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| (above) Matt Tabrum may not have factored Spring Break into the equation |
Its fitting that the final WCHA games to ever be played in Colorado will pit Colorado College against Denver. CC and DU will square off in the first
round of the best-of-three WCHA playoffs beginning Friday in Denver.
The winner will advance to the WCHA Final Five in St. Paul, Minnesota.
26 comments:
He's right - we need the students to show up in force this weekend. Sunday's game was an awful showing for the students. The few that were in attendance (basically two rows' worth) stood there all game and did nothing at all, other than clapping when we scored a goal. Everyone knew about the early start time and it's a good thing that the game was a blowout, because there was zero support from the students. They have to do a lot better this weekend.
Yeah, I went to DU, and I fully understand that there's a lot to do in Colorado. But the student turnout on Sunday was just embarassing. I wondered--spring break...Winter Carnival?? Nope, spring break is next week, and Winter Carnvial was a month ago. It made you wonder why not even a couple dozen of students could roll out of bed on Sunday to go see a hockey game on their own campus. There have been some good student turnouts this year. But stuff like Sunday just makes you wonder what's up.
There will be virtually no students at the games this weekend.
Finals for the Winter Quarter begin on Wednesday thru Friday. Then the students hit Spring Break.
Plus those that bought season tickets, don't receive WCHA playoff games in their package.
Finally, since the WCHA sets the prices and controls all the revenue there's no student discount. The WCHA keeps all the ticket revenue for all playoff games and uses that money for refs & league expenses and then whatever's left over [usually $70,000 to $100,000] goes to each WCHA member school.
This is nothing new. Spring Break for DU fall on the same weekend as the start of the WCHA playoffs and its been that way for 30 or 40 years.
Wait a minute, are you telling me they pay these guys to do a lousy job as referee? You should be able to deduct it as a charitable deduction.
I guarantee you that all of the "townies" from the Springs will be in Magness this weekend. I hope we aren't out numbered!
DG, any insights on why student turnout was so poor on Sunday? That game was part of the student season ticket, right? Just wondering, because I don't remember a game where school was in session and so few students showed up.
It will be hard for CC fans to roll into Denver with numbers for both or all three games.
And since a potential game 3 will be on a Sunday night, they probably wouldn't come up in numbers with work the next day.
Its been a pretty disappointing season for CC.
Don't hold your breath.
The students WON'T be there this weekend. At least, not in force.
This is finals week and Spring Break officially starts on the 16th. Travel plans have been made and, starting Wednesday night, the campus will become progressively emptier and emptier. By the time Friday night rolls around, we'll be lucky to see 400 students in attendance - fewer on Saturday night.
With regard to Sunday, once again we witness a craptacular failure on the part of the marketing and ticketing departments.
DU COULD have marketed this game as something special and fun...instead, they pretended it didn't exist.
If I were in charge, we'd have jumped on this from the beginning of the season, billing it as a special "Brunch With the Pioneers!!!"
Students wearing pajamas would have received a free drink ticket...there would have been mimosa, Irish coffee, and bloody mary bars...we'd have worked with Sodexho to get breakfast food in the concourse food vending carts...kids under 12 wearing pajamas would have been admitted free...DUGS would have been invited to do their thing for breakfast...
(I came up with all of that after a grand total of 2 minutes of thinking about this. And I'm a finance guy. One would suppose that a marginally competent "marketing person" would be able to come up with triple that...)
Anyway.
I love DU and enjoy the hell out of the hockey games - but the forehead-slappingly obvious ineptitude of the people "running" the marketing and ticketing departments is frustrating to watch.
DU has a great product. It's a shame that they can't - or won't - promote it properly.
DU had a HUGE student turnout for the basketball game on Saturday night at Magness Arena.
But lets be honest, with finals less than a week away and no student interest in UAA, the turnout was always going to be light.
Most will remember that DU used to end the regular season against CC, and those games drew huge student numbers.
I've been very pleased with the student attendance this season. Especially considering that lacrosse and basketball now compete with hockey as popular student events.
Just a point of clarification - while student tickets don't include the playoff games, season ticket packages sold to the public DO include the WCHA playoff games.
Agree with Ring. That being said, DU is making tremendous strides with basketball and lacrosse.
DU hockey is one of the greatest bargains out there, but they've got to connect with the community.
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To defend the DU marketing people. DU has 16 sports to promote. Hockey is just 1/16 of the Athletic Department. Its a very important part, but its not the only thing they have to keep their eye on.
