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Post by gerb on Mar 23, 2014 0:34:30 GMT -5
We've all got our theories on what needs to happen to make Wright State better. We love the place and we want it to improve.
So let's say you were handed the reins for one year. 365 days starting today. You are starting with WSU's current (approximate) budget, personnel, and resources. You're not going to be able to hire Coach K or build a 100,000 seat football stadium, but you can certainly make some changes. What do you change? What's on the top of your list and how do you pull it off?
If you were king AD for a year, what would you do?
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Post by wsutommygun on Mar 23, 2014 6:49:32 GMT -5
If I were king AD for a year and I couldn't do anything about the basketball scheduling from yesterday...I'd work on that list Big D had for the Horizon League and make sure I had enough members from other schools to make it a priority. I'd try to make sure the coaches and players were committed to staying here and each sport strived for league championships and postseason play ( not to mention continued success in the classroom ). I watched some of the last couple of UD games and it was nice for them to win but, it doesn't change how I feel about the city or the Flyers. I might have less of an opinion of how good Ohio State and Syracuse were ( which reflects more on seedings and RPI ). Since I care more about the Raiders than any other school, it didn't matter to me that one school was in a different tournament. The only thing I cared about was whether we won and could prepare for another game. If I were king AD for a year and money was no object then I would still work on that list that Big D suggested and try to put the teams in the best position to succeed. I would have preferred that the men hosted and it was a night game ( although it turned out I needed a nap after I got back from Lexington so, I'm not sure I would have had the wits to know how I would have arrived at WSU for a night game ).
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Post by bballraider on Mar 23, 2014 8:30:55 GMT -5
For immediate changes, I would do 3 things for men's basketball. 1) no scheduling of non d1 teams, 2) lower ticket prices in the upper seats of the nutter center. 3) allow students to get their tickets ahead of time.
I think increasing attendance would be my number one priority, with the current state of our team.
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Post by Big D on Mar 23, 2014 9:12:38 GMT -5
For immediate changes, I would do 3 things for men's basketball. 1) no scheduling of non d1 teams, 2) lower ticket prices in the upper seats of the nutter center. 3) allow students to get their tickets ahead of time. I think increasing attendance would be my number one priority, with the current state of our team. I like your list and would take it a step further. 1. I would overhaul the group of individuals in charge of ticket sales. I would hire a small group of people who have made a living in marketing and sales. I would make sure they are knowledgeable of WSU hoops, the Nutter Center, and local businesses. Then I would set them loose and have them market and sell tickets. Most importantly I would give them incentives to sell tickets. I wouldn't offer them a salary. I'd have them work on commission. They will be much more motivated if they have a vested interest in getting tickets sold. 2. I would replace 3/4 of the people that work at the Nutter Center. I cannot stand the people that work in parking, at the box office, at concession stands that do not know what they are doing and don't seem to care that they are doing a half ass job. I want people to enjoy their entire basketball experience at WSU including parking, getting their tickets, and food. Get rid of the deadbeats that are holding us back and hire people that want a job. The economy is still in the crapper. It cannot be that hard to find people that want a job and are motivated to do that job well. 3. I would take away scheduling duties from Donlon and try to put together a schedule that makes sense for us. I would only play a D1 schedule. I would play games on days and times that encourage fans to come to the Nutter Center. I would have as many Sat night games as possible and I would never have a game opposite the OSU/Mich game again. Most importantly, I would try to schedule teams locals have heard of to encourage new fans to check us out. There are plenty of good MAC, MVC, and A-10 teams that would be willing to schedule us that would draw well at the Nutter Center. 4. I would not air our men's basketball games live on the HLN for free. I want fans to come out to the games, not sit on their asses at home and watch the game for free online. I would allow games to be aired the next day on the HLN for free. I would allow people to watch live on the HLN for a fee. We need to increase our revenue and fan base. Giving away that product for free is ass backwards in the business world.
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Post by Dr J on Mar 23, 2014 9:47:30 GMT -5
Big D, I would add Make HLN games only for fans registered with address not associated with the home team. That way people could watch the away games. We had move TV exposure this year because of the potential of this team. That will go away next year. I didn't a we want to win offense and defense. But saw too much we don't want to lose offense when we got a lead instead of continuing what got us that lead.
