In an interview with Channel 94.1 the other day Trev Alberts stated they were not “able to drive a attendance up” for UNO Athletics. How will going to DI Change that? Are people going to magically become Mav Fans? Are they going to waive a magic wand and get more that 500 people to show up for a men’s basketball game. They must be relying on magic because they are not relying on solid business principles. From invesopedia “Supply and demand is perhaps one of the most fundamental concepts of economics and it is the backbone of a market economy. Demand refers to how much (quantity) of a product or service is desired by buyers. The quantity demanded is the amount of a product people are willing to buy at a certain price; the relationship between price and quantity demanded is known as the demand relationship. Supply represents how much the market can offer. The quantity supplied refers to the amount of a certain good producers are willing to supply when receiving a certain price”. There is a supply of UNO Athletics, but is there a demand?

From the OWH ”The reasons behind the move, the campus leaders said, haven't changed. UNO's Division II athletic department was simply failing financially, the school was unable to generate significant revenues outside of hockey, its lone Division I sport”. Let’s go DI and our basketball teams will be just like our hockey program! Makes sense right? Not so much. People go to UNO Hockey Games because the closest option for college hockey is either Minneapolis or Denver. There is a demand for college hockey and little supply. If Creighton and Nebraska both offered Men’s Ice Hockey increasing the supply would UNO have the attendance that they currently have? I doubt it. Yet they are taking that gamble with Men’s Basketball. The problem is that there is a lot of supply and not a lot of demand.

Universities in their current conference the MIAA and DII members of their former conference have managed to drive attendance. How have they accomplished it all in towns much, much smaller than Omaha? The same way UNO gets high attendance numbers at their hockey games. There is a demand and little supply. They are the only show in town. People will attend the events even if it is DII Athletics. I have listed schools below that have much higher attendance than UNO across the board. It appears that a DI move would be much more lucrative for these schools. Why would they not make the move and cash in? Could it be that DI is not as lucrative the Alberts and Christensen have indicated? Ask Centenary a current Summit League team that average 553 people per game for Men’s Basketball this past season. They are jumping off the DI gravy train Alberts and Christensen are jumping on moving to DIII.


Football

Rank School G Attendance Average
10. Central Mo. 6 53,185 8,864
13. Northwest Mo. St. 6 47,038 7,840
15. Pittsburg St. 6 43,443 7,241
22. Washburn 6 33,449 5,575

Men’s Basketball
MIAA Top 25 DII Attendance Average 2038
Rank Division II G/S Attendance Avg. Rank Division II G/S Attendance Avg.
6. Fort Hays St. 14 34,972 2,498
7. Augustana (SD) 15 37,463 2,498
10. Pittsburg St. 12 26,998 2,250
11. Washburn 13 28,160 2,166
12. Central Mo. 14 29,807 2,129
18. Mo. Southern St. 14 25,209 1,801
19. Emporia St. 14 24,627 1,759
24. Mo. Western St. 13 21,655 1,666
26. Minn. St. Mankato 17 27,538 1,620

Woman’s Basketball

DIVISION II
Rk. School G Att. Avg.
2. Fort Hays St. 14 30,995 2,214
3. Emporia St. 13 27,529 2,118
4. St. Cloud St. 13 27,044 2,080
5. Washburn 13 26,401 2,031
6. Pittsburg St. 12 23,111 1,926
8. Augustana (SD) 18 28,068 1,559


Volleyball

1.Neb.-Kearney.................................................................. 16,889 19 889
4. Wayne St. (NE)................................................................ 8,329 11 757
7. Augustana (SD) ............................................................. 6,610 10 661
10. Emporia St. ...................................................................... 6,299 11 573
11. Central Mo. ...................................................................... 10,085 18 560
15. Washburn ........................................................................ 7,101 14 507
26. St. Cloud St. ..................................................................... 4,173 10 417
27. Truman .............................................................................. 4,117 10 412
32. Pittsburg St. .................................................................... 3,667 10 367
35. Mo. Southern St. ........................................................... 4,983 14 356

Well thought out post and it makes a lot of sense.

