City and Civic Center officials address possible Bradley move to Ren Col

[Vent]

Attendance at Bradley games has been cut in half. College basketball attendance is down everywhere, but not as drastic as it is here. Bradley is unique in that it has a very loyal fan base. They still finished in the top 3 in home attendance in the MVC this year. That is remarkable considering the product.

The next athletic director and president have some real challenges. As I said, attendance is down across the country. There are studies being done determine why. Obviously it is effected by the number of games on television and competing for the same entertainment dollar as movies, restaurants and other leisure activity. In addition, the games have become boring. Scoring is down and with all of the media timeouts (every four minutes) it is hard to get into a flow.

Bradley needs to really do some marketing to get young families to the basketball games or I don't care how good the team is, the attendance will continue to decline. I would like to know what the average age is of the Bradley fan, that goes to the games. Young families have many more activities that their children are in than 25-30 years ago. That is another factor that needs to be considered.

 

[tornado]

College basketball attendance is down everywhere...

I am not sure why this statement keeps getting repeated without anything to back it up - because it is 100% false..

I have personally listed many times the numerous various schools whose attendance is UP
Even in our own conference ISU is up, UNI is up, Wichita State is up...
elsewhere - teams like FGCU, UC-Davis, even EIU are way, way up (EIU is up 60% over last year!!!, UCD is up 200-300% over their former numbers)

The key ingredient - WINNING

if you only look at schools that are losing - then attendance is down

but our attendance is BECAUSE we are losing and because we are bad and have made many BAD decisions that have up set the fans...
Please do not try to explain away the drop in attendance at Bradley because of some national factor...


All the way from the 80's thru the 90's - all the way up til 2009, Bradley ranked inside the top 40 to 50 D-I programs --in attendance...

amazing for a small midmajor in Peoria to draw better YEAR after YEAR than many BIG schools & BCS programs...

Now we're about to fall out of the Top 100 !!!!
this year's home attendance is just 5726 - if you count all those empties and gimmicks like the District 150 giveaways..
It's astounding how far we've falling just in the 5-year era since our AD has been in place.


ONE more note on college basketball attendance...
each year the NCAA gives the figures, but each year a few new D_I teams get included like NJIT and Incarnate Word - these are what draws the numbers down...
but all the top schools are holding steady based mostly on whether they win or lose
Overall - the average have held remarkably steady for the recent past
Show me one single year where the overall average home attendance dropped by more than 100-150...it hasn't happened..
meanwhile in just 5 years ours has dropped from almost 10,000 to just a little over 5,000 - it's insane to point at some miniscule national factor

 

[Chico]

Vent, do you really think attendance will still deline even if we have a winning team?

 

[LongTimeFan]

I will agree with Vent on some things at least. The game for most teams has slowed down while they just pass the ball around the parameter or stand in one spot dribbling the ball. If the refs would just stop the grabbing and holding, it would improve the game. Some of the centers appear to be mugged if you watch close on TV.

The timeouts every four minutes take away from any building excitement. In the field house the fans were into the cheerleading that was done during any timeouts.

Everything just seems to be so orchestrated. I still go when I'm in town. At the last game, Missouri State, we happened to be sitting in front of three women so bored with the game that they talked about their personal lives for most of the time. We finally moved and enjoyed there game much more.

 

[tornado]

I will agree with Vent on some things at least. The game for most teams has slowed down while they just pass the ball around the parameter or stand in one spot dribbling the ball.....

but you are maybe basing this statement largely on watching and being influenced by MVC basketball where nobody scores much...and especially Bradley offense that is the worst of the worst...
..now I know some will say it's because of defense but that is NOT all of it..

Right now, in conference play - HALF the teams in the MVC score less than 58 pts/game
By comparison - in the Big West - NOT ONE team scores less than 60 pts/game!

and in the MVC 7 of 10 teams score LESS THAN 63 pts/game
but in the BW- ONLY ONE team scores less than 65.4 ppg!

..so I am not saying you need to watch BWC - but the scoring difference is not all defense - it's shooting accuracy.
In the Big West shooting percentages are better - pace of play is faster, and scoring is up..

but we here in Peoria are seeing the worst of the worst....
I won't even list all the horrible shooting stats we have had to watch the past four seasons....I think everyone's seen them enough

 

[Vent]

Vent, do you really think attendance will still deline even if we have a winning team?

