I wouldnāt say that itās stupidity more than it is the lack of advertising. There are more people in Charlotte than ever that love college basketball yet Halton is emptier than ever. Quality of game is a problem, but when people come here they hear of Queens, JCSU, and UNCC. They donāt know any of them and then group us with them because weāve not been to the NCAAT in 20 years.
The average college basketball fan doesnāt know the name of all the conferences, or all the schools like Long Island and FIU. A lot of people donāt know Steph Curry went to Davidson, they just know him as the GS player.
The goal isnāt to attract the people that follow the sport close like us, itās to attract the laymen. The laymen know the schools in the ACC and SEC but arenāt aware they are different conferences. And I assure you they do not know us
Youāre hanging around people that watch a lot of sports. I hang around people that go to games the same way somebody might attend the renaissance fair or a carnival
I think both of our injured players are back for VA Tech. This should be a fully healthy team now. Iām not saying weāre gonna win but it will be nice to see what this team is capable of without the time to fully mesh together.
I hang around a ton of sports junkies like myself and others that really donāt follow sports. We are totally irrelevant to both groups so yeah, a lot of people donāt know weāre D1. Why would they?
Iāve seen lots of examples of us being irrelevant, athletics & academically. More than once Iāve heard the question, āwhen I hear UNCC; thatās the same thing as Charlotte, right?ā And vise versa. I live an hour from campus. Iāve been strongly in favor of the name change to U of Charlotte for 40 years. At this point I wonder if we may have been better off with no name change effort and just embraced the name UNCC. This is 20/20 hind site, but if I had known in 1985, that 40 years would pass and the name change would be in limbo like it is, I would have probably thought, ok, probably best to just stay UNCC. I donāt really know what I think now.
because any serious sports fan should have enough knowledge to know our nameā¦ā¦hell, I know 99% of the schools from all over the country that have NEVER done anything of note. It just comes from following sports in general.
Got to go with Hootie and Harry on the Name Recognition.
I LIve uptown and can personally attest to the fact that a lot of educated, professional
people in the area really have no idea about the University. I was in the Gym recently talking to a guy about sports and he had to explain to his college graduate girlfriend that Charlotte, UNCC was a fully independent college just like NC state or ECU and not part of UNC Chapel Hill.
Until we do something big in sports this will never change. On the plus side there are a lot of Charlotte Grads working for the big companies uptown.
I was told by the university this week that we have over 100k alumni in Charlotte and Chapel Hill is second at 30k so we have tons of alumni climbing ladders at companies in our area.
Harry, I wish you had been able to see Halton in the early & mid 2000ās. It was special back then. The older I get the more those memories fade sadly.
Sunday is likely to pretty rough. Hopefully we can get back on track against App next Friday.
Unfortunately, Harry is absolutely accurate in his comments. I hate itās the case in 2025 but ignoring it doesnāt help. My family is vested in CLT athletics and has season tickets in muliple sports for decades, so I would love to have a bigger presence in the community, at least locally. But many average collegiate sport fans in Charlotte city limits do not know enough about us. Something good has to happen for CLT athletics soonā¦ right?ā¦ Pure luck should come into play at some point.
I run into this a lot as well. The number of people that are shocked we played int he final 4 or that we were once really good in basketball in the 90s/early 00s is crazy or that we are even playing in the AAC now is crazy. Once I say we play in Memphisā league or we once played with Sincy and Lville often time they go oh yeah I think I recall that, but its out of sight out of mind.
It really comes down to what I think are like 80% of fans just follow big brands and the conference they happen to be in. If it isnāt a big brand itās just noise - and in many of their minds G6 is a different division. I donāt think its that they are stupid or that we suck - I think it just doesnāt cut thru the noise and we havenāt had a national moment in over 20 years. I donāt think there is any marketing that fixes that. We just need to do something that makes people look.
Thatās exactly how I feel as well. Unknown until given context of other schools people may know.
It doesnāt even have to be a flash in the pan event. Just consistency. FAU made it to the Final Four just a couple years ago and I think people are just as oblivious to them as they are to us. If we consistently were one of the better teams in the conference, not even winning it, over the course of a 5 year span, there would be more recognition. But we fluctuate wildly and are usually near the bottom it feels. Itās why I like Fearne a lot. He has a good track record whether the people here want to admit to it or not. I dislike every presser how he complains about the transfer portal, it is beginning to sound like whining. But he works them hard and gets a lot out of very little. Maybe over time we see more players stay? Like a āoh this coach has been here for 5 years so I can count on him being here for the rest of my collegiate sports career.ā Obviously many leave, but it does help a lot Iām sure.
I think the fan base is super quick to jump the gun when a coach doesnāt bring immediate success, and I think a lot of that is from a place of denial of the last two decades. Iād argue itās better time than ever to be consistent. The only thing we can control is the coaching staff.
The most unfortunate part is through those years, thereās zero connection between traditions of old and whatever they do now. The CLT Gold Mine is cool and Iām glad they started that up a couple years back. But itās also things like āFearnevilleā that work and engage the students to attempt to care.
Utah State 83