JCT wrote:
I still don't see much athletics-focused advertising for us. All the ads we have are focused on academics and location (Chicago), with very little focused on the student experience which includes athletics. I still haven't heard a single ad promoting our back to back men's volleyball national championships. We need to update our in-game ads (Varsity Club, etc.) because they're outdated. We need to promote being in the MVC-- I wonder if 50% of our students could tell you what conference we're in.
The advertising budget is based on what the admin has given athletics. A note: UIC spent 500k on their basketball ad campaign this year. It got them nothing. Their team sucked and their attendance dropped. Our athletics department has a limited amount of money to spend because of what the admin wants. Not sure what to do about that.
As for the students, I'm still of the mindset that they need to be bought off to attend (at least in the short term)
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What we really need is bodies in the seats. Loud and active bodies in the seats gives us a good game-day experience. A good game-day experience leads to bigger crowds, which helps our teams perform better, which helps our scheduling, our recruiting, and won-loss record. It shouldn't be such a confounding conundrum to fill a 4500-seat arena at a school with 15,000 students and 150,000 Chicago-area alumni-- in a city with more than 2 million people just within 15 miles.
The department just hired two new guys for marketing (both, coincidentally, come from tOSU). I've spoken with them and they really want to make things work. I shared with them some of my ideas for the program and for attendance. If any of you have ideas, share them here and I'll pass them along for you. I truly believe that these guys (and the AD) want to make this work. They want the arena packed every game.
Unfortunately, money is a real concern which prohibits blanket advertising like UIC did. They are aware that sports information needs a complete overhaul.