Bradley to move games to Renaissance Coliseum

[Buesch N Chips]

Exactly Da Coach--I am wondering if this whole thing isn't mostly about that---trying to get fans and students and the media talking about evacuating from the Civic Center now--as an attempt to scare the CC management into giving Bradley a reduced rate and or share from concessions etc in the next contract--basically all a big marketing ploy

There have been a few marketing ploys recently, including dangling Sutherland possibly playing when he wasn't even close.

[bula-bloom]

unbelievable

When the rumors about rc started, I didn't believe it. But reading more comments like those that geno makes in the article, I'm beginning to believe it.

Students won't come there either. I attend most isu games as a season ticket holder and students don't come to those games when the basketball is no good. They are starting to attend now that the basketball is better and opponents are better. ..vcu.

But I don't see Bradley having good basketball any time soon. Hence no students. I wouldn't spend the money on 2000 more seats. They won't need them.

On a couple side points, I've been talking about the poor coaching at Bradley for more than a year. I compared geno unfavorably to muller and also cited his poor sportsmanship after the loss at mvc tourney last year. I did get a few people who took exception with my comments. ..but looks like I may have been on the right track.

On another subject, I gave up my season tickets this year to Bradley. You have to renew in the spring (may i think). Right before the season started--nov., I got another solicitation in the mail offering season tickets again. Wouldn't you think that the ticket office might have called me up to make a plea? I'm guessing there might be 2000- 3000 season ticket holders, each averaging 2-4 tickets. And probably relatively few who after many years and substantial $$$ gave them up this year (25 years and probably $30,000+). But the administration could not be bothered to call someone like that up. .. again i'll end this the way I began it-- unbelievable.

[Vent]

I would hope the administration at BU is not using this as a negotiating ploy with the civic center. Anybody that has ever negotiated, knows that you don't negotiate publicly. But then again, this is BU. At this point, the civic center holds the upper hand. With all the upgrades needed from streets to parking to the campus facility, not to mention no money to do it, the university is light years away from being able to do it. They also have more pressing financial needs than their second rate division one basketball program. I will predict the civic center and BU reach a contract that both can live with and will be happy with it. The only thing that has changed in the 30 years of the agreement, is BU's basketball program is no longer putting butts in the seats, due to a consistently poor product. The problem is really quite simple. The solution is the part that nobody on the Board of Trustees wants to face, because they are the one's that have created this mess. If you give the hard working people of the Peoria area, a competitive BU basketball program, that works as hard as they do, the community will support it. If not...you get what we've got. It's easier and cheaper to put 8,000 or more butts in the seats, than breaking up concrete.

[Buesch N Chips]

I'm not sure you will ever get back to a 9-10,000 average, short of a ranked team. You may get back to 7-8 with a solid contender/NIT bubble team.

[lefty]

I'm not sure you will ever get back to a 9-10,000 average, short of a ranked team. You may get back to 7-8 with a solid contender/NIT bubble team.

I agree??¦..I've thought that for quite awhile

[tornado]

well it is do-able but....
it would take a couple years straight of solid play, good home opponents, and winning regularly -
but it appears this admin isn't committed to any of that and it aiming lower....and has thrown in the towel on ever achieving it...

the biggest crowd we had last year was 7000 and then it went down from there with even most of the conference games at 6000-6500
..fans were ticked off about poor opponents, losing and having to play up on the Hilltop

[Da Coach]

I believe the biggest factor in the huge downturn in home attendance is not the losing, but the poor quality of scheduling, which is completely correctable.

Bradley has been through losing stretches many times in their past, and it never hurt attendance nearly as much as it has these last 3 years.

And as recently as Dec. 1, 2012, just 2 years ago, Bradley was coming off their worst losing season in history (7-25 in 2011-12), and played a Michigan team (tied for 4th in the Big Ten) at home, and drew 11,019 paying fans, and there were no empty seats or no-shows!

Unfortunately, that is the last quality opponent we have played at home in the non-conference schedule.

Here is a list of the other non-conference opponents these last 3 seasons.
Is there another school anywhere in the top 10 conferences that has played a weaker bunch of home non-conference opponents? And is it any wonder why fans would think twice about paying for season tickets when they get this garbage? This is entirely on the AD and coach.

2012-
Eastern Illinois
Texas Pan-American
Tennessee-Martin
George Washington
Georgia Southern
Mississippi Valley State

2013-
Jacksonville State
Alabama State
Central Michigan
Chicago State
Texas-Pan American
IUPUI
IPFW
South Florida

2014- ?SOS
Texas-Arlington
Robert Morris
North Carolina A&T
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
Central Michigan
Eureka College
UIC

[tornado]

ampersand opponents

[bradleyfan124]

Not only are they scheduling poor teams but they are losing to them

[Vent]

Coach and Tornado are both correct on this. The schedule is horrific and the product is defective. In the business world it would go belly up. Both can be fixed, but not with this administration and apparently this Board of Trustees. We are being lied to when we are told we can't get good non conference opponents to come here. I'm not talking Duke, Illinois or North Carolina. I'm talking decent mid-majors that are looking for people like BU to play. They certainly, at this point, don't need to be worried about coming here and getting beat. The schedule has been softened to get wins, which hasn't worked yet, due to a bad product. Why is it that other Valley teams are playing decent mid-majors at home, but we aren't. I still believe you can get 8,000 to 10,000 people to games, but it won't happen over night. It will take sustained success and a decent schedule. Neither will happen with the current people in charge.

