Marketing, promoting and caring about it

[Wildcat Khan]

When your average fan thinks of college sports - what do they think of, at the most basic level? Big stadiums, loud crowds, bright lights, TV production, and fancy uniforms. IMO, the D2 schools that are doing the best marketing have found a way to scale down those elements to fit their position. Does that mean every school needs to build a new stadium or sign an exclusive broadcasting deal with ESPN? Absolutely not. We gave our basketball arena a spit-shine - new floor and courtside video boards, and boy does it look pretty on camera. I'm sure the advertisers like it too.

Then you have the little things - where is your logo up around town? Do the local bars stream games? How are you drawing fans from nearby communities? What promotions and ticket packages are you offering? Do you need a new logo? Where can people buy gear? All of that stuff matters.

We are fortunate to have some friends in the Twin Cities media that cover us on occasion, which helps.

And lastly, for goodness sakes - if you produced an NFL player or two - don't be afraid to hang a plaque or something where people will see it. People really underestimate the power that "this guy played here" can have. I just wouldn't make it the focus.

Just some ideas.

I just remembered, even in 2001 when CWU was #1 in D2 FOX Sports NW would give the results of their games with highlights. They touted CWU as the "2nd best team in the state" if I remember right too. Root Sports no longer does that or acknowledge the CWU exists, but that could be more due to the regional sports shows they had on Prime Sports NW and Fox Sports NW no longer being on Root Sports. EWU only gets coverage due to the Big Sky game of the week on there.

If the regional sports networks brought back those regional sports shows I think it may help a lot for D1FCS, D2, D3, NAIA, and HS programs.

[SW_Mustang]

I just remembered, even in 2001 when CWU was #1 in D2 FOX Sports NW would give the results of their games with highlights. They touted CWU as the "2nd best team in the state" if I remember right too. Root Sports no longer does that or acknowledge the CWU exists, but that could be more due to the regional sports shows they had on Prime Sports NW and Fox Sports NW no longer being on Root Sports. EWU only gets coverage due to the Big Sky game of the week on there.

If the regional sports networks brought back those regional sports shows I think it may help a lot for D1FCS, D2, D3, NAIA, and HS programs.

That would be nice. MIDCO out of Sioux Falls does one for the NSIC, at least during football/basketball season. I'm not sure how many people watch it. The Star Tribune also does (did?) a weekly roundup for small colleges. I recall seeing some games broadcasted on FSN once or twice too.

That type of exposure is really good, I think. It would be neat if there was more of it. How many times do you turn on a sports network and it's either a low-grade talk-show or a re-run of something? Play a D2 game once and a while...

[tsull]

Then you have the little things - where is your logo up around town? Do the local bars stream games? How are you drawing fans from nearby communities? What promotions and ticket packages are you offering? Do you need a new logo? Where can people buy gear? All of that stuff matters.

I agree with this. I don't expect D2/D3/NAIA/JC to haul in huge crowds. Heck, really good FCS programs like EWU average about 6K or less each game. But there are things schools can do, like allow youths in free to the games -- they often buy concessions. Put up posters around town. Yes, I like the live streaming of games in bars. People should also be able to buy gear at places other than the college bookstore, which is usually closed at the hours in which you want to shop. (Hint: People work during the day and can't make your early closing time or your often no-weekend hours.)

The local community should be interested and involved. Have your players go out to schools, throw a few footballs around or shoot hoops with kids and then hand out tickets. Easy, simple, not time-consuming, free and gets people interested in your athletic programs.

[Wildcat Khan]

I agree with this. I don't expect D2/D3/NAIA/JC to haul in huge crowds. Heck, really good FCS programs like EWU average about 6K or less each game. But there are things schools can do, like allow youths in free to the games -- they often buy concessions. Put up posters around town. Yes, I like the live streaming of games in bars. People should also be able to buy gear at places other than the college bookstore, which is usually closed at the hours in which you want to shop. (Hint: People work during the day and can't make your early closing time or your often no-weekend hours.)

