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What will make attendance better?

One thing that bothers me, and I believe could be contributing to lower attendance, though not the major reason, is the ever-changing start times of games. Bradley has one or more home games this season scheduled at 1 pm, 2 pm, 3 pm, 4 pm, and 7 pm. Virtually every weekend game's start time is different that the previous one. And we had a weekday game (Akron on 12/22) start at 4 pm. What's with so many different start times?
 
Old Coach said:
-15 NIT and NCAA bids in the last 19 seasons is a good start.
-Averaging 23 win per season over the past 19 years.
-Never finishing worst than 3rd in the last 19 seasons, including 17 1st and 2nd place finishes.

And they parlayed all of that to move to a bigger basketball-centered conferece.
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This is the main thing I think. Everything else would follow if BU could just put together a few years where the team is competing for a conference championship down to the end of the season.

I can't tell you how much harder it is to be excited about a team with 12 losses vs one with 7-8.

My first goal every year is to see BU with less than 10 losses. Why? It means the team had a solid non-conference record and is near or at the top of the conference going into St. Louis. It is just hard to believe in a team with 10 losses or more. It is easy to tell the team is mediocre at best, and the only post season chance is basically NIT or a 3 game win streak in St. Louis.

I like Wardle, but for whatever reason he hasn't been able to put together those 20+ win <10 loss teams. Also outside of Darrell Brown and Elijah Childs I really feel Wardle hasn't been able to secure a really top conference type of player.
 
For student attendance, I think Bradley is going to have to put up some money to drive attendance at home games.
  • First, put the bleachers back up next to the band and get rid of that silly Red Sea Club. Tables and seating can be behind the bleachers and mostly out of sight. Students need to have a section together and be more visible (not in random dark seats way off the court)
  • Rename the student section something other than Red Sea (not real specific to Bradley outside of our primary color and other student sections share the same name)...The Hilltop Havoc or something along those lines to tie it more to Bradley
  • Provide new t-shirts and other branded items for each student that signs up (perhaps with help from corporate sponsor?)
  • Keep offering the free tickets, free shuttles and free pizza. Consider having restaurants on campus alternate catering the student section food at games
  • Have student organization nights (Greek or otherwise) and contribute money towards their operating budget if they get X number of students to attend the game
  • Have team nights where other BU athletic programs (women's bball, soccer, volleyball, etc.) have their entire team attend the game (men's bball would return the favor at their games/matches)
  • Manage a drawing for free tuition for the semester or free books or free room and board (whatever is doable financially). You get your name added each time you attend a basketball game (men's or women's), volleyball match, soccer game, etc.
  • During winter break games, invite area high school seniors and juniors to get free tickets for the student section and provide them with a Bradley shirt and branded gear (bonus recruitment angle)
  • Add better halftime entertainment
Maybe these things have been tried before and have not worked. Unfortunately there are a lot of entertainment options now...and money talks. Gameday experience talks too.
 
Stryker said:
This is the main thing I think. Everything else would follow if BU could just put together a few years where the team is competing for a conference championship down to the end of the season.

I can't tell you how much harder it is to be excited about a team with 12 losses vs one with 7-8.

My first goal every year is to see BU with less than 10 losses. Why? It means the team had a solid non-conference record and is near or at the top of the conference going into St. Louis. It is just hard to believe in a team with 10 losses or more. It is easy to tell the team is mediocre at best, and the only post season chance is basically NIT or a 3 game win streak in St. Louis.

I like Wardle, but for whatever reason he hasn't been able to put together those 20+ win <10 loss teams. Also outside of Darrell Brown and Elijah Childs I really feel Wardle hasn't been able to secure a really top conference type of player.
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I think you could add Terry Roberts and Reink Mast to that list.
 
BradleyBiz said:
For student attendance, I think Bradley is going to have to put up some money to drive attendance at home games.
  • First, put the bleachers back up next to the band and get rid of that silly Red Sea Club. Tables and seating can be behind the bleachers and mostly out of sight. Students need to have a section together and be more visible (not in random dark seats way off the court)
  • Rename the student section something other than Red Sea (not real specific to Bradley outside of our primary color and other student sections share the same name)...The Hilltop Havoc or something along those lines to tie it more to Bradley
  • Provide new t-shirts and other branded items for each student that signs up (perhaps with help from corporate sponsor?)
  • Keep offering the free tickets, free shuttles and free pizza. Consider having restaurants on campus alternate catering the student section food at games
  • Have student organization nights (Greek or otherwise) and contribute money towards their operating budget if they get X number of students to attend the game
  • Have team nights where other BU athletic programs (women's bball, soccer, volleyball, etc.) have their entire team attend the game (men's bball would return the favor at their games/matches)
  • Manage a drawing for free tuition for the semester or free books or free room and board (whatever is doable financially). You get your name added each time you attend a basketball game (men's or women's), volleyball match, soccer game, etc.
  • During winter break games, invite area high school seniors and juniors to get free tickets for the student section and provide them with a Bradley shirt and branded gear (bonus recruitment angle)
  • Add better halftime entertainment
Maybe these things have been tried before and have not worked. Unfortunately there are a lot of entertainment options now...and money talks. Gameday experience talks too.
Click to expand...

