Student section = weak.

[mufan2003]

Despite the poor student turnout last night, here is the positive:

The ESPNU announcer on Saturday says he believes Marquette has the best home court crowd in the Big East and that on Saturday the building was loud (against a sub-.500 Providence team)!!! Statistically, we are 3rd in the Big East in average attendance season-to-date behind Louisville and Syracuse which have arenas with larger capacity. We consistently are in the top 15 NATIONALLY each year in average attendance. I understand the annoyance of the student turnout last night, but overall MU enjoys great fan support and student support when needed. Marquette needs to keep working through the Tribune, posters around campus, to get kids to go to EVERY game. I remember one professor when I was in college, he was great, he would tell everyone the day of a game that they better be at the Basketball game. He would rip on those that did not go, "What do you guys do?" We need more of that .

[mufansince72]

Another thought that I had is that MU should establish some joint deals or something with other organizations and establishments for some of these games. For instance, last night there were a ton of empty seats and unsold tickets. Jimmy Butler and the Bulls are coming to Mke on Wednesday. The Bucks are selling tickets to that game for half price. Maybe in situations like this the Bucks and MU could partner up and offer a two for one deal or something. Better marketing is needed.

[mufan2003]

The same professor would even push a deadline back a day if there was a game the night before a paper was due or an exam was to be given.

[ziggysfryboy]

TBSSITC just sounds soooo Tom crean.

[Litehouse]

I don't want to rip on the students who were there, because they were very active. I just think that the student section is too big. I would rather have a smaller full student section, than one that looks half empty.

This is a good point.
Students in the Student Section = Great
Students that don't show up for the game = Weak

However, I don't think it makes any sense to have a smaller student section. We don't sell out the other seats that are more desireable the way it is, so those upper deck end-zone sections would still be empty. We might as well sell them as part of the student section. It increases our attendance numbers and it does look impressive when they fill it for big games.

[IWB]

I don't know if they could partner with the bucks in a 2 for 1 deal too much red tape with NCAA - same with high schools because of the potential prospective recruits.

I would focus on the catholic grade schools as they do a reading program for tickets with the women's team - but even that is tough with the 8:00 pm start

[TheSultan]

I don't think there is much MU can do about this. My son goes to Butler, is a big basketball fan, but only goes to about 2/3 of the games. As he said, "there are plenty of other things to do on campus besides basketball." And I don't think this is unique to him or MU.

If you make it smaller, all you are going to do is have empty seats that aren't part of the "student section." And then what do you do when the big names come to town? Or on a weekend? MU wants to make it accessible for students to get to the games.

I understand that the "best student section" label is lame, but you really can't compare this to "back in the day." Different era...different generation.

[MU/Panther]

Couple of things here....MU's student sections is huge. They have about 4,000 seats for students.
Your Michigan & Duke's are about 1,000 to 1,500 for the student section. This is a problem for football & basketball in the ncaa's. (Less students going to game, from year's past) Before Tom Crean was coach, student season ticket sales were at 200. MU, now sell over 3,000 for student season tickets.

The paid crowd was 15,136. How about the general public who had tickets and didn't come to the game? Can't some of these folks just give away their tickets.

[Litehouse]

Duke's student section is 1,200. Last year, Duke was getting about 650 students per game and selling empty student seats to the general public.
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-02-10/w...=PM:WORLDSPORT

[MUAlphaBangura]

Another thought that I had is that MU should establish some joint deals or something with other organizations and establishments for some of these games. For instance, last night there were a ton of empty seats and unsold tickets. Jimmy Butler and the Bulls are coming to Mke on Wednesday. The Bucks are selling tickets to that game for half price. Maybe in situations like this the Bucks and MU could partner up and offer a two for one deal or something. Better marketing is needed.

I'm not totally sure, but I believe Marquette's lease payment to the BC is based on the number of bodies in the place. So, it is hard for them to do mass give-a-ways of tickets or greatly reduced tickets because they are getting charged per person(don't know if it is a flat fee or % of ticket price). That was the explanation given to me years ago(early Crean years) when we were brainstorming marketing ideas to get more people to the games(not necessarily students). There are probably more factors involved than we know. But I agree with you on needing to make a student ticket more valuable than it appears to be today.