The local community should be interested and involved. Have your players go out to schools, throw a few footballs around or shoot hoops with kids and then hand out tickets. Easy, simple, not time-consuming, free and gets people interested in your athletic programs.

That's one place I think Jerrol's has helped CWU, selling school gear when the on campus bookstore is closed. For streaming games in bars though, it would be nice if CWU upped that quality to the level of either WOU or SFU's streams. Have it at least at the quality of regionally covered games as far as graphics go.

[SW_Mustang]

I agree with this. I don't expect D2/D3/NAIA/JC to haul in huge crowds. Heck, really good FCS programs like EWU average about 6K or less each game. But there are things schools can do, like allow youths in free to the games -- they often buy concessions. Put up posters around town. Yes, I like the live streaming of games in bars. People should also be able to buy gear at places other than the college bookstore, which is usually closed at the hours in which you want to shop. (Hint: People work during the day and can't make your early closing time or your often no-weekend hours.)

The local community should be interested and involved. Have your players go out to schools, throw a few footballs around or shoot hoops with kids and then hand out tickets. Easy, simple, not time-consuming, free and gets people interested in your athletic programs.

There's a local sports store in town that gets the player-issue stuff. It's expensive, but it's really nice. Wal-Mart and Hy-Vee also sell clothes, and some can be bought online. I think we need to expand our selection though. It can be really narrow at times. We need to do a better job of selling them during the games, especially early season football and basketball. It's underestimated how much that type of stuff really matters. Marketing is all about owning space in people's heads - and t-shirts are a great way to do that.

I want to see us getting into some of the surrounding communities. Host a practice at a high school, or host camps, or something along those lines. Even a "caravan style" event with the coaches would be cool. Give away some tickets, that sort of thing. We draw well from outside of town, but there is so much more room to grow.

Our D2 schools have hockey teams for the most part - which is obviously a big draw. Even still, they "paint" the town in school colors and you'll find the logo in places. It really changes the atmosphere. Obviously not every school have a big D1 sport, but the point is - getting the school colors and logos up throughout town make a big difference in atmosphere. It's exciting.

[tsull]

When Western Oregon has done the little things that generate pride it's paid off. They sold parking spaces for football tailgating and the first time I saw how many there I was stunned.

They changed their logo a few years back and sold a lot of different gear and I see a lot more of it being worn. These things have paid off in big ways.

If they can continue to do the little things like put some posters around town, talk to schools, hand out tickets to youth, and just create more of a local following, they will do well. Small colleges don't have to act like huge football universities, they just have to be themselves and reach out to the local community.

[SW_Mustang]

When Western Oregon has done the little things that generate pride it's paid off. They sold parking spaces for football tailgating and the first time I saw how many there I was stunned.

They changed their logo a few years back and sold a lot of different gear and I see a lot more of it being worn. These things have paid off in big ways.

If they can continue to do the little things like put some posters around town, talk to schools, hand out tickets to youth, and just create more of a local following, they will do well. Small colleges don't have to act like huge football universities, they just have to be themselves and reach out to the local community.

Oh, absolutely. I didn't mean to imply that we need to be "big" in a literal sense. I just think there are certain elements of the big school football experience that can be scaled down to fit D2 - especially in the production/presentation aspects. It would add atmosphere. That doesn't mean every school needs to tear down their stadiums and start fresh, and buy a bunch of expensive camera equipment - but I think there are things that D2 schools can add for the sake of fan experience/atmosphere. If we could harness some of that, it would really change things.

For example - we have our own version of the "big entrance" you see on TV for an FBS game. We don't have a tunnel to run down, or the budget for fireworks - but we made something that works for us. It's a lot better than watching the team jog over to the sidelines before the game unceremoniously.

Anyway - our logo used to be the same one used by SMU and Ford, just with our monotone brown color. It looked terrible on clothing and was not very original. We had an alumni design us a new one, with an original horse head and more emphasis on our "gold" color. It looks so much better. It's more recognizable, it pops, and it's original to us.

