RE: Week 5 Attendance
Troy appears to do little or nothing to promote its games to people who live outside an hour of campus. Those people are desperately needed in order for attendance to grow and for games to sell out. The marketing people at Troy either do not realize that, do not have the manpower and/or money to market to other areas and alumni, do not have the imagination to do so, or are satisfied with what is now clearly a downward trend in attendance.
The other problem - which will take years and newly-grown fans to solve, and I believe will eventually solve itself as the culture of Alabama changes - is the two major programs in Alabama, and even some in Florida and Georgia, that win SEC and ACC titles and regular national championships. In particular, 'Bama's and 'Burn's titles in recent years have caused so many bandwagon fans to tilt toward them as to seriously affect Troy gameday ticket sales.
I am saddened to write that many, many Troy alumni and former students are rabid fans of these other major schools and, at best, casual fans or no fans of Troy. I have a number of former classmates, fraternity brothers and acquaintences I place in this category, some of whom I am forced to de-friend on Facebook (due to their "Roll Tide", etc. posts while their true school's team is playing), and a few with whom I have stopped communicating. It sickens me to lose friends, but it sickens me more to experience their lack of pride and support for, and ignorance of Troy and what it should mean to them.
Some of them are major boosters of other colleges such as Florida, where at least one fraternity brother buys a prime tailgate spot in Gainesville every year and outfits it for a king. I believe he is also a Bull Gator or whatever they call their major supporters. I once asked him (after the Troy-UF game, while he was dressed in orange and blue) why he supports a school to which he never attended, nor wanted him, and he explained that he always wanted to play football there. (This guy was not even big enough to play at Troy when Troy was in DII.) Another Florida friend is a big 'Bama fan because he always was, although I'm not sure he ever set foot in Tuscaloosa for any reason. His excuse is that he went to Troy State, not Troy University. I know, I laughed, too.
Some of these people come back to homecoming most or at least in some years, but do not attend any athletic events, optioning instead to watch their real teams on TV at the fraternity house. (I am sickened to write this.)
Others live and die by what 'Bama, 'Burn or Florida State do, and attend Troy games only when those other teams are not available in person or on TV. Some have rarely if ever been back to Troy since the DII and I-AA days and think of Troy as that little school they can like when their real team is down or when they feel like it, or that Troy is not part of real college sports. If they would at least come back and see how much Troy has grown, they might actually embrace their actual university.
Some of these people rationalize their allegiance for the other schools because these people were raised to be fans of those schools, or because Troy was not in the same division when they attended Troy; or because Troy doesn't play the two largest Alabama programs in football; or because they will only root for a nationally ranked, constant winner.
I have some ideas to attack some of these problems and have posted them in the past. But nobody seemed interested. I have been noticing and posting about a downward trend in Troy attendance for years, to no avail.
(This post was last modified: 10-03-2011 12:51 PM by BMarkey.)
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