Heard from a friend of a friend…

[Tony (admin)]

Take this with a grain of salt. I can’t verify the validity of it.  A friend who has a “friend” in marketing at the U said Larry K dropped in on them recently.  He told them there were no crowds at the basketball games and asked them about it.  Whoever responded told him the lame teams that have been on the schedule are the reason, not marketing.

[Utah]

LOL. That is awesome. 

[rbmw263]

Thats part of it but honestly I think there might be a deeper seeded issue with attendance and the way its trending around the country

[CincyUte]

Dropping attendance is a problem with an obvious solution: they need to show more tweets on the jumbotron.

Apparently, if you tweet something during the game with the hashtag #goutes, your tweet may be featured on the jumbotron during timeouts. It is one way that technology has changed the entire college basketball experience.  It has become a fan-interactive experience, that appeals especially to the millennial generation.

Although I myself have never had the good fortune of having a tweet featured on the jumbotron (yet), I nevertheless thoroughly enjoy some of the clever things that other fans tweet.  For instance, one fan recently posted “the utes are playing great tonite gonna be a fun season #goutes.”  Someone else posted “kuzma with an incredible dunk #goutes.”  I simply can’t get enough of it.

So in conclusion, whoever decided to put tweets on the jumbotron is a freakin’ marketing genius.  And putting more tweets on the jumbotron is the obvious way to get more fans at the games.  College basketball has never been more enjoyable to attend in person.

Also, badass uniform variations would help increase attendance as well.  Thank you.

[Tony (admin)]

Cincy I don’t think having tweets on the scoreboard brings in fans.  When I look around at basketball games it seems like a really “old” crowd.  Nothing wrong with that, but if you go to a jazz game the crowd is much more even across the age spectrum.  Why is that? Not sure other than for some reason Utah or college basketball in general isn’t as interesting to the younger crowd.  I also suspect all the old farts we are seeing are the long time season ticket holders.  The young crowd probably doesn’t have the money for season tickets.

[leftyjace]

It’s not my fault, Larry.
My seats have gone unused for only one game so far, and it was me using them for all but one of those.
And I don’t even Tweeter!

[KiYi-Ute]

I’ve been able to use some friends’ season tickets and go to a few games this season (I’m only 26 and can’t afford my 3-pack of Football season ticket and a pack of basketball season tickets). But I try to watch every basketball game that I can, even if it’s just on TV.

From what I’ve seen this season, I’m not surprised that attendance levels are low at the Hunty. Why is that? A boring product on the court. People want to be entertained when they come to sporting events. Utah basketball, frankly, isn’t very entertaining. Our offense is slow and predictable: walk the ball up the court, pass and run around the 3 point line for a majority of the shot clock, then heave up a prayer. It’s not flashy, it’s not exciting. It doesn’t put butts in the seats. We almost never push the ball or try and run a fast break. It’s dull.

It might sound like the oh-fense of another Utah team that we all love. But Football has the game day appeal to it. You can come up and tailgate, spend the day with your family/friends, etc. It’s certainly about the game at the end of the day, but there’s so much more to it from the casual fan perspective. Also, games are on the weekends (for the most part) so you don’t have to come home from work and then decide if you really want to drive to the Hunty, park, deal with traffic, etc. for something that’s probably not going to be too exciting.

Hopefully that changes when conference play starts.

Just my 2 cents.

[Tony (admin)]

Attendance will certainly improve when conference play starts.  No doubt.  But with so many powder-puffs in the pre-season I fear attendance will take a hit again when we get our asses kicked in Pac-12 play.  

[Newbomb Turk]

Weeknight starting times of 6:00 don’t help. At the start of the UVU game the place was practically empty.

[bighand]

I have season tix but I have only been to 3 games so far because the schedule is so weak. I would gladly show up to watch some good games but I’m not interested going up to the Hunty just to watch us beat up on inferior opponents. I’ll just stay home and watch it on t.v.