Great article by Jacobs. Time for UConn to step up!

[UConnJim]

Basically says time for UConn to step up! I think BYers agree.

http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn...ootball-column-1201-20121130,0,6581917.column

 

[MattMang23]

And a boneyarder mentioned in the article. Nice!

 

[coachcap]

Unfortunately, he's preaching to the crowd. The conundrum is how to actually change the mindset of casual fans & actually get fannies into the seats & increasing the season ticket base. UConn has serious shortcomings in this regard & it's overdue time for a change in marketing philosophy.

 

[UConnJim]

Unfortunately, he's preaching to the crowd. The conundrum is how to actually change the mindset of casual fans & actually get fannies into the seats & increasing the season ticket base. UConn has serious shortcomings in this regard & it's overdue time for a change in marketing philosophy.

The first step in solving a problem is to recognize you have a problem. BYers see the problem, now mainstream media is seeing it. Time to act!

 

[uconNYC]

Unfortunately, he's preaching to the crowd.

Pretty sure everyone in CT Government and UConn leadership read the Courant, so articles like this one are very important. We need the Horde to start raising these issues.

Because of our on court success, Jeff Hathaway was given free pass and only once he left was it apparent how little he did to enhance the UConn brand. Our reporters never called him out on the many issues Boneyarders have been highlighting for ages.

 

[BugsyCT]

The only crowd he's preaching to is here on the 'Yard. The rest of the apathetic sports fans in CT could stand to read that article if they want to help save the UConn brand.

 

[firstnline]

It starts with the local media. And wouldn't you know, channel 3 is yet at it again. Uconn got 2nd billing after the high school playoffs again. Gutwrenching just gutwrenching channel 3. Time to start changing your way of thinking once and for all. Uconn first, Uconn 2nd and Uconn 3rd, then everbody else.

 

[Dooley]

Agree with all of your posts. Great article, needs to be said to motivate the casual fan to show more support. I admit, I'm more of a casual hoops fan (i.e. - I only get to about 2 home games a year) and watch most games on TV, but not all. But the article certainly resonated with me and I'm going to try to get to a few more hoops games this year, especially after seeing the sparse crowd the other night against New Hampshire.

 

[#1 PA Husky Fan]

Build a more exciting brand, and those apathetic fans are longer apathetic. I have been a huge fan since listening to Corny Thompson, Mike McKay, and Chuck Aleksinas on my parent's clock radio. Even I struggle watch our FB and MBB teams at times right now.

Ollie will take care of the MBB, given time and a LT contract.

Football needs a change . GDL should wallpaper someone else's office.

 

[Bootsthemonkey]

JJ nails it.

 

[ZooCougar]

And a boneyarder mentioned in the article. Nice!

Yup. Desmond Conner blocks me. Jacobs quotes me

The article was really good though.

 

[ZooCougar]

The difference between UConn and state schools in the south and Midwest? We actually have competition in the way of other forms of entertainment.

I don't understand what basketball's problem is. But we need an exciting brand of football to fill the rent. That's what we need to angling for.

 

[Dooley]

Yup. Desmond Conner blocks me. Jacobs quotes me

The article was really good though.

I"m fairly new here. So you're flyguy? Nicely done!

 

[ZooCougar]

I"m fairly new here. So you're flyguy? Nicely done!

Yup, I keep forgetting to add it to the signature.

That's the thing I like about twitter. It's a free for all, but you can engage people. I've used it off and on for about three years.

 

[rich1122]

Thank you Jeff for writing my article. I have been harping on this the last few days and honestly this is a great article.

The interest in UCONN sports peaked about 3 years ago I think. Maybe it was the economy, migration to red states etc, but the enthusiasm is not there. Football just tanked liked the rest. The alum just don't go to the games in as big way.

I said it in three other posts. Ohio State not coming to the Rent with 38,000, without a commitment to expand to 60K. Still 5,000 unsold for today. 8K for the Bball game - lowest ever. The beat goes on. The gamers are gone.

Anyway everybody go enjoy the game today and I'll be at the soccer match tomorrow. Doing my part.

Warde go figure out how to get the fannies in the seats. That's what we hired you for.

 

[businesslawyer]

I agree with most of it -- not all of it. But the key line is "Or maybe we forgot to have fun." Now, you can argue that Connecticut's flagship daily paper, and its flagship sports columnest, is past of the reason for that, but at the end of the day that is neither here nor there.

Where is the fan enthusiasm that used to take over basketball arenas for road games in Chestnut Hill and East Rutherford and midtown Manhattan? Where is the fan enthusiasm for a football game that pulls out a hard fought victory in the last minute of a football game, even if it is against Akron or bad Duke and Rutgers teams. If we're only going to be having fun when we're winnning national championships -- like in March of 11 -- well, that isn't enough fun to produce the enthusiasm and money that this program needs.

And it is this board too, and not just the apathetic general fanbase. There is a difference between questioning play calling after, say, this year's win against Buffalo, and the god awful "we suck they suck fire everyone" rants that we now have to live through. If we as the core fanbase can't make the Boneyard fun, and treasure each win and each opportunity to have fun supporting this team, the program will suffer.

