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1 hour ago, ed said:

What D1 game / tournament is really "about the fans"? We going to Ireland for... the Irish u fans? We expecting a huge travelling contingent?

That’s the point... These holiday tournaments have nothing to do with a team’s home arena. 

Home games are important for building a fan base but the holiday tournaments are important for getting high quality games and recruiting  

 

 

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1 hour ago, dutchcountry7 said:

That’s the point... These holiday tournaments have nothing to do with a team’s home arena. 

Home games are important for building a fan base but the holiday tournaments are important for getting high quality games and recruiting  

 

 

Point is, fans don't care about the arena, period, if there are compelling games. 

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6 hours ago, dutchcountry7 said:

In a tropical vacation destination...

Sure. But people don't care if you have a compelling game / team. If you had central Michigan vs Mississippi valley st, you're still not filling 2000 seats in Maui. 

The team doesn't even need to be good to be compelling, and people will love their lousy stadium - look at f'in Fenway and Wrigley!

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Quote

In a continued effort to enhance the fan experience at University at Buffalo athletic events, the school has announced a new pilot program to sell beer at men’s and women’s basketball games this season as well as football games next fall. The school is looking to introduce the program on November 24 when the UB men’s basketball team hosts Marist at Alumni Arena.

Get drunk, watch Graves dunk (but don't get drunk).

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I ran a correlation matrix on SMU attendance between 11-12 and 17-18.

I looked at New Arena, Team Quality, Impact of AAC games, Opponent Quality and Competition vs Pro sports.

There was a strong correlation between attendance and the New Arena (.959). 

The next strongest correlation was SMU's Quality, (captured by RPI at selection, -.893)

AAC Conference games were slightly correlated to attendance (.501)

SMU being ranked on the day of the game was slightly less correlated (.372)

Other low correlations:
Opponent RPI at selection: -.195
vs Stars Home game: .150 
vs. Mavs Home game: -.142
Larry Brown Coaching: .116
SMU Gameday vs Dallas Pro team game (home and road): .107

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On 11/22/2018 at 7:59 PM, ed said:

What D1 game / tournament is really "about the fans"? We going to Ireland for... the Irish u fans? We expecting a huge travelling contingent?

I'm vacationing in Nassau this week. I just missed the "Battle for Atlantis" tournament. The idea is to get fans to travel. Never been to Belfast but I'm going to assume Maui and Nassau are nicer.

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On 11/19/2018 at 5:35 PM, UB85 said:

Bona's atmosphere is great. It is also a bit contrived. They pack the place. The students are on top of the court especially at either basket. The ceiling is as low as you'll ever find one in major college hoops. On top of that they close the doors leading to the gym during the game, which means the sound is literally bouncing off the walls and ceiling with little place to go.

Hey, we are getting ready to close the doors, lowering the ceiling, and getting change for your cash on Saturday!  If any of you want to follow me I’m leaving a little early as I’m stopping for a bite to eat and a few drinks before the game.  I love the cracks on Olean as I never have heard those, oh wait,  I hear them about Buffalo all the time.  I guess it makes people feel superior to put down other places. 

I have heard criticisms of the Reilly Center before, but never the low ceiling and the closing of the doors, but it is a fun place to watch a game. 

i know I say things just to get things going a little bit, but this is a legitimate question.  Isn’t football holding you guys back?  I live in Buffalo and love college basketball.  You guys have a great team, but when I look at your schedule there isn’t a team on there I want to see you play at Alumni Arena.  How many directions are there in Michigan? I might go see you play Syracuse with a couple of UB friends. Dump football and get in the Atlantic 10.  Real sports fans know the MAC. Degenerate gamblers are the only ones interested in the football. Do you guys make money on it?  I won’t respond to my football question that is for you guys to figure out.  See some of you Saturday. 

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Sounds like you have a complex of some sort. I love the atmosphere at RC. I’ve always been a fan. Just hope we get a win down there. RC isn’t different than a lot of college gyms. Akron is very similar though not nearly as nice. I’d say UB basketball is doing just fine. Going to 3 out of last 4 tourneys is unprecedented for the 4 local teams. The last time a local team was ranked was 1971 with Big Bob Lanier and Calvin Murphy led Bonnie’s and Purps respectively. That’s pretty darn good company. And if Big Bob didn’t go down against Villanova they would have won the whole thing. That was likely the best local hoops team ever. 

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3 hours ago, Buffalobonnie said:

Hey, we are getting ready to close the doors, lowering the ceiling, and getting change for your cash on Saturday!  If any of you want to follow me I’m leaving a little early as I’m stopping for a bite to eat and a few drinks before the game.  I love the cracks on Olean as I never have heard those, oh wait,  I hear them about Buffalo all the time.  I guess it makes people feel superior to put down other places. 

I have heard criticisms of the Reilly Center before, but never the low ceiling and the closing of the doors, but it is a fun place to watch a game. 

i know I say things just to get things going a little bit, but this is a legitimate question.  Isn’t football holding you guys back?  I live in Buffalo and love college basketball.  You guys have a great team, but when I look at your schedule there isn’t a team on there I want to see you play at Alumni Arena.  How many directions are there in Michigan? I might go see you play Syracuse with a couple of UB friends. Dump football and get in the Atlantic 10.  Real sports fans know the MAC. Degenerate gamblers are the only ones interested in the football. Do you guys make money on it?  I won’t respond to my football question that is for you guys to figure out.  See some of you Saturday. 