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Post by hhgreen on Mar 23, 2014 12:18:35 GMT -5
I believe the Horizon League network has hurt the attendance of the home games for sure. ESPN has not helped either. The only thing ESPN does is get the team exposure for recruiting purposes.
Sign 1 for 1 deals with Belmont, Murray State, Eastern Kentucky, Houston University, Mercer, Georgia Tech. Schedule games away with Alabama, Iowa, Clemson, West Virginia. This would help our RPI quite a bit. Keep Miami on the schedule as well.
Since there are only so many season ticket holders, give them preferred parking in one area. Instead of having just about all non-season ticket holders parking around the pond and come into Gate 9.
Since the Nutter Center is running the concession stands now could you lower the price of a hot dog a dollar.
No Friday nigh games or Sunday night games. High Schools games are on Friday night and that does not help attendance. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday games work better for most people as well as Saturday night or Sunday afternoon games.
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Post by raiders41 on Mar 23, 2014 12:41:23 GMT -5
As far as scheduling goes we have quality opponents surrounding us and I don’t understand why we don’t play them. Ohio (84), Akron (93), Toledo (42), Bowling Green (198), Kent State (209), and Miami (163). These schools are close enough to where we can get their fans in our seats and help out our attendance, not to mention that this could also help us out with instate recruiting. I think we could have either Ohio State, Xavier, or Cincinnati on the schedule every year. *- rankings in (-)
There are certain days that we should never even consider having a game on. As stated earlier the Michigan-OSU game, being only an hour away from Columbus there is no way WSU basketball can compete with that. Sundays during NFL season, nobody can compete with the NFL that’s just a fact. Next, Christmas break. We had 4 road games in the first 2 weeks of December this season, we went on Christmas break and we had 4 home games. There might have been an average of 10 people in the student section during that span? One last day is New Year’s eve/New Year’s day.
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Post by Sixth Man on Mar 24, 2014 0:09:01 GMT -5
Fill in the pond behind the Nutter Center.
Rename the court to honor Coach Underhill.
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Post by uptempo on Mar 24, 2014 0:49:02 GMT -5
The HLN does not harm ticket sales. If I didn't want to go see the game in person and it wasn't on the HLN then I would listen to it on the radio. What's next, do you guys want to get rid of radio coverage. The trick to increasing attendance is to make the games fun. That means a winning team and a large rowdy crowd. I would give any student that wants to go to the game two tickets per game. Not some kind of electronic ticket that has to be used with their student I.D., but like the old days, a real paper ticket. If they want to give or sell the tickets to a relative or friend or complete stranger, so be it. It will put more butts in the seats and it will increase food and drink sales. I do agree with lowering the price for the upper arena, I liked the family fun zone they used to have where the top 4 rows were $8 on game day. When I was a student I loved going to the games on Saturday night with my friends and then we would go out drinking or just hanging out afterward, but the Raider game was always part of the equation during the basketball season.
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Post by hhgreen on Mar 24, 2014 5:19:43 GMT -5
In about 15-20 years nobody will know who Ralph Underhill was. I don't think they will ever name the court after him. Lowering ticket prices in the upper arena would be good. How about letting people in the gate earlier than one hour before the start of the game especially when big crowds are to be there.
Go on a couple road games at the big boys play house and let them experience a big time crowd so they don't get shell shock every time they play in front of one.
