Two days ago the subject on Bo’s show was do the fans have an obligation to attend games?
The answer to this is obviously no. A fan OWES nothing to a team. Ideally fans would WANT to attend the games, but owe it to the team? No way.
I fear the Razorback hoops program is reaping the mediocrity that it sowed for the last 22 years. The program has tested the fans that packed the arena during the Richardson Golden Age with weak coaches and too few good players.
It is hard to stay excited about a program in a major conference that cannot match Bradley, Butler and Gonzaga. It is hard to blame no practice facility for the consistent lack of success. And playing in the SEC West is also no excuse as most teams other than Kentucky and Florida have had limited success and they are in the East.
Now two games into the 23rd season since the national championship the fans are being scalded for not filling the rafters for such heavy hitters as Fort Wayne and Southern Illinois.
My freshman season at Arkansas in 1973 you could show your student ID at the door at Barnhill five minutes before the game and sit at half court. And that team featured the great Martin Terry.
It was not until Eddie Sutton arrived and started to WIN that Barnhill started to rock.
Now CMA must prove over a period of time that he has truly built a winner and the fans will start coming again. But if the programs wants the fans to come IT is the one that OWES the fans a product worth investing their time and money in.
That is how I see it anyway.
I am a season ticket holder and I agree with you that fans don’t have any obligation. I am only going to attend the games I want to attend. That us no reflection on our team. It us only a reflection on who we are playing.
But you are wrong in lumping Anderson with mediocrity that you describe. He has had this program on the upward trend since he got here. Don’t tell me to look at last season. You fully know why that was a down season.
Season ticket sales have been going up every year since he arrived. They have sold over 13,000 tickets so far. That is roughly 75% of the arena. Tickets sold is the true measure of level of interest in the program. Not attendance at every game.
I know Bo needs a topic to discuss every day. But we the fans need to see through that and not cooperate in spreading that image.
I have about had it with this topic. We discuss this in November and part of December each year ad nauseum.
Watching mikes UTA preview press conference, and I love that he keeps getting questions about the SIU coach comment on our crowd. Yes let’s make Mike talk about the pathetic crowd every single press conference! Let’s test his patience seeing just how tactful and diplomatic he can be about his displeasure. I love it! The one ingredient missing from the Mike Anderson Era is a chip on his shoulder. Nolan always had a huge chip on his shoulder, played with fire bordering on anger every game with something to prove no matter how much we were winning or losing. Mike has a different style, aggressive in practice but cool and reserved in the games. I get it. But we need that extra motivation, something to prove, realizing nothing is given, you got to go take it. Haters gonna hate. Time to prove them all wrong! Now if he could just get a pair of snake skin boots too, it’d be on!
We aren’t obligated to do, anything, but if we want to help the program turn the corner after decades of mediocrity, we have to support them.
Just in general, having that few fans at a game is sad.
I’m glad we’ve got 13,000 season ticket holders. That’s probably one of the highest numbers in the SEC and that will keep the lights on in BWA. I don’t think butts in the seats is going to be a problem when we get into conference play. Not with this team.
During the golden era of a packed arena during the Barnhill years, the team only played about 5 games in Fayetteville before conference season. I keep all my old media guides, and looking back at the 89-90 season (a Final Four team), we played 3 games in Fayetteville before conference games. 3. Played 3 games in Little Rock at Barton Coliseum, 2 at the Pine Bluff Convention Center and 3 at Barnhill Arena. We had already played the two Pine Bluff games, and 1 of the LR games before playing US International on December 9th on a Saturday night on campus. Played the next two at Barnhill, which were Missouri and Bethune Cookman, and then played two more in Little Rock. I would be willing to bet that if we did not play our first game in BWA until December 9th on a Saturday night, and we were ranked in the top 10 like that team, we would have a pretty stout crowd.
It is silly to expect a great team if fan support is not even up to D-II level.
On the other hand, we just reached the second half of November. It might be asking too much to expect many people to show up for basketball games in the middle of November.
Arkansas has nine home games and one in Verizon before the SEC schedule begins.