Much of this has been done or is still currently being done. Some of it you can't do (I.e. bring outside catering to the Civic Center). However, one idea that you mention I think has a lot of merit. I think that they could do a book scholarship for every home game where the students are in attendance.
 
Old Coach said:
Much of this has been done or is still currently being done. Some of it you can't do (I.e. bring outside catering to the Civic Center). However, one idea that you mention I think has a lot of merit. I think that they could do a book scholarship for every home game where the students are in attendance.
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I like the idea of getting high school kids in the seats. Not only could it increase enrollment at Bradley potentially, a lot of the kids that graduate high school in Peoria don't leave town afterwords. Make them into life long fans...
 
Also, invite high school bands and dance teams to Bradley. They will bring parents and grandparents. Also, have some band members perform in the Civic Center lobby where tickets are collected or scanned to bring more energy to the crowd. Members of the Bradley Band could participate in the lobby, now that students are back on campus.
 
That promotion is for their women's team game on Feb. 4 against Valparaiso. The SIU women have an average attendance of 898 per game, but a promotion like that will draw a lot of students. I'll be surprised if even free tuition will draw 1000 students.
 
The secret to increasing attendance is by putting a product on the floor that contends for the regular season championship year in year out. As the league loses the better teams, Bradley is still unable to move up in the standings, even by the process of elimination. I believe it is time to get players from Central Illinois and throughout the state to come to Bradley. From Chicago to Cairo you can throw a rock and hit a basketball player capable of playing, contributing and being a good Valley player on the hilltop. If we got two of these players a year, in four years half of the team would be from Illinois. We would be Illinois' college basketball team. There is enough talent in this state to get us winning big in the Valley and generate interest in the papers throughout the state. The people in Central Illinois know good basketball. You give the hard working people in this area a consistently good product, that wins home and away, and they will show up. It's time Bradley changes its recruiting philosophy.
 
I've heard this argument before, that Bradley is missing out on talent from Central Illinois that could make them a better team. But I am not convinced. What Central Illinois players can you name that Bradley missed out on, that would have been a major improvement talent-wise over the players they've had?
 
JC said:
I've heard this argument before, that Bradley is missing out on talent from Central Illinois that could make them a better team. But I am not convinced. What Central Illinois players can you name that Bradley missed out on, that would have been a major improvement talent-wise over the players they've had?
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There are years you’re not going to get a kid out of Central Illinois, that’s why I included the entire state. But, I refuse to believe we can’t get a couple of good players a year out of Illinois. Especially with a coach that was a standout player in the Chicago suburbs. And let’s face it, the way we’ve be doing things hasn’t exactly been successful. Sure, winning a post season conference tournament is exciting, when it happens. That doesn’t generate sustainable interest like winning at home and away week after week during the regular season. Which I might add, makes your chances of winning the conference tournament better. I’ve followed Bradley basketball for parts of seven decades. Some of the smartest basketball fans in the country are right here in the Peoria area. If they are given a quality Bradley basketball team that wins home and away, that they can identify with and have a connection to on a consistent basis, they will show up.
 
Using the 5,500 attendance figure as a break even point and the 3,000 figure as season ticket holders, that means we need to draw and additional 2,500 per game to break even. Most people that buy individual games tickets, more than likely don't come alone. They will bring a child, spouse, date, co-worker or a friend from their local pub. That means we are talking about selling 2,500 tickets to a group of around 1,250 people at a maximum. These folks will probably come one or two times a year. Most of these people are coming to see the basketball game and not a promotion. Winning a bunch of games at home is nice but winning a bunch of games at home and winning on the road more will cause these people to maybe come three of four times a season and possibly become season ticket holders. Promos are good but similar to a buy one get one free at a restaurant, they are only effective if you have a consistently good product. Getting around 2,500 individual game sales per home game would almost double attendance. We have an athletic director and head coach that are being paid well over $100,000 a year (much more than the average fan) to put a consistently good team on the floor, home and away, that can consistently compete for a league championship. Not third or fourth place and then hope to get hot at the Valley post season tournament. We aren't talking about winning the Big Ten or SEC. We are talking about the MVC.
 