I live in Chicago, Michael Jordan's town. We have many colleges and many basketball teams. Much like you said the supply and demand does not match and no one benefits. At the DI level we have Univ of Illinois - Chgo, Chicago State - commuter school like UNO that went DI, dropped wrestling for bball and should not have, Northwestern, Loyola, and De Paul. University of Chicago is DIII. All are within 20 minutes of each other and within the Chicago boundaries. In addition there are various other schools in the Chicagoland area or collar counties. Lewis Univ, Illinois Benedictine, College of DuPage, North Central, Calumet College (IN), St Francis, Robert Morris are all within 30 minutes of downtown Chicago. Valparaso is a mid major NCAA qualifier that is 45 minutes away. Big Ten U of IL- Champaign is an 1 1/2 hour away as well as Milwaukee (Marquette) and Indianapolis. Notre Dame and Purdue are 2 hours away.

All of these schools have quality basketball teams but they all fight to get people to come to a game on a given night from a 2.6 million population. The only team guaranteed a sellout is the pro team, the Chicago Bulls. Win or lose they fill the United Center.

If a major market with 3 million people in a hotbed of basketball struggles to support much better teams than UNO has how I wonder will UNO do it with much less. Trev should of researched other schools in similar situations and he would of been able to make a more informed decision. Our Chicago State would of been the perfect one. They scrapped a perfectly good DI wrestling team to support a weak basketball program. When CSU made the move to DI they were a power in NAIA in basketball(top ranked in '76-78), swimming, "hockey" and wrestling. Twenty five years later they have built dorms and an 18,000 seat arena that only gets 500 on a good night. Oh and their first conference was the Mid -Continent which was the Summit League before they changed the name. The national power NAIA teams of swimming, hockey and wrestling are gone. So are the last five AD's that tried to make the basketball dream work. countless coaches have been fired. The team routinely can not sign top talent in it's own city and get's players that places like Duke don't even look at. But many of Duke's best players like Jon Schyer grew up 15 minutes away from the beautiful Chicago State campus. Kids have different dreams than AD's, Regent's and Chancellors.

Pay attention Trev-everyone loses when your supply has NO DEMAND. Do your homework and check it TWICE before you turn it in. I am afraid that UNO just became Chicago State. So sad!

Click this link to see NCAA basketball attendance stats for all leagues and teams in all NCAA divisions.

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/co...2b01b8b6be967b4a3893

This message has been edited. Last edited by: The Observer,

I think this will go down as the biggest bonehead move in the history of UNO. They have bet the farm on this move. They actually think this move will boost their enrollment to 20k. Totally delusional. Big brother (UNL) is never going to let little brother (UNO) come close to that. I guess Trev also needs to learn what a Mid-Major Conference is. It does not take a genius to figure out that the Summit League is not one of them. He also refers to former peers such as SDSU, NDSU, USD and UNC. Again there schools control their markets. SDSU and NDSU are the "it" universities in their states. They are their states equivelents of the Huskers. USD is a close second to SDSU, but they control SE SD and NE IA. UNC is in a huge population area of 4.3 million. UNO is not even third fiddle in Omaha. They are more like 5 fiffle. Also when these schools made their moves they did not give the finger to their fans, alumni and boosters. I think they have serverly underestimated what the fan fall out from this will be. I was a Loper so I do not run in Mav circles, but I do know quite a few once hard core Mav Fans that will NEVER have anything to do with UNO again.

From Trev...
"According to Athletic Director Trev Alberts, his department's mission is to integrate with and contribute to UNO's academic pursuits, which include growing undergraduate enrollment to 20,000 students.

Take a look at the metropolitan campuses that have grown, Alberts said. What have their athletic departments done to help?

“It doesn't take a real genius to figure out there's a focus on mid-major basketball,” Alberts said.

Many of UNO's peers have earned bids to the prestigious men's NCAA basketball tournament. The most successful have upset major-conference powers, earning free publicity that can boost a university's profile for years"