Re: Wisconsin Hockey XXXIV: A Season without Chuck
**** that promotion ****. Put a good PRODUCT on the ice, they will come. This is supposed to be Division 1 big time hockey. Resorting to that kind of **** reeks of minor league goon hockey that can't attract fans. "See Charlestown Chiefs".
Also, see post #828 below.
People need to actually be aware that there's anything to go see in order to generate the old level of interest, even with a good team. If the football team has a bad stretch (of years) and gets competitive again, they don't need to do anything. College football is extremely prominent in the public's sports consciousness. If the basketball team does the same, they don't really need to do anything, because people will get interested by March, and then into the next year.
There are a ton of sports fans around here, including hockey fans, who don't have the same idea that we do of what "Division 1 big time hockey" is. Those people might be willing to check out a few games if they're a big hockey fan aside from college hockey, and other sports fans
may give it a shot...
maybe. There's a huge difference between that and people actually becoming fans of the team. More butts in seats ASAP is necessary to avoid (virtually) completely severing the pre-2012 era from the last few years. That's what I'm most worried about. We've already gone through a whole cycle of students who haven't seen a sold-out student section. Without desperate measures, relying on a good product to bring the fans back in the same way may result in the difference between 6K and 9-10K (the latter being considered a "big" crowd). It won't be the difference between the current nonsense and even 13K. I've had to yell at my friends who have been getting glass seats for the last 3-4 years (and I show up hours later and stand in about the same place
) for not yelling EVERY chant they think of at the top of their lungs. It seems small, but while fans like them, me, or any of you know what Badger hockey could and should be (with a good team on the ice), that doesn't mean the incoming students have any real idea. They can find some videos on YouTube, but it's
nothing compared to actually being there. What these people see is
not a "Division 1 big time hockey" environment,
even if the team on the ice is better than some teams from the past. What a Wisconsin Badgers hockey crowd is in the minds of the oldest students is wildly different than it is for freshmen and sophomores, even those who are going to games!
To the best of my knowledge, college hockey fans in the area have to actively seek out college hockey coverage. It's not embedded in their brains by default. Trying to get 13K+ in a market of this size in that kind of landscape is very difficult. This is a really good area for hockey in the US. I can't walk around campus without seeing a bajillion people wearing NHL stuff. That doesn't seem to translate into Wisconsin Badgers Hockey interest as much as it should. People can play and watch a lot of hockey, but if they don't actively follow Wisconsin Badgers hockey, it won't translate into significantly boosted attendance. It is pretty easy for a
hockey fan in Madison to ignore Badger hockey.
Just putting a good product on the ice barely, and I mean
barely worked in 2013-14. Yes, there were a handful of sellouts. Hype entering the season was approximately zero among the fans who matter in the difference between small-time and big-time college hockey. Yes, we knew what to expect. Heck, even the poll voters got really close, after the ups and downs evened out. However, that was the smallest student section at the time. Among sports fans on campus who weren't going to hockey games, that team resonated, well...not at all. It resonated a tiny bit with people who personally knew fans like me who could explain the ins and outs of college hockey (and as mentioned earlier, that's unusual in this area). People at that second home game against Minnesota experienced the mind-bending, insane, awesome atmosphere surrounding a very exciting, intense game. People who weren't there seemed to just think "huh...that's neat, I guess." I remember a very strange
physical feeling coming back to my apartment, where a bunch of friends (who are sports fans, by the way - even casual hockey fans) didn't watch on TV. The differences in how people thought of that game was bizarre.
Even then, men's hockey was like a more popular, more expensive red card sport. That's certainly the case now. That kind of thing sees attendance and interest cap out at a level that results in mediocre TV coverage and a still not-that-full Kohl Center (though much better than this year so far). And because the student body mostly turns over every four years, shifts in perception - and the results of such shifts - are accelerated. Throw in the fact that there's not a safety net of national coverage enjoyed by college football and basketball, and it seems obvious to me that they need to do some extra promotions and whatnot in order to help save and bring back Wisconsin hockey as we know it.
They need Badger Bob Johnson types of promotion in order to build up interest (just with bigger numbers than in 1966).