If the university does not start marketing towards younger people and younger families, it may. Look around at the people attending the games. It is largely people that have attended games for 20 or more years. And a lot of those people attended games with their parents when they were young and Bradley was on top of the basketball world.

Young people and young families have some many things they can do now, that wasn't available 30 years ago. Youth AAU basketball teams, winter baseball/softball practices, indoor soccer, the internet, multiple games on cable television, just to mention a few, will cut into attendance as young people and young families can only be involved with so many things.

I'm not saying attendance is going to drop off the cliff. I'm just saying Bradley's fan base is not the 18-30 year old group. That is the future fan base. Many of the people of that age group in the Peoria area, may like basketball, but Bradley is not their priority. Many of them went to Illinois, Iowa or some other school, that has games on television on a regular basis.

Bradley has taken their fan base for granted for way too long.

 

[Vent]

The game has changed tremendously and has gotten boring to a lot of people. It now takes about 15 minutes to play the final 2 minutes. The shot clock and 3 point shot was suppose to create more excitement and add more scoring.

You very seldom see 100 points scored in a game any more. And no, I'm not talking about Bradley. Now you may see a team have 15 assists in a game. You use to see individuals get 15 assists in a game.

 

[Chico]

The game has changed tremendously and has gotten boring to a lot of people. It now takes about 15 minutes to play the final 2 minutes. The shot clock and 3 point shot was suppose to create more excitement and add more scoring.

You very seldom see 100 points scored in a game any more. And no, I'm not talking about Bradley. Now you may see a team have 15 assists in a game. You use to see individuals get 15 assists in a game.

Young or old, nobody likes to pay to watch a losing team. But a team with a chance to win the MVC will draw bigger crowds. Everybody loves a winner. Hope we can find out.

 

[ollienanyes]

The game has changed tremendously and has gotten boring to a lot of people. It now takes about 15 minutes to play the final 2 minutes. The shot clock and 3 point shot was suppose to create more excitement and add more scoring.

You very seldom see 100 points scored in a game any more. And no, I'm not talking about Bradley. Now you may see a team have 15 assists in a game. You use to see individuals get 15 assists in a game.

The only way this will change is for there to be new "time out" and "foul" rules; there would have to be reduction in the number of time outs and/or there would have to be some "2 shots and the ball" penalties for excessive fouling in the last 2 minutes or so.

As it sits right now, the coaches micromanage the final 2 minutes if the game is at all close.

Some are fine with that, just as it is. Others want to see the game become a bit more player oriented: let's see which team was coached (or recruited) to have a better basketball IQ at the end.

I don't see college coaches ceding control anytime soon.

 

[Vent]

Winning games and a better home schedule will improve attendance. We still need younger people to be at games, due to the number of older people that physically can't go to games or are passing away. Look around the crowds and you don't see a lot of young people.

The SEC and other power conferences are in discussions with ESPN, to change the start times of games. They feel the 6 pm weeknight game is too early and the 8 pm weeknight game is too late. During the 2012-13 season, attendance in the SEC was at it lowest since 1986-87 and dropped again in 2013-14 and again this year. The SEC has seen a decline each of the last 6 years.

The national trend has declined for 7 straight years and ESPN and CBS ratings are down as well. In fact CBS' ratings dropped 6% last year. Some people attribute it to too many dead spots during the game. The 30 second timeout, fouls in the final 30 seconds of the game, stopping the play clock on all whistles during the final minute.

Another issue are conferences such as the MVC schedule games on Sundays and days that not many power conferences play, in an effort to get better officiating.

It is becoming tougher and tougher to compete for the entertainment dollar. There are no easy answers. We are a society that is constantly changing and have now turned into a society that wants instant satisfaction. Microwaves, ATMs, DVRs, text messaging, drive thru restaurants.

Basketball is not the only sport seeing drops in interest from younger crowds. Baseball is experiencing the same thing. Too many dead spots during games. That is why baseball is making changes this year in the length of games. Television ratings for baseball are down as well.

Winning games will make a difference, but there are other problems that have to be addressed.

