Daily Campus Column: Please, stop shaming students for not going to games.

[RayIsTheGOAT]

Win and students will be there. It's really quite simple.
This program is not a compelling story right now. And neither is the conference we are in.
You really think we would notice a change in student enthusiasm if we were still a top 25 team in the Old Big East or ACC right now?

 

[CL82]

Solid old man argument. If cell phones were as ubiquitous when you were growing up, I'm sure the same phenomenon would have occurred. Somehow other teams don't seem to be having the same problems filling the stands with kids willing to put their cell phones down for a few hours.

Nah, a solid old man argument would be something like "You'll miss a lot of life if you stop to send pictures of your forehead to your friends every 8 seconds, now get off my lawn."

 

[UConnDan97]

Solid old man argument. If cell phones were as ubiquitous when you were growing up, I'm sure the same phenomenon would have occurred. Somehow other teams don't seem to be having the same problems filling the stands with kids willing to put their cell phones down for a few hours.

Are you sure "the kids" are filling the stadiums up??

This is a picture of a highly-ranked Cincinnati team at home against Temple in January. Check out the stands behind the player. Winning doesn't cure it all. People would rather watch on tv than go to games nowadays. That's just the reality of the new age today. It has nothing to do with an old man argument...

 

[superjohn]

This.

You're right that it's not just a UConn problem; ours is worse because of the team record, but it seems to be a general trend of the times. So weird for me to say that, since I'm only 42. People are just more disconnected now to a bunch of things, sports being one of them. They'd rather type on the phone next to Justin Timberlake at a halftime show to instantly let their friends know it's happening rather than to actually enjoy it happening, while his 50-something dad in an Eagles jersey is rockin' out and enjoying the moment (put the freakin' phone down!). I think there is a parallel between that moment and what we are seeing.

I don't know what the answer is, either. Winning will bring more back, certainly. But it won't bring back the same numbers that were there 10 or 20 years ago. I hope that trend will change in the near future...

Always interesting to find out posters ages, would have guessed you were born in '97.

 

[UConnDan97]

Always interesting to find out posters ages, would have guessed you were born in '97.

Graduated from UConn in '97. Born in '75. For the record, they had cellphones when I was in college. You just couldn't play "Plants vs. Zombies" on them...

 

[PAHusky]

Are you sure "the kids" are filling the stadiums up??

This is a picture of a highly-ranked Cincinnati team at home against Temple in January. Check out the stands behind the player. Winning doesn't cure it all. People would rather watch on tv than go to games nowadays. That's just the reality of the new age today. It has nothing to do with an old man argument...

In January.....was Cinci out for winter break at the time? I think there's your answer to that.

I apologize for the phrase "old man argument", it was dismissive and frankly pretty rude. I'm pretty tired of the ripping on today's youth for cell phone use trope. I agree with your statement above - the majority of the population these days, young and old, would probably prefer to stay home and watch the game on increasingly larger tvs. I just don't think that we should be knocking the students for not showing up for a terrible product like this year's team. If and when we do turn it around, if the students still stay away then we can address the issue. Tough to say at this point whether it's a cultural thing or the team just blows.

 

[John]

Are you sure "the kids" are filling the stadiums up??

This is a picture of a highly-ranked Cincinnati team at home against Temple in January. Check out the stands behind the player. Winning doesn't cure it all. People would rather watch on tv than go to games nowadays. That's just the reality of the new age today. It has nothing to do with an old man argument...

I watched that game on TV - that night there was an ice storm, the announcers mentioned it several times.

 

[UConnDan97]

In January.....was Cinci out for winter break at the time? I think there's your answer to that.

I apologize for the phrase "old man argument", it was dismissive and frankly pretty rude. I'm pretty tired of the ripping on today's youth for cell phone use trope. I agree with your statement above - the majority of the population these days, young and old, would probably prefer to stay home and watch the game on increasingly larger tvs. I just don't think that we should be knocking the students for not showing up for a terrible product like this year's team. If and when we do turn it around, if the students still stay away then we can address the issue. Tough to say at this point whether it's a cultural thing or the team just blows.

That game supposedly sold 8,900 of the 9,400 capacity for the arena. Maybe the cameraman was extremely unlucky to find the only empty section....near center court. This sold tickets vs. gate count concept drives @whaler11 crazy on the football board.

As for any offense you committed, none was taken. No worries. And I should have made it more clear in my first post that I really meant the "PEOPLE are more disconnected" comment, not just the youth. If you look at that Superbowl picture, there are about 5 folks of all ages with their phones out, looking at JT through a 5" window instead of the real life guy who is standing one foot away from their face. Hoping that life does a full circle and that folks of all ages come out to play again...

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Are you sure "the kids" are filling the stadiums up??

This is a picture of a highly-ranked Cincinnati team at home against Temple in January. Check out the stands behind the player. Winning doesn't cure it all. People would rather watch on tv than go to games nowadays. That's just the reality of the new age today. It has nothing to do with an old man argument...

Given the cherry seats and Temple wearing white I would have guessed this was a Temple home game. Not for nothing, Cincy is playing all their home games at Northern Kentucky University this season.

 

[UConnDan97]

I watched that game on TV - that night there was an ice storm, the announcers mentioned it several times.

The announced attendance was 8,924 out of a 9,400 capacity arena, so I don't know what to say about that comment. I could be wrong about it being empty or about it being full or about it being icy. But...

