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TuTigers2012

Athletic Department Ideas/Suggestions

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Starting an open!thread on what the department as a whole can do better (there’s a ton!). Let’s hear your suggestions. Gameday. Tickets. Donations. Marketing. Have at it

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With 23,000 students at Towson, key is getting more students to attend the games. If they do not come as students, they likely will not come as alumni.

Its also proven at all colleges that more residential students come to the games than commuters.

Starting next year Towson will have 12,000 students living in campus owned/non owned dorms and apartments,

If I was the Athletic Director, i would schedule various meet/greet happy hour/pep rally's throughout the football/basketball season at the off campus apartments, university owned dorms, and center of campus . Free beer/soda/snacks would be available. These happy hours/pep rally's would happen every year.

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From another angle,  a coaches and recruiting point of view an indoor practice facility should be a top priority. I know money is obviously the issue but I know for lacrosse recruiting and I am sure football the competition sells their indoor facilities. https://www.google.com/search?q=stony+brook+indoor+practice+facility&oq=stonybrook+indoor&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l5.7788j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 

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I agree you need to turn the students into fans and then hope they come back as alums and purchase season tickets. It’s a fun game day atmosphere when the students show out, but it needs to be a consistently big deal every week to go to the games. In my years at Towson, the Greek Life dominated the social scene so I would start by going to all of the fraternities and sororities and giving them a case of beer and asking them to come to the games and ask for their feedback as to what they would like to see at the tailgate...what they think of the game day promotions and in-game music/giveaways. One issue I see with the student tailgate is that most college students are broke and don’t have a car, grill, or funds for a parking pass every weekend. I think the school should have food trucks and brewery craft beer stands in the parking lots. Then all they need to ask is that people show up because the party’s already there. no tailgate prep required. The Towson students go uptown to the bars every single weekend. Partying is on their agenda so we need to make the pre game festivities a fun atmosphere and really just leave them be to drink and have a good time.

Obviously this will require funds, but there should be a T-shirt or some type of giveaway incentive at every home game. Like i said before, most college students are broke so as an 18-22 year old with no job you will definitely make the trip to the stadium for a free t-shirt. 

From reading these forums, it seems as though the ticket office isn’t particularly great at their jobs. They could probably use Business/Sports Management majors as interns to have an inside sales job calling all season ticket holders and thanking them and asking to renew for the next year as well as cold calling alums and any one who expresses interest for tickets. 

As far as marketing goes, I would continue to pump as much money into Facebook and Instagram ads as possible. Also, maybe give out as much Towson football swag as possible to freshman on move-in day at the dorms: T-shirt’s, hoody’s, flags, hats, posters, and a ticket to the first home game. 

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2 hours ago, Blounge said:

I agree you need to turn the students into fans and then hope they come back as alums and purchase season tickets. It’s a fun game day atmosphere when the students show out, but it needs to be a consistently big deal every week to go to the games. In my years at Towson, the Greek Life dominated the social scene so I would start by going to all of the fraternities and sororities and giving them a case of beer and asking them to come to the games and ask for their feedback as to what they would like to see at the tailgate...what they think of the game day promotions and in-game music/giveaways. One issue I see with the student tailgate is that most college students are broke and don’t have a car, grill, or funds for a parking pass every weekend. I think the school should have food trucks and brewery craft beer stands in the parking lots. Then all they need to ask is that people show up because the party’s already there. no tailgate prep required. The Towson students go uptown to the bars every single weekend. Partying is on their agenda so we need to make the pre game festivities a fun atmosphere and really just leave them be to drink and have a good time.

Obviously this will require funds, but there should be a T-shirt or some type of giveaway incentive at every home game. Like i said before, most college students are broke so as an 18-22 year old with no job you will definitely make the trip to the stadium for a free t-shirt. 

From reading these forums, it seems as though the ticket office isn’t particularly great at their jobs. They could probably use Business/Sports Management majors as interns to have an inside sales job calling all season ticket holders and thanking them and asking to renew for the next year as well as cold calling alums and any one who expresses interest for tickets. 

As far as marketing goes, I would continue to pump as much money into Facebook and Instagram ads as possible. Also, maybe give out as much Towson football swag as possible to freshman on move-in day at the dorms: T-shirt’s, hoody’s, flags, hats, posters, and a ticket to the first home game. 