 

[tornado]

It is becoming tougher and tougher to compete for the entertainment dollar.....

but it's also becoming tougher and tougher to win an Olympic Gold Medal..
and tougher and tougher to win games in the NCAA Tourney or go to the Sweet 16..
and tougher and tougher to win the MVC...
and tougher and tougher to land the better players...etc, etc...

I don't care if it is tougher - there's still a LOT of schools that ARE getting it done, including FGCU, UC-Davis, Xavier, Cleveland State, SIUE (women), InSU baseball, etc... ...where all the guys we ran out of here now are getting it done!
The problem isn't that we didn't have the personnel to get it done or that we weren't able to get it done..
the problem is we had people in charge who foolishly chose to play personal games with our entire Athletic Department to stroke their own egos.
Now, lets get rid of all of them and get top people back in place..

 

[Vent]

but it's also becoming tougher and tougher to win an Olympic Gold Medal..
and tougher and tougher to win games in the NCAA Tourney or go to the Sweet 16..
and tougher and tougher to win the MVC...
and tougher and tougher to land the better players...etc, etc...

I don't care if it is tougher - there's still a LOT of schools that ARE getting it done, including FGCU, UC-Davis, Xavier, Cleveland State, SIUE (women), InSU baseball, etc... ...where all the guys we ran out of here now are getting it done!
The problem isn't that we didn't have the personnel to get it done or that we weren't able to get it done..
the problem is we had people in charge who foolishly chose to play personal games with our entire Athletic Department to stroke their own egos.
Now, lets get rid of all of them and get top people back in place..

The challenges universities and television face, regarding the decline of interest in college basketball across the country, have nothing to do with former and current employees at Bradley university.

 

[GoBUBraves98]

That's just the way baseball is. They should not try to speed it up.

 

[pfcmsh]

Ren-Col

Ren-Col

I think I had heard that the previous leadership (Coach Ford) had suggested that it was ok to play the games at Ren-Col? If that it is true it is basically giving up on the future of the program. Ren-Col vs Carver Arena just makes our BB team look like it is downsizing. Perhaps one of the reasons that they thought this might be good is that it would mask the huge drop in attendance? Or could it be that those who were behind Ren-Col would bask in its glory? Could it be that what he saw in practice would not translate into games, so lets play where we practice? It's a wonderful facility and I am sure it is a great selling tool, but to downsize the venue to soften or mask failure is the wrong direction. Carver Arena and the rest of the Civic Center is big time. When I drive down and see it like this week, I am proud of where the Braves play. I agree to get the deal done. Bradley belongs there. When the program generates interest, the income will begin to rise and all will be well.

Last season, when we lost to Augustana at home, I thought, our program has fallen further than I had thought. Come On, Man!!

We are on our way back. If the new team struggles some next year, it is only because of rebuilding. I expect that. I also have said, many time on here, anything is better than what we had.

Go Coach Wardle, Go Chris Reynold and good luck to all the new Braves. We are on our way back, even if we slide a little, and I don't think we are going to slide much at all.

 

[tornado]

...

Go Coach Wardle, Go Chris Reynold and good luck to all the new Braves. ...

I second that!!

 

[tornado]

recall that the big wigs at the Civic Center had said that NOBODY from Bradley had ever called to tell them of scheduling issues...

...Civic Center Authority chairman Bob Manning said:
"Manning said he was unaware of the complaints.
“I’ve been on the board five years and this is the first time I’ve heard

...that despite Dr. Cross claiming we had difficulty getting the dates we wanted -
the Civic Center people said that they had not spoken to him in a year and that he'd never mentioned it to them.

.. I’ve talked to .. (Bradley athletics director) Dr. (Michael) Cross and said to call me if you need anything.
Other than our initial discussions, I never heard anything back.”

Bradley is in the final year of a five-year agreement with the Civic Center.
...(Civic Center general manager) Jim Wetherington is waiting for Dr. Cross to say, ‘Let’s get together,
here’s my list of things I want to see happen.’ Frankly, that discussion hasn’t taken place yet.

glad this inexplicable communication catastrophe seems finally to be solved by Dr. Chris Reynolds...

Dr. Reynolds has only been here 6 months but obviously he's getting things done...

He said last night...

“We’ve had good productive meetings with the Civic Center people..."
and he's locked in on every game down there with more Saturdays & more weekend games than ever!

Kudos to Dr. Chris Reynolds & Brian Wardle (and Dr. Liberty)