SU Marketing and Game Hype

[K Otto XLIV]

I'm surprised this hasn't been brought up, or maybe it has and I just missed it. But while the newspaper initiated a dialogue about why people don't attend games, it failed to acknowledge that a very important marketing tool is no longer available to the casual fan - a Friday newspaper delivered to their door.

That paper used to have "everything you need to know about the game"...and was brought to you. You didn't need to seek out this info and it was a reminder that the game was taking place. It also had the two deep for both teams that many people brought to games.

The next generation of fans may not have read it, but a significant number of people would have...and it was a way to reach the casual fan.

They used to email a PDF too. I don't think I have seen it since Rahme left.

 

[TheCusian]

Down here in NC the honoring of a coach, the stature of coach Mac, would have been front page news and been noted on local tv without the university having to have a paid promotion.

Not to totally take this in a direction you didn't intend - but the amount of energy the local media is putting into this story is unreal. I want more inside looks at the team, QB esp.

It's a decent story (lowest attended game since X) - but the sheer amount of attention is crazy. The national media is taking note of our freshman QB and 2-0 start.

 

[K Otto XLIV]

Another mistake in the pricing is the face value for STHs. If your STs cost $210 for the season, it is a big mistake for SU to make the face value of the tickets $30 each. That makes it a lot harder to price individual games based on opponent. For CMU you are stuck setting the price at $35 to satisfy the STHs. If the market value for the game is $25, you won't sell many tickets. However if you make the face of CMU $20 for STHs and the LSU game $40 for STHs, then while the face value differs the total price for STs remains the same. No harm to the STHs. Now you can set the individual CMU game tickets at $25 which is the market value. More tickets will be sold.

 

[Crusty]

I grew up in Utica and followed SU from about 1957. My first SU game was 1963 vs Oregon State.
If I still lived in Utica I would be at every game. As it is we have season tickets (last 4 years) but only make it the 1,200 mile round trip twice a year. However, now that we are in the ACC we are able to attend 2 or 3 road games so we can attend about half the SU games. Needless to say, we never miss the others on TV.
In the last 4 years I have watched a substantial improvement in all aspects of the football program. Our facilities are now competitive, the dome is scheduled for major improvement, the recruiting has taken giant steps forward, the staff is one you can root for and we have a new AD that certainty gets it.
Major SUSTAINABLE marketing programs take time to plan, staff and implement. I think we will see them soon enough.
I don't need much as a fan. That said, Fan Fest made a big connection with us and we will be back next year. If FF is any indication, we are in good hands. Kudos to TGC as well.

 

[longislandcuse]

Wow, just wow.

Reading this thread is depressing. I've lived in Long Island most of my life and the way Syracuse football seems to be promoted is more in line with NYC coverage of St Johns than it is with any CFB program with a modicum of success. You can't even go 5 minutes on a Friday without hearing a UGA promotion and I live about 45 miles from Athens.

 

[Full_Rebar]

I want to go back to one of Rocco's points about the morning news. Ch. 9 runs the Bridge Street show every morning and would be a perfect place to have Missy Shafer, Juli Boeheim, and others as frequent guests. If you add another human element to SU Athletics, you might get more casual fans/families to come out.

Let parents know some of the stories of the athletes. Let them hear about how the coaches kids love being around them, things like that. No cost and you are hitting an audience that probably isn't listening to ESPN Syracuse.

 

[rrlbees]

I want to go back to one of Rocco's points about the morning news. Ch. 9 runs the Bridge Street show every morning and would be a perfect place to have Missy Shafer, Juli Boeheim, and others as frequent guests. If you add another human element to SU Athletics, you might get more casual fans/families to come out. Let parents know some of the stories of the athletes. Let them hear about how the coaches kids love being around them, things like that. No cost and you are hitting an audience that probably isn't listening to ESPN Syracuse.

Didn't Laurie Fine use to appear on it? How did that work out?

