Fan Acceptance of Mediocrity & Basketball Facilities

[McClown27]

Fellas,

As you all know, I am critical of building new expensive facilties until the university community is able to support the programs. What is the support I am seeking? I have two different sets of criteria: institutional changes and performance.

Institutional Changes

1) Changes to the model that are absolutely necessary for a level playing field.
2) Enhanced Marketing
3) Media Relations

Performance
1) Student Attendance and Spirit Increases
2) Local Community Attendance Increases
3) Improved Performance--Lack of tolerance for mediocrity among fans.

Most people on this board support the institutional changes, although some cling to the belief that everything SMU does is fine. However, few people on this board seem to support the performance criteria. It is commonly believed that once new facilities are built, everything will be fixed. Even if Moody is renovated to the extent of the AAC or the Pyramid, T.J. Ford and LaMarcus Aldridge are still gonna play for UT.

Before new facilities are built, improved fan attendance and record must occur. Otherwise, we will have 1,000 people in a really nice arena. Of course, that would be sweet for some of us, but would not really solve any of the problems with SMU athletics. Instead, as always, it would send the message that we accept SMU's athletic mediocrity (just like our model).

[Bigtime41]

Fellas,

As you all know, I am critical of building new expensive facilties until the university community is able to support the programs. What is the support I am seeking? I have two different sets of criteria: institutional changes and performance.

Institutional Changes

1) Changes to the model that are absolutely necessary for a level playing field.
2) Enhanced Marketing
3) Media Relations

Performance
1) Student Attendance and Spirit Increases
2) Local Community Attendance Increases
3) Improved Performance--Lack of tolerance for mediocrity among fans.

Most people on this board support the institutional changes, although some cling to the belief that everything SMU does is fine. However, few people on this board seem to support the performance criteria. It is commonly believed that once new facilities are built, everything will be fixed. Even if Moody is renovated to the extent of the AAC or the Pyramid, T.J. Ford and LaMarcus Aldridge are still gonna play for UT.

Before new facilities are built, improved fan attendance and record must occur. Otherwise, we will have 1,000 people in a really nice arena. Of course, that would be sweet for some of us, but would not really solve any of the problems with SMU athletics. Instead, as always, it would send the message that we accept SMU's athletic mediocrity (just like our model).

The thing that will be interesting to me is if a program is successful will the student body come out to support it. For example, if the ladies basketball program were to get ranked in the Top 25, Get to the NCAA tournament, and make it to the sweet 16 next year. The following year would fans come out and support that program? I don't know because it seems the support is biased and womens programs don't get support even if they win. I think the SMU media machine is not in tune with the community and don't do enough to be a serious competitor within the Dallas market.

[abezontar]

No, they wouldn't support the women's team, even when they have knocked off top teams on the road, or played top teams at home the fans have never come out to support them. However, I do think improved facilities would do more to help the women's team than to help the men's team. Rhonda already does a good job selling what we have and getting good recruits. They are not the ones going to Tennessee, and until we can get fan support from Dallas they never will come here, but better facilities would make it easier for Rhonda to convince the next tier down to come to SMU over Tulsa, or Rice or La Tech.

As far as the fans coming out.....like I said earlier, facilities will bring people in at the start of a season, especially if it is something spectacular, but to keep them coming you have to put a winning team on the floor, and have them beating good competition. That plus a serious marketing effort is the only thing that will ever get the fan support to increase at SMU. You can't wait for one or the other, you have to make a concentrated effort to get it to happen at the same time so that you actually accomplish you purpose of building a tradition that will sustain itself both on the floor and in the stands.

[McClown27]

I think the SMU media machine is not in tune with the community and don't do enough to be a serious competitor within the Dallas market.

Boy, I hear you on that one. Belo has to even overstate its circulation to look more prosperous. They don't even cover the DI college in the area.

For those interested in this scandal, check out their own press release. They overstated their circulation to advertisers by 5%, which is huge for a market the size of Dallas.

http://www.belo.com/pressRelease.x2?rel ... 8-578.html

[McClown27]

As far as the fans coming out.....like I said earlier, facilities will bring people in at the start of a season, especially if it is something spectacular, but to keep them coming you have to put a winning team on the floor, and have them beating good competition. That plus a serious marketing effort is the only thing that will ever get the fan support to increase at SMU. You can't wait for one or the other, you have to make a concentrated effort to get it to happen at the same time so that you actually accomplish you purpose of building a tradition that will sustain itself both on the floor and in the stands.

How about waiting until Moody is sold out for 5-10 games one season? And making an NCAA tournament? Otherwise, Moody is a fine facility for 1-3000 fans.

As for your argument about facilities and fan attendance, check out Ford the past few years.

