Chaifetz Home Court Advantage

[SLUMedBilliken15]

Aren't those seats like $5,000 each for a year? ("Donation" of course!)

[Old guy]

1 minute ago, SLUMedBilliken15 said:

Aren't those seats like $5,000 each for a year? ("Donation" of course!)

Pure profit for the program, whatever the season tickets go for.

[billikenfan05]

2 hours ago, cheeseman said:

Don’t forget that those corporate no shows are still paying for those seats. That revenue is nothing to sneeze at. I wish people sat there also but I would not want to give the money up if I was SLU

I’m willing to bet they’d still buy tickets if the first 10 rows of the camera side were all inclusive. 

[cheeseman]

2 hours ago, billikenfan05 said:

I’m willing to bet they’d still buy tickets if the first 10 rows of the camera side were all inclusive. 

Could be but then others would be pushed out of their current seats as everyone is moved. Earlier you said there probably is some solution and I would agree with you on that. But how simple it will be is another question 

[brianstl]

SLU shouldn't consider any kind of reseating scenario until attendance improves significantly and stays at those improved levels for a few seasons.  When you have never had a season at Chaifetz when you have averaged over 85% capacity and have gone almost a decade since you last averaged 70% capacity, you can't risk pissing off what exists of your consistently paying fan base.

[billiken_roy]

Just now, brianstl said:

SLU shouldn't consider any kind of reseating scenario until attendance improves significantly and stays at those improved levels for a few seasons.  When you have never had a season at Chaifetz when you have averaged over 85% capacity and have gone almost a decade since you last averaged 70% capacity, you can't risk pissing off what exist of your consistently paying fan base.

applause applause.

insteady of trying to entice our non paying (albeit necessary fans - the students) why not concentrate on enticing our paying fans, finding more corporate sponsors (preferably attending ones).   

[Bills By 40]

1 hour ago, brianstl said:

SLU shouldn't consider any kind of reseating scenario until attendance improves significantly and stays at those improved levels for a few seasons.  When you have never had a season at Chaifetz when you have averaged over 85% capacity and have gone almost a decade since you last averaged 70% capacity, you can't risk pissing off what exists of your consistently paying fan base.

 

1 hour ago, billiken_roy said:

applause applause.

insteady of trying to entice our non paying (albeit necessary fans - the students) why not concentrate on enticing our paying fans, finding more corporate sponsors (preferably attending ones).   

Now we're getting into a chicken or the egg, cause and effect argument. I could make an argument that greater student attendance would increase overall attendance, while there's the obvious argument that overall attendance would increase student attendance. 

With the product we're putting on the floor this year I don't think we've got anything to worry about in terms of fan support. *knocks on wood*

[billiken_roy]

all i can tell you as a fan since college days in the late 70's when it was me and 5 of my good fellow student fans/friends, i dont have a lot of hope that the student fan support will all at once sell out the arena.   the fact that 40+ years later we are still bribing the students with food and clothing speaks volumes.   

dont get me wrong we have come a long way.   but again not sure how much more the school can do and whether the students that arent showing already will care where they are sitting.   

[Taj79]

Almost 13,000 students currently call SLU home.  We can't get 7% of them to come fill the student section at Chaifetz each night?  Almost 4,000 live on campus.  So 75% of them have better things to do than go down the street to a free basketball game on most given nights.

[cheeseman]

6 hours ago, Taj79 said:

Almost 13,000 students currently call SLU home.  We can't get 7% of them to come fill the student section at Chaifetz each night?  Almost 4,000 live on campus.  So 75% of them have better things to do than go down the street to a free basketball game on most given nights.

That total is deceiving. Most of those numbers are not undergraduate. You can’t expect I person working on their MBA and working a full time career job to be a a crazy.  Not sure what the undergraduate total is but probably closer to 2500 but only a guess

[BuiltFordBills]

24 minutes ago, cheeseman said:

That total is deceiving. Most of those numbers are not undergraduate. You can’t expect I person working on their MBA and working a full time career job to be a a crazy.  Not sure what the undergraduate total is but probably closer to 2500 but only a guess

SLU undergrad population is about 8,000 

[billikenfan05]

17 minutes ago, BuiltFordBills said:

SLU undergrad population is about 8,000 

The student section is far too large. I posited on MMP that they should investigate the possibility of making the student section flexible in capacity on a game to game basis.

