I do believe FAU runs busses to the games but I'm not sure at what capacity.

They should make it more public and even offer it to the local public who would prefer to take a bus rather than drive down to a game…

My big question is where are the thousands of alumni that live in the area down there?
Is homecoming down there a good turnout for alumni? Alumni should be a huge turn out every home game you would think.

I guess thats why we have to start traditions now. Get the kids that graduate this year and next and on and on part of the tradition of coming to the games after they graduate and especially for homecoming. First lets try to get them to the games while they are still students.

Well I am an Alumni class of 2002 on the 6 year plan. To be honest, I am not being solicited enough by FAU and I live in Boca Raton. I want to go to the games but I have never been contacted by FAU regarding an Alumni turn out. I am even a member of the National Alumni program...

You guys trashed Berg alot but at least he tried. He had the banners out, the ticket outlets, and fliers out to the students at every home game. Even though it wasnt sucessfull its a hell of a lot more than there doing this year. No more fliers to students, banners around campus were non exhistant at the OSU game, and the outlets in the communities are gone so even our schedule arnt on display. As for the half time, berg got the million dollar scramble together, IMO I rather compete for that rather than a year supply of extra value meals or a case of Pepsi… By the way… the two F#$K Ups in charge of all the advertising and marketing are Dexter Lamont, and Shelly Bineger both of which who are worthless.

bighooter said

You guys trashed Berg alot but at least he tried. He had the banners out, the ticket outlets, and fliers out to the students at every home game. Even though it wasnt sucessfull its a hell of a lot more than there doing this year. No more fliers to students, banners around campus were non exhistant at the OSU game, and the outlets in the communities are gone so even our schedule arnt on display. As for the half time, berg got the million dollar scramble together, IMO I rather compete for that rather than a year supply of extra value meals or a case of Pepsi… By the way… the two F#$K Ups in charge of all the advertising and marketing are Dexter Lamont, and Shelly Bineger both of which who are worthless.

The name calling is unfair. It is my understanding that Berg had a substantial budget to work with last year and you saw the results. Those lame promotions were the best that he came up with. From what I understand, the marketing department would love to do more, but is forced to do everything on a shoestring budget. There is only so much you can do with no financial support from the athletic department.

Also, you can put as much advertising out as possible, but they still can't force people to go. The key to building the fan base MUST start with students, alumni, and faculty. Until we get 5,000 students a game or more there's no chance at getting to the 15,000 number. For the first few years of this program, very little was done to attract students to the games. Sure, some of that can be blamed on advertising and marketing, but blame also must fall on student government and other student organizations.

Word of the day is ……… Conundrum!!

That is what FAU faces with build our fan base.

We all can agree that we need the support of our Alumni's, but the cacth is MOST don't care, we are getting better results from the NEWER Alumni's - the ones that have recently graduated in the past few years and I believe that number will increase with each passing years - the newer students seems to be more interested. The reasons I say most Alumni's don't care from talking to a bunch of them - most support the other three big schools from the sunshine state and just aren't interested while SOME have shown some interest (not quite warm, but warmer then ice cold or freezing), and those are the ones that hopefully will show support as time passes and the Football program continues to develope.

I also agree that we need to advertise, but then again you can spend a $h*t load of money on different forms of advertising and IMO it would be a waste of money - because the percent on your return would be so little that it wouldn't make it won't the effort.

Ever since the inception of the FAU Football team, which I have been a huge supporter of, I have noticed a big difference in people perception of FAU Football. And it is for the better - people are starting to not only notice what FAU has done, but some are starting to talk about us, which is where it starts. The more people talk about us the more likely they will make an effort to attend a game.

I will agree that something must be done to generate interest especially to all Alumni's and the community, to build on the success we have had. We need to be more creative and I think that some kind of marketing strategy must be put together that does target the alumni's first (which should be different then the approach used for the surrounding community, including corporation), but start with the Alumni's. And here lies another problem with the Alumni Association, if they do something it's more then likely for the Alumni's Association themselves and not for Football there is a major conflict that seem to exist between the two Factions ( politics ??? go figure ) - they see like it takes funding away from the Association. I have made this point to them in the past and that is could you find a happy median that will help benefit both parties of interest, use Football to help reunite former Alumni's that would normally have nothing with the school anyway, yet they appear to be very narrow minded.

Even last year there where many times Brogan had to step in and force the Association to do certain things.

I do believe that everyone are very self serving and instead should see the opportunity to join forces and help build a strong tie among the University as a joint community, but what we have instead is a bunch of isolated Factions working independly. They need to get together for the betterment of the entire University.

Football (or any sports for that matter) does give the Alumni's that certain Identity to their Alma Mater and should be somehow used to benefit everyone.

We need a creative approach that can bring everyone together for the benefit of the University as a hole.

It is my understanding that Berg had a substantial budget to work with last year

Not at all… I worked directly with him and three other student aids. We had no money, we were on the phone with pepsi all the time trying to get money and every once in a while they would give us a couple hundered bucks. The budget was so low that the fliers that got handed out around campus had to be printed on paper that he bought at office depot. Dextor had more money under him and he kept buying the thunder stix. I dont know who told you that Berg had a substantial budget but I know first hand we had to beg for money, we even went to schnelenberger who had to buy us the fabric for the hand made banners that got hung off the GCS building and breezways entrances.

I know there is a lack of $$$ in the athletic dept., but I think the marketing problem is more of a lack of creativity. I don't see any of our sponsors giving away stuff, except for that punt, pass and kick thingy that's sponsored by whoever. Surely companies would be willing to pay for banners advertising the game if their name was plastered all over it. Baseball seems to have a lot less of a problem getting companies to sponsor games and the such. We've only got four home games, I mean how difficult can it be?

Those f'ing thunderstix…..I'm sick of those things. How long can Dexter ride that bandwagon? How about some proper giveaways….the Marlins seems to be able to get companies to pay to have their name on different promotional giveaways, so why can't we? Remember when they gave away those World Series rings last season?? They almost had a stampede!! People down here like their free crap, so give it to em and they will come!

Ditto on those freakin thunderstix. Some Moron sat behind me at the Oklahoma game pounding those things for all 4 quarters. Didn't matter what was happening on the field, he just thought is was fun. How about just getting more fannys in the seats to applaud. I was just asked by a coworker if the game was televised. He's an alum with 2 kids. Would have gone to the game had it not been a school night. I'm really worried about the attendance. We're gonna need 20k plus for the rest of the season to average 15k, fat chance.