Upper deck Prudential

RUChoppin

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Dec 1, 2006
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There’s always TV. No parking fees, no traffic, $14.00 beers,etc.
Right, and there's a portion of every fan base that would rather stay home than attend in person. SHU may feel they are already maxing out the portion of their fan base willing to shell out money for a ticket. If they had another 20,000 fans clamoring for seats right now, the upper deck would 100% be open and filled with a sea of blue. But the demand just isn't there.
 
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MTOleBlue

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Sep 30, 2015
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Right, and there's a portion of every fan base that would rather stay home than attend in person. SHU may feel they are already maxing out the portion of their fan base willing to shell out money for a ticket. If they had another 20,000 fans clamoring for seats right now, the upper deck would 100% be open and filled with a sea of blue. But the demand just isn't there.
Allegedly over 1,400 more student tickets have been sold for the game tomorrow. Not sure if that's true or not. But if so, the upper level above the student section might be full as well.
 
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HPNJRUfan

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Mar 6, 2003
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Advertising and discounts aren't going to increase the size of their fan base that is willing to drive to Newark and watch a game on a Sunday.

They have an undergrad enrollment of less than 6,000, and a total enrollment of just about 10,000. Their alumni base is less than a fifth of ours, and I don't know how much their fandom spreads outside of their fan base and people who grew up in South Orange. They may just not have the butts to fill the seats, no matter the incentive.
This. Maybe its because I'm not from Essex County - but I have never met a single person that was an alum, or even had family that went to SHU.

Honestly don't really care if SHU is on the schedule or not. Give me Princeton back.
 

RUChoppin

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Not sure how you say above? Every game is usually a great game and sold out.

Has there ever been a true sellout game at the Rock, or just artificially created ones? I've been to two up there, and neither time was the whole venue opened up.

Edit: Just checked - they've never had a true sellout at at the Rock. It holds 18,711 for basketball and they set an attendance record last March vs. Villanova with 16,863. They rent a building they have no hopes of ever filling with their own fans, and haven't even filled it when playing a Top 15 team whose campus is just an hour and a half drive away.
 
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HPNJRUfan

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Has there ever been a true sellout game at the Rock, or just artificially created ones? I've been to two up there, and neither time was the whole venue opened up.

Edit: Just checked - they've never had a true sellout at at the Rock. It holds 18,711 for basketball and they set an attendance record last March vs. Villanova with 16,863. They rent a building they have no hopes of ever filling with their own fans, and haven't even filled it when playing a Top 15 team whose campus is just an hour and a half drive away.
This, again. Like I said in my last post, I don't know if I've ever actually met someone associated with SHU. They are irrelevant - unless you're a Guido from Nutley I suppose...

Obviously this is a bit of an artificial condition I've created, but given the choice idk how anyone would chose playing SHU over Princeton. Hell, the NJIT game was more interesting to me personally, given the number of alums I work with... With all that being said, I hope we kick the crap out of the $65k/yr commuter college tonight.
 
May 11, 2010
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Has there ever been a true sellout game at the Rock, or just artificially created ones? I've been to two up there, and neither time was the whole venue opened up.

Edit: Just checked - they've never had a true sellout at at the Rock. It holds 18,711 for basketball and they set an attendance record last March vs. Villanova with 16,863.
They only open it up a few times per season.

16k is a pretty good sized crowd, twice the size of the RAC.

SHU AD cut off his nose to spite his face by not selling upper level Tix in September

Tonight would have had 17-18 thousand fans in attendance.

Their athletic dept could have use the cash considering the losses they experienced last year with no fans at games
 

RUChoppin

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Dec 1, 2006
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This, again. Like I said in my last post, I don't know if I've ever actually met someone associated with SHU. They are irrelevant - unless you're a Guido from Nutley I suppose...

Obviously this is a bit of an artificial condition I've created, but given the choice idk how anyone would chose playing SHU over Princeton. Hell, the NJIT game was more interesting to me personally, given the number of alums I work with... With all that being said, I hope we kick the crap out of the $65k/yr commuter college tonight.

I grew up in West Orange, living about half way between SHU and Seton Hall Prep - and my father's family grew up in South Orange. So my bubble is a bit different.

But they just don't have a huge alumni base, or much support as you travel more than 10-15 miles away from their campus. To fill 18K seats with SHU fans, you'd need probably every living alumnus over the last 12+ years to show up.
 
May 11, 2010
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I grew up in West Orange, living about half way between SHU and Seton Hall Prep - and my father's family grew up in South Orange. So my bubble is a bit different.

