College Athletic Departments across the country are asking themselves how can they stop the steady decline of student attendance at their events. The Wall Street Journal found that from 2009 to 2014 student attendance at college football games decreased 7.1%. This problem has extended to other sports as well.
For college students, not only are there many more things to do in today’s day-in-age than watch a game but what 18 to 23 year-olds find fun in 2016 is not what it used to be. The changing environment of fun is for students hasn’t yet been captured by their schools. To understand why athletics has seen declining number of student patrons one must understand the patrons first.
College Kids – they love to party, they love to be uncensored, they love to make memories and they love to share those memories. What occurrence at a college basketball game hits all those marks in one swoop? A court storming. Take the Colorado Buffaloes upset of the ninth-ranked Arizona Wildcats Wednesday night which saw the fourth court storming in six years at the Coors Events Center. Each of these occurrences has been a highlight of the kids’ time on campus. Don’t believe me? Check out Instagram after the game.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BCMlkwUkp51/?tagged=buffs
This is just one of hundreds. Why is it such a big highlight for college kids? Because it’s pure, unfiltered, unadulterated fun that is a shared common experience with all of their peers.
The word “shared” means the same thing as it did ten years ago, the only difference is the medium of the sharing. For millennials sharing means social media and, like it or not, every single college kid is thinking about how many likes his or her post will garner. The like in a way is the approval that what you have posted had the intended reaction by the viewer, in this case, the viewer is almost approving of the poster’s fun.
At the Coors Events Center, like many college stadiums, WiFi is so hard to come by that even media can’t connect, there are few transcendent moments where a ‘sharer’ will actuality wait to post their content or tune in on the TV dial to watch themselves at a later time. When it comes to rushing the court and watching you and your buddies congratulate Colorado great Josh Scott in his second to last home game, that’s a moment that doesn’t just get likes for two days on Facebook, that’s a memory, perhaps the memory that college kid will pass on to his or her grandkids who then dream of going to the same school as their grandparent.
It seems like a pain to have the mindset of having to be there to prove that you were there, but that is the thought process of many in this generation. As LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy would shout into his microphone on the track Losing My Edge, “I was there!” Maybe that’s a selfish and cynical take but by proving you were there you further your place as a member of the community and as a subscriber to society that is larger than just an individual. In this generation (my generation) connection and human interaction aren’t a guarantee but we humans still crave to be part of a community.
That might be a bit deep, but chanting that your school is number one on its home floor after beating a conference foe, that’s something every fan dreams about. It doesn’t matter the age, the students want to celebrate with their classmates on the court who just triumphed over a rival. There’s no better party in the world, just ask Colorado’s student section, the proclaimed “biggest party in college basketball.”
In a 2015 report by the Student Attendance at Collegiate Sporting Events, it was reported that “67% of students agreed watching games is “more comfortable at home.” The study also stated that students favorite parts of the game-day experience were watching the live game action (23%) and the in-stadium atmosphere (17%).
What’s a better live game upset than an upset in hoops? And what is better than a court rush for in-stadium atmosphere?
Students at Colorado marked the Arizona game down because of the possibilities of a court rush. It’s the same reason the students don’t show up in force for an opponent like Washington State. The students want to be part of history, heck, they want to make it.
I understand the safety concerns of the court rush, but this for the love of the game.
College Basketball is pride and tradition. College Basketball is Gus Johnson or Bill Raftery shouting into a microphone. College Basketball is loving legacies and legends. College Basketball is history. College Basketball is a court rush.
College is not about being censored, in your political beliefs, your ambitions or in the team you cheer for. When you censor college kids they either become more aggressive or they depart the situation altogether. Albeit small, the CU Buffs student section has already been censored on a number of chants and posters. While I do agree that respect is important, I will say that when I think of College Basketball I’m more prone to think about Virginia Tech students’ chanting “Teabag Paulus,” than I am students who clapped for someone who did a good job. I’d also being willing to say I think of the school’s band when I think of College Hoops before I think of the arena’s DJ. Just as I think of a court rush as a thing pure to College Basketball before I think of any other postgame student reaction.
To take away the court rush would be to take away some of the love from the game, and continue the mantra of, “Why is it any better to go than it is to watch on TV?” Students have more tasks and activities in college than ever, the last thing they want is their free-time being dictated by “The Man.”
