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SycamoreStateofMind

SycamoreStateofMind

The Odum Level
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Todd Golden has taken time this weekend to tweet about the attendance woes of Sycamore athletics. He has been very critical of the lack of fans that showed up and for good reason. It's been discussed on here over and over so I won't get into that. But maybe Todd should look at his own employer before he reads this message board and starts making tweets based on what he reads here.

In the last 3 days IU Gloomington athletics have been in the Tribune Star Sports page. This morning on the front page of the sports page with a story about Zeller. On Saturday an IU football story, waste of space. Espeically when that space could have been filled with even a mention of the Mens Hoops squad opening it's season on Saturday? Not even a mention... Yes I know that Todd and Craig Person worked on a small article for Friday's paper. We are talking about a team that was in the Big Dance for the first time in 10 years last year and not even a mention??! Really? Glad you got that IU Gloomington football story in. They moved to what 1 and 9 this week? The lone win coming to the hands of MEAC power house South Carolina State? Give me a bleeping break.

This would give me reason enough to assume that the Tribune Star still believes that they have a viable market for IU Gloomington Athletics. So let me pose this question, if the local paper is still pushing/supplying/enabling local fans with information then why should it be unacceptable for other local businesses to support IU Gloomington within the confines of it's business? Todd Golden specificaly wanted to place blame, "I've seen some reax on the attendance, is no big deal, is what it is, that's just TH/ISU, uh really?" He's called out the city of Terre Haute and he's called out the University/Athletic Deparment. He's been awfully critical. Todd when your employer is part of the problem then you shouldn't be able to blame anyone.

Stop feeding us infortmation about IU Gloomington sports every week and you can say anything you want. I'm well aware (thanks to Tom James past explanation) how those articles are generated - I still don't agree with the placement of them. That said, in doing so your basically ackowledging the fact that we still have IU and PU fans in the Terre Haute area. Some of those same people support both IU and ISU, you won't find many of them on this board. They are the people who miss games, go to IU or PU games insted.

I've said it once and I will say it again, Terre Haute has an image problem and you don't have to look much further than that. Hell yes the Tribune Star still has a market for IU Gloomington and PU Laughablette and that is why they publish the articles and in-lies the problem.

How do you fix it? Lead the charage and stop supporting those schools. Don't ackowledge their presence in our area. Until you make that step don't talk to me about blaming Terre Haute, blaming Indiana State, blaming the atheletic deparement. It is what it is, this is what Terre Haute/Indiana State has become. Can it change? Sure. Have we started a change? Yes. Do we still have a long way to go? Very much so.

Winning is a good palce to start and we've been doing that. At what point does a 1 and 9 record from a school an hour from your processing plant deserve room in the paper? If it deserves space now then it's always going to get space...
 

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His tweet about seeing many TH residents and not as many students at Saturday's game is interesting as well. I get your point, SSOM, but is it really going to change the culture for the Tribstar to simply not run those IU stories? I guess it's a start. I can see not giving them big play, especially over ISU events. That is a valid criticism, but I'm not sure it makes a difference in the end.

The truth is, TH residents and ISU students do have the image problem you speak of. The sports teams have represented that quite well in recent years with their poor performances. The board of directors at the school who allowed that to happen are as much to blame as anyone (allowing a president and AD to let the problems go unaddressed). But the blame game is a bit pointless now. It has been addressed and now comes the long, slow redemption. It doesn't happen over night. One or two conference championships won't be enough.

As I've said, the attendance will grow as the culture grows. It will grow when students (even seniors like those I saw at homecoming) live and die with the team and don't leave at halftime - PATHETIC!!! In the meantime, Golden tweeting about it and people posting about it here - again and again - solves nothing. The only people reading those tweets and reading posts here are the people WHO ARE ALREADY GOING TO THE GAMES!!!! I think you and I have discussed that before. So we can have a half dozen threads bitching about it in the football forum but it does no good! Golden's columns don't do any good either because for the most part, the people not coming to the games aren't reading it.

Sorry, that's not all aimed at your issue here. Just venting a little. Operation 10k was a great idea. We need more like it and we can't give up over a few set backs attendance wise.
 
bent20 said:
His tweet about seeing many TH residents and not as many students at Saturday's game is interesting as well. I get your point, SSOM, but is it really going to change the culture for the Tribstar to simply not run those IU stories? I guess it's a start. I can see not giving them big play, especially over ISU events. That is a valid criticism, but I'm not sure it makes a difference in the end.