 

[A. Samara]

I love this thread. More good ideas here than any expensive consultant could provide. Here's mine, three interns Juniors or Seniors from Newhouse with an online and sport marketing concentration. Attach them to the athletic department for game week marketing.Give 3 hours course credit.Great real-life resume-building pre-grad experience as I had at S.U. running Advertising for the Daily Orange.Assign 1 to deal with traditional media in the smaller cities, driving distance, from Syracuse, provide fresh sports interviews and content for Albany, Utica, Elmira, Rochester, Binghamton, Scranton. Can we send these threads to Coyle? It's great to think big(Meadowlands) but think small counts plenty too. How do we do this?

 

[K Otto XLIV]

I love this thread. More good ideas here than any expensive consultant could provide. Here's mine, three interns Juniors or Seniors from Newhouse with an online and sport marketing concentration. Attach them to the athletic department for game week marketing.Give 3 hours course credit.Great real-life resume-building pre-grad experience as I had at S.U. running Advertising for the Daily Orange.Assign 1 to deal with traditional media in the smaller cities, driving distance, from Syracuse, provide fresh sports interviews and content for Albany, Utica, Elmira, Rochester, Binghamton, Scranton. Can we send these threads to Coyle? It's great to think big(Meadowlands) but think small counts plenty too. How do we do this?

We can easily get interns to do this from Falk (Sports Management) and Whitman (Marketing). What would be the most relevant major from Newhouse? PR?

 

[anomander]

Everything we do seems to be bush league. Anybody ever see when real schools have "Orange outs" or what have you? Ever see Tennessee, Oklahoma, and many other schools do the candy-cane striping of their stadiums? So do you think that every fan followed directions perfectly, for which aisle where's what color? Obviously not. The school promotes the game and leaves free t-shirts for the color that aisle they are supposed to be. Now i'm not sure if the University actually promoted last weeks sad attempt at an "Orange out", but it failed miserably. They should take notes from programs that know what they're doing.

 

[longislandcuse]

Everything we do seems to be bush league. Anybody ever see when real schools have "Orange outs" or what have you? Ever see Tennessee, Oklahoma, and many other schools do the candy-cane striping of their stadiums? So do you think that every fan followed directions perfectly, for which aisle where's what color? Obviously not. The school promotes the game and leaves free t-shirts for the color that aisle they are supposed to be. Now i'm not sure if the University actually promoted last weeks sad attempt at an "Orange out", but it failed miserably. They should take notes from programs that know what they're doing.

It's tough to have an Orange Out with so much silver showing. We actually need a raucous, large crowd if we want to attempt anything like that and that won't happen until we're perennially a Top 25 program again.

 

[anomander]

It's tough to have an Orange Out with so much silver showing. We actually need a raucous, large crowd if we want to attempt anything like that and that won't happen until we're perennially a Top 25 program again.

You still can promote it like you're a big boy program. Promote an Orange out for the LSU game where free Orange T-Shirts will be provided with your seat. Worst case you give away 10k free T-Shirts.

 

[phil77]

Everything we do seems to be bush league. Anybody ever see when real schools have "Orange outs" or what have you? Ever see Tennessee, Oklahoma, and many other schools do the candy-cane striping of their stadiums? So do you think that every fan followed directions perfectly, for which aisle where's what color? Obviously not. The school promotes the game and leaves free t-shirts for the color that aisle they are supposed to be. Now i'm not sure if the University actually promoted last weeks sad attempt at an "Orange out", but it failed miserably. They should take notes from programs that know what they're doing.

I agree it seems we do everything the opposite of what we should be doing. We don't promote anything. We don't have any organization. It is all amateur hour stuff. Like we have a Cuse Twitter Army we need a Cuse hype machine basically. Also we need a mouthpiece in the media to write non-stop positive articles about all aspects of Syracuse sports. The negative articles help support the dead fan base. We need a Syracuse homer to write sunshine and rainbow articles about everything that happens. Anything negative write it with a positive spin. Seems everyone trying to write for Syracuse wants to make a name for themselves by going negative. We need a homer writer that will shove rainbows up everyone's butts. Other universities have this we don't.

Someone should be non-stop pumping up our young talent and talking about how the future is now type stuff. Instead we need the 20th negative article about our attendance. There are so many easy ways to start improving things...

You only have so many home games...Students should always be free.

