Targeting student attendance

[Super King]

A lot has been made of poor student attendance at and participation in athletic events on campus on these boards, and a lot of ire has been directed at the university and the Athletic Department about their lack of advertisements and lack of focus on getting students to the games. Many of us haven't even noticed anything (outside of the pep rally) that's been done on campus to get students interested and excited for UWM athletics, and the loudest voice in the matter has often been the Student Association, which has released press release after press release and written negative op-eds in the UWM Post seemingly deriding the very existence of the athletic department and basketball team to begin with.

To me it's obvious by now that we, the leaders and participants of the student section, have to have some sort of voice in this. Screeching about it on the boards won't get anything done; we need to be outward and vocal about it around the university. I'm talking special events, kiosks in the dorms and the Union, editorials in the Post, conversations with the athletic department, viewing parties in the Gasthaus -- anything we can think of to help get students interested in athletics at UWM.

I can talk with Travis Wacker, who runs the Student Black & Gold Club, about perhaps providing the social and political body that can help us get our goals accomplished, especially when it comes to events and communication with the AD and coaching staff.

I'm creating this thread to open up a network of communication amongst students who want to themselves be involved in how UWM athletics are marketed on a guerrilla level. Any suggestions are welcome. Someone here already suggested a table at the dorms.

A note: At this point, I think we should be looking forward to the Spring semester. We can still organize minor tactics (like fliers) for the rapidly-draining current semester, but the important bulk of the season is in the Spring term. And a lot of our more major ideas -- say, a pep rally in Flicks prior to the Horizon League Tournament -- will take some well-thought-out planning in advance. And our most important home conference game -- Butler -- is over winter break.

And now I cede the floor to any other suggestions or volunteers. As this is our most immediately promising season since Jeter's first year, I think it's extremely important to pack the Cell. And maybe our energy in the matter will rub off on the university.

[tyrunner0097]

It is time that organization needs to be done by us loyal Krazies to make sure that our fellow students realize what it means to have Milwaukee Panther Pride. I am sick and tired of having only 100 MAX students. TIME HAS COME FOR FULL-BLOWN ACTION!

We have to stop counting on the SA and the Athletic Department to do the work. Yes, they have the money to fund more promotions, but we need to start spending our own time and money to show the AD that spending more to promote getting more and more students to the games.

It means effort on our part, and we need to start getting cracking during this Winter Break so that we can start getting the ball rolling more by the Spring Semester and build from that during the summer.

I would like for 5+ others to join me in plastering the school and classrooms with fliers to students, telling them about the games and urging them to go. These fliers would need to be double sided, promoting the games and giving information about the games and how to get there. We need to take these fliers and hand them out to every one of our classmates...WE HAVE TO PAPER UP THE CAMPUS.

We have to start this way, to simply get everyone fully aware of the basketball games and how to get there. At least 60% of who I talk to say these things to me.

"Don't we have to pay to go to those games?"

"How the hell do we get there?"

"What's the point of going? The team sucks from what other people tell me."

And this one makes me want to pull my hair out: "Wait, we have a basketball team?"

I would like others to join me in starting this flier crusade, to spend one day making up a flier for us to give to our fellow students, if we can, 30,000 of them, and give them out to every single students.

The flier would be ablaze with pictures and graphics to show the fun of going to the games, and the back would be full of information answering any questions students may have.

ANYBODY IN WITH ME?

[parkerj]

2 years ago the SBGC did a lot of this stuff, and I can tell you that this is definitely an effective way to get kids to the games...it's a lot of work and you need somebody living in Sandburg to do it, but aside from the players doing the recruiting it's the most effective way to raise the attendance

[buppie05]

A better student turnout at the GB game, and kudos to those who worked to that end.

I have a solution to the lack of fans in the student section. We don't need to "target" student attendance, we just need a bigger band. Band members are good fans, join in on the chants, ect. Why not have a 200 piece band at the games behind the basket, that would fill things up.

Bringing baseball players may not be the best solution. Some of those guys looked like they were asleep half the game.

[parkerj]

the soccer players were fun though...haha

[mwu]

Thanks for the accolades buppie, many of us band folk are huge bball fans.

While we would love to have a huge band at games it's not going to be likely to happen this season. i realize you're just throwing a number out there for conversation but in reality we have roughly 50 members in the band this season. We have a 30 piece band at every men/women's game for a few reasons.

1) this is historically the size of the band sanctioned for NCAA Tournament and Conference Tournament travel.

2) compensation: band members are awarded a small stipend for games they play as an incentive to be in the band, to keep costs reasonable we limit ourselves to that NCAA Sanctioned 30 pieces. As a result, our band has kids in it who are top class musicians who could be playing professionally elsewhere (and making alot more $ doing it)

The numbers game, ie having a huge pool of band kids to choose from, would be excellent. This is really only possible when a marching band exists and your know what we would need for one of those bands to be created

We love to hear the suggestions/comments from our fellow Panthers keep 'em coming. We'll chanting loud and proud fo the rest of the season hope to see you all at the remaining games this season.

[noddyholder]

I was at a game earlier this year where I counted 22 people in the student section. Yes, some students choose to sit in other sections, and yes it was break. Thank God for the band cheerleaders and dance team. These groups represent UWM very well and we should focus on what a great job they do instead of beating this dead horse. UWM students just are not that into school spirit. Please prove me wrong and get your friends to show up to the HL tourney game.

[Super King]

We've been over this. The very first game after winter break was by far our biggest student crowd all season. Winter break was bleak because it was winter break.

We've been generally averaging a few hundred since then, and those that show up are always loud. And last year's HL tourney game pulled in the biggest crowd of that season.

Student numbers have been steadily rising all year. It has a lot to do with how the games have been aggressively marketed on campus and through e-mails. I'm actually a little satisfied with our recent student attendance numbers, and hopefully since most of them are freshmen it'll translate into bigger numbers next year, too.

The only thing they really need to work on is getting to the games on time.

[brewcityitalian]

Me and a couple others are conducting a study on campus right now in regards to this

we have a focus group and a survey coming out in the next 3 months.