Back to the 17,000 seat setup?

[MaXx]

I passed by the stadium today and noticed that they are putting the stands up at the endzones like we had during the first season with seats at the corner of the endzones. I couldn't tell if the West endzone was the same from where I was though but it seems we're going back to the larger stadium setup. I hope this is a sign that we're hoping for better attendance this season.

[ARod]

Sounds like a good thing. We just need to get the word out like FAU and UM. But we'll make sure to ask the Coach during this week's radio show. I'll make sure to call and ask him that. Thanks, MaXx

[FIUFanatic]

When I spoke to the Ticket Office a while ago, the guy mentioned that we would go back to the Inaugural Year setup in terms of bleachers. That would give us a stadium capacity of 17,000 once again. I hope that: A) we win this year more games and, B) somehow our Athletic Department becomes more "visible" in our marketing approach.

We need to combine all our resources to make FIU Football more visible......having at least 4 games on TV surely should help....

[MaXx]

FIUFanatic said:

When I spoke to the Ticket Office a while ago, the guy mentioned that we would go back to the Inaugural Year setup in terms of bleachers. That would give us a stadium capacity of 17,000 once again. I hope that: A) we win this year more games and, B) somehow our Athletic Department becomes more "visible" in our marketing approach.

We need to combine all our resources to make FIU Football more visible......having at least 4 games on TV surely should help....

Having 3 or 4 victories on TV would be great too

[FIUPride]

I've read things here and there about Schnellenberger and his team getting out there and doing community service and publicity type activities. This makes perfect sense to generate a loyalty base and get familiar with the team. Has FIU ever considered doing anything like this? What is the boards thoughts on taking this angle?

[FootballFIU]

It would be a great idea for FIU to do more PR around the community... They could use the exposure, especailly trying to get that 15K average attendance...

[FIUFan]

I agree; there are literally scores (as in four score and seven) of little league football programs around Miami-Dade Co. FIU should put on some kind of clinic with a couple of the players and Coach Strock (or one of the other coaches for that matter) and hand out vouchers for free tickets to the games. As those of us with kids know; kids don't go anywhere without there parents. So there you go, the kids come free and all of a sudden you have a family event.

I don't know, buidling a big-time football program takes organizational skills which I'm still not sure we have. The excuses I've heard going around are 'it takes time' ; well USF started their program in '99, three years before us and they're joining the Big East this year (a BCS conference).

We need to get on the stick and stop making excuses. [/size]

[ARod]

FIUFan said:

I agree; there are literally scores (as in four score and seven) of little league football programs around Miami-Dade Co. FIU should put on some kind of clinic with a couple of the players and Coach Strock (or one of the other coaches for that matter) and hand out vouchers for free tickets to the games. As those of us with kids know; kids don't go anywhere without there parents. So there you go, the kids come free and all of a sudden you have a family event.

I don't know, buidling a big-time football program takes organizational skills which I'm still not sure we have. The excuses I've heard going around are 'it takes time' ; well USF started their program in '99, three years before us and they're joining the Big East this year (a BCS conference).

We need to get on the stick and stop making excuses.

I agree fully and I think it needs to be brought up on the "Strock Talk" radio show. If we're lucky, you can catch the AD Rick Mello on there. If not, bring it up to the Coach and see what he thinks about the matter. I guarantee you that FAU will have alot more fans this year than last year and it's not just because they were in the I-AA playoffs. It's because they continue to stay in the minds of the public, whereas we have probably faded away because we haven't been mentioned except for the rare "criminal" incident.

[Mike]

ARod said:

I guarantee you that FAU will have alot more fans this year than last year and it's not just because they were in the I-AA playoffs. It's because they continue to stay in the minds of the public, whereas we have probably faded away because we haven't been mentioned except for the rare "criminal" incident.

ARod is 100% correct. Does anybody who posts here believe we have a marketing plan in place?