[tsull]

Oh, absolutely. I didn't mean to imply that we need to be "big" in a literal sense. I just think there are certain elements of the big school football experience that can be scaled down to fit D2 - especially in the production/presentation aspects. It would add atmosphere. That doesn't mean every school needs to tear down their stadiums and start fresh, and buy a bunch of expensive camera equipment - but I think there are things that D2 schools can add for the sake of fan experience/atmosphere. If we could harness some of that, it would really change things.

For example - we have our own version of the "big entrance" you see on TV for an FBS game. We don't have a tunnel to run down, or the budget for fireworks - but we made something that works for us. It's a lot better than watching the team jog over to the sidelines before the game unceremoniously.

Anyway - our logo used to be the same one used by SMU and Ford, just with our monotone brown color. It looked terrible on clothing and was not very original. We had an alumni design us a new one, with an original horse head and more emphasis on our "gold" color. It looks so much better. It's more recognizable, it pops, and it's original to us.

Totally agree on everything you wrote. I was just giving my experience from my alma mater. WOU's location is 20 minutes from Oregon State University and an hour from the University of Oregon. On WOU game day you can see the UO and OSU cars going down Highway 99, and that's fine, they are fans of their school. WOU doesn't need to combat that but reach out to Monmouth (10,000 population), Independence (which runs right into Monmouth, 10K population); and the county seat, Dallas (6 miles away, 16K population) -- 36K right there. I won't even included Salem at 175K+ ... focus on the county, try to get 500 students per game and 2,500 community, which they're close to doing right now. Hoops drops off unless they're winning, I think they should try to get 400 students and 600 community for basketball.

I do like the SWMU logo, it looks great; WOU's one I like, too. Things have improved 100 fold since I was in school in athletic promotion, still room for improvement. I'm mostly disappointed about the overall enrollment drop in the school in the last decade, which never should've happened with the population explosion in Oregon. That's not debatable, that's WOU dropping the ball.

[Tech Boys]

tsull, you are not alone. This article was published yesterday.

https://www.pe.com/2021/02/15/alexan...cs-stay-alive/

Alexander: Can UC Riverside athletics stay alive?
The deadline for evaluation was delayed to March 1 and might be pushed back again, while uncertainty reigns

[tsull]

ATU, thanks for the great article. Some interesting take-aways:

* If UC Riverside can't cut it at D-1 -- and attendance of 400-500 a game for men's hoops shows that's doubtful -- why not go back to D2? I've never understood the theory of being a D1 bottom feeder instead of trying to be a D2 Grand Valley State.

* I would question that former president Tim White was supportive of athletics. He was at Idaho and a bit non-caring of athletics, and then I heard he was very instrumental in the elimination of Humboldt State football as the CSU Chancellor.

* Being D2 or D3 or NAIA is better than not having sports. There are a couple areas of college life, I'll break it down to two: academics and non-academics. UC-Riverside is a fine academic school, I think even has a med school. On the West Coast it is not confused academically with Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, and the University of Washington; never has, never will be. That's life. I find it interesting that every college, large and small, has a significant faculty base that thinks athletics are stupid and that their employer is the equal to Harvard. They're not. (See Oregon State's English profs complaining about a $50 million donation this week for football stadium expansion. One of their proposals was that in the future, professors should be able to say where donations go, not the donor. Whack-a-doodle. (Read the Corvallis Gazette-Times and OregonLive sports for more information on that.)

* Winning matters more than division for most non-Power 5/Power 6 schools. When Portland State was winning big in D2, they averaged 11,500 fans a game. When they went to the Big Sky/FCS they started losing more and have averaged about 5K-6K a game for 20 years. PSU is also the dregs of the earth in most sports -- 2nd to the last in men's hoops right now; last in football; horrific in Olympic sports. It's a commuter school and most everyone doesn't care they're D1. They average about 500 a game in men's hoops. Go D2 and win national titles in a lot of your sports ... or fix it D1 wise. UC Riverside nor Portland State has the money or will to win in D1. PSU is getting a new hoops arena, perhaps 4K -- they'll still average 500. To win even in FCS they need to average 20K a game, have tons of donors, and in hoops average 4K a game and bring in some great players. It will never happen, they don't care enough. One lawyer/head of a booster organization isn't enough to move the needle.

