My thoughts on "away" games

A group of friends and I made the 2 1/2 hour drive to Santa Clara for the game on Saturday, and I had a few thoughts upon leaving the game, most of which have been covered by other people posting about their visits to away games, but my main concern is this - I don’t know how long we’re going to be generally accepted in this conference.

The crowd was probably 40-50% BYU. As someone else noted – when Austin fouled out, the BYU crowd cheered so loud for him that it drowned out the “left-right-left-right sit down” chant. It was obvious that that was what we were doing (showing up the home fans). Also, the BYU fans gave some great “you got swatted” and “air ball” chants during the game, and, again, this was the VISITING fans.



Think about it, it’s great for us fans cheering for the visiting the team, but how would we feel if the visiting fans came into the MC and were chanting “air ball” and “you got swatted” to our team – we’d hate their guts, and I can’t help but to think that it won’t be long before our team is hated even more than Gonzaga. Gonzaga is mostly hated because they always win. And, because they win, they are pretty well represented in the visiting arenas… We’ll be even worse, with our own TV station, bigger crowds dominating the cheers during the game, AND generally winning, it can’t be long before this honeymoon is over.

That said, I’m LOVING the WCC, the Santa Clara game was a much more fun game to go to than the Fresno State game that I went to the year before last.

Been thinking the same thing. But being hated may not be a bad thing. It could help the conference long term.



I recognize that some of the WCC schools face serious obsatcles in putting together a good team. But it's not altogether impossible. USF and USD have access to big markets and fertile recruiting pools, USC has a good arena, etc. Maybe seeing a rival school dominate your crowd can be the motivation to take the athletic program even more seriously.



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Is it true that the prices for the BYU games is a good amount higher than the other games? If so then I think the WCC and the schools would be pretty happy with BYU. Higher attendance (also leading to more hotdogs sold), higher prices (more gate receipts), more credibility, and getting worldwide and/or national exposure (how many of you knew both Steve Nash and Kurt Rambis when to Santa Clara?). The fans may not like it but their team sure seems to be the major beneficiary of BYU being in the conference.

I knew about SCU. Laker fans revere Rambis.

imuakahuku wrote:
...how many of you knew both Steve Nash and Kurt Rambis when to Santa Clara?.

I didn't. Knowing that Nash was from north of the boarder, I thought he went to school somewhere up there. Those are impressive former players.

If you can't sell enough tickets to your own fans to fill a 4,500 seat arena, Then complaining about visiting teams fans who do fill your arena is pretty weak. USF tried to make the BYU and gonzaga games promotion nights to fill the place, so they may be on the right track. Maybe need to do a better job marketing and filling the seats. Of course it's easier for marketing to just let the visiting team buy all the tix at elevated rates and not waste time and money building up your own fan base.



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Yeah, giving the students free tickets instead of charging through the nose to BYU fans will hurt the bank account. Hopefully with the extra money they can recruit some better players. they shoud be making some extra money with the other sports like Soccer, Baseball ect.

It will be a love hate relationship. Opposing teams' ADs will love it when BYU comes to town because they will make an extra 20 - 40k they otherwise wouldn't have. They love the free broadcasted games too and the additional exposure. In some cases, it's one more ESPN game for them they otherwise wouldn't have had.



Opposing teams fans hate it as BYU fans can trump their fan base any given night (there are more BYU alum in the Bay Area than SMC alum. I guarantee it). I see the point about being too rowdy on opponents' home courts, but what can you do; there are just as many BYU fans as there are SCU, USF, SMC, etc. fans. Are we supposed to sit there mute and uninvolved? I actually thought it was more 60/40 in favor of BYU at SCU. Maybe even 70/30. Even their box seats were full of BYU fans.



Fans will eventually resent us, which will only feed the perception that BYU fans are self righteous. I give it 3 years till we're once again dealing with the same level of resentment and hate we were enduring in the MWC.



BTW, SCU returns all of its starters next year and they gain back Foster, their best player. They will be a force.

Gunk wrote:
It will be a love hate relationship. Opposing teams' ADs will love it when BYU comes to town because they will make an extra 20 - 40k they otherwise wouldn't have. They love the free broadcasted games too and the additional exposure. In some cases, it's one more ESPN game for them they otherwise wouldn't have had.



