BECB: An Open Letter to Creighton Fans

[Make Your Bones]

This is dumb. When you have 15k at every game, of course a fair amount of those people are just there for the social event/something to do. Every other BE team would love to have those casual fans show up as often, even if they leave early. Let those people leave early if they want, especially if they have kids to get to bed, etc.

[Omaha1]

But this Tuesday for Creighton shouldn't have been an issue- game time was 7:30 local time, not 8 or 815. Game was over by 9:45 local time.

I just don't think fan support was an issue, especially on Tuesday so that's why it seemed odd for a kid to write this article unless he was hoping for exactly this response. There were 17k fans at the game. I'm sure there were a few fans who might have left early for god knows what reason, but I didn't see them. As I watch games all over America I see empty seats everywhere and that includes most of the Big East arenas. If a kid reporter for BECB wants to say Creighton fans are not supportive, I'd suggest he visit arenas elsewhere and then come back and offer his assessment.

[cu blujs]

Didn't read the article and don't plan to. Read a couple of things he wrote early on, and found them often to be uninformed and designed more for reaction than truth. I was at the game. The number of people who left their seats in the last couple of minutes was fewer than a couple hundred. What he failed to note, if he was even at the game, is that both ends of the arena are open behind the lower level seats. On one end, called the Bud Bar, the entire area behind the endzone seats is open space and has room for many hundreds to stand and watch the game - and people are often stacked ten or more deep watching the game with friends who might have seats in different areas. The other end also has plenty of space to stand several people deep behind the top row of seats of the lower bowl to watch. There is substantial other room to stand behind the seats around the top of the lower level and in the entrance ways. Most people who get up out of their seats in the last minute or so actually watch the end of games from those areas to get a jump on everyone still in the seats at the end of the game. Those few minutes can be the difference between being well on your way home or still in the parking lot 20 minutes after the horn sounds. It was very loud in the arena on each of PC's possessions down the stretch and particularly right up to when Dunn's brick clanked off the back iron and rolled into the net. Any claim to the contrary is not truthful. The article is rehashing a tired old subject - and I would venture to guess one that plays out in every arena at every school throughout the country. Any one that complains about the fans where 17,000+ regularly show up is barking up the wrong tree.

[xusandy]

I imagine that at least half of the 75 schools in one of the 6 major bball conferences would absolutely love to have Creighton's terrible, terrible attendance/fan support problem. Omigod, the sky is falling on the poor, poor Bluejays.

[NJRedman]

Why do people keep saying he's a kid? He sounds to me like he's in his 30's. If you read his article he said he got out of the service and ended up in Omaha where he has been for sometime going to Jays games against Valley teams. You guys keep calling him a "kid" as a way to speak down to him and act like his opinion has no merit. It does. The thought that the Blue Jays and their fans are above criticism reeks of elitism. Yes, you get 15-17K fans a night now, but will it always be that way? Especially if fans keep doing this and the Jays become a middle of the pack team can you count on that many fans showing up every night going forward?

[Doge McDermott]

Why do people keep saying he's a kid? He sounds to me like he's in his 30's. If you read his article he said he got out of the service and ended up in Omaha where he has been for sometime going to Jays games against Valley teams. You guys keep calling him a "kid" as a way to speak down to him and act like his opinion has no merit. It does. The thought that the Blue Jays and their fans are above criticism reeks of elitism. Yes, you get 15-17K fans a night now, but will it always be that way? Especially if fans keep doing this and the Jays become a middle of the pack team can you count on that many fans showing up every night going forward?

Probably. There isn't a Pro team in any sport for 150 miles. Once college football is over, there really isn't another home team to root for anymore. Even then, when Nebraska Football sucks, people are just going to switch over to basketball earlier.

Creighton is a small, private school, but a lot of the alum settle in Omaha. My brother did. A lot of my friends did, too. It's dirt cheap, and it's actually a pretty good job market for kids with degrees out there. I'd be interested to see a metric measuring BE school's % of alumni living within 50 miles. My guess is that Creighton would be among the highest. So you have a ton of alumni in the area, seeking something cheap to do in a family friendly atmosphere, and that's how Creighton regularly pulls 15-17k per game.

Omaha also has a weird car culture, and a distinct lack of public transportation. It helps that you can drive anywhere in the city within 20 minutes, so everyone drives everywhere. I asked a family member and lifelong resident of Omaha why they haven't created a commuter train line out west using existing Union Pacific lines, and the answer I got point blank was, "Public Transit is for poor people only." So I can get why people wouldn't want to get stuck in post-game traffic on a school night. When you're used to a 20 minute commute, an hour seems like eternity.