I would assume the plan is to move from the MAC to a conference like the AAC, which better fits our academic and athletic profile. Joining a conference that is comprised of a lot of small private liberal colleges really isn’t something many fans and administrators of an AAU flagship university want to do. Sure an at-large bid would be a bit easier, but is playing Fordham and Duquesne going to attract any more fans than Directional Michigan and Ohio State’s little brother? Fans want to see a good team play, and if the opponent is attractive we might get a bump. 

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3 hours ago, Buffalobonnie said:

Hey, we are getting ready to close the doors, lowering the ceiling, and getting change for your cash on Saturday!  If any of you want to follow me I’m leaving a little early as I’m stopping for a bite to eat and a few drinks before the game.  I love the cracks on Olean as I never have heard those, oh wait,  I hear them about Buffalo all the time.  I guess it makes people feel superior to put down other places. 

I have heard criticisms of the Reilly Center before, but never the low ceiling and the closing of the doors, but it is a fun place to watch a game. 

i know I say things just to get things going a little bit, but this is a legitimate question.  Isn’t football holding you guys back?  I live in Buffalo and love college basketball.  You guys have a great team, but when I look at your schedule there isn’t a team on there I want to see you play at Alumni Arena.  How many directions are there in Michigan? I might go see you play Syracuse with a couple of UB friends. Dump football and get in the Atlantic 10.  Real sports fans know the MAC. Degenerate gamblers are the only ones interested in the football. Do you guys make money on it?  I won’t respond to my football question that is for you guys to figure out.  See some of you Saturday. 

I don't get how football affects basketball. Both teams are doing pretty well, aren't they? Joining the A10 is not a solution. In fact it's even worse than UB in the MAC. UB doesn't fit with all the tiny private schools of the A10. Really, as an institution, we belong in the B1G Ten, but that ain't happening. So the AAC is the next best thing.

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8 minutes ago, dutchcountry7 said:

Just looked it up. SDSU was the best attendance for an OOC game that year and that includes playing local teams which should attract fans. 

Which was still low compared to our MAC schedule. 

 

Guess there isnt isn’t a huge sample size for quality mid major programs coming to AA. That was the one I could think of. 

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25 minutes ago, rma said:

Which was still low compared to our MAC schedule. 

 

Guess there isnt isn’t a huge sample size for quality mid major programs coming to AA. That was the one I could think of. 

And student haven’t gotten into games until later in the season. They tend not to go to the ones early. 

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Students are gone and literally don’t decide to care until February. I normally see the place the most packed on a random Friday against Bowing Green. 

also it’s very well on record that teams will not come to AA. A lot of mid majors want to be paid, and the big schools have no benefit to play here. They had to make that weird deal with SIU to even get a decent team in the doors. 

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8 hours ago, Kevin said:

Students are gone and literally don’t decide to care until February. I normally see the place the most packed on a random Friday against Bowing Green. 

also it’s very well on record that teams will not come to AA. A lot of mid majors want to be paid, and the big schools have no benefit to play here. They had to make that weird deal with SIU to even get a decent team in the doors. 

This is the problem.  Many teams are like SIU and Buffalo.  You have middle tier teams like them who are in the top of their conference and think they will have a good team.  They want to get a home/home with another good team like themselves but they can't do it.

Why can't these schools who all want games with each other get a deal done?

Because they both want to get the home game when they are going to have a good year.  Buffalo and SIU both wanted to start the series at home.  No one was willing to play them at home.  They worked and worked to try to get teams to do a home/home that started at home but no one would agree to it.  This is the curse of being a good team in a not so good conference.  Everyone knows that the typical course of action is you sign a home/home with a team that is good and then the second year of the deal is worthless because the coach leaves to take a job somewhere else, players graduate or transfer and the you went to play on the road when they are good sends you a lousy team making it a bad deal for you. 

So, rather than trying to broker two home/home deals which is even harder than one, they both broke down and decided the only way they would get a good home game is to do an in-season home/home deal. 

This is the curse of UB.  Just can't schedule any good deals. 

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If Nate continues to raise the profile of the program, he will be able to schedule good teams here. Nothing to lose if you're playing a top 25 program. That's a huge challenge though to keep the program on this path through the year not to mention in the years ahead. But I know Nate and crew are committed to just that.

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41 minutes ago, UB85 said:

If Nate continues to raise the profile of the program, he will be able to schedule good teams here. Nothing to lose if you're playing a top 25 program. That's a huge challenge though to keep the program on this path through the year not to mention in the years ahead. But I know Nate and crew are committed to just that.

That's the problem.  Home/Home deals are signed in advance.  What school wants to enter into a home/home with Buffalo with the fear that (1) their coach will leave, or (2) the program drops off?

You'd need Buffalo to sign Oats to a million dollar a year deal to give some peace of mind to other schools that he will still be there in two years for the back end of the home/home.  And even then it might not be enough to convince them. 

You're over estimating how eager teams will be to play the Bulls.

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Just now, UB85 said:

Be patient my friend. Rome was not built in a day. As I wrote elsewhere, raising the profile and making UB a "Gonzaga" like program is something Nate is committed to. After four years I think he's earned our trust.

Gonzaga said it took 10-12 years of winning before they could schedule home games.  The closest they got was scheduling a game in Seattle, which would be like UB scheduling a home game in NYC.  So maybe that's what is needed.  Schedule a home game in NYC and then get a top-100 team to agree to that. 

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