All week long I anticipated that senior night at The Convo would be nothing more than a few of my friends and season ticket holders giving our goodbyes to our 3 deserving seniors. While I knew The Ozone would be depleted due to Spring Break I was pleasantly surprised to see a crowd of over 9600 for "The Battle of the Bricks". I know that locally Ohio provided vouchers for 2 free tickets to students in the schools. Apparently that was a far-reaching effort that involved many schools. The crowd was loud and supportive; lots of youngsters that will hopefully become future Bobcats.
Tip of the hat...job well-done!

I was absolutely amazed by the crowd last night. Too bad it was a tough game for a casual spectator.

Seems like a fine idea. The marginal cost to market to, and accommodate at the game, the local students can't be too high, right?

I talked with JS about the promotion last evening. This was the first time they had done this for basketball and it was the perfect storm.. Friday night game with no high school games anywhere in the area, decent weather, Miami, and free tickets. These were uncharted waters. Combine that with a 6:30 start and there were going to be bumps in the road. Piece of advice, buy season tickets and there will be no line to wait in for GA tickets. :)

That is stellar. Walk that one over to AD/marketing and Admissions

I could be wrong but the vouchers went to all of the elementary schools in the area. That's why you saw so many smaller kids and their parents.

Great idea. The university I consult with holds 4 open houses each winter/spring. Arts and athletic events are coordinated for those weekends. Really gets them hooked. The elementary idea is also a money maker. Give two tickets but mom and dad end up buying two more and the little ones chow down at the concession stand. Glad they brought in a good crowd for the seniors.

Bingo! On one hand a very good rule but on another a pretty silly one. People get excited about what they see and if they don't see it, they will never get excited. I think walk up tickets were $15 last night. $60 for a family of four is significant money especially to see two hours of something you're not sure about.

Honestly I don't know how that is a recruiting violation, Ohio wouldn't be sending the vouchers to potential student athletes just potential students. Although it shouldn't be surprising the NCAA has different classifications for bagels and bagels with cream cheese.

It's too bad something wouldn't work because the possibilities are endless. Families that actually redeem the vouchers or extremely discounted tickets can be targeted for other promotions. Imagine a ticket package for non alumni student parents that consisted of parents weekend in football, dad's weekend in basketball and other convenient dates like Friday. I'm picking Johnny Freshman up for spring break we got tickets for Friday's game might as well stay for it.

The Ozone can get the emails of all incoming freshmen that redeem the coupon and can recruit students that are actually interested in our teams.

I don't know the idea just hit me after reading the beginning of this thread. I know my dad would've invested in tickets for better than crappy seats for Dad's weekend.

Agree it was a great crowd. For the 2nd straight season because I am constantly hurrying, we walked in right as the pre-game senior ceremony was ending. It looked like the crowd for that was unfortunately fairly low, but by the time the game rolled around it was a great crowd.

The lobby was absolute chaos. I was unaware of the voucher thing but it seemed to work. I also wonders what those brown boxes of food people had were and why I didn't get one?

My seats are essentially the closest possible seats to the main entrance (front row sec 232), and I suspect it is for that reason that I have had to kick people out of my seats every single game for the last several years. People aimlessly wander in and just plop down thinking seat assignment doesn't matter. But on Friday, not only did I have the usual squatters but for some reason my section became an avenue for confused/lost people, many who thought the front row was some sort of walkway to the point my wife had to start telling people No. Maybe these vouchers bringing in non-regulars is the reasoning for this bizarre behavior.

Anyone else in the section 232/201/202 area by the main entrance know the reasoning for the really dumb barriers they put up to create an unnecessary bottleneck of people walking to the seats? The amount of overkill at the Convo in recent years continues to amaze me.