Best Thing/ Worst Thing
- Thread starter Natty
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Natty said:
I personally am ecstatic with the unprecedented access that VCU has granted to non-traditional media outlets (VCURamNation, CAAZone, RVANews, etc). In an age where many leagues (and even the NCAA) are doing their best to blackball these outlets, VCU has embraced us with open arms. Like it or not-- blogs, message boards and social news websites are quickly surpassing traditional newspapers as a legitimate source for breaking news.
Sure, there is no question that the accuracy of sites like these is often questionable, but that is the nature of the beast. When you want to see what recruits VCU has visiting campus this week, where's the first place you go? Want to see if VCU got a new commitment? Do you go to RamNation, or the RTD? Newspapers are dinosaurs that quickly fading to extinction. There are many schools, conferences and organizations (i.e., the NCAA) that refuse to even acknowledge these outlets. VCU has gone out of their way to embrace "new media" and utilized it in a way that is beneficial to the outlet, and the university.
Hard to say here. I'm VERY happy with the state of VCU athletics so it would really take some nit picking here. I guess if I had to steal one idea from another CAA school it would be to investigate hiring a director of gameday atmosphere (Hold your horses, RRR.) While other schools have done this, I believe their implementations have been anything but ideal. Done properly--it really could go long ways to not only turn the atmosphere to 11, but it could also help form a body of die hard Ram fans that will be around for years to come (Turn frat-tastic students that typically only come to a couple games a year to fans every bit as passionate as the Rowdy Rams (albeit, slightly less awkward). It could help convert the casual, big single ticket purchasing fans to season ticket holders. And even turn current season ticket holders to long term RAF donors.
VCU basketball is like heroin. You just need to give the general public a taste and they'll be hooked for life.
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xjohnx said:
Dammit, where's my needle and spoon?
The thing I would like to see the VCU athletic department do is incorporate more sports into the program. Softball, lacrosse, women's golf and (sigh) maybe football.
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RamChris said:
I'm not saying that we need to change anything now. I'm simply suggesting that it would be nice to have someone whose main focus is game day atmosphere. This person could address the smaller concerns like the speaker on the west end of the Stu that everyone complains about, to larger projects like organizing more frequent "chill and grill" type events, and who knows what else?
I love the atmosphere we have now. However, in order to sustain such a great atmosphere it requires constant work. My fear is that if we allow ourselves to become complacent and begin thinking that nothing can be (or needs to be) done to improve the atmosphere, then we may start to slip. The last thing I ever want to see is a crowd full of yellow sweater vests like our neighbors to the west.
Again, I'm not saying I would change anything with our atmosphere currently, but like every other part of the university (and businesses in general), you have to constantly reevaluate things to see if there is anything you can do to improve you further improve and differentiate your product.
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Natty said:
NOT HAVING FOOTBALL!!!!!!! Especially with all the buzz of ODU football, I think the worst move we could make is to start a football team. Most people think it's a win-win, but you have to understand there are so many things that make football impractical for VCU, not to mention most programs LOSE money on football. We are a basketball school, and it works very well for us.
I'm with one of John's points on this. We have a lot of greeks that come to games dressed in greek colors, sometimes their frat/sor has the same color as the opposing team! Maybe working with the greek council to establish a school spirit award for the frat/sor that can get the highest % members in black and gold at each home game, unless it's a blackout game, then gold shirts don't count!
Also along those lines:
xjohnx said:
What do you mean awkward? Okay, so Swiss is a regular in the ODU student section at the VCU game and maybe we get too loud for people around us when we're at an away game. And the chants. Alright, maybe you have a point, but that's the way we like it!
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Natty said:
I'd like to see more VCU Men's Basketball games streamed online. I think it's great that our AD provides free webcasts of our home gomes. However, the quality could be better...lots of buffering! It would also be nice to have webcasts of some (or all) away games too. I believe we did have a webcast of one of our road games a couple of years ago...JMU? Since we're already sending a play by play crew to call the away games, would it be that much more costly to provide a webcast?
Had it not been for xjohnx, I would have missed about half of our games last season. Thanks again xjohnx!
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Red_I_Ram said:
Why the worst? When you think of songs that all VCU fans really connect with the top three would be in no particular order VCU Fight song, Lux Aeterna, and VCU's version of the Hey Song.
(Not to mention the Hey song is the song that brings all VCU fans together on away games no matter what part of the arena their in)
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Rambler said:
Seconded.
I nominate xjohnx
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rollins77 said:
I thought our home game webcasts were shot on a handy cam. Ha! The quality is not very good but the price is right. I'd be willing to pay for this service if we could get better quality video. However, I have found that the pay per view webcasts are no better than the freebies provided by VCU.
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xjohnx said:
I wouldn't mind seeing Broad St. shut down every game day in order to create space for some chilling and grilling. Doing it in the middle of Broad might be a bit of an exaggeration, but if the entire fan base and surrounding community were allowed to pack up their grill and tailgate before every game (or even every Saturday night game) that would create a big time atmosphere around town that would be hard to ignore. Every VCU game could become a city wide event. One thing VCU has over other schools is that it is located in such a populated city, rather than a college town, that we could pick up a lot of fans that are not even alumni.