Topic: The Big Green and Alumni Association wear too many hats.

[cincyherd]

We need more fans!  (Here I go again)

The Big Green and Alumni Association wear too many hats.

Big Green has a "business casual" mentality.  Marshall either doesn't realize that the "blue jean" crowd doesn't feel comfortable with the Big Green crowd, or it doesn't care. (I know you can join the BG for $50.)  The BG should only be the fundraising arm of the Athletic Dept.  The AD needs funds for scholarships and the BG is very important for that purpose.

The BG doesn't increase the fan base.  Our funding problem would decrease if we had more fans.  We need new fans.  New fans to buy tickets, sweatshirts,  hotdogs and bring their friends to the stadium to spend money.

Marshall needs to start an official office purposed to increase the fan base.  An office that doesn't beg for money all the time and disenfranchise the "blue jean" crowd.  It should not be the responsibility of the Alumni Office or Big Green to grow the athletics fan base.

Marshall has it backwards.  The more fans you have, the more BG members you'll have.  Also, some alumni hate athletics and the Alumni Association should not be charged with growing the athletics fanbase.

There's a missing piece to this puzzle.

East Carolina and Clemson are examples of this being very successful.

IMHO

[HerdEcon]

We do need more fans.  More fans with disposible income.  If we could just average 36,000 fans in seats for a few years I think we would see amazing things happen at Marshall.  No real excuse for the low number of fans in seats.

[marshallmark]

I'm on the MUAA board and I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. The MUAA rarely does anything related to athletics other than hosting social events before some games

[cincyherd]

My point is MU doesn't try to increase the fan base.

In the real world.........

It's hard for the Alumni Association to not unofficially help with this role.  My experience with working with the Cincinnati Alumni Club (20 yrs., haven't been active for 5 yrs), almost all the support was due to interest in MU athletics.  The Club was officially a part of the Alumni Association, but in reality it was also like a branch of the Big Green.  Unofficially raising funds for the Big Green and officially for the Alumni Association.

With no one officially working to increasing the fan base, it's only normal for the BG and AA to try to fill the void.

IMHO

[cincyherd]

We officially try to increase students, athletic scholarship donors and general donors.  We need to officially try to increase athletic fans.