1- Military Day
2- Kids Free Day
3- Orange Out
4- LSU, Florida State, Clemson (games don't need events)
5 - Senior Day (school grade not age lol)
6- Pop Warner football Day


These cupcake out of conference games should be 1 and 2 from about. Central Michigan is Military Day. Show your ID retired or active and get 4 free tickets.
Pop Warner Day kids where the jersey of there team they get in free. Promote to local teams and get entire teams to show up.

 

[Full_Rebar]

Didn't Laurie Fine use to appear on it? How did that work out?

Well...umm...you see...ok, scrap that idea then.

 

[Full_Rebar]

It's tough to have an Orange Out with so much silver showing. We actually need a raucous, large crowd if we want to attempt anything like that and that won't happen until we're perennially a Top 25 program again.

If you put orange shirts on the seats, no one watching on tv could tell the Dome was empty.

 

[orange79]

Everything we do seems to be bush league. Anybody ever see when real schools have "Orange outs" or what have you? Ever see Tennessee, Oklahoma, and many other schools do the candy-cane striping of their stadiums? So do you think that every fan followed directions perfectly, for which aisle where's what color? Obviously not. The school promotes the game and leaves free t-shirts for the color that aisle they are supposed to be. Now i'm not sure if the University actually promoted last weeks sad attempt at an "Orange out", but it failed miserably. They should take notes from programs that know what they're doing.

Penn St does white-outs, no?

 

[GoSU96]

Eh, unis, and music, and campus walks, and, and, and, blah, blah, blah, aren't going to change anything.

People in area know there is a team and know there are games, if they have any interest it's not hard to find the schedule. Billboards or ads aren't going to create interest where it doesn't exist.

Two factors are going to get people reengaged, wins and stars. Until then don't worry about it so much, last year hurt on this front and there are no marketing fixes. The marginally engaged glued to their couches will get up and go when there is a natural vibe in the community.

A lot of pressure but you have Dungey and Franklin to build around as faces of the program. You have a potential start running back in Franklin. If you want to market anything, market the future. You build connections and interests in individual players you'll get more people in the stands.

 

[longislandcuse]

Eh, unis, and music, and campus walks, and, and, and, blah, blah, blah, aren't going to change anything.

People in area know there is a team and know there are games, if they have any interest it's not hard to find the schedule. Billboards or ads aren't going to create interest where it doesn't exist.

Two factors are going to get people reengaged, wins and stars. Until then don't worry about it so much, last year hurt on this front and there are no marketing fixes. The marginally engaged glued to their couches will get up and go when there is a natural vibe in the community.

A lot of pressure but you have Dungey and Franklin to build around as faces of the program. You have a potential start running back in Franklin. If you want to market anything, market the future. You build connections and interests in individual players you'll get more people in the stands.

I partially disagree. Wins play an integral part but buzz is needed. Not every team in the south is good but they are all promoted like they just came off a National Championship Victory.

 

[Rocco]

I love this thread. More good ideas here than any expensive consultant could provide. Here's mine, three interns Juniors or Seniors from Newhouse with an online and sport marketing concentration. Attach them to the athletic department for game week marketing.Give 3 hours course credit.Great real-life resume-building pre-grad experience as I had at S.U. running Advertising for the Daily Orange.Assign 1 to deal with traditional media in the smaller cities, driving distance, from Syracuse, provide fresh sports interviews and content for Albany, Utica, Elmira, Rochester, Binghamton, Scranton. Can we send these threads to Coyle? It's great to think big(Meadowlands) but think small counts plenty too. How do we do this?

Great ideas here. You're good, I like you.

How can we direct Coyle to this board? We need to follow suit and create a 14 person fan advisory board like Boise State. I assume he had a big role in that, so hopefully that is already in the works.

In other areas, football is life. I know we aren't ever going to compete with that, but back in the day we did. Plaster the hell out of the football program everywhere in a 200 mile radius, win some ball games and hopefully we start to gain back relevance locally.

It all starts now. Syracuse's marketing dept really needs to get their stuff together and hire some of the people off this board. Lots of very creative, passionate and energetic people here.

 

[TDTOrange]

I partially disagree. Wins play an integral part but buzz is needed. Not every team in the south is good but they are all promoted like they just came off a National Championship Victory.

