College basketball: Shooting itself in the foot
The listed attendance for the Oklahoma-Missouri basketball game Monday night was 5,036. That kind of attendance malaise has OU officials — and officials at many a college basketball port — worrying how to restore fan interest in a sport that has staggered.
Here’s an idea. Quit doing things that invite fans to stay home.
The OU-Missouri game started at 6 p.m. on a Monday. Just like I wrote a few weeks ago about Bedlam starting at 6 p.m. on a weekday, that’s an asinine starting time. Made for television, of course (wait; it’s not television, it’s ESPN. It’s a made-for-ESPN tip time).
The Big 12 scheduled nine conference games for 6 p.m.: Texas A&M at Baylor, Bedlam and Mizzou at OU already have been played. Still to come are Iowa State at OSU (Tuesday night), A&M at Texas Tech, Kansas at Baylor on Wednesday night, Iowa State at Baylor next week, followed by Kansas State at Missouri and Kansas State at Texas A&M. And that doesn’t include a Missouri-at-OSU 6:30 p.m. start.
6 p.m. weeknight starts in Norman or Stillwater (or College Station or Austin or Ames or Columbia or anywhere else) are not easy for fans. If you live in Edmond, trying to get to Norman or Stillwater by 5:45 p.m. is difficult. You’re rushing, you’re hitting rush hour traffic, it’s a mess. Same with the folks in Tulsa. If you live in Norman or Stillwater, it’s easier, but still not easy.
Big 12 officials erred in allowing 6 p.m. starts, just so games could be placed on ESPNU or ESPN2. All the games are going to be on regional or local television anyway, no matter when they start. So the concession was for national broadcasts. Let me assure you. No one nationally is watching Oklahoma-Missouri or Oklahoma State-Iowa State. The fans in Riverside, Calif., or Grand Rapids, Mich., or Richmond, Va., are watching something else. Now, Baylor-Kansas on Wednesday is different. Which brings up another question. Why are you playing one of your games of the year at 6 p.m., even for television purposes?
OK, let’s move on.
This basketball season, OU and OSU collectively have played Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Stanford, Saint Louis, Virginia Tech twice, Arkansas, New Mexico, Alabama, Tulsa, SMU, Santa Clara, Washington State and Missouri State. Not a bad list of opponents. Not great, but not bad.
Fourteen non-conference games that you might be interested in watching.
Of those 14, three were played in either Norman or Stillwater. OSU hosted Virginia Tech and Tulsa, OU hosted Arkansas. The rest were road games (but just four) or neutral site games (seven).
We want to get fans interested in college basketball, to the point they will want to be at as many games as possible, and yet before conference play, the best games are played nowhere near campus.
So let me get this straight. You play at times completely inconvenient for fans. You play games in the early season that are completely uninteresting. Then you wonder why fans haven’t migrated to your team.
The answer is clear. College basketball in general, Big 12 basketball in particular, does not really care about the ticket-buying fans. Officials at every school like to talk about it. They like to talk about ways to increase fan interest. But when it comes to really catering to customers, the truth is apparent. Fans are not a priority. Attendance is optional.
If the Big 12 really cared about the attendance issue, it would not schedule 6 p.m. starts.
If the sport really cared about the attendance issue, it wouldn’t sanction all these neutral-site tournaments that don’t count against a team’s scheduling allotment, which means an OSU-Stanford game isn’t played in Stillwater or Palo Alto, but in New York. Which means an OU-Saint Louis game isn’t played near the arches of the Norman campus or the big arch next to the Mississippi River, but in Anaheim, Calif.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
FYI: Baylor has already sold out for the Kansas game. Goes to show that if the product you’re selling is good enough, people will find a way to attend!
Neutral site games have bothered me this year too. The problem is no one wants to schedule that true road game (so no one can convince someone else to give them a home game).
I like the idea of the B1G/Pac-12 challenge to fix some of this. I say each team should play TWO cross-conference games – one home and one away. I’d like to see that for the B1G/ACC challenge as well.
Individual schools can’t seem to set it up, but maybe it can be arranged reasonably at the conference level.