1. Find a method to separate the student section that's moveable.

2. Request a simple ticket registration of name and banner ID online for every game.

3. 48 hours prior to the game announce x number of tickets on sale for 5 dollars. the number x is based on capacity - registrations + a hundred or so potential walk up students. The space behind the band can just permanently be sold for $5 to the general public. That space is utterly useless to the atmosphere. Also that fuoking wedge can be permanently $5 too. I hate that thing, beyond the first 3 or 4 rows it's useless to the student section atmosphere unless it's a big game.

4. Move that barrier based on the estimated capacity. The seats behind this barrier are the ones sold for $5 to the general public.

The $5 tickets are not general admission but reserved seating, this ensures students don't just sit behind the barrier.

This increases Chaifetz atmosphere on lesser attended games by not allowing students to spread out as they would if they had 1000 total spaces. Students will have to stand and be closer to the people leading chants etc...It would also create the illusion of demand for games that generally don't have the demand.

I truly think this is a feasible option and would add a great deal to Chaifetz game day atmosphere.

[cheeseman]

31 minutes ago, BuiltFordBills said:

SLU undergrad population is about 8,000 

Really. I guess that number was the freshmen class

[Fraz]

On 6/20/2022 at 5:12 PM, Cowboy II said:

-there are some things the ADept could do to improve our home court advantage, such as lower ticket prices in the upper bowl to fill them ($25 for an upper end ticket to Central Arkansas is stealing imo), lower the price of beer so more folks are lubed-up to get loud (I realize the ADept doesn't set concession prices) , have the softball/baseball teams throw and the tennis team hit the give-away balls so the folks in the first few rows are not having to fix their glasses or calm their children after being donked by a "throw" from a spirit squad member, show replays of close plays so all (including those with the lube) can express their opinion as to how the call should go or should have gone, continue to get Deandre (I think that is his name) involved and replace Gus

The non-showing of close call replays will always be the biggest (and probably the only) problem I have with our arena 

[Old guy]

I checked SLU's total undergrad poulation was 7,357 as of the as of the start of the 2020 year.

[BuiltFordBills]

17 minutes ago, Old guy said:

I checked SLU's total undergrad poulation was 7,357 as of the as of the start of the 2020 year.

I guess it’s going up then, 8,138 from their 2022 profile. A lot of cool info on SLU in here actually 

https://www.slu.edu/about/key-facts/slu-profile.pdf

[NoCoBillsFan]

1 hour ago, BuiltFordBills said:

I guess it’s going up then, 8,138 from their 2022 profile. A lot of cool info on SLU in here actually 

https://www.slu.edu/about/key-facts/slu-profile.pdf

This past years freshman class was the largest the school has had in a long time. 

[NoCoBillsFan]

12 hours ago, Taj79 said:

Almost 13,000 students currently call SLU home.  We can't get 7% of them to come fill the student section at Chaifetz each night?  Almost 4,000 live on campus.  So 75% of them have better things to do than go down the street to a free basketball game on most given nights.

From the perspective of a recent student, we just need to win to drive better attendance. Buzz was starting to grow last year when we had the small winning streak in conference play. Better opponents will help too, as nobody wants to skip out on a party to watch us stomp Eastern Illinois by 40. With the improved schedule this year and the hype the team has, I think we’ll see the best student turnout we’ve had in a long time.

[bauman]

29 minutes ago, NoCoBillsFan said:

From the perspective of a recent student, we just need to win to drive better attendance. Buzz was starting to grow last year when we had the small winning streak in conference play. Better opponents will help too, as nobody wants to skip out on a party to watch us stomp Eastern Illinois by 40. With the improved schedule this year and the hype the team has, I think we’ll see the best student turnout we’ve had in a long time.

Actually, our home schedule is not all that attractive.  Our best OOC games are either on neutral or away courts with Memphis as the only potential big draw for the OOC schedule, and even Memphis is not a P 6 Conf school.

