Valley Attendance

[DUBulldog]

People are really looking at Drake wrong. They're a small enrollment school in a city that's dominated by alumni from the two large public schools in the state. It's not a college town. It's an Iowa/Iowa State town. You then factor in that Drake students come heavily from Chicago and the Twin Cities - areas to which many tend to return upon graduation - and you can see how you're losing the natural ticket base.

Basically, for Drake to have successful attendance, they have to be real good. There has to be a buzz. People not really affiliated with the university have to choose to drive to Forest Ave.

It's just starting this year, so hopefully that momentum can continue forward. But it's a hard starting point when you're the 7th biggest thing in your city (behind Iowa/Iowa State football/basketball, NFL, MLB) AND your natural customer base lives a couple hundred miles away.

I agree almost 100% with this.....I do think that more Drake grads stick around Des Moines than you might realize, but a lot of Drake grads do return to Chicago, KC, Minneapolis, etc.

What you didn't mention is the relative lack of coverage by the local media; especially the Des Moines Register. You would never know by the DMR's "coverage" that Drake is the local team. For those that don't live in Des Moines, I don't think you can imagine how poor the Drake coverage is here. When Drake is good....which isn't often....the coverage picks up, but normally it's minimal.

[Veritas]

I wonder how much of a benefit it is that WSU is named after "Wichita" which provides a greater brand name in the city of Wichita in contrast to Drake which doesn't necessarily do the same thing for Des Mones.
It always surprised me a little that Creighton was able to draw like they did (though in fairness to Drake, the Creighton tickets were pretty cheap; especially in the upper bowl)
WSU started out as Fairmount, then changed to University of Wichita in 1926, and finally to Wichita State in 1964 when the Kansas Board of Regents wanted to get paws on a good thing.

[DUBulldog]

I wonder how much of a benefit it is that WSU is named after "Wichita" which provides a greater brand name in the city of Wichita in contrast to Drake which doesn't necessarily do the same thing for Des Mones.
It always surprised me a little that Creighton was able to draw like they did (though in fairness to Drake, the Creighton tickets were pretty cheap; especially in the upper bowl)
WSU started out as Fairmount, then changed to University of Wichita in 1926, and finally to Wichita State in 1964 when the Kansas Board of Regents wanted to get paws on a good thing.

Creighton drew poorly until the late 90s. They started drawing well after several good seasons in a row.

The big difference between Creighton's situation and Drake's is that there is only one other Division 1 basketball team in Nebraska, and basketball is an afterthought at that school. In Des Moines, the basketball coverage has always been dominated by Iowa and Iowa State....even back when I was in school in the late 70s, and Drake was drawing about 3000 more fans per game than Iowa State.

[rlh04d]

What you didn't mention is the relative lack of coverage by the local media; especially the Des Moines Register. You would never know by the DMR's "coverage" that Drake is the local team. For those that don't live in Des Moines, I don't think you can imagine how poor the Drake coverage is here. When Drake is good....which isn't often....the coverage picks up, but normally it's minimal.

That's something that I think everyone in the MVC normally suffers from. Even most WSU fans are very unhappy with the amount of coverage they get in Wichita, relative to in-state competitors. That's starting to change now, obviously, but it's been a struggle.

Media coverage is tied to the audience -- they're obviously going to cover what their readers/viewers want to see. Too many people still think of media outlets as being about informing people -- that's not what they do. If people in Des Moines want to read about Drake, Drake will get more attention, because that will make more people buy newspapers. Same with getting people to watch Drake coverage on the local news, etc. Media attention is going to be audience driven -- and then the media attention will spur more audience.

It's all a cycle, with success, audience, media, etc. all feeding off each other. The trick is getting the cycle going, and not letting it die off. Consistent improvement and success, which is going to likely rely on a program's willingness to spend money to maintain a consistent program.

[rlh04d]

The big difference between Creighton's situation and Drake's is that there is only one other Division 1 basketball team in Nebraska, and basketball is an afterthought at that school.

Also that Creighton has gone almost 15 years without a truly bad season. They've made at least the NCAA or NIT tournaments in all but two seasons since 1999.

Consistent programs are usually going to draw. Creighton had a big amount of help getting to the huge crowds they have, but even with more in-state competition, they would be a good draw with their success. Drake has made the NCAA tournament once since 1971 -- that's a long time of irrelevance. Gotta start being relevant to be treated like it.

[pafan]

Media coverage is tied to the audience -- they're obviously going to cover what their readers/viewers want to see. Too many people still think of media outlets as being about informing people -- that's not what they do. If people in Des Moines want to read about Drake, Drake will get more attention, because that will make more people buy newspapers.

Right. When UNC played at Roberts Stadium in '09, there were 24 media travelling with Carolina.

For most of our schools, the number of travelling media is three or less. Newspaper beat writer and two radio guys. Sometimes there will be road TV (Wichita, Bradley, SIU, others?).

[DUBulldog]

What you didn't mention is the relative lack of coverage by the local media; especially the Des Moines Register. You would never know by the DMR's "coverage" that Drake is the local team. For those that don't live in Des Moines, I don't think you can imagine how poor the Drake coverage is here. When Drake is good....which isn't often....the coverage picks up, but normally it's minimal.

That's something that I think everyone in the MVC normally suffers from. Even most WSU fans are very unhappy with the amount of coverage they get in Wichita, relative to in-state competitors. That's starting to change now, obviously, but it's been a struggle.

Media coverage is tied to the audience -- they're obviously going to cover what their readers/viewers want to see. Too many people still think of media outlets as being about informing people -- that's not what they do. If people in Des Moines want to read about Drake, Drake will get more attention, because that will make more people buy newspapers. Same with getting people to watch Drake coverage on the local news, etc. Media attention is going to be audience driven -- and then the media attention will spur more audience.

It's all a cycle, with success, audience, media, etc. all feeding off each other. The trick is getting the cycle going, and not letting it die off. Consistent improvement and success, which is going to likely rely on a program's willingness to spend money to maintain a consistent program.

Agree that it's a cycle. Drake dropped the ball big time after the 2008 season. Any increased fan interest/media interest was gone after Phelps' first game. Not only was he an unproven head coach, but he had no ties to the area, and he came from a system that was as different from the Tom Davis/Keno Davis system as you could possibly be. He was always trying to pound square pegs into a round hole.

Drake will need several good seasons in a row to get the fan/media interest back.

[matter_of_fact]

To those of you who are citing current year attendance, are you calculating those numbers or is there a website that provides information about attendance as the year progresses?

[Wufan]

To those of you who are citing current year attendance, are you calculating those numbers or is there a website that provides information about attendance as the year progresses?

http://www.mvc.org/mbb/stats/CONFONLY.HTM

Attendance is mid-way down the page…the last category prior to individual statistics. The average numbers for Conference Home games are:

WSU - 10506
MSU - 6670
BU - 6426
ISUb - 5808
UNI - 5145
ISUr - 5075
SIU - 4616
UE - 4590
Drake - 4091
LUC - 1650

[KC MVC FAN]

Just watched 3 MVC games on ESPN3. Could not get the ILSU/Bradly game. From the TV angles looked like only the SIU gym had a very good crowd. Lots of vacant seats at Drake and UNI. Again, just what I could see from the TV. No idea about attendance at ILSU/Bradly. Maybe the cold was a factor---but the upper Midwest is not Atlanta where 3 inches of snow brought total gridlock with kids having to stay overnight and sleep in their schools, people sleeping on the floor in food stores, Home Depots, etc.