Opposing teams fans hate it as BYU fans can trump their fan base any given night (there are more BYU alum in the Bay Area than SMC alum. I guarantee it). I see the point about being too rowdy on opponents' home courts, but what can you do; there are just as many BYU fans as there are SCU, USF, SMC, etc. fans. Are we supposed to sit there mute and uninvolved? I actually thought it was more 60/40 in favor of BYU at SCU. Maybe even 70/30. Even their box seats were full of BYU fans.



Fans will eventually resent us, which will only feed the perception that BYU fans are self righteous. I give it 3 years till we're once again dealing with the same level of resentment and hate we were enduring in the MWC.



BTW, SCU returns all of its starters next year and they gain back Foster, their best player. They will be a force.

I generally agree with this. It was fun watching the student section, which looked like a 1/4 size of a real college student section (22 students across by 8 rows deep)halfway through the 2nd half we noticed three students in the front row of that section sitting down the whole time and thought "who invited those deadbeats?"



Also, they had a row of folding chairs right on the courtside, and we were wanting to get those for the next time BYU was in town.

BYULV wrote:
If you can't sell enough tickets to your own fans to fill a 4,500 seat arena, Then complaining about visiting teams fans who do fill your arena is pretty weak. USF tried to make the BYU and gonzaga games promotion nights to fill the place, so they may be on the right track. Maybe need to do a better job marketing and filling the seats. Of course it's easier for marketing to just let the visiting team buy all the tix at elevated rates and not waste time and money building up your own fan base.



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You are absolutely right - it's not BYU's problem, it's our problem. BYU set the standard, it's up to us to fill our high school gym and all the WCC schools could do that with a consistently good, winning program. In the Gathers/Kimble/Final 8 era, you couldn't get into Gersten unless you were a season ticket holder or got one of the coveted, very limited visiting team tickets. When we went on the road, the arenas were packed. Only our deluded university president at the time, who couldn't stand college sports, decided not to rehire Paul Westhead and one of the most entertaining teams in the history of college basketball was cast aside. Who knows, if we continued as we were going, the team from the Marriott might be visiting the team in the Hilton.

Did that President get run out of town? There should have been an uproar. I remember that team.

I wonder if we will ever see a time when BYU students storm an opponents court, like say, Gonzaga this Thursday, if BYU sprung the upset. I'm not saying it would ever happen as I believe we've been led to believe that GU generally fills their seats, so I don't know how many BYU fans will travel to that game. I'm guessing, but of all the venuesin the WCC, doesn't Spokane probably have the fewest BYU alumni in the area than the other WCC venues?

That will be a true road game. Tickets are very hard to get. StubHub had a couple at $150. I am 3 hours away but will not be going.

scott715 wrote:
That will be a true road game. Tickets are very hard to get. StubHub had a couple at $150. I am 3 hours away but will not be going.

The Zags need a bigger house. $150 is ridiculous whether that was the price of one seat or total cost of two tickets. Well - I guess I would pay $75 for a court side seat - but only after significant, weeping, wailing, soul searching, and having mw wife's buy in so I don't have to hear about it for a year.



How much are the hot dogs and Zig Zag Tails?



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EM_Puma wrote:
I wonder if we will ever see a time when BYU students storm an opponents court, like say, Gonzaga this Thursday, if BYU sprung the upset. I'm not saying it would ever happen as I believe we've been led to believe that GU generally fills their seats, so I don't know how many BYU fans will travel to that game. I'm guessing, but of all the venuesin the WCC, doesn't Spokane probably have the fewest BYU alumni in the area than the other WCC venues?

There are a lot of LDS in Washington. Tri-city area in central Wash (Pasco, Richland, Kennewick) is estimated to be about 20 percent LDS. I'm originally from the state with most of family spread across it. All are quite interested in going to the game. Problem has been no available tickets, or at least ones your average LDS family can afford.



My sister and brother-in-law were hoping to go, but don't feel inclined to spend $350 (tickets, gas, food) to go.



Don't expect many BYU fans there.

There is a temple in Spokane and the Tri-cities (Columbia River which is mine).