But they just don't have a huge alumni base, or much support as you travel more than 10-15 miles away from their campus. To fill 18K seats with SHU fans, you'd need probably every living alumnus over the last 12+ years to show up.
What college team consistently draws 18k per game ?

Im from Clifton , there were a fair amount of SHU fans , the Meawowlands arena was right down the road.

One of my cousins, from Lyndhurst, became a rabid fan of theirs and he has no connections to the school.
*That chooch is taking a friend to the game tonight instead of me 😠

Granted their are many RU alums in Bergen County as well but I’d bet there are more SHU hoops fans than RU hoops fans in Clifton
 
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hinson32

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Jul 29, 2005
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Has there ever been a true sellout game at the Rock, or just artificially created ones? I've been to two up there, and neither time was the whole venue opened up.

Edit: Just checked - they've never had a true sellout at at the Rock. It holds 18,711 for basketball and they set an attendance record last March vs. Villanova with 16,863. They rent a building they have no hopes of ever filling with their own fans, and haven't even filled it when playing a Top 15 team whose campus is just an hour and a half drive away.
Seton Hall has NEVER had lower attendance than Rutgers going back 30 years. I wouldn't harp on attendance. Our school has 10X the alumni base, and they still outdraw is.
 

RUChoppin

Heisman
Dec 1, 2006
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What college team consistently draws 18k per game ?

Im from Clifton , there were a fair amount of SHU fans , the Meawowlands arena was right down the road.

One of my cousins, from Lyndhurst, became a rabid fan of theirs and he has no connections to the school.

Granted their are many RU alums in Bergen County as well but I’d bet there are more SHU hoops fans than RU hoops fans in Clifton

Not about consistently.... it's about ever, even for their biggest games. SHU has an arena that holds 18K, and in 14 years haven't come within 2K of selling it out once. The only games that have the potential to do it are Villanova and Rutgers, and they won't open it up for Rutgers.

7 B1G teams average 14K+ over the entire season, and 8 have arenas that hold 15K+.... for rivalry games or games against Top 10-15 schools, those arenas are packed with huge markups on secondary sale sites.

As for Clifton, that's still in the 15 mile radius from campus, so I'd expect there to be more affinity for SHU than average in NJ.
 

RUChoppin

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Seton Hall has NEVER had lower attendance than Rutgers going back 30 years. I wouldn't harp on attendance. Our school has 10X the alumni base, and they still outdraw is.

They have an arena that holds 18,711 and ours holds 8000.... and you're telling me they average a higher attendance? :shocked face:

Seton Hall also frequently averages more attendance than Duke, whose arena holds just 9300 people. If you put Seton Hall, Rutgers, and Duke in a 50K space as the home team in a rivalry game..... who will sell more tickets right now?

SHU has had some pretty sustained success for a while, and they have a pretty strong average attendance... but their ceiling is going to be lower. In a peak game with media hype, Rutgers will be able to bring way more people to any given event than SHU can, simply because there are like 6-10x as many alumni to draw from and Rutgers is the NJ flagship state university.
 
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hinson32

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They have an arena that holds 18,711 and ours holds 8000.... and you're telling me they average a higher attendance? :shocked face:

Seton Hall also frequently averages more attendance than Duke, whose arena holds just 9300 people. If you put Seton Hall, Rutgers, and Duke in a 50K space as the home team in a rivalry game..... who will sell more tickets right now?

SHU has had some pretty sustained success for a while, and they have a pretty strong average attendance... but their ceiling is going to be lower. In a peak game with media hype, Rutgers will be able to bring way more people to any given event than SHU can, simply because there are like 6-10x as many alumni to draw from and Rutgers is the NJ flagship state university.
You might have a case if we averaged 8K or close to it, but we don't. It is just stupid to call out Seton Hall on attendance, when it's better than ours.

The order would be Duke, Seton Hall than RU. Duke sells out their arena.
 

RUChoppin

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You might have a case if we averaged 8K or close to it, but we don't. It is just stupid to call out Seton Hall on attendance, when it's better than ours.

The order would be Duke, Seton Hall than RU. Duke sells out their arena.

You're the only one talking about average attendance. This thread is on opening the upper deck, which is about peak attendance - those are two different things.

SHU has never sold out the Rock, and aren't likely to. That doesn't take away their 8-11K average attendance, just that they're not going to fill an 18K arena, and haven't really come close even with a close-drive marquee opponent like Villanova (got to 90% capacity twice).