Also - there is ONE potential silver lining to the fact that few students will be in attendance this coming weekend:
Since DU is playing CC, there will be somewhat increased public demand for tickets, so it's possible (perhaps likely...) that a fair few of those tickets that otherwise will go unused by students will get snapped up by members of the public. Which would be preferable to having those seats sit empty.
The last time DU faced CC in the first round of the WCHA playoffs was 2004 and they swept us out of Magness. That was after we'd swept them the week before.
DU drew 4400 & 4700 against CC that weekend.
I'd project attendance to be a little lighter than that this weekend.
I understand that DU has 16 sports to promote, but right now, they don't actively promote any.
DU's outside marketing consists of a few billboards placed around town.
Seriously. Good job.
There are SO many potential consumers of DU sports in this town and DU does practically NOTHING to reach them.
DU has very little money [next to nothing] in the budget for marketing.
Plus much of DU's athletics budget is burned up on travel. Even schools like Michigan and Alabama bus to a vast majority of their games. DU flies to almost all their games, even in nonrevenue sports.
Plus DU has very little revenue coming from ticket sales.
So its a Catch-22. No revenue coming in and no money for marketing to bring revenue in.
That being said, DU competes nationally in almost every sport. Why? Because the Athletics budget is heavily subsidized by student tuition dollars. DU probably spends more money per student from tuition dollars than any school in the country.
Think about it. DU has more in common with Hawaii and the Alaska schools than they do with the BCS Football schools. DU is on an island because of the conference affiliation fiasco and the sports they chose to compete in [hockey & lacrosse].
And as a sidenote.
Despite these serious, serious issues facing the Athletic Department, Chancellor Coombe and his leadership team spend their time going after the Boone Mascot controversy and wasting so much money on their multicultural agenda which will NEVER produce any income for the university.
DG, I don't mean to quibble, but I wouldn't call the student turnout huge at the basketball game on Saturday. It was good, don't get me wrong. But not really huge, and there were stretches of the game where they didn't make too much noise. And yeah, I don't understand either why DU couldn't have come up with some kind of simple, clever brunch promotion for the hockey game on Sunday. Seriously, there were about 20 students there. Like I said, student turnout has been great at some sporting events this year, but Sunday was just odd. On the bright side, the arena had more non-student fans than I expected on Sunday.
OK.
Huge compared to a normal basketball turnout. :-)
Simply because we're dealing with a difficult reality, that doesn't mean that the situation can't improve.
Yes, it would take the dedication of additional resources - resources DU may not feel are appropriate to dedicate to improving turn-out at flagship athletic events.
But, if nothing changes...nothing changes.
DU is about to make its second conference affiliation switch in as many years - PLUS begin play as one of the founding members of a new conference for its flagship sport. If there were EVER a time to invest some money in marketing and promotion, that time is NOW.
Like I said--the hoops turnout was good, just not overwhelming or anything. In my opinion, it shouldn't have caused any lower attendance at the hockey game. All that said, it's great to see the basketball program taking strides forward. There was a time a few years ago when I don't think that any students would attend a hoops game. Great to see DU building support for non-hockey programs like lacrosse and basketball.
Your preaching the choir. I agree with everything you've said.
The problem, in my opinion, is way above the Athletic Department.
Plus the ever changing conference affiliation issue that's affecting every school in the country.
Here's a great article about some of the issues facing the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department.
http://host.madison.com/news/local/bucky-s-no-shows-percent-of-purchased-tickets-go-unused/article_0f005610-85d5-11e2-9b4c-0019bb2963f4.html
DU has nothing in common with Sconnie Athletics but they have had 2.3 million tickets that have gone unused since 2006-07. Millions of tickets have been sold and gone to waste.
It's sad and pathetic that DU can't sell out a playoff game against their arch rival. Bunch of DUmb fans at DU.
Go Tigers.
I predict a sweep in favor of CC.
Sadly, CC is gonna get their asses handed to them this weekend. But then, that is how their season has gone this year. CC needs a new coach. Hopefully some new retired porn star is looking for a career change. Lord knows CC could use a change at the head coach level, Scott Owens simply needs to go away or CC will be the Seadogs of the new NCHC next year.
Sadly, CC is gonna get their asses handed to them this weekend. But then, that is how their season has gone this year. CC needs a new coach. Hopefully some new retired porn star is looking for a career change. Lord knows CC could use a change at the head coach level, Scott Owens simply needs to go away or CC will be the Seadogs of the new NCHC next year.
Sadly, nobody will be at Magness to witness. CC had another down year, but they have nothing to lose. They would love to turn DU into a bubble team.
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