If the league don't improve their status quo maybe it is time to move up. I have been against that but if the league is not going to make a move to upgrade the standards in basketball it is time to move on. I know this year Green Bay and Oakland looks down on us because of our schedule and the like so quit scheduling cup cakes. You know if you had a whole court of freshman would you rather lose to a cupcake or a Kentucky. I know I would feel better losing to Kentucky by 30 instead of a cupcake by 10.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2014 9:37:04 GMT -5
For immediate changes, I would do 3 things for men's basketball. 1) no scheduling of non d1 teams, 2) lower ticket prices in the upper seats of the nutter center. 3) allow students to get their tickets ahead of time. I think increasing attendance would be my number one priority, with the current state of our team. I like your list and would take it a step further. 1. I would overhaul the group of individuals in charge of ticket sales. I would hire a small group of people who have made a living in marketing and sales. I would make sure they are knowledgeable of WSU hoops, the Nutter Center, and local businesses. Then I would set them loose and have them market and sell tickets. Most importantly I would give them incentives to sell tickets. I wouldn't offer them a salary. I'd have them work on commission. They will be much more motivated if they have a vested interest in getting tickets sold. I couldn't agree more with these suggestions, but regarding Big D's point #1: We did have a group of people working for our athletic department who made a living in marketing and sales, and were knowledgeable of WSU hoops, the Nutter Center, and local businesses. They were called Nelligan Sports Marketing. We fired them about one year after our change in athletic directors. Wright State decided to go in-house instead. I always felt that this was a mistake and we left a lot of money on the table when we broke our contract with them. These guys are professional and can provide a person who's sole responsibility is to make 200 phone calls per day to market our program to the general public and businesses, as opposed to worring about where to hang a banner in the Nutter Center. About 97% of BCS schools are represented by a third party to market their programs. That number is about 41% for mid-majors. Nelligan markets programs like Michigan State and Louisville. In the Horizon League, they handle Green Bay and Cleveland State. Based upon our dwindling attendance and relatively low sponsorship levels over the past several years, it is obvious that we are in over our heads and could use some help.
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Post by Big D on Mar 24, 2014 9:54:30 GMT -5
We did have a group of people working for our athletic department who made a living in marketing and sales, and were knowledgeable of WSU hoops, the Nutter Center, and local businesses. They were called Nelligan Sports Marketing. We fired them about one year after our change in athletic directors. I always felt that this was a mistake and we left a lot of money on the table when we broke our contract with them. These guys are professional and can provide a person who's sole responsibility is to make 200 phone calls per day to market our program to the general public and businesses, instead of worring about where to hang a banner in the Nutter Center. I agree it was a very short sighted move that has cost us.
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Post by wolf41 on Mar 24, 2014 10:02:05 GMT -5
I would agree that the first priority is to improve the attendance, because that is where the revenue is. To do that I'd want to improve the quality of the teams we schedule for home games. In doing so, I'd want to avoid certain dates or conflicts like playing at the same time as OSU/UM on a Sat., Christmas, New Year's Eve and Jan. 1, and Thanksgiving. Even if I attended games on those days, I would still resent having to do so to avoid wasting my ticket. One more reason to NOT buy season tickets.
Do away with D-II and D-III games.
Have an SOS of at least 175.
The easiest fans to attract are the students, past and present. Consult with current student organizations and the Alumni to try to optimize those fans coming to the games.
Cut the prices of all tickets, or at least the prices above a certain row. Cutting prices CAN increase revenue.
Play 2 or 3 "buy" games at nearby Big Ten schools, UC, WV, Pitt., or ND. Those games are easy to get to and will build our SOS.
I would push the HL to add teams NOW or to at least get commitments from teams to join within a year or two. I will admit my top two choices would be to go after Indiana State and Evansville. I can't think of any other two schools more ideally situated for the HL. If the MVC can go after Loyola, the HL can certainly go after these two schools. Other top choices IMO would be Robert Morris, E. Ky., N. Ky., other Ky. schools and IPFW. These all would fit the HL foot print except for the Ky. schools, but that is a small stretch. And many of them were in post-season play this year.
A non-related item I'd like to see is the enclosure of the front ticket office so fans don't have to stand out in the bad weather.
Sell the same brand of soft pretzels that UD sells.
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Post by Tipp City Raider on Mar 24, 2014 10:04:10 GMT -5
1. I wish we could change the color of the seats in the lower 1/3 of the arena to gold. Those seats would be reserved for season ticket holders and or tickets purchased at a premium. The upper 2/3 of the arena could be sold as general admission tickets (first come, first serve). It would eliminate the lines at the ticket office before games because people wouldn't have to waste time picking out their seats. They would just be paying for tickets. It would also encourage more people to get to the arena early so they could get the best seats which would also speed up ticket sales.
2. They need to re-configure the whole parking lot situation. The Upper lots look like they were designed by someone in junior high. Get an engineer in to move things around to better utilize the space. I also agree with the above suggestion of filling in the pond. The long walk around the pond in January and February keeps a lot of older fans at home where they watch the games on the HLN.
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Post by Jazzfan on Mar 24, 2014 19:54:45 GMT -5
Fill in the pond behind the Nutter Center. Rename the court to honor Coach Underhill. +1 to both of those ideas
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