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Message: [QUOTE="KnightBridgeAZ, post: 2372380, member: 591"] For all of that - dreary and corporate speak - I don't think "essence of the game" is the issue. Put another way - there is nothing you can do with the game itself that is going to put more fans in the seats and make the sport more popular. At least nothing that folks that like the game now are going to like. Marketing is a big thing. Rutgers was perennially awful at it. Vivian was appalled when she arrived, I actually was part of a group of fans that her mother went off at over the poor marketing - and just to be clear, I don't mean marketing of Vivian, I mean marketing of WBB designed to put fannies in the seats. Iowa was much better at the time. While winning certainly is a factor (duh), Rutgers never grasped some basics of marketing throughout the time we were there. Arizona is better than Rutgers at marketing their sports programs collectively (or at least they were under our previous AD that too the job at Alabama) but there are some misses as well. Promotions are important - call it commercialization if you want - but they are also important in that they look awful when they don't work. For example, Wilbur (the UofA mascot) has an official "birthday" - and they decided to have one of the celebrations at a WBB game. While he does attend really major games, the mascot for women's games is his "wife", Wilma Wildcat. Other than that I thought it was fun watching the 2 mascots interact, it was a big lead balloon of an event. The most important promotions are those that get students to attend (in my mind). What I'm trying to say is I wouldn't blow up the idea out-of-hand. Just sayin [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach