I know we've spent a lot of time on this board talking about student attendance, most of which involves how close to the stadium they're allowed to drink before the game.
But what about implementing a scoring system similar to what other schools (and the RRC) do to determine who gets in and who gets the best seats? There are a million different ways to do this, but just an example to start off the discussion:
Go away from GA student sections and make students pull a ticket (via an app) if they want to go. You seat is determined based-on how many points you have and you find that out 2-3 days ahead of time. Each student has a unique name on the app (similar to Venmo) so that you can request tickets together. If you didn't pull a ticket in time and still decide to go, you can grab any leftovers on the app up until and even after the game begins.
You earn points for every game you attend, and the point total is inversely proportional to the price that Tech is selling tickets to for that game. So you earn less points for attending the UT game in football or the KU game in basketball than you would attending Murray St or NW La. The school could even do bonuses like 5x points for attending basketball games during winter break. You get even more points for attending soccer, softball, WBB, etc. You can also scan your ticket when you exit to get a bonus for staying the entire game. Finally, you get to roll your student points into RRC points when you join after graduating...a great incentive to join the RRC and keep coming to games.
So, just for example's sake...let's say you're an incoming freshman in 2022 that really wants to go to the Kansas game in the spring.
You could do all kinds of cool stuff with the app too. Prizes and giveaways - you could do free concessions for students or even coupons for free stuff elsewhere. You could pay for the app and its administration just through the marketing opportunities within it. You could even do the "staying" bonuses live. So a game like Baylor where it's still very much within reach at halftime, but the students start streaming out, you push out a notification that 4th quarter scans are worth 5x or something (assuming there is service for them to get it). You could even tie it into outside orgs and community service. There's an unlimited number of ways you could use this to encourage whatever behavior you want from your students.
Basically, take a scarce item that students want -- big game MBB tickets at the moment -- and use that carrot to improve attendance everywhere. Plus, you could tweak the rules year over year as kids figure out ways to game the system and different sports become more or less popular. The best part is that having the students there will help those teams win more games, so you have a positive feedback loop for your whole AD and the kids may find that soccer or VB or WBB is actually really fun when they never would have tried it out otherwise.
But what about implementing a scoring system similar to what other schools (and the RRC) do to determine who gets in and who gets the best seats? There are a million different ways to do this, but just an example to start off the discussion:
Go away from GA student sections and make students pull a ticket (via an app) if they want to go. You seat is determined based-on how many points you have and you find that out 2-3 days ahead of time. Each student has a unique name on the app (similar to Venmo) so that you can request tickets together. If you didn't pull a ticket in time and still decide to go, you can grab any leftovers on the app up until and even after the game begins.
You earn points for every game you attend, and the point total is inversely proportional to the price that Tech is selling tickets to for that game. So you earn less points for attending the UT game in football or the KU game in basketball than you would attending Murray St or NW La. The school could even do bonuses like 5x points for attending basketball games during winter break. You get even more points for attending soccer, softball, WBB, etc. You can also scan your ticket when you exit to get a bonus for staying the entire game. Finally, you get to roll your student points into RRC points when you join after graduating...a great incentive to join the RRC and keep coming to games.
So, just for example's sake...let's say you're an incoming freshman in 2022 that really wants to go to the Kansas game in the spring.
- You go to 4 soccer games: 10 pts ea plus another 2 each for staying until the end = 48pts
- You go to Murray State: 7 pts plus 2 for staying = 9 pts
- You go to Houston: 5+2=7
- Texas: 2+2=4
- WVU (but you leave early): 5
- Baylor: 3+2=5
- You also go to 3 volleyball games: 36 total.
You could do all kinds of cool stuff with the app too. Prizes and giveaways - you could do free concessions for students or even coupons for free stuff elsewhere. You could pay for the app and its administration just through the marketing opportunities within it. You could even do the "staying" bonuses live. So a game like Baylor where it's still very much within reach at halftime, but the students start streaming out, you push out a notification that 4th quarter scans are worth 5x or something (assuming there is service for them to get it). You could even tie it into outside orgs and community service. There's an unlimited number of ways you could use this to encourage whatever behavior you want from your students.
Basically, take a scarce item that students want -- big game MBB tickets at the moment -- and use that carrot to improve attendance everywhere. Plus, you could tweak the rules year over year as kids figure out ways to game the system and different sports become more or less popular. The best part is that having the students there will help those teams win more games, so you have a positive feedback loop for your whole AD and the kids may find that soccer or VB or WBB is actually really fun when they never would have tried it out otherwise.
