Hi, thanks for checking out my blog post. Here is a little bit about me before I head into a recap of our 20-21 basketball season. I am Kassy McAloon and I am currently the Director of Fan Experience and Promotions at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA. As someone whose job centers heavily around student attendance and the fan experience at athletic events, this past athletic season has been incredibly hard to navigate. I’d like to believe we have made the most of this year and have found creative ways to succeed.
This time last year we were shutting down all our post-season plans instead of waiting for the NCAA Selection Show. Fast forward to now and, after a wild 20-21 season, we are excited to again be anxiously awaiting March Madness. Liberty Men’s Basketball was the first team to clinch a bid to this year’s tournament while also being crowned ASUN Champions for a third straight year. It’s an exciting ending to a very interesting kind of season.
Our first challenge for the 20-21 basketball season was the grand opening of our newest athletic facility, the Liberty Arena. While navigating through the various restrictions in place last year, we had to completely reinvent how we were celebrating the newest addition to our campus. After several event changes, the grand opening was a private event held for only select Flames Club members, select Lynchburg area business leaders, and a handful of press members. Since the event was not open to the public, our social media and communications teams worked together to create videos showcasing the new arena and interviews with our coaches. For the first men’s basketball game held in the Liberty Arena, all fans in attendance received a framed collectible ticket celebrating the opening night. While we operated under a capacity restriction of 250, we still made sure to showcase the best of our facility with the new video boards, new lighting system, and the incredibly upgraded sound system.
Our team focused on creating the best experience for our fans in attendance as most of our fans only had the opportunity to attend one or two games this season. With not being able to host on-court activities during basketball games, we worked with our student fan group to film various contests that would typically happen in-game. The in-game content was filmed ahead of the season and made available to our sponsorship team for their fulfillment inventory. We followed all COVID policies in place by our administration when filming content on campus and in our basketball facilities. Our completed videos consisted of shooting contests, trivia, minute-to-win-it challenges, and more. We also worked with a student dance club to film multiple dance routines for timeouts and halftime. With this video content, we were able to have full game scripts that would keep fans entertained and fulfill sponsorship.
To further engage the Liberty basketball fan base, we partnered with Perk Social to sell cutout packages to pack the Liberty Arena stands and generate revenue for the Flames Club. We created two packages: Slam Dunk and MVP. Both packages included their cutout, a Liberty Basketball t-shirt, posters, but the MVP package also included weekly stat and video emails, group video call with our basketball coaches, and their cutouts autographed. We organized special sections throughout the arena for these cutouts, with section nine being solely dedicated to dog cutouts and nicknamed the K-9 section. These cutouts helped fill in our stands to make the arena seem less empty and gave our fans an opportunity to engage with the program.
Looking back at the season, I would describe it as a whirlwind. With all the schedule changes during our conference season, I wasn’t sure if the ASUN Tournament would ever get played. I am incredibly proud of our men’s basketball team for persevering through such a difficult year and for once again clinching a spot in the NCAA Tournament. We are all excited to watch the Flames compete in March Madness as we come full circle after a most shocking end to last year’s season.
- Kassy McAloon (@Kassy_Mae)
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