|
At the game last night, I was impressed by how much Loyola is investing in establishing future lifelong fans. In fact, it's been evident for the past two seasons, certainly, but started with the enormously successful decision to devote the north side of the lower bowl to students.
In the 2014-15 season, I advocated for Loyola to aim at a post-season tournament even if they had to pay for it (the CBI and the CIT). The push-back from most people on the board was that it would lose a lot of money for the program and it had very little value as a tournament. The way it unfolded, it cost a damn lot of money because we kept winning. As I think we can all agree now, it had enormous value and helped lay some of the foundation for the Final Four run.
And the Final Four run itself.... is it a coincidence that it happened the very first year that students were given free prime seating? Since making the students a prime part of the game day experience, Loyola is 66-26 overall (71.7% winning percentage) and 36-7 at home (83.7% wining percentage). The Ramblers have also won two regular season MVC Championships and are alone in first place right now for a third consecutive championship. Attendance still isn't where we'd like it to be, but the days of embarrassing turnouts and bad TV optics are gone.
It's not as measurable, but I believe there have been carryover effects in other Loyola sports. Men's soccer and women's soccer have been really, really good the past few years. Women's volleyball has improved a lot, and women's basketball this year is ranked in the top 100 in RPI after many years of faltering. Men's volleyball has been strong traditionally, and their 2014 and 2015 National Championships helped raise the profile of athletics among students.
I was a communications major, not a business major, but I'm glad the athletic department and the university has scrapped the short term thinking for investing in the big picture. There's a term I've heard in business discussions called Lifetime Value of a Customer (or something like that) and from the looks of the crowd and the presentation these days, I'm sure that's a philosophy that plays a big part in marketing and game day presentation. The students are still really engaged. The cheerleaders and band are better than ever. You see a lot of inter-generational bonding, a lot more kids (there are two adorable newborns who come to some of the games in our section-- wearing tiny noise-cancelling headphones), younger adults a few years out of school, and the usual fossils like me who were the majority of the crowd just 4-5 years ago.
The obvious hope is students and young fans will develop an allegiance, fandom, regular attendance at games in the future. This kind of thinking has never been a part of the Loyola athletics thinking before-- it's always been "if we have a good season people show up." But people showing up helps you have a good season..... which helps more people show up.
Just thought I'd bring up this topic, because it's something I think the athletic department has been doing REALLY REALLY WELL the past couple of years, and it's even more impressive because it's never really been done on a consistent basis before...
|
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