The truth is, TH residents and ISU students do have the image problem you speak of. The sports teams have represented that quite well in recent years with their poor performances. The board of directors at the school who allowed that to happen are as much to blame as anyone (allowing a president and AD to let the problems go unaddressed). But the blame game is a bit pointless now. It has been addressed and now comes the long, slow redemption. It doesn't happen over night. One or two conference championships won't be enough.

As I've said, the attendance will grow as the culture grows. It will grow when students (even seniors like those I saw at homecoming) live and die with the team and don't leave at halftime - PATHETIC!!! In the meantime, Golden tweeting about it and people posting about it here - again and again - solves nothing. The only people reading those tweets and reading posts here are the people WHO ARE ALREADY GOING TO THE GAMES!!!! I think you and I have discussed that before. So we can have a half dozen threads bitching about it in the football forum but it does no good! Golden's columns don't do any good either because for the most part, the people not coming to the games aren't reading it.

Sorry, that's not all aimed at your issue here. Just venting a little. Operation 10k was a great idea. We need more like it and we can't give up over a few set backs attendance wise.
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Agree with everything you have said. Obviously I realize that the Tribune Start isn't going to stop running stories about IU Gloomington sports. I mean they have a fan base that still thinks they have a basketball team of 20 years ago and thats delusional at best. My point was to point out what we are up against. We have a lot of "things" working against us. Simply put, a whole lot of blame to go around and blaming just ISU, just Terre Haute, just... You get the point.
 
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SycamoreStateofMind said:
We can all be a solution, but we all can't be blamed... It's not my fault things have got like this. It's not my fault Terre Haute is poor. It's not my fault the affluent of TH support IU and PU - not all, but enough.
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If you can be a part of the solution, then you can be a part of the problem. We need to do a better as does everyone.
 

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To craft a successful marketing program you have to start with facts and not suppositions

Have the athletic department engage a professional firm to conduct

– Marketing survey
– Program evaluation

Understand your audience.

Learn why people attend and why they don’t attend and what can be done to convince those fence straddlers to attend. Don’t waste energy or resources on the extremes – they aren’t going to change their minds. Your target is the vast middle.

but i don't think a boycott is a viable strategy in terms of reaching what you say are your goals.

No one is under any obligation to attend.

As for a boycott, the paper isn’t going to boycott because you ask it to. You have to boycott the paper and its advertisers first. You have to make it hurt. Ask Rosa Parks.
 
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SycamoreStateofMind said:
This would give me reason enough to assume that the Tribune Star still believes that they have a viable market for IU Gloomington Athletics. So let me pose this question, if the local paper is still pushing/supplying/enabling local fans with information then why should it be unacceptable for other local businesses to support IU Gloomington within the confines of it's business? Todd Golden specificaly wanted to place blame, "I've seen some reax on the attendance, is no big deal, is what it is, that's just TH/ISU, uh really?" He's called out the city of Terre Haute and he's called out the University/Athletic Deparment. He's been awfully critical. Todd when your employer is part of the problem then you shouldn't be able to blame anyone.

Stop feeding us infortmation about IU Gloomington sports every week and you can say anything you want.
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It's not the Tribune Star's job to be a publicist for ISU athletics. It's their job to sell papers. I feel like the Tribune Star has done a very good job covering ISU Sports. The Sunday paper was completely filled with ISU athletics. 3 articles on football and one on the basketball scrimmage.

The "butts in the seats"... it's going to take a while. I don't understand why people are all that upset about 6k people there. It could be more, sure... but what was it 2 years ago? You don't just change people's mind overnight... We know that there is a good product on the field, we talk about it, we cheer and tell people about the atmosphere... It's a large ship that will take time to turn. I've seen a lot of photos on Facebook about the game (from other fans), etc. That kind of thing will just keep building - as long as you have a competitive team on the field.

It's the same as Basketball... we will always have the 4-5k hard-core fans... it's going to take a while to get others on-board.

The students.... that's a completely different story.
 
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How big of a distribution area does the Trib-Star have? How far east does it go? I know it is bigger than Vigo county. I would agree that ISU should get the front page of the sports section over IU or PU but to think that they would do entirely away with stories about IU or PU is unrealistic. You have to figure that some of the advertisers have strong ties to those institutions to say nothing about members of the community, not everybody in Vigo county is a ISU alum.
 
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