[SMUPhil]

Abe's point was that Rhonda HAS had the team in the top 25, the NCAA tournament (4 or 5 years in a row), knocked off top 20 teams, etc, but the fans were hardly ever there. As far as facilities, it would boost recruitment, not necessarily attendance. But you can't point to Ford because the football team has SUCKED compared to women's bball the last 10 years. People like to lump Rhonda and womens bball in with the problems of football and mens bball, but in reality, she has produced far more than either of them since the DP, and would do even better with a practice facility/new arena.

[abezontar]

And you can't use Ford as an example under my theory, because while we did have a great facility, we didn't have the second half which was a good team winning games against quality competition. We had a bad team losing games to horrible competition, and we closed the year out by losing 62-7 to TCU at home. My theory invovles opening the new facility AT THE SAME TIME THAT YOU FIELD A COMPETITIVE TEAM THAT IS WINNING GAMES AGAINST QUALITY COMPETITION!!!! That is the only thing that will keep people coming back after they have seen the new place, that isn't what we did with Ford.

And yes, I would be willing to support doing everything and anything to make sure the team wins that first year, everything and anything.

[covok48]

How many fans do we get at basketball games? A few...hundred (if that).

So tell me how this warrents a new or updated facility? We can't even fill the seats we have now.

[abezontar]

You need facilities to get better recruits, you need fans to get better recruits, you need better recruits to build a better team, you need a better team to win games, you need to win games to get a higher seed in the conference tourney, you need to win the conference tourney to get into the NCAA tourney, you need to get into the NCAA tourney to get fans to show up.

So if you have to win to get fans to show up, and you need fans to get the guys you need to win, what do you do? You announce and break ground on a better facility, this gets guys who might not have otherwise been interested in you to allow you to get your foot in the door, then you offer them everything under the sun, and get them to come to your school before you finish your better facilities, promising them the chance to use them when they are finished. Hopefully AND THIS IS THE KEY, you have built a good enough team by the time that the facility opens that all those people who come out to see your amazing facilities will also see you win a game against a good opponent. Then they come back to the next game, YOU CAN'T THEN LOSE THE REST OF THE SEASON, not like we did when we opened Ford. Suddenly you have more fans coming because they came to see a nice place and stuck around because the team was good too. That's is where Ford failed, they came to see a nice place, but the team continued to suck and they didn't come back after a second game, especially when we were losing to the likes of San Jose State.

[McClown27]

My theory invovles opening the new facility AT THE SAME TIME THAT YOU FIELD A COMPETITIVE TEAM THAT IS WINNING GAMES AGAINST QUALITY COMPETITION!!!!

I guess you hold Tubbs in much higher esteem than his record suggests. In what way could the current configuration of the program ever "guarantee" a successful season, I think you are really stretching on this point. It is not like Copeland hoped that the football team would be lousy when they opened Ford, future success tends to questionable when the school does not have a commitment to marketing and achieving a level playing field with the competition. You can rubber stamp mediocrity with another new stadium, I want changes!

[abezontar]

Except that I also said that I would be willing to do anything and everything to make that happen. I'm not arguing that we should just build a new facility, I'm arguing that we need the facility coupled with whatever is necessary to make the team good (part of which is respectable facilities) so that success becomes sustainable for not just a season or for the duration of one or two good recruits, but a tradition that we will be able to maintain.

[abezontar]

I would also say that we didn't use every means at our disposal to make the team competitive when we opened Ford, there we hoped the stadium itself would somehow make us better, and I remember thinking at the end of September of that year that it was just the same old crap with a shiny new package.

We need to convince fans that they need to come see a shiny new package that has a shiny new toy that will be the coolest toy they have ever had.

And if we don't have a reason to initially get fans in the door, then why are they going to come at all? You don't seem to think Tubbs can make the team better, and if I remember correctly you were one of the ones that stated that even when we had a 20 win season we didn't have that many people in the stands. Why are they going to come to our games then if they don't come to games when we win?

[McClown27]

You don't seem to think Tubbs can make the team better, and if I remember correctly you were one of the ones that stated that even when we had a 20 win season we didn't have that many people in the stands. Why are they going to come to our games then if they don't come to games when we win?

Those teams did not make the tournament, although they were better than the last couple of years. Making the tournament a yearly event would bring more folks out. The Dement/Tubbs combo sniffed at the tournament a couple of times, so far Tubbs has not even had a whiff of it. The Cavan situation shows you need a winning coach before you build/renovate.

To answer your question, a combination of winning and marketing will bring more folks to the games. Most of you just confuse building facilities with winning. Most mid-majors do fine without fancy facilities, and I feel that we can make do with our current facilities until we show we can be a perennial tournament contender or begin to sellout our existing facility.

[DickerJames]

I think this is one of the dumbest threads ever started on this board.

[Pony_Fan]

I think this is one of the dumbest threads ever started on this board.

Do You Accept SMU's Institutional Mediocrity? I don't think anyone on this board is accepting 15 yrs worth of crappy SMU admin support.

Agreed, DJ.

Let's see what the new AD does. We need a new practice facility and Moody needs work. End of story.