I don't typically create my own threads, so apologies if this isn't the right place for this. This isn't meant to be a debate of whether the fans should be excited when play on the court is poor. Team performance is absolutely a limiting factor for any fan base. Rather, I think there are a lot of ways to both sustain energy when the crowd gets going, and coax some excitement out when the Gophers are struggling.
Creating
One glaring problem that I've notices in the past few years is the lack of any great fan promotions. This last (color) out that I recall was the gold out against Miami 2 years ago. Even in the student section there's been one attempt at a gold out this year that was horribly marketed and led to poor participation. What is stopping us from doing a maroon out, gold out, stripe out, ANYTHING that pretty much every school does at some point in the season? Gopher fans proved during football season that they would respond to the call.
Speaking of the student section: we need to strengthen spirit among students. Promotions help with this. One thing I'd love to see in future years is a pep rally of some sort before the season. Have a night for only students to come out and get excited about the team. Introduce them to the players, teach new fans some chants and traditions, have a 3 pt or dunk contest, things like that. If you gave out some free things I guarantee there would be solid attendance.
Sustaining
This might be the most controversial thing I say in this post: we play the Rouser way too much. Everyone loves the tradition that is the Minnesota Rouser. Never has that love been tested as much as in games like today. By my rough count, I think it was played 8 times today. The judgement call on when to play the fight song needs to be better. There's the obvious spots (entrance, half-time, post game, etc.), but the ones during timeouts can be absolute energy killers. Fans stop yelling to hear the band, then get a good spelling in, and then sit down. Today, for example, we had the back-to-back Kalscheur and Willis threes that got the crowd going. Iowa time out. Cue the Rouser. Very loud spelling, and then... everyone sits down. By the time play resumes it's like nothing happened. Watch any other game on TV and you'll see that breaks after big runs go right into high-energy electronic music or something that reflects the excitement in the arena. Let there be a max of one extra Rouser per half.
In a similar vein, the rest of the timeouts can be absolutely brutal as a spectator. Nothing screams energy like... watching a soy bean growing race? Watching UPS boxes spin around? Those need to go. They contribute nothing to the atmosphere. Instead, let the band do its thing for a while. Get some chants going. Anything that keeps the noise level up. As cheesy as the clips of the players saying "get loud" can seem, they do the job. More of those, please. One of the few times today where the entire building stood up was after video Oturu told them to get up.
Conclusion
Overall, this thread is really just me venting about what I feel is a slowly declining game day experience. In the crowded MSP sports market, you have to create a unique environment to draw in new fans. It just feels like Gopher Athletics has been stagnant in recent years.
Creating
One glaring problem that I've notices in the past few years is the lack of any great fan promotions. This last (color) out that I recall was the gold out against Miami 2 years ago. Even in the student section there's been one attempt at a gold out this year that was horribly marketed and led to poor participation. What is stopping us from doing a maroon out, gold out, stripe out, ANYTHING that pretty much every school does at some point in the season? Gopher fans proved during football season that they would respond to the call.
Speaking of the student section: we need to strengthen spirit among students. Promotions help with this. One thing I'd love to see in future years is a pep rally of some sort before the season. Have a night for only students to come out and get excited about the team. Introduce them to the players, teach new fans some chants and traditions, have a 3 pt or dunk contest, things like that. If you gave out some free things I guarantee there would be solid attendance.
Sustaining
This might be the most controversial thing I say in this post: we play the Rouser way too much. Everyone loves the tradition that is the Minnesota Rouser. Never has that love been tested as much as in games like today. By my rough count, I think it was played 8 times today. The judgement call on when to play the fight song needs to be better. There's the obvious spots (entrance, half-time, post game, etc.), but the ones during timeouts can be absolute energy killers. Fans stop yelling to hear the band, then get a good spelling in, and then sit down. Today, for example, we had the back-to-back Kalscheur and Willis threes that got the crowd going. Iowa time out. Cue the Rouser. Very loud spelling, and then... everyone sits down. By the time play resumes it's like nothing happened. Watch any other game on TV and you'll see that breaks after big runs go right into high-energy electronic music or something that reflects the excitement in the arena. Let there be a max of one extra Rouser per half.
In a similar vein, the rest of the timeouts can be absolutely brutal as a spectator. Nothing screams energy like... watching a soy bean growing race? Watching UPS boxes spin around? Those need to go. They contribute nothing to the atmosphere. Instead, let the band do its thing for a while. Get some chants going. Anything that keeps the noise level up. As cheesy as the clips of the players saying "get loud" can seem, they do the job. More of those, please. One of the few times today where the entire building stood up was after video Oturu told them to get up.
Conclusion
Overall, this thread is really just me venting about what I feel is a slowly declining game day experience. In the crowded MSP sports market, you have to create a unique environment to draw in new fans. It just feels like Gopher Athletics has been stagnant in recent years.
