The marketing sweet spot would be people who can drive less than a half an hour any way any day of the week. Because then distance isn’t a difference maker. That’s the number I’d love to know. The farther out folks are either true die hards or bandwagon supporters when the team(s) get hot.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s marketing to Butler County as well as it is providing a consistent winning program that people want to follow…like Boise State for instance. We need to win and win consistently to build back fan and alumni’s interest . I was at that NW game in Evanston in 2003 when we had 8,000 Miamians in attendance…at an away game . The key is to win!!
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This also why I think it’s important that we start to effectively compete in the NCHC at some acceptable level or find a place (e.g. conference) where we can compete and win some games to generate student and alum interest.
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Yep, agreed.
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Until you vote to double your school tax then the next year they ask for another $3,500 per kid for all-day kindergarten….but that’s another topic for another message board……
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179,000 within 25 miles
455,000 within 35 miles
If athletics could find a way to get 1% of that per game for basketball and 1,000 students they would be doing really well.
It would take a ton of grassroots community outreach and engagement to overcome all of the various preconceived notions about Miami basketball. Not impossible but a lot of time and investment. Given all the examples of administrative apathy towards basketball it’s hard to see it happening.
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Thank you for this. That’s the info I was liking for. To me, this means the bottom for non-student or town bball fans (assuming the product is good) is at least 3k a game. And that’s very conservative. The silver lining here is we aren’t trying to fill 20k seats for hoops so the pop could support another team.
2X…thanks for the numbers. What it comes down to is engagement by Miami’s ICA.
Over the past decade, Miami has lost media coverage in Dayton/Cincinnati. It used to be able to rely on this as a method to “touch” alums/casual fans and keep them informed. That dried up. The result is that there is NO information coming out of Oxford that the casual alum/fan can absorb. Without that information, fandom declines. Out of sight. Out of mind.
This is NOT an easy task but it is possible. Many of us realized this years ago and in order to help, many fans from Dayton and Cincinnati created the “Miami Athletic Club”. A website was created and a group of 5-6 alums in Dayton and 5-6 alums in Cincinnati worked with Miami’s ICA to help host “local” events in each city. One event was hosted at a bar in Dayton in the year after the GMAC bowl win vs. Louisville. We had Miami coaches, athletic department folks, Miami ticket folks, etc… There were 100’s in attendance. We hosted a luncheon at NCR country Club with Shane Montgomery and there were 100’s there as well.
Not only did these events have the die-hard fans but it also had Miami grads who had been disconnected from Miami because of the lack of information. The events created buzz. It sold tickets. It grew interest.
By comparison, Ohio University does something similar and those “volunteers” in host cities earn loyalty points (at least they used to).
The point being is that Miami CAN do this. But it takes time. There may only be 10 people at the first event but they need to try. It needs to be grass roots.
Anther way to do this is sport specific. I remember when Herb Sendek left Miami and went to NC State. He indicated later that he was expected to participate in alumni get-togethers just about every week. Whether that was cook-outs or golf outings or luncheons. The school and its alums would put those together and NC State basketball tried to continue engage its fans THROUGHOUT the calendar year.
This is a slow process but it is a path to engagement.
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An additional grassroots path is kids. Get involved with kids in the 35 mile radius. Camps, clinics, school visits. Engage with them, get them excited about meeting an athlete/coach and then give their parents an offer so inexpensive they can’t say no.
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Well said
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So assuming Tuesday night is too soon to implement a major marketing campaign or complete major renovations to Millett, or fire Owens, it can still be an opportunity for the athletic department to entice fans for a game. Biggest rival, leading the MAC. Chance to knock them down a peg. So will anything be done to promote it? Anything, dare I say, edgy? Creative?
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Not much chance - there are almost no students in town, very few professors.
Oxford is so empty, that you could fire a cannon down High Street and not hit anything.
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If I was running the social for Miami sports, I’d make it pure comedy to promote that we need all the help we can get. I’d buy Hot Wheel cars and put an MU logo on them and say “look who just bought a NASCAR sponsorship” or I’d buy a tiny blimp drone with an MU logo and sell it as “our new GoodYear partnership.” Or buy a model of famous landmarks that are model railroad size and do the same thing. When your budget is small you have to think outlandish to get attention and if we own the media which we do in social, others might start following us.
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The ath dept used to have a rep org that had volunteers help raise money, put on events and sponsor bus trips to games. Somewhere along the line it was abandoned and the Red & White Club / Miami Ath Fund or whatever it is has stagnated since. No grassroots org to help promote the dept. I remember events from Chicago to Atlanta to San Francisco let alone Hamilton, Cincy, Dayton, Columbus, etc. It was growing for a few years and then went cold around the time of Maturi/Bates.
I also remember Maturi saying MU wasn’t big time enough to needs suites/clubs or priority seating for FB. He and then BB put MU behind by their inaction.
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I was actually going to ask if it was a break, or rush, etc., etc. Thanks!!
I know it’s J-Term, but is Miami having any in-person classes? UC is online only for at least their first two weeks of the semester that started this past week.
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J-Term typically has very few in person classes even before the pandemic. There’s probably 500 total students in town.
Spring semester looks like it’s going to start as expected with in-person classes on the 24th.
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Miami is more about, less people there to see the disaster, the better…then if they win, we can just brag about it for the next game to get people out there hopefully.
I’ll be shocked if OU does not destroy Miami tomorrow night, pleasantly surprised with a win. I just don’t see our frontcourt or Jack matching up with OU and their staff.
ESPN’s BPI predictor is officially broken. They currently have Miami as very slight (50.7%) favorites tomorrow. I’m thinking when the lines open, OU will be something like -5.
Comical…on predictor, remember how well that worked on Bellarmine, LOL.
I think your 5 to 6+ Miami is about right…but I could see us either getting hot from trey (Lairy, Dae Dae, Brown, Williams) and winning by 8 or clanking away and losing by 12.
The questions will be how will we guard Carter, he’s playing inside a bunch as far as I’ve seen (believe OU lost Dwight Wilson for most the year) and we don’t have a great matchup for him…we don’t really match up with Vander Plas at all…then they have bigger guards.
Will Dae Dae play smart and can Lairy get his shot off?
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