attendance issues

[abdullah_sharif]

my goal here is to be objective and not *****... i'd like to know how the majority of others feel in an anonymous manner.

how do you feel about your basketball experience?

• improvements in arena amenities
• gameday production
• price of attending games
• concession prices

[Eric]

I understand coach’s concern, but he gets a little critical at times with the wrong people. For example calling out those IN ATTENDANCE for not waving their cell phones during intros. Even offering to loan his own to anyone who didn’t have one. Perhaps Mrs. Coach should’ve borrowed it as she wasn’t waving one either.

[Stickboy46]

TBH, I'll start to be concerned if see the same issue with VCU, Ole Miss and the Conference season. So far all of the home games have been pretty blah teams.

[Shockm]

I understand coach’s concern, but he gets a little critical at times with the wrong people. For example calling out those IN ATTENDANCE for not waving their cell phones during intros. Even offering to loan his own to anyone who didn’t have one. Perhaps Mrs. Coach should’ve borrowed it as she wasn’t waving one either.

He was here when we weren't very good and fans stuck with him and the program. He must see a pattern that isn't good for WSU basketball even this early in the year.

[abdullah_sharif]

TBH, I'll start to be concerned if see the same issue with VCU, Ole Miss and the Conference season. So far all of the home games have been pretty blah teams.

kinda what i was thinking too..

[shocks02]

Put me in the folks are tired of parking, walking, and paying to go see the cupcake games when they are more accessible on TV/streaming boat.

[WuShock16]

I just counted 4800 open seats for OU Intrust game. Granted, there are only 97 open seats in the lower level, so that should be fine. Still, that's a lot of empty seats.

It's been a few moons ago that I took economics from Dr. Perline (hell of a guy, BTW), so I don't remember things well regarding elasticity and whatnot. Still, I wonder what would happen if the $18 tickets were dropped to, say, $10. On one hand, you might make up for the lower revenue per ticket with more tickets sold. On the other hand, if tickets still remained unsold, then it would be obvious that the issue isn't price but fan interest, which might spell out more dire problems.

[ArtVandalay]

Times/things have changed. Attendance issues are not unique to WSU. When Marshall arrived, 5 games a year were televised. Season ticket holders were individuals. Expectations weren't much.

Every game is on TV now. Corporate seats are more prevalent. Winning/success have spoiled us a bit. Non-Con home scheduler has been blah and people haven't showed up.

[Cdizzle]

Simple socio-economics. The athletic department, for understandable reasons, has increasingly catered to the wine and cheese crowd. It's good for funding your athletic department and expensive coaches during good times. It's not good for fan attendance against Central Arkansas or when you have a win% below 80%. It's very not good if/when things ever turn south again for the bell-cow program. If we had to relive the 90s right now, there would not be 5k butts in the seats every night.

I'm not mad about it. They have bills to pay. One of the largest bills is coaching salaries. If coach is concerned about attendance, which is fair, calling out the fans is OK. So is working with the athletic department to determine the real reasons for the dip and making attempts to rectify them. Fan passion for WSU basketball in Wichita has not declined. Accessibility is another matter.

[another shocker]

show some balls against west virginia, win or lose, and it would all be good.

wvu didn't even hardly try. clowned 'em.

so attendance is what it is. put some triceps in to it, fellas.

[ShockerFever]

His point is fair about 10,000 tickets sold but only 6,000 in the seats. That means 4,000 tickets simply went unused. If the ticket has already been purchased, it would be prudent to try to get rid of the tickets to people who would attend the games but can't afford to. That is the corporate/season ticket holder problem.

But yah, there are issues where the athletic department have taken granted for years. The greediness and lack of care for basic in-game production finally are catching up with them I believe. They gotta make much more radical changes on their end more so than the fans doing something about it. Having "Black Friday 'deals'" for $250 for a set of 3 tickets doesn't look good either.

[Slalomshocker]

The secondary market demand for shocker basketball tickets is not what it was 4-5 years ago. I had 4-5 people lined up "let me know anytime you have tickets available". Now, you can't hardly sell them. Everyone wants them for free, and there is exactly a 0% chance I'm giving my ticket that cost me $60ea to someone I do not know for $0. Charity? sure. Friends? yep. Random Joe that I'm asking to pay $20 and they want it for free? No chance. I called 4 different friends last night with an extra ticket. Nobody could go, kids' Christmas program, basketball practice, prior commitments.... you know, life things. We all love the Shockers, but we all have lives outside of Koch Arena as well.

We have been discussing the topic of price point on season tickets for what? 5-6 years? It reached that point where a lot of folks have decided not to renew their season tickets because of price. I personally am right on the teetering point myself. A set of 4 tickets, upper 1/3, corner, just shy of $5000. That's quite a chunk and now you want me to just hand it out? As has already been pointed out. Put a little more effort into worrying about your team on the court, not the fans in the seats. We all wrote the checks, the money continues to come in. I believe one of his greatest quotes is "control your controllables" . I promise you, "if you build it, they will come".

[1972Shocker]

Put me in the folks are tired of parking, walking, and paying to go see the cupcake games when they are more accessible on TV/streaming boat.

I think the availability of games on the tube and other devices is a huge factor especially considering the HD Quality and big screen TV's that everyone has these days and if the game is not a convenient time you record it and watch it at a time that is more convenient for you. I think this is factor for not only cupcake games but for all home games.

The big money in athletics today is TV revenue which heavily favors the big football conferences. At Wichita State men's basketball has to carry the entire athletic department. Wichita State still needs the ticket and promotional revenue but with an increasing amount of this coming from corporate donors and the upper crust (because the little guy is getting priced out of the market) you can continue to expect empty seats in the arena. This is the crowd that 3G needs to address his concerns to but are you going to bite the hand that feeds you. Glad we have well-heeled to support the program. Not sure how you address the empty seat problem if those who aren't showing up aren't concerned about it.

[ShockTalk]

The "Old Guard" of true Shockers fans (and families) from the 80s through the 90s are dying off. If their kids are all still here, can they afford the new higher costs across the board (season tickets/SASO/concessions)? On the other hand, some of those families have moved out of town, or, maybe just moved on to other interests.

New fans and families (and children of deceased fans) go to the back of the line in seating quality behind existing fans that have "up graded" their seating and seating taken up by corporate sponsors that were not there before with many of those seats going used (particularly lower level games). Without the "points" of their parents passing on to them, unlike corporates/businesses, they may not want to pay the higher prices (and don't) for much lesser seating and parking than they were use to under their parents. Not saying right or wrong here by WSU, it just may be a by-product of the athletic department stance.

I've said this before, WSU is a good sized metro area, but not as large as Omaha/Lincoln, OK City, or KC metros. Wichita is also surrounded by OSU, OU, Nebraska, KU, and KSU in a lesser densely populated part of the country. Wichita is partially made up of the fans of these schools.

Other avenues (and screen size) to watch sports now is another newer factor in attendance.

I voted "happy, but concerned" However, that doesn't mean that I believe the athletic department can set of their backsides and just expect fans to rush in. Instead of squeezing every ounce they can out of the current, lessening fan base, maybe they should be more innovative on how to keep them and attract new fans. Everyone has their own hot buttons on what those steps might entail.

[AndShock]

If we had 4k tickets available for free I’m not convinced we could find enough people to pick them up and use them. Watching us blow out the equivalent of a D2 team is not fun.