I'll disagree that the teams in the south are promoted any better than SU, I don't really know one way or the other. The difference is the teams are followed more. The people care. They make it their business to know when the team plays and make their plans around the games. They don't just decide to go to a game when there isn't anything else to do.

I think we just need to understand the culture is different here. The people here need a reason to be excited about the product and for the better part of a decade and a half there has been little reason to be excited.

Just my $0.02

 

[orangenauburn]

Great ideas here. You're good, I like you.

How can we direct Coyle to this board? We need to follow suit and create a 14 person fan advisory board like Boise State. I assume he had a big role in that, so hopefully that is already in the works.

In other areas, football is life. I know we aren't ever going to compete with that, but back in the day we did. Plaster the hell out of the football program everywhere in a 200 mile radius, win some ball games and hopefully we start to gain back relevance locally.

It all starts now. Syracuse's marketing dept really needs to get their stuff together and hire some of the people off this board. Lots of very creative, passionate and energetic people here.

I'll do it pro bono

Soon to be pursuing masters in sports business ... I can use the real world experience

 

[K Otto XLIV]

I'll disagree that the teams in the south are promoted any better than SU, I don't really know one way or the other. The difference is the teams are followed more. The people care. They make it their business to know when the team plays and make their plans around the games. They don't just decide to go to a game when there isn't anything else to do.

I think we just need to understand the culture is different here. The people here need a reason to be excited about the product and for the better part of a decade and a half there has been little reason to be excited.

Just my $0.02

The culture is a huge issue for Syracuse. It is weird because the city is like a midwestern type of town but acts like a big city when it comes to following sports. I can understand Miami, LA, NYC, Boston not getting behind their college teams. But Syracuse? I think of Bills fans as being good fans. Buffalo isn't that far away. So why is the Syracuse area so different? The Bills have stunk for awhile now (no playoffs in 2000s) yet they still get 85-90% capacity every year. That would be the equivalent of SU getting 42k per game. Yet we haven't been near that number all decade. Yes the NFL is a different animal but that doesn't explain the difference in passion.

 

[anomander]

Another idea regarding student tickets. Obviously you can't include free student ticket with enrollment or you would be stuck having to leave 20k seats open. That's just not going to happen. What you can do is say the first 8k students to arrive get in free. How you keep track is for someone else to figure out. But this would not only encourage students to arrive early to ensure a ticket, but it gives free student tickets, so it's basically including them in their tuition.

 

[K Otto XLIV]

Another idea regarding student tickets. Obviously you can't include free student ticket with enrollment or you would be stuck having to leave 20k seats open. That's just not going to happen. What you can do is say the first 8k students to arrive get in free. How you keep track is for someone else to figure out. But this would not only encourage students to arrive early to ensure a ticket, but it gives free student tickets, so it's basically including them in their tuition.

Upperclassmen should get preference. You can have a different door for each class. SRs get section 103 on a first come first serve basis. Once the section is full the rest of the SRs stay in line for a possible general student admission. JRs get sec 104. Soph 105 & 106. Frosh 107. If a section is not filled and there are students left in the general admission line, then they get to back fill them.

Having each class with their own section can also create competition between them. Hey those Sophs suck they couldn't fill their section. Hey those JRs aren't as loud.

 

[Full_Rebar]

this is so true. Here's a story. As you know, Bam myself and Jekelish have been making videos for recruits and some hype videos. So last Saturday morning before the wake game at about 10am, I am going through twitter and I see a video from what I thought was a fan. Wrong it was the Director of Video from SU> I never have seen a tweet from him ever. I asked did you make this and he proudly said yes. I said any chance you could get these out say earlier in the week. SMH We make ours (not to that quality) in about 35 minutes. I imagine I could put one out every day of the week if I was in that job. LOL

Amazing. Oh and this week - no video no tweets. Hopefully I get an amp up video 2 hours before kick again.

Edit - I do appreciate the effort though

To be fair, this is probably the same guy who is responsible for filming every practice, cutting up the tapes for the respective coaches, as well as cutting the opponents film. All of those things are a bit higher priority, but in fairness, it would be wise for SU to find some students to take over the hype video production.