Student section/Attendance

19,023 Views | 43 Replies | Last: 6 yr ago by nacluth
PurpleOut
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Staff
Great turnout again in the PHA section, sadly out of 2 games it's the local crowd/season ticket holders that haven't showed.

And while the student section is bigger, and agree 100% that it's better, they are still sitting on their butts 85% of the game and fairly quiet. That's the observation from tv at least. Tonight I noticed the LeTourneau fans under the other basket more than I did ours. I see a post every now and then that "they are into the game" but I don't see it. No noise on defense. Or maybe I just have too high of standards for a student section?

I will say this, getting the students to the games is the first problem and that's getting better. Now we just need to convince them that they ALL can have fun and treat it like a party.
INiedrauer
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I share these goals while also acknowledging that they have been a whole lot better this year in both areas. I had an engagement for most of the first half of the game last night and so I only made it for the second and went back to watch the TV broadcast to get caught up to speed after. The ESPN3 feed hasn't done justice to how much better the students have been through a couple games. I'm not saying there isn't room for MILES of improvement - they are sitting, they still get bored and pull out phones, etc - but actually seeing them stand up and make noise during the "make noise" ques, doing the "axe 'em" wave with their arms back and forth during breaks and just general rowdiness - it's beyond what I expected especially against the terrible quality of opponent this week.

Encouraging but far from the goal.
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Isaac Niedrauer
@INiedrauer


SFA Jack Fanatic
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I normally don't sit across the court from the student section and couldn't see how many were there, but I did last night. What I saw was just a small fraction of the on-campus student population in the stands. If that was an improved turnout over last year, then last year must have been pitiful. We should be getting at least a couple of thousand students at every game. It's not like they don't know when it's game day, since there are 'Basketball Game Tonight' signs all over the campus.

Anyone know if there are other ways used by the school to communicate about game days with students, by text maybe?
INiedrauer
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Uhhh yeah, it's been pretty bad in the past. Especially for the early season games.
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Isaac Niedrauer
@INiedrauer


nacluth
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Yeah Ed it's been dismal for a while. To a consistent attender, last night was pretty great. Big hyped conference games draw more students, but for an early season game, this one was rockin' comparatively speaking.

I know there is a long way to go, but I was really impressed with the change from last year to this. There were many more involved participants in the chanting and axes up, etc. Kids are going to start coming in bigger numbers for the fun if they can keep it up. Last year's PHA had big ideas but most of the students didn't seem to know what was going on. This year it has been much better.

The small LeTourneau section was loud, but nothing like how well SFA travels to close games. I give PHA a big thumbs up for substantial growth. If they can keep momentum, then this can turn into something...of course winning won't hurt things.
BigJack85
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I think 75% of the low turnout is hangover from last year. A few more wins in non-conference and a good start in conference and we will be back to better attendance. I know I'm in the minority but I think the best we will ever do (unless SFA enrolls 14k - 15k students) for the run of the mill games is 3,000. It's the 4 or 5 games a year that have a rivalry or some other niche' we should get 5,500 - 6,000.

When I move back to Nac in a couple years I'll add to the totals!!!!
Axe 'Em Jacks - Class of 85'
sfa17
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Also some students have already gone home for thanksgiving break. Saturday's attendance is gonna be even smaller. I wish we could play some of these early games and holiday games in the HPE
PurpleOut
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Another thing that I've seen discussed and mentioned on twitter (by myself a lot), is some sort of ticket transfer option for season ticket holders. It's understandable that there are going to be games that a season ticket holder can't make, so it'd be great if we had a system to get those unused tickets to someone. These are tickets that were already paid for, and most of the time I see these ticket holders just posting to give them away.

A lot of schools have a ticket marketplace, where season ticket holders can login to resell their tickets. I used that for Texas basketball games before (how I got a front row seat for our game in Austin a few years ago). So while that might be a little complex for our fan base, some sort of feature to let us digitally release tickets back to the ticket office to be given out, would be ideal to me.

Thoughts?
CLHawkins
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Does anyone know if SFA Charter school, Nac ISD and Central Heights ISD kids get in for free? If they don't I think they should. Publicize it at local schools get the kids to make their parents bring them out. You're putting butts in seats and the parents are still buying tickets and concessions.

You're also getting local kids excited about SFA early making it easier to convince them to stick around. Nac HS has had some solid FB recruits come out recently get to them early and develop a love for the school.

If they already do this than never mind. Maybe it is just about publicizing it more.
nacluth
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They have some community days where they get in free. Kids 8 & under do get in free always. There could be some more community involvement, but it still is the hottest ticket in town. This weekend despite being a holiday will be better attended for the guys than the first weekday games. And winning builds crowds.
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