Like so many of you reading this, much of my job has been about selling tickets, increasing the size of crowds and improving the fan experience. Until 2020, that is.
A typical winter full of giveaways, promotions, in-venue sponsor activation and ticket offers has turned into sanitizing equipment, pivoting to digital activation, hanging “on-screen” signage and scrambling to replace sick game day workers.
At the University of Evansville, fall sports have been pushed to the spring and only our men’s and women’s basketball teams are currently competing. In preparation for the season we had plan after plan after plan thrown in the trash or change. When the smoke finally settled and the season was ready to begin, we were left with a max capacity of 500 for men’s basketball (averaged 5,136 last season) and just 80 for women’s basketball (different venues). With students on break and pass lists remaining partially unused, our actual attendance has been about half of that capacity so far this season.
As soon as we found out tickets would not be sold and crowds would be limited, our mindset became all about salvaging the student-athlete experience. Playing in front of your home fans is such an important, thrilling part of the student-athlete’s time at any given university. We began asking ourselves, “how can we still make home games as special as possible?”
First, we wanted to make sure we still put our best foot forward with some of the game presentation essentials. We purchased new lights for our intro videos and took the videos to a higher level than we have been at in years past. Instead of playing music that would appeal to a wide-ranging, older fan base, we have tried to keep the energy up from warmups to post-game with music hand-selected by our teams (shout out to DJ McNaughty). Much more music – much fewer commercials. Speaking of music, we have added an in-venue DJ to our women’s basketball games for the first time. This not only instantly improves the atmosphere but makes the student-athletes feel special as well.
In order to fill the stands with some familiar faces, we launched Purple Aces Fan Cutouts (https://bit.ly/2LO7WWP). This allowed our die-hard fans and long-distance alumni to “be” at the Ford Center this season. Many of our player and coach family members now also fill the stands via the Purple Aces Fan Cutouts program. Our Valley on ESPN crew has done an outstanding job making the cutouts a key part of their broadcast.
Finally, we have continued to add student-athlete-driven content on social during the game day for our fans to view as part of their “second screen experience” (all credit goes to my #P5M counterpart, Emily). From tagging player account handles, showcasing personality pre-game and keeping student-athletes at the center of what we do, we have been able to keep fans engaged while giving our student-athletes the chance to see themselves on the forefront.
As crowds continue to be limited, I offer you this challenge…how can you continue to innovate in order to salvage the student-athlete experience during these unique times?
- Scott Peace (@Scott_Peace)
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