Our A 10 schedule is good but not a big draw.  We already had Dayton every year and usually VCU  every other year or so.  The only way we draw big crowds is to win, win, win.

A final clean up point for Steve.  The schedule on the front Billikens.com page list Drake twice.

[gabriel]

6 hours ago, bauman said:

Actually, our home schedule is not all that attractive.  Our best OOC games are either on neutral or away courts with Memphis as the only potential big draw for the OOC schedule, and even Memphis is not a P 6 Conf school.

Our A 10 schedule is good but not a big draw.  We already had Dayton every year and usually VCU  every other year or so.  The only way we draw big crowds is to win, win, win.

A final clean up point for Steve.  The schedule on the front Billikens.com page list Drake twice.

agree with you on all points except undermining the dayton game. that should be a must-see st louis sporting event. the atmosphere in chaifetz last year for that game was unmatched. 

[NoCoBillsFan]

6 hours ago, bauman said:

Actually, our home schedule is not all that attractive.  Our best OOC games are either on neutral or away courts with Memphis as the only potential big draw for the OOC schedule, and even Memphis is not a P 6 Conf school.

Our A 10 schedule is good but not a big draw.  We already had Dayton every year and usually VCU  every other year or so.  The only way we draw big crowds is to win, win, win.

A final clean up point for Steve.  The schedule on the front Billikens.com page list Drake twice.

Dayton, Loyola, VCU, and Davidson all have enough name value in our conference to be big draws.  I’m hoping that all four games on are on a Friday night or Saturday afternoon. Hell, nobody knows about St. Bonnie outside of the A10 AND the game was at 8 pm and there was still a good crowd for it last year. Good A10 teams + good scheduling will draw the students. 

You’re right about non-con but it’s usually fickle anyway. Memphis could be a decent draw but if it falls on winter break like the Auburn game last year, will probably be lightly attended. I’m sure that we’re gonna have some buy games but maybe we can get one more team with a good name for the non-con.

[Cowboy II]

14 hours ago, Fraz said:

The non-showing of close call replays will always be the biggest (and probably the only) problem I have with our arena 

-it doesn't make sense to me especially when our head coach jaws with the officials A LOT

[BilliesBy40]

8 minutes ago, Cowboy II said:

-it doesn't make sense to me especially when our head coach jaws with the officials A LOT

It is pretty standard to not show replays of close calls. Some leagues prohibit it (I am not sure where there are conference specific rules on the topic).

[Pistol]

16 hours ago, billikenfan05 said:

The student section is far too large. I posited on MMP that they should investigate the possibility of making the student section flexible in capacity on a game to game basis.

1. Find a method to separate the student section that's moveable.

2. Request a simple ticket registration of name and banner ID online for every game.

3. 48 hours prior to the game announce x number of tickets on sale for 5 dollars. the number x is based on capacity - registrations + a hundred or so potential walk up students. The space behind the band can just permanently be sold for $5 to the general public. That space is utterly useless to the atmosphere. Also that fuoking wedge can be permanently $5 too. I hate that thing, beyond the first 3 or 4 rows it's useless to the student section atmosphere unless it's a big game.

4. Move that barrier based on the estimated capacity. The seats behind this barrier are the ones sold for $5 to the general public.

The $5 tickets are not general admission but reserved seating, this ensures students don't just sit behind the barrier.

This increases Chaifetz atmosphere on lesser attended games by not allowing students to spread out as they would if they had 1000 total spaces. Students will have to stand and be closer to the people leading chants etc...It would also create the illusion of demand for games that generally don't have the demand.

I truly think this is a feasible option and would add a great deal to Chaifetz game day atmosphere.

I like this. It seems like your focus is more on system than location if I'm reading it right (it sounds like a modified version of what we talked about the other night).

[billikenfan05]

24 minutes ago, Pistol said:

I like this. It seems like your focus is more on system than location if I'm reading it right (it sounds like a modified version of what we talked about the other night).

Exactly. Moving the section is too drastic, I think that’s what we’ve learned from the discussion here. Instead for certain games that get lower interest from students, let’s maximize the atmosphere created by the limited number of students by forcing them closer to the court and closer to each other instead of 250-300 students spread out across 1000 seats