Calhoun inherited a loyal and relatively large fanbase that was overjoyed with each and every step of success. KO, or whoever else is given the keys, will most likely have to win, and win large and win immediately, before you can tell that our fanbase likes basketball. Edsall couldn't come near keeping this board happy, despite achieving results that were well above the short and intermediate term goals that the school had in place for him. This fanbase was a decade ago ready to pack the stadium to see the team play MAC schools and produce wins. Now, if we're not beating upper level league opponents no one cares.

This is our problem folks. Not the Courants. Not the school's. And not the players. Everyone else can help us solve it, but we need to be both the catalysts and the ultimate solution. Buy more tickets. Watch more games. Go to a road game or two. Make donations. And make being a UConn fan fun, both for those who are already fans and those who might be if you didn't walk around with this air of misery because we're UConn fans and things aren't good enough.

We can do this if we want to. We were like this not long ago. But it is up to the collective us.

 

[Jimdish255]

Build a more exciting brand, and those apathetic fans are longer apathetic. I have been a huge fan since listening to Corny Thompson, Mike McKay, and Chuck Aleksinas on my parent's clock radio. Even I struggle watch our FB and MBB teams at times right now.

Ollie will take care of the MBB, given time and a LT contract.

Football needs a change . GDL should wallpaper someone else's office.

You should have been at some of those games. They were wars in the old fieldhouse.

 

[Jimdish255]

I like Jeff but using the UNH game as an example is weak. He might have mentioned the lunacy of playing UNH in the XL Center to begin with or the fact that we are in a bit of a transition with the postseason ban in hoops and a new coach. XL may be overused imo except for big games. Just sayin.

BL: This is our problem folks. Not the Courants. Not the school's. And not the players. Everyone else can help us solve it, but we need to be both the catalysts and the ultimate solution. Buy more tickets. Watch more games. Go to a road game or two. Make donations. And make being a UConn fan fun, both for those who are already fans and those who might be if you didn't walk around with this air of misery because we're UConn fans and things aren't good enough.

Maybe you can define "we" a little more clearly here. First of all many people are not in a position to go to more road games, buy more tickets or make more donations. Sometimes it seems like people are suggesting that "The Boneyarders" are the problem because some people complain too much. As if we shut down the Yard that would solve many of the perception problems. Just asking for clarification while I agree people need to look inward and try to figure out what they can do to help. If you're gonna complain at least try to balance those complaints with positive action.

 

[gars44]

Unfortunately, he's preaching to the crowd. The conundrum is how to actually change the mindset of casual fans & actually get fannies into the seats & increasing the season ticket base. UConn has serious shortcomings in this regard & it's overdue time for a change in marketing philosophy.

Coach, the way to do it is to get some leadership up there that actually cares about the result. They bathed in Calhoun's success for years without having to do too much. Administration at Storrs could get a job up there and basically kick back, out of the public eye, drawing really nice salaries (the Uconn campus police "commander" was making $256,000 per year when they finally forced him to retire - this is a college campus, not an inner city. The Hartford policy chief makes about $150K), and having very little oversight. Good political sinecure. Even the presidents were hardly what you would call "motivated" individuals. Susan Herbst has moved mountains in the short time she has been here, different mindset, but seismic shifts are moving the ground beneath her as she works.

 

[rich1122]

He did not mention one thing that is very important. People who go to games routinely are making an exodus from the state and the younger grads are in NYC or somewhere else - NOT HERE. Honestly, the people who have the money to go, people retiring or near retirement are getting out of Dodge very quickly. I am getting to that age and everybody is gone, left, kaput. I know of 10 seats that will be available next year, with people moving to red states. Me, maybe 3 or 4 years.

It's going to get worse if we just keep raising taxes.

 

[gars44]

I agree with most of it -- not all of it. But the key line is "Or maybe we forgot to have fun." Now, you can argue that Connecticut's flagship daily paper, and its flagship sports columnest, is past of the reason for that, but at the end of the day that is neither here nor there.

Where is the fan enthusiasm that used to take over basketball arenas for road games in Chestnut Hill and East Rutherford and midtown Manhattan? Where is the fan enthusiasm for a football game that pulls out a hard fought victory in the last minute of a football game, even if it is against Akron or bad Duke and Rutgers teams. If we're only going to be having fun when we're winnning national championships -- like in March of 11 -- well, that isn't enough fun to produce the enthusiasm and money that this program needs.

And it is this board too, and not just the apathetic general fanbase. There is a difference between questioning play calling after, say, this year's win against Buffalo, and the god awful "we suck they suck fire everyone" rants that we now have to live through. If we as the core fanbase can't make the Boneyard fun, and treasure each win and each opportunity to have fun supporting this team, the program will suffer.

Calhoun inherited a loyal and relatively large fanbase that was overjoyed with each and every step of success. KO, or whoever else is given the keys, will most likely have to win, and win large and win immediately, before you can tell that our fanbase likes basketball. Edsall couldn't come near keeping this board happy, despite achieving results that were well above the short and intermediate term goals that the school had in place for him. This fanbase was a decade ago ready to pack the stadium to see the team play MAC schools and produce wins. Now, if we're not beating upper level league opponents no one cares.

