RE: Always A Dragon - Empty Seats at the DAC
Now that I've had a few days to digest this, I'm going to give you my thoughts on what Drexel needs to do to help attendance.
1. Marketing to kids and families in the area. This is tough for me to do, because I like these people and they have been REALLY good to me. But I have to call out the ticketing and marketing people on this. I really feel as if they've stopped trying. When my daughter sang the National Anthem last year, I was told that they'll let people sing if they ask, but they're just going to let the Pep Band perform because nobody seems interested in singing anymore. That seems like a quitting attitude. If you get high school teenagers in to sing the anthem, they'll sell some tickets. They used to have a successful Girl Scout Day for Women's Basketball, but they gave up on that too. Maybe it's not their fault and it's due to lack of resources. But if that's the case, then the entire department has stopped trying. They need to do what it takes to introduce kids and families to Drexel Basketball. Kids and families will buy tickets. A local elementary school recently sang the anthem at a Temple Game. And I'm sure they sold hundreds of tickets for that. My thought is that if Temple can do it, so can Drexel. Temple might be in a bigger conference, and play in a fancier arena. But who cares? They are no better than Drexel. If Temple can do it, so can Drexel. They need to do what it takes to introduce kids and families to Drexel Basketball. Kids and families will buy tickets. Continue to invite youth basketball teams to play exhibitions at halftime, and maybe even real games before or afterwards. Now some of you might think that we shouldn't be marketing to people who don't care about Drexel Basketball. My response to that is, who cares? There aren't a lot of chair back seats at the DAC. If they fill them up with groups, and limit the amount of tickets left on game day, it will create a demand that might lead to sellouts. If games are sold out, it might convince people that they need season tickets to avoid getting shut out. That will create even more demand. There's no reason why the DAC can't be sold out almost every game and this is how you do it. How can they accomplish getting the groups into the DAC? Drexel promotes their Sports Management degree. Sports Management people are supposed to learn to manage game day operations, including marketing and ticket sales. So why isn't the AD utilizing these students? Hire them for paid or unpaid interns, and work to promote and get the word out to schools and youth organizations and get butts in the seats. IT CAN BE DONE.
2. Drexel Students. I don’t think that the athletic department can fix this problem on their own. But it will take a group of dedicated students to rebuild the DAC Pack from ground up. They need to figure out what their goals and objectives are. They need to push for student funding and funding from the AD. Students recruit students and it will take a group like The DAC Pack to convince the student body that Drexel Basketball is FUN. Section off an area of the student section. Let the student body know that anyone is welcome to be part of this section, as long as they wear a gold shirt, stand and cheer, and have fun. The DAC Pack started from scratch with a few dedicated students. IT CAN BE DONE.
3. Embrace the DAC – The renovated DAC in itself a fine mid-major arena but is still a work in progress. It is not something that we as fans should be embarrassed by. I don’t get the anonymous quote in the article by a STH who’s embarrassed to take guests to the DAC. It’s not glitzy, but it’s small, intimate, and it gets all fans really close to the action. It’s no longer uncomfortable. It’s no longer hot. Guests no longer have to go down 3 fights of steps to pee. The scoreboards stink, but I’ve seen plans that we should be getting new scoreboards and video screens very soon. Also, I’m told, the team areas are as nice as any and the DAC should no longer hurt recruiting. If we have good coaches recruiting the players, the players will come. It doesn’t hurt Denise that much, and it shouldn’t hurt Zach either.
4. Improve the Game Day Presentation – This is a big issue. The game day presentation is stale and needs to be improved. Having video screens can help. But fancy screens alone can’t fix the problem. It takes a good plan to make the DAC fun again. The DAC needs new lighting, and new lights could help with the atmosphere as well. Anyone who’s been to a game at Temple knows that Temple knows how to put on a good show. Drexel’s marketing people should be working with our friends at Temple to figure out how they can put on a similar game day presentation at the DAC. As I said before, if Temple can do it, so can Drexel. This would be a great project for Drexel’s Sports Management students to figure out how to do it. IT CAN BE DONE.
(This post was last modified: 03-05-2018 12:11 PM by J.B..)
|