That's great, but it'll be interesting to see if our marketing dept. can think of something new to get attendance up. So many things have been tried,
and failed, especially re: getting the UCSB students to come, even though they get in FREE.
And as much as I love-love-love the women's game, this seems like an odd thing to spend money on, considering the economic challenge all colleges are facing right now.
But, on topic, I see three things that have really affected WBB attendance:
1) Switching the game schedule from Friday night/Sunday afternoon to Thursday night/Saturday afternoon (a killer for families), and putting the men's and women's games on the same day but at opposite courts (a killer for fans of both teams).
2) Losing Cori. She was HUGE in attracting not only community support but outstanding players as well.
3) Without exciting players on the floor and a strong W-L record, a bunch of "fans" will stop coming. Hopefully we're back on the right track with Lindsay's recruiting and the BW title, and the game will get really exciting again.
However, there's one more issue. The fact that so many people are boycotting the SBNP means that our women aren't "out there" to garner new community awareness and support. That worked like a charm in the mid-to-late 90's, where they were in big color photos on the front page of the paper before and after every game day. (That may be a function of the UCSB Athletic Dept. deciding that they wanted to promote the men's team more, though, and the women ended up with a little space somewhere inside the sports section.)
Anyway - it'll be interesting to see if they can do something successful with this new funding.
And as much as I love-love-love the women's game, this seems like an odd thing to spend money on, considering the economic challenge all colleges are facing right now.
But, on topic, I see three things that have really affected WBB attendance:
1) Switching the game schedule from Friday night/Sunday afternoon to Thursday night/Saturday afternoon (a killer for families), and putting the men's and women's games on the same day but at opposite courts (a killer for fans of both teams).
2) Losing Cori. She was HUGE in attracting not only community support but outstanding players as well.
3) Without exciting players on the floor and a strong W-L record, a bunch of "fans" will stop coming. Hopefully we're back on the right track with Lindsay's recruiting and the BW title, and the game will get really exciting again.
However, there's one more issue. The fact that so many people are boycotting the SBNP means that our women aren't "out there" to garner new community awareness and support. That worked like a charm in the mid-to-late 90's, where they were in big color photos on the front page of the paper before and after every game day. (That may be a function of the UCSB Athletic Dept. deciding that they wanted to promote the men's team more, though, and the women ended up with a little space somewhere inside the sports section.)
Anyway - it'll be interesting to see if they can do something successful with this new funding.
