So I’m a bit of a fan of Gregg Marshall and the Wichita State fanbase and program.
Marshalll took over the program in 2007-2008 and promptly finished 11-20 and our dear friend Jim Utter famously declared in the Shoutbox that Marshall destroyed the program. I remember that because I’m an unabashed Gregg Marshall homer. During that season they routinely drew 10,478. Of course that number can be misleading since that’s sales and not butts in seats, but for a facility that seats 10,500 that’s damn impressive. They were not coming off a tournament appearance (last was 2005-2006, one year after us.)
Next season they 17-17. Attendance plummeted to 10,300 range for early non-conference games but nonetheless remained above 10,000 all season.
In 2009-2010, they improved to 25-10. Unfortunately no tournament that season but of course still the robust attendance. I’m not surprised, who wouldn’t want to see a 25 win team?
In 2010-2011 repeat but I thought they should have gotten an at-large bid.
This year they’re 20-4 and barring a collapse will reach the tournament.
I see two things that stand out. 1) It can take time even for an experienced coach to bring in his guys, turn it around and win big. I love that it’s Marshall because some of Major’s biggest detractors (including he who cannot be named) advocated for Marshall at various times.
But we all know these things and they have been discussed ad naseum on this board.
That amazing attendance. Even when they were awful and going 11-20 they had awesome crowds. Same during the inconsistent 2nd year of his tenure when they hovered around .500.
So the question is, why can’t we have that? Even when we were consistently in the tournament we never had 90% attendance all season long so I don’t even want to hear about that. And in closing, the players do notice and they don’t forget.
[i] @dharris_4@DMayfieldSr no problem. At Charlotte you will understand when things good everybody love you, but when things rocky it seems nobody there
[/i]What the heck are they doing that we’re not that fosters such strong loyalty between fans and the program? Comment/flame away.
This is a good topic, but realize the respective audiences.
On NNN I’m guessing an absurdly high % of posters regularly attend games even when we suck. So your question is: what do we do to keep the casual fan invested?
That doevtails into the 2nd audience: Wichita State. What else is there to do in Wichita, Kansas? Seriously?
BTW, does Kansas dominate the media and the mind set of every fan in Wichita? Is the Wichita newspaper and are the local TV stations glorified PR firms for KU athletics, and are they, contemporaneously, absolutely uninvested in Wichita State? How about the Big 12? How many Big 12 teams are a short drive from Wichita?
How many pro teams do they have to deal with?
These are all old problems. The answer, unfortunately deals with market share. The sports entertainment consumer in Charlotte has a multitude of options, and therefore is extremely picky/choosy. The only thing you can do is win, and win often, to keep them interested. Also, you have to be accessible, which we are not. Probably a good place to repost my Al Qaeda quote, but I’ll be more civil and say we need a local TV deal and a local FM radio signal, and IMO, the program will never reach its potential until those two things happen, creating one heck of a chicken & the egg dilemma. But there’s a window, with the fervor of football… to get as many of these things done as possible, while momentum is strong.
Good points NA, but it’s not like people are selling out Bobcats games or stadium concerts in Charlotte. Wichita isn’t huge but it isn’t tiny with over 300,000 residents. A city of that size has entertainment options beyond the Shockers.
I’m sure we can come up with lots of excuses but I’m in search of solutions. Wup, it might be worth contacting the WSU AD. If I recall correctly Jimmyhat and maybe others talked to different ADs during the CFI early days about how to build a successful football program. Maybe I should check with them to see how they broached the subjects.
It is an interesting comparison. I do believe location, as NA mentioned, plays a large part of it. Not only is Charlotte bigger, but Charlotte is truly a melting pot. We have the most notable old bloods, Wal-mart fans that most are familiar with. But we also have tons of VT, UGA, Clemson grads migrating to Charlotte too. Which makes building that “hometown” team atmosphere more difficult. I’m not sure Wichita has those some problems. Our demographics are probably more similar to Houston than Wichita.
2nd, whether Wichita St bball was healthy or not prior to Marshall, their athletic budget was. I remember when they hired Marshall being surprised that their athletic budget was around double of Charlotte’s. So a “supportive” environment was already there, at least more so than Charlotte. But that doesn’t answer the question as to why.
3rd, as far as basketball performance, it helps landing players like Stutz. Whether he was a great land or a player under the radar, I’m not sure. But what I do know is that from the games I’ve seen he’s better than virtually every guy we’ve had play the C position.