* Even with the population base, the writer is off-base in thinking UC-Riverside is going to win or capture the community's imagination. I lived in L.A. three straight summers, read the Los Angeles Times sports page every day. Order of importance: Dodgers, Lakers, Rams, (before Chargers came on board) ... then finally UCLA and USC, hockey mixed in there somewhere. Some decent high school sports coverage. Getting coverage of Pepperdine, LMU, etc., is like pulling teeth, and there's no interest in UC Riverside or UC Irvine.

* Instead of having delusional D-1 dreams, how about being dominant in D2?

[SINGLE MALT]

Getting any substantial coverage in a big city like Vancouver is not easy!! The local newspapers had a great guy named Howard Tsumura who covered both universities, SFU and ubc (Small case on purpose) as well as the high school scene very well. They cut him loose and now he runs a fantastic on-line blog, but it is not the same at all. First in line for coverage is the Canucks followed by the B.C. Lions and the Whitecaps, all pro teams! Second in line are all of the other Canadian NHL teams and then Junior hockey, when in season. Other sports, NFL PGA golf, etc. are all covered as well, but college and High school sports hardly get a mention. ubc does get more attention than does SFU because they play against Canadian opposition and as a result local readers can more easily identify with opposition teams from Alberta and Saskatchewan . It really sucks but that is the reality of the situation up here. Now that SFU's new stadium is close to being finished, maybe things will change, but you have to remember that SFU is located on top of a mountain and is a long car ride from Downtown Vancouver where the big stadiums, B.C. Place and Rogers Arena are located!!

[Wildcat Khan]

Getting any substantial coverage in a big city like Vancouver is not easy!! The local newspapers had a great guy named Howard Tsumura who covered both universities, SFU and ubc (Small case on purpose) as well as the high school scene very well. They cut him loose and now he runs a fantastic on-line blog, but it is not the same at all. First in line for coverage is the Canucks followed by the B.C. Lions and the Whitecaps, all pro teams! Second in line are all of the other Canadian NHL teams and then Junior hockey, when in season. Other sports, NFL PGA golf, etc. are all covered as well, but college and High school sports hardly get a mention. ubc does get more attention than does SFU because they play against Canadian opposition and as a result local readers can more easily identify with opposition teams from Alberta and Saskatchewan . It really sucks but that is the reality of the situation up here. Now that SFU's new stadium is close to being finished, maybe things will change, but you have to remember that SFU is located on top of a mountain and is a long car ride from Downtown Vancouver where the big stadiums, B.C. Place and Rogers Arena are located!!

I wish you all the best of luck up there! I can understand the pro teams of course getting top billing, but I figured you'd like to know that my first college game of any sort that I went to was SFU at Portland State in soccer at old Civic Stadium in Portland that my youth soccer coach took us to and SFU won.

The local paper and TV are about the same for coverage and usually give all the WHL scores, but no D2 scores as we are so far away from any D2 college. The Walla Walla college teams are barely covered, but then again it is same with their HS team unless playing one of the local schools in league where just the score is given.

[tsull]

Getting any substantial coverage in a big city like Vancouver is not easy!! The local newspapers had a great guy named Howard Tsumura who covered both universities, SFU and ubc (Small case on purpose) as well as the high school scene very well. They cut him loose and now he runs a fantastic on-line blog, but it is not the same at all. First in line for coverage is the Canucks followed by the B.C. Lions and the Whitecaps, all pro teams! Second in line are all of the other Canadian NHL teams and then Junior hockey, when in season. Other sports, NFL PGA golf, etc. are all covered as well, but college and High school sports hardly get a mention. ubc does get more attention than does SFU because they play against Canadian opposition and as a result local readers can more easily identify with opposition teams from Alberta and Saskatchewan . It really sucks but that is the reality of the situation up here. Now that SFU's new stadium is close to being finished, maybe things will change, but you have to remember that SFU is located on top of a mountain and is a long car ride from Downtown Vancouver where the big stadiums, B.C. Place and Rogers Arena are located!!

