As I've said before put a question about participating/enjoying sports on the application.  If all other things being equal - guess who I'd pick.

Tennessee Colonial wrote:

I was at Madison Hall 70-72. Remember trying to catch a broadcast game in the C Buildng against The Citadel. Which we lost. Carl Sloan use to come to the dorms to try and boost attendance. Best game I remember was beating Cincinnati .And beating Georgetown. Martin Wolf always had good writeups in the Hatchet.

The Cincinnati game was epic. Cinci had a pro prospect in Derrek Dickey (who went on the play for the Warriors), but the Trio of Nunn, Battle, and Szczerbiak combined for 90(?) points and we beat them. BTW, we seldom mention Battle, but even at 6'4" and playing center, he was one great player.

We had great student attendance early in the season and it will be great again this semester if we keep winning.
Sustained success is what makes the difference.
And building the new Practice Facility in Smith Center shows a strong commitment to hoops by the new administration.

GW Alum Abroad wrote:

GW still carries the legacy of having needed an order from the local government to desegregate.

Is that true? I never knew that. Explains a lot.

BC wrote:

I'm curious, what are the parking options these days.  I know legal street parking was difficult to find back in the days I lived near DC (almost 20 years ago).  I don't expect it's any better.   How does parking costs compare to other schools?   Could that impact alumni attendance?   

Lol, drivers whining about parking. There's tons of it in the neighborhood, both free and paid. Don't want to pay? There's this thing called the Metro.

jf wrote:

As usual, good points by everyone. 
No idea what to do, but the schedule doesn't help. Playing a D2 school in a non-exhibition setting is just an insult to the idea of luring fans. We all greatly love wins, but don't need to be delusional about how they are
achieved.
Don't know if we want to recruit opposing fan bases, which is a good idea to sell more tickets, because it removes the home court advantage and makes the situation unpleasant. It would turn off the regulars.
   We didn't like Fordham, and their boisterousness may not have helped us to use the crowd as a 6th man in a tight game, but still, Fordham didn't even fill one section. Whenever VCU comes to town, they are incredibly annoying. And Dayton, to a lesser extent, as well.
    The stunning lack of media coverage (was our dramatic win at VCU on TV news or more than a brief?) has something to do with it. And the excuse of our not winning to note be covered is gone, for now and hopefully much, much longer. CC is a good spokesman for the team and has been really good about drumming up student support and being an all-around good guy on campus.
   I do have to note that student attendance, when GW is in session, has been very good. And a solid crew have been very avid fans. Credit our Ryan and GWSB and others who may not post here.
    Perhaps we can do more from the GW community, alumni and those employed by GW.
We need to get our own more involved before we can expect others to come.
     

GW sports information seems to exist to support the TV broadcasts and keep bad news out of the press. Because you never see the local press cover the good news.

Saw these attendance figures posted on the St Bonaventure forum.  GW was last in the A-10 for average attendance at 1,628 per game.

ATLANTIC 10 HOME ATTENDANCE BY AVERAGE
TEAM | GAMES | TOTAL | 2023-24 AVG | 2022-23 AVG | 2021-22 AVG
DAYTON | 15 | 201,105 | 13,407 | 13,407 | 13,407
VCU | 19 | 136,813 | 7,201 | 7,303 | 6,827
RICHMOND | 16 | 93,336 | 5,834 | 6,285 | 6,072
ST LOUIS | 16 | 90,238 | 5,640 | 6,694 | 5,517
URI | 17 | 72,024 | 4,237 | 5,158 | 4,814
ST BONAVENTURE | 15 | 61,146 | 4,076 | 3,764 | 3,974
GEORGE MASON | 17 | 66,669 | 3,922 | 3,584 | 3,558
UMASS | 16 | 55,633 | 3,477 | 3,580 | 2,219
LOYOLA | 17 | 52,686 | 3,099 | 3,373 | 3,266
DAVIDSON | 16 | 47,062 | 2,941 | 3,356 | 3,209
DUQUESNE | 17 | 43,377 | 2,552 | 2,178 | 2,174
ST JOE'S | 17 | 38,319 | 2,254 | 1,504 | 1,579
FORDHAM | 17 | 31,724 | 1,866 | 1,135 | 633
LASALLE | 17 | 28,729 | 1,690 | 1,481 | 1,857
GW | 18 | 29,312 | 1,628 | 1,608 | 1,120
TOTAL | 250 | 1,048,173 | 4,193 | 4,240 | 4,245

Here’s how the President of Akron is seeing things shake out on his campus. Would probably guess there’s some of this at GW as well.

the biggest problem is advertising. when people know there's a game they show up. i know several students had to band together to hang up posters in freshman dorms and get graphics on the TVs in the dining halls. all of that without georges army or marketing. otherwise, there is very little marketing for the team. Would be awesome if they were to have some preseason pep rally with a dunk contest, performer and other stuff. That would be fun

FYI, GWfan25,You do good work.(So do you, LSF).
Unless it was a sarcastic reference (frankly, we have a lot to be sarcastic about), alas, we had all that for Midnight Madness. In a way that appealed to both the students and the fans (though went off the rails a bit in last years in terms of any basketball.)
 Thought they still did something preseason for students.
   And on the name change, it is just confusing, was remarkably ignorant for an institution of higher learning, turned off alumni big time and didn't help anything. The name Colonials wasn't keeping anyone away, judging by Revs attendance.

Last edited by jf (4/16/2024 4:10 pm)