Barnhill was a little different dynamic. The students made up a much greater percentage of the overall crowd (which probably explains why a lot of people think the atmosphere was so much better there). IIRC students were about 25% of capacity; it’s more like 13% at BWA. And at times when the students are not going to be available (Thanksgiving, final exams, Christmas break), it made even more sense not to play on campus in the Barnhill era.
That’s not coming back, though. We’re not going to play three games at NLR (where we don’t sell out either), or play in Pine Bluff or Hot Springs at all. And they build the athletic budget around playing 17 or 18 games in BWA, and selling season tickets and premium seats (courtside and suites) on that basis.
I agree it’s not coming back, and really has no need to come back, but that probably does accentuate the problem. Just too many games too early the season. Barnhill wouldn’t have been at capacity, even with 9,000 seats, nearly as much with 9 pre conference games vs 3.
Agreed.
We aren’t obligated to do, anything, but if we want to help the program turn the corner after decades of mediocrity, we have to support them.
Just in general, having that few fans at a game is sad.
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I totally agree with you. But again the fans should want to come because they love the team and enjoy the experience. It is not an obligation.
And it has been suggested in responses that the subject was fabricated because you have to have something to talk about.
There are numerous thing that I dislike about Bo’s show and the overall presentation, but the subject was created by the Southern Illinois coach, not by Bo. So on that particular day is was a fair subject.
It is a mutual relationship where the team and its fans play equal roles. But if the team wants fans they must make the effort to try for greatness. If the fans want greatness their support is important. It goes both ways.
Barnhill was a little different dynamic. The students made up a much greater percentage of the overall crowd (which probably explains why a lot of people think the atmosphere was so much better there). IIRC students were about 25% of capacity; it’s more like 13% at BWA. And at times when the students are not going to be available (Thanksgiving, final exams, Christmas break), it made even more sense not to play on campus in the Barnhill era.
That’s not coming back, though. We’re not going to play three games at NLR (where we don’t sell out either), or play in Pine Bluff or Hot Springs at all. And they build the athletic budget around playing 17 or 18 games in BWA, and selling season tickets and premium seats (courtside and suites) on that basis.
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I wondered how Kentucky does in November when they play a less than stellar opponent? Do season ticket holders pick and choose which opponent they want to see as opposed to wanting to watch their team play? So I checked it out.
So far this year Kentucky played Penn on 11/11 and over 22,000 fans attended. Three days later they played Canisius and again had over 22,000 fans. It appears their fans do not pick and choose. They have a strong recent history of success and have the attendance to show for it. Their fans are not obligated to come. They are dying to come.
Now there might be a difference in how the fan population is dispersed as far as distance to travel to the games. Parking might be easily accessible. I think this is a case where the fans WANT to watch their team play no matter whom they are playing.
I do wonder why students are not creating a larger crowd at BWA?
The whole point of my post was not to criticize the program. It was to address the idea of fan obligation. Having to do something is never a fun reason to do it. Wanting to is. There are a variety of reasons that generate “want to”. But that is a key part of the fan/team dynamic. Another is the team providing a product that makes fans crave to see them play.
I totally agree with you. But again the fans should want to come because they love the team and enjoy the experience. It is not an obligation.
And it has been suggested in responses that the subject was fabricated because you have to have something to talk about.
There are numerous thing that I dislike about Bo’s show and the overall presentation, but the subject was created by the Southern Illinois coach, not by Bo. So on that particular day is was a fair subject.
It is a mutual relationship where the team and its fans play equal roles. But if the team wants fans they must make the effort to try for greatness. If the fans want greatness their support is important. It goes both ways.
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I agree and I think MA has a very good team this year and I hope the fans respond to Hinson’s comments positively and they serve as a wake up call.
Some of the best times of my life were spent in BWA and I hate to see it and the program continue to be the afterthought that they have become.
Hurst, I watched some of the Kentucky-Canisius game. The crowd there was very respectable, but it was far from full. I suspect the announced attendance of 22,000+ was tickets sold; there certainly were not 22,000 people in the building. My guess is more like 17,000.