[jfan]

Some people leave Creighton games early no matter what the game situation. It's not an alarming number. I'm sure it happens to some degree everywhere. I have attended most Creighton games since we moved to the Clink and actual attendance (bodies in seats) is down somewhat this year. I'm sure this is a direct reflection of last year and, to some degree, this year. To NJRedman's point, our attendance will slip unless we start to compete for Championships on a fairly regular basis. How many of the fans will continue to come if we are consistently at the middle or bottom of the pack remains to be seen, but there is no question that attendance would naturally trend downward. I am sure the AD would do something before the loss of fans became dramatic.(unless we were winning and people just stopped coming for some reason). I really don't think that most Creighton fans are elitist, but we are naturally proud of our attendance situation, as most fan bases would be proud to have 15-17K at games. Because of our fan support and current facilities, I have an expectation that we should be in the top half of the BE most years. If that is elitist or unrealistic, then so be it. It is my expectation. That might sound strange to the other BE programs that have had much more on court success than Creighton, but I think we are happy to be in the BE because this give us a chance to compete at a much higher level than before. We certainly aren't at that level yet, but I think we will get there and there is no question that our fan support can help with recruiting which, along with coaching, determines the success of a program. Omaha actually has a Metro area of around 900,000 so getting 17,000 isn't that dramatic. I love the city, but there are some limits on what you can do on cold winter nights.

[fellahmuskie]

I found it odd that the writer was criticizing "bad" fans, but was only willing to plunk down for season tickets when Creighton joined the Big East.

I'm one of the crazy fans jumping out of my seat on every basket, but I fully realize most people aren't like that. It takes a long time and lots of success to get the average person to invest emotionally. The fact that Creighton already gets 15,000+ to every game is incredible. Xavier is on pace to set its attendance record this season and pretty much max out the Cintas Center, but I doubt we could put 15,000 fans in the seats on a regular basis if we expanded our arena. Hopefully demand will get to that point in 5-10 years (whether or not Cintas ever expands significantly).

[NJRedman]

I found it odd that the writer was criticizing "bad" fans, but was only willing to plunk down for season tickets when Creighton joined the Big East.

I'm one of the crazy fans jumping out of my seat on every basket, but I fully realize most people aren't like that. It takes a long time and lots of success to get the average person to invest emotionally. The fact that Creighton already gets 15,000+ to every game is incredible. Xavier is on pace to set its attendance record this season and pretty much max out the Cintas Center, but I doubt we could put 15,000 fans in the seats on a regular basis if we expanded our arena. Hopefully demand will get to that point in 5-10 years (whether or not Cintas ever expands significantly).

Well he admits he didn't go to CU and is from the east coast and a Big East fan so it's natural that his interest became greater when they joined the league. Also he was getting free tix so why buy season tix for all the bad teams in MVC? Just get ones for the good games.

[sciencejay]

Not sure what crawled up NJRedman's @$$ about Creighton fans, but this is the second thread that he's made the comment about us being elitist. I have no idea where that comes from, so get over yourself, housepet. Jays fans are proud of a solid history (in an obviously lesser conference), and we are excited about our opportunities in the BEast.

Maybe you are angry that our first year in the conference, we had the NPOY and didn't lay down and get beat by all you big time, traditional (read here "real") basketball powers. Maybe you are pissed that your school has not been great the past many years. Maybe you're pissed that in the midst of one of the largest metropolitan areas on the planet, you have a hard time filling your little on-campus arena. I don't know what it is, but I haven't seen anything remotely elitist about comments by Jays fans. I've seen a ton of support for Mullin as your new HC and as someone who might be the right guy to get you back toward the top of the conference on a consistent basis. Elitists would be endlessly pointing out the lack of coaching experience Mullin has and that you guys are killing the conference. The suggestion that the writer of a blog is young (I didn't get any sense that the writer is young either by the way) may/may not be condescending and/or elitist, but it's interesting that of all the completely ridiculous comments made on this site (many of them intentionally condescending and elitist), you call out Jays fans.

Now, with regard to the actual topic at hand, I completely disagree with the article's writer. Every event has die-hard fans, lesser fans and people who are mostly there for social purposes. I was at the Nova, G'Town and Providence games, and I don't have a problem with the crowd. Our fans are clearly motivated by good offense (and yes, we were multiply blessed during the DMD/Wragge era). The tough, slugfests in the BEast don't provide as many offensive outbursts (the PU game being the biggest example), so the crowd is quieter. There were times during the Hoyas game when I turned to my wife and said "This is a Wichita St crowd". As I'm sure you're all aware, we got up for WSU like no one else in the MVC-the entire building would shake. And it did when we went on our run against the Hoyas late. Some people like to complain, so they complain about others' behavior. I agree with the sentiment that the tickets have been sold and people can do as they please--they've already supported their team. I choose to support my team by buying season tickets and by staying for the whole game, but I stay for the whole game even in blowouts because I love college basketball. Nebraska is a football state first. I'm thrilled that so many Husker alums choose to buy season tickets for my alma mater's hoops team--it's up to them whether they stay or not.