Re: RPI Engineers 2016-2017: 10 Years on
The part that is disappointing is that maybe if the school (and area) would support the female hockey program with attendance, they wouldn't have to be asking for money. The men's program aren't asking. RPI female hockey last year finished 2nd last in attendance. Not sure about this year but could be even worse. There were many teams that finished below them in terms of their wins and losses, but yet drew many more fans. Its like anything. If you support the program, it will flourish. More top end female hockey players will want to play at RPI if they know they are treated right and if they know they actually have a large fan base. It must be pretty upsetting for those players to play in a totally empty rink for every home game. I've started to follow the men's and woman's programs this year at RPI and one thing that I've noticed compared to other schools is how at RPI, the hockey as far as media attention, as far as fan base, basically in every aspect is focused on the men. Other schools, and pretty successful hockey programs, give the women's program much more attention. Just my 2 cents worth. Hopefully both teams at RPI next year improve drastically and both teams get the support and attention they deserve.
There are certainly a lot of factors to take into account:
First, and it's unfortunate, is that a number of people just don't want to follow women's sports. I know, insert "bigot" comments here, despite me being one of only two posters to start RPI score threads for a women's game. I remember when we were playing the ECAC semis at Cornell, the game was actually free (or at least I didn't see an admission taker, which was odd for the playoffs, especially considering they had admission in the previous year), and although they had a bigger crowd, Lynah was maybe a quarter full, if that. And I don't think anyone can deny community support when it comes to at least men's ice hockey. I'm not sure how much winning helps, at least based from that angle.
Secondly, let's also consider family outings. For a men's game, it costs $31 for an alumni couple and a youth to attend, and then concessions on top of that (we know that's where they really make their money, $3-$4 for a pop is a bit up there). Back in my days with the band, women's games were free admission to all. With the Institute's hostile takeover of athletics from the Student Union, coupled with my previous comments about being a business, I can understand their want to gain money through admission, even though all we get out of it is deafness (the only thing that's changed since my days is that they started using the goal horn). Some families, especially if you're in the community and have a tight budget, don't have the financial or time commitments to attend games, the latter being the reason I haven't really followed them lately. I know they've tried to offset costs by giving away women's games with a season pass, why not extend that (or a severe discount) when you buy either a football or men's hockey ticket for when both (or all three) teams are playing on the same day/weekend, and have some sort of a finance sharing from it? It's much easier for a family to have an "RPI day", heck one night before FlagDUDETTE, our nephew, and I took in a hockey game, we also saw a soccer game up the hill. Some clever scheduling (assuming compliance with the leagues, of course) could really drive sales, assuming games are now at ECAV instead of the Armory.
Thirdly, I'm glad you brought up media. WRPI only has one broadcast outlet, and women's games take a back seat because of the men's games. Not to mention their difficulty in fielding personnel lately, but that's another difficulty. Most of these arenas have broadband access, how difficult would it be, assuming you had the personnel, to setup even audio-only streams of games and have some people call the game? Heck, it seems almost everyone is doing some sort of commentary on Youtube, Twitch, or any of those; why not contact them and give them a trial to cover some games? I understand finances potentially come into play with that, not to mention brand image (use a delay just like radio stations if you have to), but if you want to get the word out, why not use our world to our advantage?
