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Improving our home court experience

More students = free food . You get free softdrinks, slice of pizza or burger, nachos...Could set it up in the concours area, just got to show BU ID and game ticket...

Get sponsors to support one section (or one half of a section vertically) in lower bowl between the baselines for students to sit. This overcomes the the loss of revenue from big buck lower bowl ticket buyers.

Students sitting there get free T's with the sponsors' logos on back, BU on front. Movie theaters, fast food joints, bars, restaurants, car dealerships,clothing stores, cell phone companies etc. Tie in a discount for these students with the sponsors etc.

Less taped music, more live music.

Free kids tickets when accompanied by paying adults in upper bowl outside the baselines..

Approach grade schools to have games for them with a package deal...All students get to come down on the floor at half time for 5 minutes of shooting with their parents/grandparents. Free popcorn and soda for the kids from the school who attend their game.

Do some sort of Bradley Idol competition (singing, dancing, etc) at half time of each home game and let fans vote on contestants, culminating in some sort of champion at the last home game.

Create a young singles room in the CC where they can mingle at pre-game, halftime, post game with beer/wine, appetizers, music etc....Create a date night?
 
Bring in the Chicken or Fanatic to make fun of the refs all game.

End the kiss cam on 2 opposing players.
 
SFP said:
Give the students better seats! The ones that do go deserve to ring the court and be able to stand up when they want without the oldies yelling at them to sit down. There are way to many stiffs at the game and I expect a few of them to shout my post down.

Winning also really helps. :eek:
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How many games do you watch that have the students ringing the court instead of behind the basket? Being there like every place else, they can stand all they want and not bother anybody. Not shouting you down, just disagreeing.
 
How about promoting our new Renaissance Collesium with a rally the day before a game? Or at least all conference games. Tickets could be half off for those that would buy during the rally and the fans could get involved somehow with the players. Sounds tacky, but maybe someone could sponsor the rallies to pay Peoria Charter Coach to bus as many fans that sign up during the rally downtown and back (with a bar crawl?). Promote it as a "Red Sea" event?
 
AZ BU Fan said:
Approach grade schools to have games for them with a package deal...All students get to come down on the floor at half time for 5 minutes of shooting with their parents/grandparents. Free popcorn and soda for the kids from the school who attend their game.
.....
Create a young singles room in the CC where they can mingle at pre-game, halftime, post game with beer/wine, appetizers, music etc....Create a date night?
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I would also approach local High Schools whose Alums are playing for BU (IE DSE from Washington) and see if the kids will come out to support the player (sort of goes along with the individual fan sections) that went to their HS as many people there (at least for the next two years) will probably know him. Maybe half off tickets in a section next to the students? Give them some sort of membership that would get them into a sort of "player club" maybe that other home display booth no one uses??? Snacks and beverages laid out with ESPN on the big screen and highlights from the Kids career or the school of the night.

To the singles, maybe we could get the Lexus Club and use the Suites? They have tables and chairs and no one ever seems to be up in them. Anyone know the policy on those? Can you just sort of waltz into one or is there a rental fee?
 
BradleyJD said:
Win games, especially at home.

When BU is winning and winning consistently the Civic Center is full, loud, and into the game.
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Exactly how I feel as it is hard to get the support from the fans when you are not playing good and winning games, I doubt many d-1 basketball schools would draw as many fans as BU has this year with as poor as a record as Bradley .
 
Chico said:
How many games do you watch that have the students ringing the court instead of behind the basket? Being there like every place else, they can stand all they want and not bother anybody. Not shouting you down, just disagreeing.
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I know several that do the ring (Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Penn St. I think, Duke, etc.) but I also know several that don't that have just as loyal fan sections (Oklahoma, Texas, and I don't think Florida's student Section is around the ring either) It's mostly what you make of what you got. At this point, we couldn't move the students and shift the big bucks season ticket holders away from their seats, so I believe that this is really a moot point.
 
runninfiend said:
Move the students to center court lower bowl and put all the ashen-colored, big money boosters in the end zone.
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Without the "ashen-colored, big money boosters", the Braves would be playing club ball and might be able to play in the Salvation Army gym and that's even farther from campus than the Civic Center.
 
Chico said:
Without the "ashen-colored, big money boosters", the Braves would be playing club ball and might be able to play in the Salvation Army gym and that's even farther from campus than the Civic Center.
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We might not need the Salvation army gym, since we would still have the old stinky Fieldhouse. That is if we could find a way to pay for the heating and electric bills.
 
Da Coach said:
We might not need the Salvation army gym, since we would still have the old stinky Fieldhouse. That is if we could find a way to pay for the heating and electric bills.
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HEY! That hurts... I loved the Fieldhouse. Saw my first Red-White scrimmage with my grandpa there.... Wanted to slap Glasser silly when I saw it go down. RIP
 
For students, fans, and alumni, the athletic department needs to IMO utilize social media much better. This would be a great class project for the marketing department!