So if OU or OSU scheduled a Tuesday night football game in Oct., their fan base would have a hard time beating the traffic to get there? How about a wrestling event at 6 p.m. for OSU, do they show up for those? I am glad you didn’t use the weak “I’d rather go see the Thunder” blah, blah excuse though. The real reason is this- fair weathered fans. If they ain’t winning, they ain’t coming.
We ain’t winning, because we cannot get the quality recruits needed to win. Why is that? I don’t know, but comparing her to other teams, like Baylor, coach kim seems to get quality players EVERY year, but not OU. Hmm, makes me wonder about what the heck is going on down there. She has proven herself to be a good coach, but obviously not a good recruiter. Only once, and she should have won a national championship when we had the Paris sisters, but we blew that, and she lost alot of season ticket holders after they left. Just saying….something to think about.
It really is disappointing to see Baylor and A&M win a National Championship, when we had the chance to do so.
The local universities are competing against the $200 million subsidy that some Oklahoma City voters gave to the NBA.
how about cop giving green stamps on I-35 about 3:45. from northwest okc to norman 1.25 hrs. I think this affected sooner free throw execution. fire free throw coach!!!
You hit the nail on the head. I dont get off til 7pm but make it to the Thunder game. I would go to see OU because I live on south OKC (Sooner Rd) made it to games the last tow years but none this year.
From someone in Tiger territory, OU had a good product on the floor last night. Win or lose no one who has played or watched a lot of basketball can deny it. Cross sport example, I would have rather seen the Tigers carry that early football lead to the end of the game but I still got to see a good OU team and an improving MU team. Winning is good, playing well is almost as good. Good point that ESPN doesn’t care about the local fans who want to come out to the game, another example of ESPN collecting a lot of money but not giving enough back to the institutions, athletes, or fans (OR CONFERENCES). People have calendars full of important dates-times. People want dates and times they don’t have to search engine. Like every Tues at 7:30pm and every Sat. afternoon more flexible. I like the comment that says get the tickets into the hands of the fans who will be excited and entertained once they get there. People with a lot of disposable income are entertained to death and spoiled by artificial expectations.
Right on every count. 6 pm games need to go. All these out of town games in preseason need to go. Finally, before we take pot shots at Sherri Coale, one thing can be said for Sherri Coale and can not be said for Kim the Frown Mulkey. That is, OU and every other team in the Big XII has females playing women’s basketball. Baylor, well, I know how Sherri can win the game…she puts a wig on an OU men’s player and he suits up for the women’s game. Any one with eyes and and ears knows what is ongoing here. Baylor women’s basketball is like the former East German women’s swimming team. An olympic chromosone test ends this charade once and for all…
You think maybe it’s because it’s the day after the Super Bowl and sports fans are broke and hung over? Add in the fact that poor people with just basic cable can see about 40 college basketball games a week and there might be a saturation point where actually going to a game isn’t very important.
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Play at 10:00 A.M. on a week day in Allen Field House, and the place is packed. Indeed, it’s the product.
FYI: Baylor has already sold out for the Kansas game. Goes to show that if the product you’re selling is good enough, people will find a way to attend!
Yes, and the product is not so good and people don’t come at 6:00 games off campus. Barry, you are spot on.
Play at 10:00 A.M. on a week day in Allen Field House, and the place is packed. Indeed, it’s the product.
Norman and Stillwater is not Lawrence and it’s not the product at 6:00 off campus.
EVERY Sooner football game is televised even if it’s pay-per-view. OU-Tech kicking off 1 hour and 45 minutes late hurt fans. OSU-Tulsa kicking off at midnight with a 90.00 price tag?!?! I could pick up a very nice television for what I pay for season tickets and getting home at 3am after a night game after fighting traffic gets old quick, so I just might. I like to support our state’s athletic programs and attend some events but 6pm hoop tip-offs limiting attendance are just more evidence the fans are getting rolled. Does anyone who works for ESPN even know Central Time exists? That may be a start.
If they are going to play a 6:00 game then the school needs to find a way to let the fans that can’t make it turn in their tickets and let the students pack the house for $5 a ticket. Give the people that return the ticket some sort of credit on their account. Maybe, just maybe, OU could have pulled off the upset last night if the stands had been packed and the crowd was a little more into the game. I would bet a full house with screaming students would have been worth a few points.