.
Kudos for attending all the games. I don't think I could attend 16 straight losses including the women's team.
We also have an email/twitter account in the program that says something to the effect of if you have any suggestions or requests on how to make the game/experience better please contact us at _____
I know it's only a minuscule contributor to the problem but that seems like something easy enough to fix. VT soccer had fans wait until halftime to be eligible to claim the free stuff when they had giveaways.
They do this for a lot of the olympic sports, so I don't see why they wouldn't extend it to basketball this season.
You don't do a grab bag promotion, use the student ID's to swipe and then reward, you also have to swipe on the way out. Somehow VCU manages to do this but Tech can't?
There are a lot of things that other schools can do that Tech's Athletic Department doesn't. As has been discussed ad nauseam, the department is stuck in the past and not innovating. Hopefully the new AD gets things up to the 21st century.
Weaver sold our students out when he moved them from the sidelines to the ends when we got in to the ACC. This under the assumption that he could charge $30+ for those sideline tickets the students previously had- it pissed me off then and it still does. Virtually every other program worth a crap seats some students on the sidelines where they are engaged in the game. And if you 've been to the games lately the student sections are pretty full. The students filled the sides for 40 years in Cassel but we had to move them when we got in the ACC? BS
The fact of the matter is, we suck. Its hard to GO to a game, let alone watch them play on TV, when we are so bad. The biggest factor in the lack of attendance is performance... Its not bad advertising, its not the students being lazy, it is none of that, it is performance.
This is not a fair comparison. They take basketball like we take football. All they have to support at VCU is basketball. Yes, more fans would show up if we had a winning program but VT is simply not a basketball school.