I  like your fraternity and sororities idea. This group likes to party and we should have at least 1/2 the Greeks at every game.

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How do you make it a big deal? 

I am all for getting people to go to games but I feel like you're not realizing how hard it is to do.  I was involved with athletics and student government during my time at Towson.  We set (at that point in time) the school record for attendance by pulling out all the stops with prizes, greek life involvement, having it be the Delaware game, etc.  

In my opinion its about changing the mindset of students to value being at the game without getting something.  The issue with that is student attendance is free and that does not provide much additional revenue.  If you're not getting the additional revenue you wont be able to do those additional prizes/events that we all seem to think will help lure fans to come to games.

I don't have answers, I'm just saying its not as easy as its made to seem for the athletic department.  The people on this board are the minority when it comes to Towson fandom. 

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23 hours ago, Blounge said:

I agree you need to turn the students into fans and then hope they come back as alums and purchase season tickets. It’s a fun game day atmosphere when the students show out, but it needs to be a consistently big deal every week to go to the games. In my years at Towson, the Greek Life dominated the social scene so I would start by going to all of the fraternities and sororities and giving them a case of beer and asking them to come to the games and ask for their feedback as to what they would like to see at the tailgate...what they think of the game day promotions and in-game music/giveaways. One issue I see with the student tailgate is that most college students are broke and don’t have a car, grill, or funds for a parking pass every weekend. I think the school should have food trucks and brewery craft beer stands in the parking lots. Then all they need to ask is that people show up because the party’s already there. no tailgate prep required. The Towson students go uptown to the bars every single weekend. Partying is on their agenda so we need to make the pre game festivities a fun atmosphere and really just leave them be to drink and have a good time.

 Obviously this will require funds, but there should be a T-shirt or some type of giveaway incentive at every home game. Like i said before, most college students are broke so as an 18-22 year old with no job you will definitely make the trip to the stadium for a free t-shirt. 

From reading these forums, it seems as though the ticket office isn’t particularly great at their jobs. They could probably use Business/Sports Management majors as interns to have an inside sales job calling all season ticket holders and thanking them and asking to renew for the next year as well as cold calling alums and any one who expresses interest for tickets. 

As far as marketing goes, I would continue to pump as much money into Facebook and Instagram ads as possible. Also, maybe give out as much Towson football swag as possible to freshman on move-in day at the dorms: T-shirt’s, hoody’s, flags, hats, posters, and a ticket to the first home game. 

The food truck idea is a really good one.  They used to have a batemans tent in the parking lot before the game with beer and food.

There should be giveaways each week for students. Make the better ones (maybe a hoodie for the first 500), an end of the 3rd Q giveaway.  Voucher upon arrival and then need to stay at-least until that point to receive. 

LOL to the free beer. That will not and should not happen. In regards to the money aspect, you contradict yourself, "college kids have no money," but the game, and parking are free and they can use meal swipes inside the stadium.  Bars are not free.

I like your though about the car/grill etc.  I have all of those and used to bring them every week and set up a full spread and making it into an event with 15-20 people.  Now that I live in the city, I don't feel like dragging it all up and back, with parking on the street, before and after the game. Maybe they can set up a tailgate package for like $200 for a tent, table, chairs and grill.  Could even set up a catering/food package with black and gold catering (yuck, but still food!) for sub platters, burgers, etc.

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There was a full-page ad in the Sun's front section on Sunday for the b-ball double-header on Tuesday. Not sure it reached the target audience, but it will be interesting to see how many people show up. (A full-page ad had to be expensive -- 10K, I would think.)

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Being a relatively new follower of Tiger football, I’ve never seen a deader crowd at football games in my life-wow! After last weeks big win, I would have thought there would be some excitement from the crowd but nope- for the most part the fans might as well have been watching paint dry. I do see a lot of good ideas posted here and hopefully they’ll be taken into consideration but I’m wondering- didn’t they hire someone this year to enhance the game day experience or something like that?? What happened to that guy? It seems like the Nova game was promoted well and there was a good bit of hype surrounding it but after that, there’s basically been nothing at all. 

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