Companies sponsor the Marlins because they are a pro team and they have the ability to draw more than 15,000 fans. The free stuff is a good gimmick, but it also costs money. Hopefully something can be done to get people to come out to the stadium. GO OWLS!!!

You would think with all of the Hurricanes that we would be able to have some type of relief effort for attendance tomorrow.

Bring some non-perishable items or water and get a free ticket, makes sense to me.

Especially since a Cat 4 or 5 will be slamming into the west coast of Texas in a few days, no reason not to stock up on supplies early.

Basic marketing ideas will get people out. The public likes to help each other out, especially when they get something for free.

Another great idea would be to have some type of gimmick around parents weekend. Discount the parents tickets and do something nice for them. That would give us a decent bump in attendance and might even bring out some dorm rats who will begin following our boys after that weekend.

No disrespect to Berg, but the ideas he had for the community were a bit out there. I was going to volunteer for him, but he put me to sleep everytime we would talk and it was annoying as hell.

You guys obviously are a lot closer to the marketing folks than I am. Who knows? Maybe they're doing the best they can with limited resources.

But I wonder whether all avenues are being pursued. It doesn't cost much to call, for example, Wise Potato Chips – Florida is a key distribution state for that brand – and try to start some kind of relationship. Chips named 'Wise' and a team named 'Owls' – this sort of goes together, right?

I looked at the Wise site and found a drill down tab for 'Sponsorships.' Guess who Wise sponsors: The New York Mets, Madison Square Garden (home of the Knicks and Rangers), Duke basketball and, ta-da, University of Miami football. I hope we are at least trying to muscle in on this. Whereas Wise could get lost among the various sponsors of all those established entities, it certainly could stand out at FAU. And I doubt that Wise is the only possibility. There is no sin in calling and being told 'No.' Then you call someone else, and someone else, and so on. That's what the art of sales is all about – a lot of calls, a lot of rejections and, finally, an acceptance.

In case anyone is interested, here is the link to the Wise sponsorship page:

http://www.wisesnacks.com/sponsorships.html

Sort of makes me hungry….

I like it Grayowl "Chips named 'Wise' and a team named 'Owls' – this sort of goes together, right?"
Now that is creative thinking and it is right in front of your face.

OK, I used to be the controller for a small TV station in SE Georgia. Those of you who live in Jacksonville that read this board probably know which station I am taliking about.

We had a tiny budget for promotions and worked with other organizations with theirs for little or no money.

One of the thing is trading advertising. I don't know the cost to advertise in the University Press but a trade on promotions would work with one or some of the local news papers. You might have to go 5 to 1 on the dollar on some trades. Promote the news paper in the University Press for ad space in theirs. It might not be a total trade but it might reduce the cost. This is a suggestion. There might be something to trade when you have 18,000 people on one campus during a day. The TV station I worked for would do this with radio and news papers. We would promote them and they would promote us but we set the schedules up to come out equitable. There was a rumour back in the 70s the the University sold the dormitory mailing list to various vendors. This could be traded off. Why did people think the mailing list was sold? Well, it was a rumour and how else do you explain the overwhelming credit card applications that come pouring in. Gas cards and credit cards. This was back in the 70's when having a credit card as a student was not as common as it is now.

Has anyone there thought of giving blocks of tickets to the radio station and or TV stations? We know darn well we won't sell out so how about the TV and radio station giving some away to listeners and watchers. Not only are you getting tickets to people but the game is being promoted when the radio/TV station announces the ticket give away on the air and what you have to do to get a free ticket. Although the way things are now, its possible people won't call in to the radio stations to get the tickets.

Anyway, I'm probably wasting my time posting all this on here. :( There are a lot of things you can do if you get creative. There is a whole university of creative people there all are college educated!!!!! You have a very good marketing dept there also!!! :

Well,

[glow=red,2,300]Go Owls!!![/glow]

you guys have some good ideas. too bad you dont run the department. maybe thats the problem. the wrong people are running the marketing area.

I really like the idea of the hurricane relief effort. It makes for good PR and I think it might bring some casual fans to the game. Students tend to really get in on that kind of stuff also. It is obviously too late for tonight's game, but it could work for the next home game. Unfortunately, that game is a while from now. Hopefully the marketing department has something up their sleeves so that we can hit the 15,000 mark.

On another note, having the games on television can actually hurt attendance, because the casual fan or the fickle fan will often choose television and a comfortable recliner in an air conditioned living room over sitting outside in 90 degree humid weather with the sun beating down. Television is a double-edged sword. It serves to promote the university and the program, but it makes it too easy to not go to the game. GO OWLS!!!

It is indeed a catch 22 regarding TV. Some of the locals will stay home and the casual fan will not come out either.