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Are the Bulls a hot enough ticket to fill Key Bank Center?


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7 hours ago, pottier25 said:

Maybe I'm totally wrong but I thought it was a 2 for 1 with Cuse? We went there 2 years in row now. Maybe I'm wrong.

Nope. They pay the Bulls to play the dome. No return game ever. SU makes too much in home games to ever make going on the road with it.

But there are other name programs UB could use a game in KBC as a carrot. Pitt, Penn State, WVU, St. John's, etc.

Edited by promotherobot
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On 1/12/2019 at 5:37 AM, dutchcountry7 said:

Key bank finances would be hard. You’d have to pay to shuttle students and you’d also have to pay to give tickets to students. Students attending the game would actually cost the school money which they don’t at AA. 

You wouldn't have to shuttle students, they can bus to south and then take the 'subway'!

Good point about the impact of student tickets on the flip side, if they are willing to pay, then the University gets double  paid.

If we had 6-7k area fans interested in going, + 10k students for a total of 16-17k people, Keybank would be a good way to get everyone in the building, at AA, only a third would be able to get in. But risky, if people dont show it's embarrassing (i.e. the ralph game in 2013) If we lose at Keybank we'll be pissssed about giving away our home court advantage (i.e. ralph game 2013). At this point it seems all the risk is taken by UB and the upside is not that great. I wouldn't do it.

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3 hours ago, bull_trojan said:

You wouldn't have to shuttle students, they can bus to south and then take the 'subway'!

Good point about the impact of student tickets on the flip side, if they are willing to pay, then the University gets double  paid.

If we had 6-7k area fans interested in going, + 10k students for a total of 16-17k people, Keybank would be a good way to get everyone in the building, at AA, only a third would be able to get in. But risky, if people dont show it's embarrassing (i.e. the ralph game in 2013) If we lose at Keybank we'll be pissssed about giving away our home court advantage (i.e. ralph game 2013). At this point it seems all the risk is taken by UB and the upside is not that great. I wouldn't do it.

10k students is a stretch in my opinion. Usually there isn't even over 1000 there.

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12 hours ago, SGBull said:

10k students is a stretch in my opinion. Usually there isn't even over 1000 there.

The idea is getting 10K non-student fans at a minimum. ADMA should be looking for ways to maximize every nickel of potential revenue while the Bulls are this hot. Selling beer was a great move. I hope they are also setting up more concession stands. Hard to feed 6K with just one and you're just leaving money laying there if you don't have concessions all over Alumni. Same for team swag. They should have stuff to buy all over the arena and all over town. $$$$$$!!!!!

Edited by promotherobot
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IMO we're a long way away from this. We're having fun this year and crowds are growing but I think we should have a year-plus of consistent sell-out crowds before we look to do something like this. Alumni is a great advantage when it's packed and loud, lets establish tradition first.

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It would need to be an opponent where the opponent alone would attract a minimum of 5k people to see the visiting team play, even if the Bulls weren't playing.

Given that there would probably be over lap between the people who would turn out to see such a visiting team and people who attend UB games, that would probably exclude maybe 2k UB fans.  (Think of people who would go to see Syracuse play Canisius at Key bank or Duke play Niagara at Key Bank who also regularly attend UB games).  Then you have the other UB fans and students who go to games only to see UB.  This assumes students would still go out of their way to get downtown for a game.

 

Fan attendance needed by source

+ 5k fans there to see opponent.

+ 5k fans to see UB

- 2k college basketball fans who overlap both groups above.

TOTAL ATTENDANCE : 8k

I think the above scenario is the one that is needed at a minimum.  The problem is that there not might be many opponents that will draw 5k people to the arena.  Xavier wouldn't do it.  Auburn wouldn't do it. 

Most neutral site events are double headers.  Playing a single game is a lot harder and more expensive to pull off.  

 

These are the neutral site games played this year that only had one game for comparison.

