Hypothetical: If you had $100 million to spend at PSU, what would you do?

[Evan Ceg]

The attendance problem isn't the BJC or its location or the cost of student tickets.  It's the product on the floor.  Penn State fans have been spoiled by football's consistent success.  Put a consistent first division Big Ten PSU team on the floor of the BJC and you'll average about 10,000 on weeknights and close to sellouts on weekends. 

[JohnT]

The attendance problem isn't the BJC or its location or the cost of student tickets.  It's the product on the floor.  Penn State fans have been spoiled by football's consistent success.  Put a consistent first division Big Ten PSU team on the floor of the BJC and you'll average about 10,000 on weeknights and close to sellouts on weekends.

If they get to be a consistent first division Big Ten team and only average 10,000 and don't sell out weekends, then the 'fans' and students really do suck.

[Skeeza]

Most are half-hearted at best. 

They have done some silly Mom-and-Pop stuff, but they really have not given a concentrated push at promotions.

My point being, if you are looking to spend $100M for a new arena, perhaps it would be wiser to try spending 1% of that on improving what you have to begin with.

Remember the THON fiasco?

Again, I'll say this, we have to become good to find out if advertising is a real issue.

You can promote a bad product, and through consumer reports, and customer testimonies, it will expose the product for what it is. Bad. We have to become a good basketball team before people will take the time.

Some of what we do now is to enhance the in game promotions to please customers, and to get them to come back. If someone is uninterested in those specific promotions, then why would they come, or come back? If you are advertising a car, and talking about how great your sound system is, or the TVs on the head rests, but it gets back that the car can barely get over a hill, and it turns like a tank, people won't buy it.

In all honesty, what do you advertise with this basketball team this year? It was always going to be a challenge to get people to come out to a game this year with very little to get excited about on the floor.

I understand your point, and I do agree with it to an extent.

I disagree that advertising is any real problem in getting the crowds to the BJC. Due to years of futility, it's the performance, and mindset of the fans. Basketball has been what fills time before B&W Weekend. When we get good, the fans will come. It's just a matter of becoming a legitimate basketball team first. We are taking steps in the right direction, but we aren't there yet.

Then what good would come from building a new $100M arena?

[rwd5035]

Where did I say we should build a new arena? I was disputing what you wanted to spend money on, not supporting the idea of building a new arena. In fact, I disputed it in an earlier post.

[Evan Ceg]

If they get to be a consistent first division Big Ten team and only average 10,000 and don't sell out weekends, then the 'fans' and students really do suck.

On a weeknight in the middle of winter in relatively isolated State College, I think 10,000-11,000 for a MBB game would be a good crowd.  On a weekend with a quality opponent, then I think you should expect a sellout or something close to it. 

[lionfan99]

I know that if the program becomes consistently competitive, it will definitely make a difference in terms of attendance both from students and the community. I have seen it happen for the VCU Rams. Even before their magical Final Four run, they had been packing their home court and last week's bracket buster game was the 17th consecutive sellout.

Strangely enough, the other Div 1 program in the city - UR Spiders - has had trouble filling their home court despite having more of a tradition of success. Of course, they are a smaller private school situated in a suburban county even though it is only a few minutes outside of the city.