Overall, I do agree that they’ve been able to do something that we haven’t and it would be nice to figure out what that is.
I think part of the issue is that as Charlotte has become more cosmopolitan, it has become more superficial. It is not “in” or the cool thing to support a non-winner. The fan base that made the Hive what it was in the first 10 years of the Hornets does not really exist in Charlotte anymore.
While our attendance could have been better when we were a tournament team, we were never elite. I think we were ranked for a total of 3 weeks since the 98-99 season. When you are in a state dominated by 2 of the most successful programs in the country, being an 8 seed year in and year out isn’t going to garner as much interest as we think it should.
As our university continues to evolve and shed its old commuter school image, students are going to have the pride that many of us have. College is about experience and while I enjoyed my time at Charlotte (as did so many others), it has not been the easiest place to have a typical college experience. The more that kids come here because they WANT to be here instead of it being convenient, the more people we will have interested in continued involvement post graduation.
One thing I find curious, and maybe it’s just a very vocal minority (I’m not sure how pervasive the opinion is), but everytime there’s an article on Charlotte athletics or the university in general, there’s a group of posters below those articles that are absolutely rabid about us “knowing our place,” it seems like. How dare we call ourselves Charlotte vs UNCC; how dare we try to assume our own unique identity; how dare we try to claim a connection to the city of Charlotte; how dare we try to improve ourselves? You’d think at worst people wouldn’t care; not complete opposition to everything we try to do, for no apparent reason. I’d be surprised if this same antipathy exists in Wichita. Normally, you’d think the people in Charlotte would be proud of the strides we’re making, but sometimes that doesn’t seem to be the case.
[quote=“NinerAdvocate, post:2, topic:26318”]…we need a local TV deal…[/quote]WTVI is floundering and may not even exist a year from now due to funding problems. It makes me wonder what it would cost to get our games on that channel?
I don’t know the answer, but the city of Dayton supports the Flyers the same way as Wichita State. Win or lose. They even do a heck of a job filling the place up for the NCAA play-in game. And UD Arena is not nearly as nice a place as Halton.
Give us time. I see a lot more Charlotte gear, decals, etc around. Everything about our school is getting better and Football will help our basketball.
If WTVI stays part of PBS (public broadcasting) then I’m sure that it’s possible. The SoCon does it with the rest of PBS after all. The big question is their “site” abilities. They have HD abilities in their studios but who knows what they can do in the field.
If they go commercial then we don’t have a shot in hell.
[quote=“Tyro Niner, post:11, topic:26318”]…Football will help our basketball.[/quote]This.
The beginning of Charlotte football comes at a good time in this state. Duke always sucks, Wake Forest currently sucks, and NC State is above slightly average but when was the last time the Observer cared about them? Chapel Hill begins probation under a new coaching staff and should be irrelevant for a few years. We are the big story for the next couple of years if we can give fans a reason to be interested.
If WTVI stays part of PBS (public broadcasting) then I’m sure that it’s possible. The SoCon does it with the rest of PBS after all. The big question is their “site” abilities. They have HD abilities in their studios but who knows what they can do in the field.
If they go commercial then we don’t have a shot in hell.[/quote]
FWIW, the first episode of Inside Charlotte, a show produced by the university on what we’re doing in the community, was broadcast on WTVI at 5 pm today… so there’s some connection with the university and that station started already.
If WTVI stays part of PBS (public broadcasting) then I’m sure that it’s possible. The SoCon does it with the rest of PBS after all. The big question is their “site” abilities. They have HD abilities in their studios but who knows what they can do in the field.
If they go commercial then we don’t have a shot in hell.[/quote]
FWIW, the first episode of Inside Charlotte, a show produced by the university on what we’re doing in the community, was broadcast on WTVI at 5 pm today… so there’s some connection with the university and that station started already.[/quote]
I actually watched some of that while channel surfing today.
Well a few differences: Not in ACC or SEC territory. Don’t have to donate a krap load of money to get good lower level seats, and their campus is smack in the middle of Wichita not 15 miles from the city center. And not many transplants in Wichita.
But I don’t think Wichita has a large amount of Texas, Oklahoma or Mizz grads moving there. At least not to the extent that Charlotte has UNC-CH, VT and Clemson grads. I think they have more “lifers”, which helps more with the hometown feel.
I wonder if the sports editors of the Wichita and Dayton newspapers have ever gone on their respective messageboards to tell the fanbases they were not worthy. Probably not.