Example

Bradley Athletics Facebook page which IMO is rather bland and does not contain any videos??????

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bradley-Braves-Athletics/139079699474878?sk=wall

Bradley Men's Basketball Facebook page- This hasn't had any updates from the person in charge of the page since August 4, 2010--in fairness it appears that BU is focusing on the Athletics page.

Contrast this with the Minnesota Gopher page which is much more interesting and utilizes video.
http://www.facebook.com/GopherAthletics

Also a poster on a thread a while ago suggested utilizing apps which if this hasn't been done, would be a great idea to reach students etc with promotions etc.
 
Good topic, I think a big one is free food. College students will always flock to where there is free food. Cheap beer is another one, but it wont happen because you run the risk of underage drinking more heavily, ie someone of age goes to the line and buys beer for his buddy next to him who is say 19. You would have to have extra security if you did that.

All in all, everything I would like to see done has already been mentioned, the biggest is marketing on campus. From what I hear there is next to no marketing on campus for games. I know the basketball fans will make it down, but the casual student with nothing else to do on a Tuesday night....
 
Like many others have said, better marketing is important. A lot of good ideas on here, I hope someone important reads them.

Team apparel is terrible. There are no adult size jerseys with the current jersey style and current player numbers. The shirts, shorts, ect. selection is rather poor in my opinion. It's like we are playing at a high school, little kids jerseys and a plain shirts with our name slapped on it are all we have. Oh and we have those player number tshirts that are wore out after a few times through the wash....high quality stuff.

I agree free food is a huge attraction.
 
BUfan14 said:
Team apparel is terrible. There are no adult size jerseys with the current jersey style and current player numbers. The shirts, shorts, ect. selection is rather poor in my opinion. It's like we are playing at a high school, little kids jerseys and a plain shirts with our name slapped on it are all we have. Oh and we have those player number tshirts that are wore out after a few times through the wash....high quality stuff.
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Although I agree to an extent, we got my dad a really nice Bradley windbreaker from campustown a few years ago. It has held up nicely, but then again that is only one item. I wouldnt mind a pair of replica game shorts. I dont know how many adult sized jerseys they would sell to be honest.
 
jrish12 said:
Although I agree to an extent, we got my dad a really nice Bradley windbreaker from campustown a few years ago. It has held up nicely, but then again that is only one item. I wouldnt mind a pair of replica game shorts. I dont know how many adult sized jerseys they would sell to be honest.
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I'd like some shorts and I have a feeling so would some of the standee students.

Not to get too greedy but U of I has some big time replica shorts that are pretty close to authentic ones. That'd be nice.
 
BuBraves55 said:
I'd like some shorts and I have a feeling so would some of the standee students.

Not to get too greedy but U of I has some big time replica shorts that are pretty close to authentic ones. That'd be nice.
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I don't know where they get them, but the vintage "short shorts" of old seem to be very popular with East Peoria (maybe other schools?) My friends seem to love them! Similar to the red and white overalls I guess.
 
Chico said:
How many games do you watch that have the students ringing the court instead of behind the basket? Being there like every place else, they can stand all they want and not bother anybody. Not shouting you down, just disagreeing.
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Shocked to have seen you respond to my post.:eek: LOL

In reality the whole BU basketball marketing situation needs a face lift. Maybe not ringing the court but I still believe the students should have at least one section that is not in the end-zone. The whole culture of BU basketball has changed since they moved to Carver. In the beginning there were some great teams so very little tweaking had to be done to maintain a great atmosphere but reality is that being so far off campus and the crowd becoming older the whole concept of motivating people needs to change. The game should be primarily used as a way to tie the students into the school so after they graduate they can still feel like they are a part of it. Second is raising money. It seems that the school has used it primarily for raising money and have lost the concept that the school should be for the students. Oh well just a reflection of society as a whole.
 
SFP said:
Shocked to have seen you respond to my post.:eek: LOL

In reality the whole BU basketball marketing situation needs a face lift. Maybe not ringing the court but I still believe the students should have at least one section that is not in the end-zone. The whole culture of BU basketball has changed since they moved to Carver. In the beginning there were some great teams so very little tweaking had to be done to maintain a great atmosphere but reality is that being so far off campus and the crowd becoming older the whole concept of motivating people needs to change. The game should be primarily used as a way to tie the students into the school so after they graduate they can still feel like they are a part of it. Second is raising money. It seems that the school has used it primarily for raising money and have lost the concept that the school should be for the students. Oh well just a reflection of society as a whole.
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Why the shock? There's only one poster I never respond to. It would nice to have a section besides the end zone for the students, but with the amount of students that show up now, I think they can be more of a presence in the end zone during free throws etc.
 
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