This is our problem folks. Not the Courants. Not the school's. And not the players. Everyone else can help us solve it, but we need to be both the catalysts and the ultimate solution. Buy more tickets. Watch more games. Go to a road game or two. Make donations. And make being a UConn fan fun, both for those who are already fans and those who might be if you didn't walk around with this air of misery because we're UConn fans and things aren't good enough.

We can do this if we want to. We were like this not long ago. But it is up to the collective us.

Nice pep talk. And I don't want to be negative. But this program needs a lot more energy that just rallying the Boneyard faithful. What are we, 200 contributors? This program needs a top down renovation. New roof, new facade. It starts with the coach. I think we have the president. Not sure on the AD, time will tell. But the coach does not inspire either the kids or the fanbase. We are well past the "one drop of water at a time" philosophy.

 

[noeynox]

He did not mention one thing that is very important. People who go to games routinely are making exodus from the state and the younger grads are in NYC or somewhere else - NOT HERE. Honestly, the people who have the money to go, people retiring or near retirement are getting out of Dodge very quickly. I am getting to that age and everybody is gone, left, kaput. I know of 10 seats that will be available next year, with people moving to red states. Me, maybe 3 or 4 years.

It's going to get worse if we just keep raising taxes.

As someone who is 36, and made the trip to Detroit for the bowl game, I couldn't believe how much older the fan base was than me generally speaking. I felt out of place honestly. Life changes, I couldn't go to the Fiesta Bowl (My daugther was born the night before the bowl) but personally till my kids get bigger, I won't be going to bowls. I've always bought extra tickets and have brought probably more than a dozen adults to their "first UConn" game. I called it spreading the gospel of UConn football. The article was good, the one thing I disagree with was that Jurich's last minute push wasn't a big deal. Whatever the case the diminishing fan support, and being left out of a power 5 conference scares the beejezus out of me. I can seriously envision a mostly empty upper deck if we line up to play Tulane/SMU regularly.

Great job Wisc, with the quote.

 

[coachcap]

I agree with most of it -- not all of it. But the key line is "Or maybe we forgot to have fun." Now, you can argue that Connecticut's flagship daily paper, and its flagship sports columnest, is past of the reason for that, but at the end of the day that is neither here nor there.

Where is the fan enthusiasm that used to take over basketball arenas for road games in Chestnut Hill and East Rutherford and midtown Manhattan? Where is the fan enthusiasm for a football game that pulls out a hard fought victory in the last minute of a football game, even if it is against Akron or bad Duke and Rutgers teams. If we're only going to be having fun when we're winnning national championships -- like in March of 11 -- well, that isn't enough fun to produce the enthusiasm and money that this program needs.

And it is this board too, and not just the apathetic general fanbase. There is a difference between questioning play calling after, say, this year's win against Buffalo, and the god awful "we suck they suck fire everyone" rants that we now have to live through. If we as the core fanbase can't make the Boneyard fun, and treasure each win and each opportunity to have fun supporting this team, the program will suffer.

Calhoun inherited a loyal and relatively large fanbase that was overjoyed with each and every step of success. KO, or whoever else is given the keys, will most likely have to win, and win large and win immediately, before you can tell that our fanbase likes basketball. Edsall couldn't come near keeping this board happy, despite achieving results that were well above the short and intermediate term goals that the school had in place for him. This fanbase was a decade ago ready to pack the stadium to see the team play MAC schools and produce wins. Now, if we're not beating upper level league opponents no one cares.

This is our problem folks. Not the Courants. Not the school's. And not the players. Everyone else can help us solve it, but we need to be both the catalysts and the ultimate solution. Buy more tickets. Watch more games. Go to a road game or two. Make donations. And make being a UConn fan fun, both for those who are already fans and those who might be if you didn't walk around with this air of misery because we're UConn fans and things aren't good enough.

We can do this if we want to. We were like this not long ago. But it is up to the collective us.

Bizlaw-agree with most of what you've articulated. In answer to your question about the fan enthusiasm to take over the fan arenas: Wasn't the rug pulled out from under us? 'Nut Hill took it's ball to the ACC & d/ced the series. Seton Hall & the Johnnies took a different tack: They instructed Ticketmaster not to sell tickets to anyone from a zip code that started in 06. I remember the bus trips during the Donyell Marshall days down to the Garden. We'd take the bus, shop on 5th Avenue, get some dinner, then go to the game. The promoter supplied the bus & tickets to the game around the state. Then it was over. My wife worked at Bristol Hospital-the in-house chairperson for these trips was told that the promoter couldn't get the tickets in bulk anymore because it was blocked from doing so by Seton Hall & St. John's. The Garden especially sounded like a UConn home crowd & coaches like Mike Jarvis were determined to put an end to it.

 

[huskymedic]

It starts with the local media. And wouldn't you know, channel 3 is yet at it again. Uconn got 2nd billing after the high school playoffs again. Gutwrenching just gutwrenching channel 3. Time to start changing your way of thinking once and for all. Uconn first, Uconn 2nd and Uconn 3rd, then everbody else.

Just find a differnt channel....