City - Game - Attendance

Chicago - Illinois vs Ohio State - 5k

New York - Kentucky vs Seton Hall - 10k

Oklahoma City - Oklahoma vs Wichita State - 4k

Kansas City - Kansas vs New Mexico State - 15k

Jackson - Mississippi vs SE Louisiana - 4k

Birmingham - Auburn vs UAB - 15k

Pittsburgh - Pitt vs Duquesne - 12k

Sioux Falls - Oklahoma State vs Nebraska - 4k

New York - Duke vs Texas Tech - 20k

New York - UConn vs Villanova - 16k

Atlanta - Mercer vs Harvard - 3k

St Louis - Illinois vs Missouri - 16k

Rochester - St. Bona vs Fordham - 5k

 

 

The ones in bold were shockingly low.  Which has to make you nervous.

Edited by dutchcountry7
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1 hour ago, Jeseph said:

And why would we want to move a game downtown only to attract a 60%-ish UB crowd. I get that playing in a big arena sounds fun but none of this makes any sense for UB...

Because KBC is essentially the place that would unite WNY into college basketball as a whole. The idea of holding it at KBC does make sense, but, UB basketball is some years away from fulfilling the idea. In the future, if UB has the same type of success they are having this season, then, it's possible, and the community would most likely jump on the bandwagon. If UB can pack Alumni every single game, and I mean pack the arena full, then flirting with the idea of larger capacity neutral site game is certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

On top of it, we would need the Pegula's to endorse the hell out of it for it to really work. Making such a tournament/neutral site game(s) as accessible as possible for students, as well as fans and spectators would be absolutely crucial. 

I think if WNY were to start being serious into college basketball, games at KBC would be a ginormous help for culture building in the area, and well as building culture amongst the students.

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2 hours ago, Jeseph said:

And why would we want to move a game downtown only to attract a 60%-ish UB crowd. I get that playing in a big arena sounds fun but none of this makes any sense for UB...

Because 60% is better than 5% which comes from a road game.

This isn't something to do for a Toledo.  Those home games are going to happen.  It is something to do for a game that otherwise wouldn't happen.  The problem is of course that the teams that would agree to the game probably won't sell any tickets.  The teams that can sell tickets in Buffalo aren't going to agree to a game in Buffalo.

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3 hours ago, mikescherrer8 said:

Because KBC is essentially the place that would unite WNY into college basketball as a whole. The idea of holding it at KBC does make sense, but, UB basketball is some years away from fulfilling the idea. In the future, if UB has the same type of success they are having this season, then, it's possible, and the community would most likely jump on the bandwagon. If UB can pack Alumni every single game, and I mean pack the arena full, then flirting with the idea of larger capacity neutral site game is certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

On top of it, we would need the Pegula's to endorse the hell out of it for it to really work. Making such a tournament/neutral site game(s) as accessible as possible for students, as well as fans and spectators would be absolutely crucial. 

I think if WNY were to start being serious into college basketball, games at KBC would be a ginormous help for culture building in the area, and well as building culture amongst the students.

This was what I was basically going to say. But on top of this, if we want to be able to afford to keep Nate Oats around, we need more revenue. If you only have games at Alumni and you are selling out, then your revenue from attendance is capped.

There is a void for basketball in WNY. The Bulls can fill it. If we can somehow build a consistent contender why can't Buffalo become like Syracuse?

We love what we have but we also have to grow to keep it going.

Edited by promotherobot
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How many season ticket seats are there for UB basketball? If there are, say, 2500 season ticket holders and a seating capacity (including SRO) of 6500, that means roughly 4000 available seats each game. I would estimate that over the past eight years the number of times that the ‘True Blue’ student attendance has approached or slightly exceeded 1000 has been, perhaps, 3 times per year. If by changing the venue to KBC one hopes  for a student turnout of 10,000, I would call that dream hallucinatory. Are there any schools anywhere where 10000 of the students attend a basketball game?

I admire the goal of luring top tier opponents here, and, even though I consider Key Bank Arena a poor platform, it would be great to host a doubleheader/tournament there with the blue blood programs. I don’t have faith in that happening.

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9 hours ago, promotherobot said:

And that can happen. The Sabres and Bills tickets are out of the reach of many typical WNYers. That's where UB comes in. High quality play at family friendly prices. I really believe that's a niche to be exploited.

Wow, I thought you were exaggerating.  I have been to some games but only when given tickets.  I never paid attention to the price.  They are about three times what I was thinking they would be.

https://purchase.tickets.com/buy/TicketPurchase

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