brianstl

That is great to hear and they are correct. We are going to be really good.

I have no clue what our attendance will be this season. I would love for it to be great. I haven't heard anything suggesting that there has been any increase in demand for season tickets. Maybe there has been. I would hope so, but the history with this program has been a dramatic increase in attendance follows a NCAA appearance with attendance declining each year we are further removed from the NCAA tournament. A really good team really only supplies a small boost in attendance during that season.

We had two seasons under Spoon where we averaged almost 18,000 a game.

I provided a local example of a team SLU competes directly with for using the percentage I did. You provided UK over 3 games as an example to counter my claim not realizing UK's overall attendance drop last season further justified my 4% number. UK's attendance decline was exactly 4% overall last season from the pre COVID season. I thought I pointed that at in my post by saying Kentucky wasn't the program you wanted to use to make the argument you are trying to make. I don't see how I am dancing around anything.

I think the biggest thing hurting SLU's attendance is not ticket prices, the Chaifetz experience, lack of enough big time opponents or not winning big enough. We didn't average 85% capacity when we were ranked in the top 10 and had a loaded schedule during the Majerus and Crews run. Ticket prices for the general public are actually less than they were before. Maybe improving the Chaifetz experience would help marginally, but I think any college program in a Major League sports town is going to have an almost impossible task competing against the pro teams when it comes to attracting the audience that is looking for the experience atmosphere event. The problem is that you don't have as many family with kids going to the games as you used to have. This has become a even harder demographic to compete for and you really aren't going to compete for them with the concession prices being what they are. The unpleasant feeling a parent gets when they feel they are constantly being took for every dollar possible leaves you with a bad impression of the whole event and no real desire to return. You could charge higher ticket prices and have parents feel like the are getting a better family experience if they didn't feel like they were getting held up when the buy a pretzel and a bottle of water for their kid.

The cheapest full season ticket package for the 1996-97 season was $120 for the upper deck ends in what is now called Enterprise Center. The cheapest season ticket package now is $100. That 1996-97 price adjusted for inflation is about $227 today. So you can get a much better season ticket now for 56% less than a terrible view would have cost you in 1996.

I remember that. You and your son. That was great.

Kentucky is the program you want to use if you want to make the point you are trying to make. SLU's percentage decline pre COVID season to past COVID season was 5 times that of UK's. Kentucky averaged 20,160 in the 2019-20 season and 19,338 per game last season. That is a 4% decline. SLU averaged 6,880 in the 2019-20 season and 5,517 per game last season. That is 20% decline. http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketball_RB/2021/Attend.pdf http://stats.ncaa.org/rankings/change_sport_year_div

Tickets distributed for the game is how SLU has counted attendance since, I believe, Chaifetz opened. So the fans that have tickets and don’t use them for whatever reason don’t hurt the average attendance total.

Those high numbers are lower than the average numbers under Brad. This isn’t a Travis issue. Travis has prevented the cratering from being worse than it is. This is multi decade failure now on the part of multiple administrations at SLU to properly value and market it’s athletics programs.

You can plot a graph yourself, if you want to. It would show you a 24 year almost uninterrupted persistent decline in average attendance since the Billikens second best attendance season in 1997-98. We have had a total decline of 69% in average attendance since the peak average attendance year of 1995. Over the last four seasons without capacity restrictions, SLU has average 6,059 a game. Those four seasons include the two lowest average attendance seasons since the 1985-86 season. That is a two decade plus pattern of failing to retain your fanbase and failing to attract new people to your fan base. Did COVID have some impact on attendance last season? Sure, at the margins. Just look at the Blues that suffered a 2.1% decline in attendance from pre COVID numbers. Let's be generous to the Billikens and say attendance would have been 4% higher without COVID. That would add 220 people to last seasons attendance figures. So last season would have been the second worst average attendance in the last 36 seasons instead of the worst with 2016-17 becoming the worst.

We averaged 5,517. That number should be a wake up call for the athletic department that they need to do something different to get people in the building. It wasn't just the result of COVID. There has been a steady long term decline in the attendance numbers for a couple decades now. That was are lowest average attendance number since 1985-86. 36 seasons ago. The 85-86 season was the first winning season the Billikens had in 13 seasons.

They should separate organizational culture building inside the AD from the program's outside marketing campaigns. What is good for one is not good for the other in this case.

Nowadays you can identify as whatever you want to.

Always had a feeling the Auburn Tigers were literally Nazis.

Certain posters should probably just get membership cards printed up and develop a secret handshake. You can never be to safe when it comes to keeping outsiders out of your special club. God forbid we build a bigger and more diverse fan base. It is getting way too crowded with that 949 people the women's soccer team averages a game. These girls need to understand their game is an old guys thing.

Will John is entering his 20th year as a pro. He is entering his second season on the roster of NK Jarun Zagreb of Croatia’s third division Druga NL. John appeared in one game last season with the club. John has been well traveled in his pro career. After leaving the MLS John has had stops Denmark, Serbia, Azerbaijan, Morocco, Georgia and Finland.

Dude can ball and he doesn’t care about old guys marking their turf in women’s soccer threads. Great pick up.

Tim Ream started and played the full game for Fulham in a 2-2 draw against Liverpool. The game marked Fulham’s return to the EPL earlier today. Vedad Ibišević Has transitioned from his laying to a coaching role in the Bundesliga. He is an assistant for Hertha serving in a co-trainer role.

Kid can throw down some highlight reel dunks.

Might be worth pointing out in light of Ford’s comments Sunday, Lindsay could still enroll at SLU this fall.

His dad got a ten year show cause penalty while getting South Carolina and Okie St. placed on probation.

So the newest walk on, Lamont Evans, has an interesting story.

The tour is through this group. https://worldstrides.com/international-sports-tours/ Vanderbilt is touring Italy and France at the same time through the same group. That might be how the talk of a Vandy non conference game got started.

These two might be the best Billiken merch I have ever seen for sale.