[AZ BU Fan]

On Campus Does Not Equal Student Attendance

Comparable example for BU - Drake University, small private school.
-Same history and similar bb success in the, now distant, past.
-Played downtown Des Moines for years in 11,000 seat arena
-Packed the place when they were good and MVC had marquee teams
-Had lots of students from central Ia and lots of local alumni
-Ditched downtown for on campus multi use gym - officially to get more students to attend, but also due to costs of playing in large coliseum
-Maybe draw 4000 for in state rivalry games (Iowa St/Iowa) - UNI only big MVC rivalry now that Creighton bailed out. Much less for other games.
-Times I went to watch Drake play on campus, no more than 200 students attending and 25% were the band/cheerleaders. Gray hair local alumni mostly.
-Aging local fan base, shrinking local alumni base,
-Student population now mostly from out of state
-New Alumni move out of Des Moines area for jobs bigger cities
-MBB program has been inconsequential for years

If BU needs an example to study as they head toward NCAA MBB oblivion, just look at Drake.

Sadly, the demise of BU MBB and other BU athletic programs seems to be another in a string of sports 'failures' in Peoria.... Hockey team, once AAA, is now lowest echelon of pro hockey, Minor league baseball has never done well even with Cub/Cardinal affiliations and at one time best stadium in low A ball, indoor football failed, municipal golf on the decline, now BU MBB is disarray heading to Div III on campus.

Peoria area seems to be a high school sports town, period. Maybe with some bowling, fishing, and youth soccer thrown in.

Too bad the area got so decentralized. If local city govs had merged over the years, instead of further splintering with more and more suburban cities, there would be enough economic and political mass to support big(er) time sports and entertainment for the area.

[cpacmel]

Wichita State beat writer chimes in: http://www.kansas.com/sports/college...le4443873.html
Also at the bottom of the article, Kirk Wessler is on radio podcast discussing the idea.

[tornado]

yeah - we already had that over HERE a couple days ago..
but thanks - because I think it gives yet another chance for someone with sense who has no dog in this fight to offer a solid opinion.

as noted - he also thinks it's a very bad idea to be considering a move back to campus...
"Down-sizing from 11,000-seat Carver Arena to 6,000 or so on campus
would appear to be a move that down-sizes Bradley’s ambition."


and he also seems to agree that Bradley's attendance problem DID NOT extend back to 2007 or 2008 - he points clearly to AFTER 2010!
"Attendance is declining, down to 6,608 last season after averaging 9,000-plus from 1996-2010"


Trust me - if and when Bradley drew or can draw 10,000 we wouldn't have to "battle minor league hockey for weekend dates and times"
...if we didn't draw so poorly we'd have a little more bargaining prowess.....the Civic Center has no bias except money.

[tornado]

Here's an opinion on the PJS editorial page from a 70+ year, lifelong Bradley basketball fan and 30+ year season ticket holder...

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20141219/OPINION/141218959/10950/OPINION

he cites many factors from the traffic to parking to student apathy, and of course why we'd even be considering this move - that the attendance has tanked to DII-levels...

"Moving Bradley basketball back to campus would be disastrous.

...Many longtime season ticket holders will not want to attend games under those circumstances and will not renew.
As a 32-year season ticket holder and loyal Bradley fan, neither will I."


he does point out one interesting thing nobody else has pointed out..
that predictions of how playing in the new Ren-Col would tremendously boost both attendance and recruiting for such sports as Volleyball & WBB...
But the facts speak otherwise...as both VB & WBB are historically bad, largely devoid of any competetive talent, and their attendance is abysmal (except when gobs of free tickets handed out).
How does anyone think this isn't gonna be Men's Basketball in just a few years after going small?

[Vent]

The article in today's paper was right on target. Some many times people that want to make capital improvements to athletic facilities say it will improve things. That is a ploy for getting all of the lemmings to follow them and empty their pockets, often at taxpayer's expense. Just look at BU for example. A new tennis facility was built and the program was dropped. The women's volleyball and basketball have had little success. The men's basketball team, with a new state of the art practice facility can't get out of the Thursday night pillow fight at the MVC post season tournament. Not to mention, men's baseball, that must take indoor batting practice in the exhibition hall at the civic center, because they weren't taken into consideration when the new facility was built. The women's softball team went to the NCAA's last year, which was a great accomplishment. You must remember however, they barely qualified for the post season MVC tournament. If that is enough proof, look at the Bears and the upgrades to Soldier Field in recent years. Or the White Sox with their new ball park. They had a great year in 2005, but not much else since the early 1990's. You can even look at the local level on a smaller scale. East Peoria built a beautiful facility called Eastside. Other than girls softball, their teams haven't set the world on fire. The problem at BU as with the Bears, is not the facility. It starts at the very top, the president at BU and at least the athletic director. With the Bears, it starts with the McCaskey family and runs all the way down.