They do a good job getting people to attend games overall, as you'd expect from a perennial winning program (only 2 sub-.500 seasons in the last 15)... but their peak just isn't much higher than their average. Which is why it's not in their best interest to open the upper deck tonight, because they likely can't come close to filling it and it would be overrun with Rutgers fans instead.
 

hinson32

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You're the only one talking about average attendance. This thread is on opening the upper deck, which is about peak attendance - those are two different things.

SHU has never sold out the Rock, and aren't likely to. That doesn't take away their 8-11K average attendance, just that they're not going to fill an 18K arena, and haven't really come close even with a close-drive marquee opponent like Villanova (got to 90% capacity twice).

They do a good job getting people to attend games overall, as you'd expect from a perennial winning program (only 2 sub-.500 seasons in the last 15)... but their peak just isn't much higher than their average. Which is why it's not in their best interest to open the upper deck tonight, because they likely can't come close to filling it and it would be overrun with Rutgers fans instead.
Who cares, we wouldn't fill an 18K arena either. It is their home game, they can do what they want. Their best interest is to win the game, which is easier to do with less RU fans. If RU choose $$ over a home field advantage we would go nuts. I remember RU fans hating that we gave up a home game to play Army at the Meadowlands instead of at Rutgers Stadium.
 

e5fdny

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Nov 11, 2002
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Who cares, we wouldn't fill an 18K arena either. It is their home game, they can do what they want. Their best interest is to win the game, which is easier to do with less RU fans. If RU choose $$ over a home field advantage we would go nuts. I remember RU fans hating that we gave up a home game to play Army at the Meadowlands instead of at Rutgers Stadium.
If Prudential offered what the Giants and the Jets paid…I’m listening.
 

RUChoppin

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Who cares, we wouldn't fill an 18K arena either. It is their home game, they can do what they want. Their best interest is to win the game, which is easier to do with less RU fans. If RU choose $$ over a home field advantage we would go nuts. I remember RU fans hating that we gave up a home game to play Army at the Meadowlands instead of at Rutgers Stadium.

It doesn't help that it's a Sunday night game during the tail end of a pandemic, either. Friday/Saturday night game at an 18K-seat-RAC with #23 Rutgers as 10pt favorites coming off a win over #7 Texas playing an unranked SHU squad that just knocked off the #1 team in the country? I'd expect it to be a sellout and 75-80% scarlet.

But yes, they can do what they want, and I'm not arguing that. My comments have all been around why they wouldn't want to open it - namely that they wouldn't be able to fill it with SHU fans to maintain their home court advantage. If they have 11K tickets sold right now and opened it up another 7K seats.... my guess is 5K of that would probably go to RU fans, and the stadium would be almost 40% scarlet. Makes no sense for them to do that for a little extra gate money.

Even if they opened it up weeks ago exclusively to SHU season ticket holders and opened it to the general public just a week before tipoff, I don't think it would change that math too much.
 

zebnatto

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I get that here on a Rutgers board this is a good talking point, but SHU is just looking for every advantage they can get. Their prerogative.
 

Danprusa_4

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Seton Hall has NEVER had lower attendance than Rutgers going back 30 years. I wouldn't harp on attendance. Our school has 10X the alumni base, and they still outdraw is.
I believe the first part, but there’s no way you’re little community college school has 10x the alumni base as us. We might only have 2x the alumni base going to games because of how we’ve been playing and the bad losses. Are you telling me SHU could fill our whole football stadium with blue? No way. You don’t have the alumni or fans for that.
 

cm_13

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I believe the first part, but there’s no way you’re little community college school has 10x the alumni base as us. We might only have 2x the alumni base going to games because of how we’ve been playing and the bad losses. Are you telling me SHU could fill our whole football stadium with blue? No way. You don’t have the alumni or fans for that.
That poster was saying our alumni base (Rutgers) has 10x the Alumni base and they (Seton Hall) still outdraw us
 

Danprusa_4

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Good point. All the RU football games I went to this year and we talk about attendance??
Haha good point too. F attendance let’s talk rivarly with games and not who’s parents ****** more and had more kids.
That poster was saying our alumni base (Rutgers) has 10x the Alumni base and they (Seton Hall) still outdraw us
oh okay I was about to say. Either he worded it wrong or I’m already a little tipsy lol
 
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GoodOl'Rutgers

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Sep 11, 2006
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3 pages of internet real estate dedicated to crying about a decision made by a small catholic university.
2.5 of those pages are fans of a "small catholic university" whining about the opinions of Rutgers fans.

Bottom line: There is no reason to play SHU anymore when they do crap like this.