Bball31 said:
The secret to increasing attendance is by putting a product on the floor that contends for the regular season championship year in year out. As the league loses the better teams, Bradley is still unable to move up in the standings, even by the process of elimination. I believe it is time to get players from Central Illinois and throughout the state to come to Bradley. From Chicago to Cairo you can throw a rock and hit a basketball player capable of playing, contributing and being a good Valley player on the hilltop. If we got two of these players a year, in four years half of the team would be from Illinois. We would be Illinois' college basketball team. There is enough talent in this state to get us winning big in the Valley and generate interest in the papers throughout the state. The people in Central Illinois know good basketball. You give the hard working people in this area a consistently good product, that wins home and away, and they will show up. It's time Bradley changes its recruiting philosophy.
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They have offered Cooper Koch, Lathan Sommerville, Brock Harding, Ty Pence, Cole Certa, Ethan Kizer (when it was thought that he was MVC caliber). I'm sure they will offer Matthew Zobrist when the time comes. Local kids have to want to come to Bradley too.
 
Bball31 said:
I believe it is time to get players from Central Illinois and throughout the state to come to Bradley. From Chicago to Cairo.
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This IS the stated approach from new ISU coach - recruit within the state - will be interesting to see how well Coach Pedon is successful in that goal. He did schedule Illinois teams this year playing Eastern & Western Illinois.

I think Bradley would be better suited recruiting Toughness - no matter where they come from. I agree the more competitive teams consistently will increase attendance (Build it & they will come).
 
I agree, but I think Bradley has had it's share of players with toughness.

I don't want to miss some, but IMO, some of the top ones in the past came from Saskatoon (Ja'Shon), Memphis (Darrell Brown), Kansas City (Elijah Childs), Atlanta (Taylor Brown), Chicago (Tony Bennett), Verona, Missouri (J.J. Tauai) and Peoria (Marcellus Sommerville and Daniel Ruffin).

Who are the "toughest" players in recent Bradley history in everyone's opinions?
 
Da Coach said:
Who are the "toughest" players in recent Bradley history in everyone's opinions?
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BW era I'd say Lundy, DLO, and Kennell have to be considered outside of who you already mentioned. Walt Lemon made the NBA and we could still barely win a game when Geno was coach, but you'd have to consider him in that group.
 
️ Fanatic said:
This IS the stated approach from new ISU coach - recruit within the state - will be interesting to see how well Coach Pedon is successful in that goal. He did schedule Illinois teams this year playing Eastern & Western Illinois.

I think Bradley would be better suited recruiting Toughness - no matter where they come from. I agree the more competitive teams consistently will increase attendance (Build it & they will come).
Click to expand...

It will be interesting to see how the new ISU coach does. I do know he was a very, very good recruiter at Ohio State. It may take him a couple of years to turn that program around because the cupboard is pretty bare. His approach is similar to Versace’s and Les’ when they came to BU and we know the success they had with local and Illinois players. Dick loaded his teams with Chicago kids and also got local kids that weren’t heavily recruited but turned out to be fine players in the likes of Eddie Mathews and Trevor Trempe. He had such a Chicago connection, that Bradley had more publicity in the Sun Times and Tribune than Northwestern, Loyola and DePaul. The papers knew the readers wanted to know how their local high school players were doing. It made it easy because so many were going to Bradley. Les did the same with local kids such as Summerville (transfer), Adams, Crouch, Ruffin, Dunson (transfer) and Sims-Edwards as well as players from Chicago and East St. Louis. I would venture to say each of these players would be a starter and major contributor on the teams of the previous coach (Ford) and the current team under Wardle. With the transfer portal the recruiting process is never ending. Establishing positive coaching contacts at the AAU, high school level in Illinois is more critical than ever.

One of the things that destroyed DePaul’s program, from which they’ve never recovered, was turning their back on Illinois kids, especially from Chicago and recruiting nationally. That is when Illinois started getting them and turned their program into one of the best in the Big Ten and on the national scene. Now, after several some success, Underwood is recruiting more nationally. Porter Moser turned the Loyola program around by recruiting a couple of Chicago area kids each year.

If we can’t bring in two kids a year from the state of Illinois that can play at the MVC level, we’ve got bigger problems.
 
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