 

[Tex-Lager93]

Considering the current state of affairs, I've been impressed with the student section - active and vocal despite the product on the court and the distant conference opponents. For comparison, I attended the Temple game - and their student section was terrible...mostly empty at an on-campus, easy to access facility at a school with 40,000 kids...with a similar W-L. Our kids are still hanging in there. The rest of the seats, though...pretty bare - and that is definitely related to the poor product.

 

[UConnDan97]

Given the cherry seats and Temple wearing white I would have guessed this was a Temple home game. Not for nothing, Cincy is playing all their home games at Northern Kentucky University this season.

That would make more sense. I just clicked a random game for them and looked at the pictures. Let me try to find some verified photos from their games and other winning teams from the league...

 

[Lefty2one]

It's an awful product - who would want to go watch it?

The article didn't cover it but has the women's team had attendance issues recently? Guessing this is nothing more than 'our team stinks, plays no one and isn't fun to watch' more than anything else.

 

[UConnDan97]

Given the cherry seats and Temple wearing white I would have guessed this was a Temple home game. Not for nothing, Cincy is playing all their home games at Northern Kentucky University this season.

You must be right about the photo being from Temple.

Here's one that is the Cincy vs. SMU game at Cincy. They were ranked #19 during this game on January 7th, and these are the sideline seats from a similar angle. Typically not where students sit, so we're gonna blame the "adults" on this one. Again, it was announced that the attendance was about 9k, but obviously it couldn't be (assuming THIS time I got the picture right). This picture is taken from a slide deck from Cincinnati.com:

 

[bobbyinaz]

You must be right about the photo being from Temple.

Here's one that is the Cincy vs. SMU game at Cincy. They were ranked #19 during this game on January 7th, and these are the sideline seats from a similar angle. Typically not where students sit, so we're gonna blame the "adults" on this one. Again, it was announced that the attendance was about 9k, but obviously it couldn't be (assuming THIS time I got the picture right). This picture is taken from a slide deck from Cincinnati.com:

You do know they are playing their home games out of state this year, right?

 

[UConnDan97]

You do know they are playing their home games out of state this year, right?

Yes, I know that they are playing out of state in the BB&T Arena in Northern Kentucky. Do you want to see what that looks like???

Some of our folks in Fairfield County would kill for a drive like that instead of the one they make to Gampel. Before you try to make fun of someone, try to use Google...

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

You must be right about the photo being from Temple.

Here's one that is the Cincy vs. SMU game at Cincy. They were ranked #19 during this game on January 7th, and these are the sideline seats from a similar angle. Typically not where students sit, so we're gonna blame the "adults" on this one. Again, it was announced that the attendance was about 9k, but obviously it couldn't be (assuming THIS time I got the picture right). This picture is taken from a slide deck from Cincinnati.com:

Don’t you know that arena seats 30,000?

 

[ConnHuskBask]

I saw that little dweeb at the SB with Timberlake.

Kid probably didn't get off his phone the whole game.

Live your damn life kid.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

You do know they are playing their home games out of state this year, right?

It’s probably about the same as Storrs to Hartford

 

[bobbyinaz]

Yes, I know that they are playing out of state in the BB&T Arena in Northern Kentucky. Do you want to see what that looks like???

View attachment 28437

Some of our folks in Fairfield County would kill for a drive like that instead of the one they make to Gampel. Before you try to make fun of someone, try to use Google...

I've been to the arena several times. I know exactly where it is

You were the clown who tried to make a comparison of students not walking to Gampel vs students driving to a "home" game at Cinci

 

[UConnDan97]

Don’t you know that arena seats 30,000?

???

I've got a capacity of 9,400 for that arena based on their Wiki page:

BB&T Arena - Wikipedia

 

[UConnDan97]

I've been to the arena several times. I know exactly where it is

You were the clown who tried to make a comparison of students not walking to Gampel vs students driving to a "home" game at Cinci

Then you have reading comprehension issues. I said "PEOPLE" and I even put it in caps so as to not be misconstrued. Perhaps I'll try different colors next time. My point was never that students couldn't walk to anything...

 

[blue93]

I think it's a combination of:
1) a less exciting product on the court/field
2) it's too easy/cheap for some people to be bothered to go in person when they can watch at home
3) people don't want to be associated with losers - nobody wants to be posting on IG/FB/Snapchat that they went to see the 3-9 football team or the below .500 basketball team
4) conference, which I think is the most overblown of these four issues - if our FB and MBB programs were winning regularly, overall and student attendances would be fine.

There are no easy fixes. Winning helps fan support, but fans help the team win and you need fan support to bring in winning players. Hard to have one without the other.

For the record, I think all 4 of the above are applicable to the majority of our fan base, not just the students. Plenty of people that I graduated with 3 years ago that were big fans while we were want no part of going to see any games now.

 

[UConnDan97]

It’s probably about the same as Storrs to Hartford

It's a 7 mile drive. Google maps is telling me it will take 12 minutes to drive. It's like Storrs to Willimantic...

 

[bobbyinaz]

Then you have reading comprehension issues. I said "PEOPLE" and I even put it in caps so as to not be misconstrued. Perhaps I'll try different colors next time. My point was never that students couldn't walk to anything...

Maybe the Cinci students should've walked to an away game in Philadelphia against Temple like you tried to say in your 1st post.