If we don't market our product, it will not be purchased. If the Athletic Department needs help, then hiring additional experienced staff, individuals with many years marketing college athletics, becomes a priority. This position may require a national search and needs to be filled by hiring individuals with many years of experience working in the marketing department of a university with a major sports program.

[ARod]

The football program needs to continue to be marketed until we create a tradition, like UM or the other BIG TIME programs (Michigan, Ohio St., Florida, etc.), where the programs sell themselves.

[FIUFan]

Right; some of the increase in student fees should be ear-marked for marketing, ie. growing the program. Whatever form of promotion that might take.

However, the silence currently coming out of the Athletic Dept. is deafening. [/size]

[Xpedition]

Overall, marketing at FIU sucks. I did read late last year an article where the university hired a big-time marketing firm but we obviously haven't seen the end result of that. I know money is tight at FIU but the amount of press they put out is pretty pathetic. There are great things going on (research, construction, grants, athletics) at UP and BC yet the only way to find out about it is through the FIU website (and that's if you care enough to dig). The school obviously needs to do more. How many people in the community have any idea of the contributions FIU has made down here to the community? Answer: very, very few (and they're all on this board). I'd be very surprised if they don't push something out soon.

[Mike]

FIUFan said:

I agree; there are literally scores (as in four score and seven) of little league football programs around Miami-Dade Co. FIU should put on some kind of clinic with a couple of the players and Coach Strock (or one of the other coaches for that matter) and hand out vouchers for free tickets to the games. As those of us with kids know; kids don't go anywhere without there parents. So there you go, the kids come free and all of a sudden you have a family event.

I don't know, buidling a big-time football program takes organizational skills which I'm still not sure we have. The excuses I've heard going around are 'it takes time' ; well USF started their program in '99, three years before us and they're joining the Big East this year (a BCS conference).

We need to get on the stick and stop making excuses.

[/size][/quote]

Why we should give out free tickets until we build up our attendance figures.

Last year we had an average home (4 games at FIU Stadium) attendance of 6,629, and a lot less if we exclude the attendance of the first game vs. BETHUNE-COOKMAN, 13,123. An average exceeding 10,000 empty seats, which if filled would have been customers for food, beverages, FIU paraphenila, and season tickets.


To whom should we give free tickets

I couldn't have phrased what FiUFan said better. I like the idea of giving out tickets and would take it one step further. Give 50-100 tickets to every High School and Junior H.S. in Dade County and every H.S. that a player on the team graduated from. Maybe even grammar schools. Many of these kids would come with their parents, who would purchase full price tickets.

Give tickets to Barry College, MDC (Miami Dade College) and every other college in Dade County or sell them for $1.00. Most of these students will continue to live locally after they graduate. With students graduating from MDC and coming to FIU it is a natural source of fans and it is natural for students to relate to football players from their school. Presently we have one student from MDC, formerly, MDCC, on our roster. In May 2003 they graduated over 6,000 students. Adding their total student body to ours gives us a total student body of over 50,000 students who live locally.

And lets not forget to advertise in the college and high school newspapers, and invite the high school bands to play before and after the games.

[FIUFanatic]

Very good ideas Mike, FIUFan, and others are tossing around here. We need our Athletics Dept. to become more proactive in Marketing our team. This is particularly true if we need to comply with the 15,000 attendance goal, notwithstanding the FAMU game.

Obviously, winning, or the "promise" of winning ("Shaq in Black") in Miami is one pre-requisite for getting noticed in this town. However, there needs to be other strong foundations in place for the Football endeavour to succeed. Somehow, I would love to have within the next five years a strong core of close to 10-12,000 that would go to games regardless of the circumstances surrounding FIU Football. I'm sure we are way off that mark right now...maybe 3,000 hard core fans right now, I would guess. If we could only get a greater "hook" on students, that would greatly help the attendance and environment at our games at The Cage.

Our alumni members need to step up as well...It's such a huge market to tap into, yet it hasn't been easy to draw them back into campus in big enough numbers. That's part of our perennial "potential"..