I worked in sports journalism for about 20 years and the really good writer that you were talking about in British Columbia is always the type of guy who gets cut loose by newspapers. They're always really good, maybe they make a little bit more money because yhey've been around, but the professional jealousy is incredible in that profession. I guarantee you that's what got him cut loose.

Newspaper people don't understand why no one likes their product anymore. I get that everything is moved to online but even their online products are horrible.

The lead sports story in Oregon live/Oregonian for about the past week is that Kobe Bryant's daughter has been accepted to the University of Oregon. She's not an athlete, and she's not enrolled, but she's been accepted. That's ahead of every other sports story.

I don't expect small colleges to overtake professional sports in newspapers, but the news judgment for Oregon live and the Salem paper and the Eugene paper is a complete joke.

[Wildcat Khan]

I worked in sports journalism for about 20 years and the really good writer that you were talking about in British Columbia is always the type of guy who gets cut loose by newspapers. They're always really good, maybe they make a little bit more money because yhey've been around, but the professional jealousy is incredible in that profession. I guarantee you that's what got him cut loose.

Newspaper people don't understand why no one likes their product anymore. I get that everything is moved to online but even their online products are horrible.

The lead sports story in Oregon live/Oregonian for about the past week is that Kobe Bryant's daughter has been accepted to the University of Oregon. She's not an athlete, and she's not enrolled, but she's been accepted. That's ahead of every other sports story.

I don't expect small colleges to overtake professional sports in newspapers, but the news judgment for Oregon live and the Salem paper and the Eugene paper is a complete joke.

And they've got both Oregon and Portland Trailblazers to cover too! Portland is having a nice bounce back season so far and I'd think that would be a bigger story as well as maybe talking about Oregon's tourney chances and games.

[SW_Mustang]

Totally agree on everything you wrote. I was just giving my experience from my alma mater. WOU's location is 20 minutes from Oregon State University and an hour from the University of Oregon. On WOU game day you can see the UO and OSU cars going down Highway 99, and that's fine, they are fans of their school. WOU doesn't need to combat that but reach out to Monmouth (10,000 population), Independence (which runs right into Monmouth, 10K population); and the county seat, Dallas (6 miles away, 16K population) -- 36K right there. I won't even included Salem at 175K+ ... focus on the county, try to get 500 students per game and 2,500 community, which they're close to doing right now. Hoops drops off unless they're winning, I think they should try to get 400 students and 600 community for basketball.

I do like the SWMU logo, it looks great; WOU's one I like, too. Things have improved 100 fold since I was in school in athletic promotion, still room for improvement. I'm mostly disappointed about the overall enrollment drop in the school in the last decade, which never should've happened with the population explosion in Oregon. That's not debatable, that's WOU dropping the ball.

I totally forgot to read your post haha - sorry for quoting an old one.

Our biggest competitor is right across the street - Marshall High School. They are producing a lot of college talent, and people are drifting away from SMSU on gameday to follow their Tiger alums. There's nothing "wrong" with that at all - it's just the way it is. The problem is we are having trouble getting a piece of that pie for ourselves. We aren't pulling enough kids out of the high school program to play for us.

We also compete for attention with SDSU. They are a big ag school 60 miles away, and they've been very successful in FCS. We also seem to compete with the DIII MIAC conference a lot too for attention. Then obviously there is the Gophers, and even NDSU. Other than SDSU though, we are on our own little island - so it would be nice if more people would come out.

WOU has a really nice logo. I think people underestimate how much branding helps at the lower levels. I look at it this way - would the logo look good on a t-shirt? If so, then it's a good logo. I've seen some that do, and some that really don't.