By Trisha Buchanan
Like may other local sports teams, the University of Ottawa and Carleton University are finding themselves working harder to put more fans in the seats.
With many professional and amateur sports teams in the city, fans have more choices of where to spend their time and money.
The universities have increased promotions to make sure fans are still aware of the varsity option.
The good news is, so far this year, it seems to be working.
“Our attendance has been up a bit from last year,” says Dawn Pickering, special events co-ordinator with the U of O.
“Not necessarily with football, but our basketball and volleyball teams are receiving more support.”
Pickering says improvements to the athletic facilities, including a brand new gym floor, have helped make their teams better and, in turn, more fans seem to be attending games.
According to Pickering, football attendance stayed pretty much the same as other years.
She cites the team’s home games being played at Frank Clair Stadium rather than on the U of O campus as a possible explanation for football attendance not rising like the other sports’ crowds.
Like the Gee-Gees, cross-town rivals at Carleton say attendance at Ravens’ events also seems to be up this year.
“Attendance is up overall,” says Drew Love, director of athletics at Carleton.
“We’ve only had two weekends of basketball and volleyball but at those games, student attendance seems to be up.”
Love says for basketball, student attendance has jumped as much as 30 per cent for the team’s home games so far this season.
Attendance for these games ranges from 400 to 600 fans per game. About half of the fans are students.
“We’ve always drawn very well from the community,” says Love.
“People know that the best basketball in Ottawa is at the university level.”
Even with good varsity support from the community, Carleton made some changes this year to increase the student fan base.
Carleton is offering free admission for students at football, basketball and volleyball games, bringing them in line with the university’s other sports which never charged student admission.
This program may have increased total attendance a bit, but Love says it hasn’t created a new student fan base as they had hoped.
“The program is being taken advantage of by the students who were already interested in attending the games,” says Love.
“It’s not creating a huge groundswell of interest where there wasn’t any interest before.”
So the question of how to create fan interest is still up in the air.
Officials at both schools agree having winning teams for fans to support is important, but that’s not always possible.
In that case, marketing and promotions can play a large part in getting more fans at games.
Varsity athletes at the U of O get involved by doing presentations in the school’s student centre and residences.
A new booth was also opened in the athletic building to sell Gee-Gees merchandise.
“Merchandise helps create an affinity with the school teams and school colours,” says Pierre Plante, manager of commercial development at the U of O.
“(The new booth) is in a main traffic area and sales are going well.”
At Carleton basketball games, promotions take the form of halftime events including shootout and free throw contests for T-shirts.
Starting after Christmas, the alumni will begin having draws at games for bigger prizes like television sets.
The promotions themselves may not be bringing new fans out.
But they can help make the games more fun for the fans who do show up, says David Kent, who co-ordinates promotions for Carleton football.
“They probably don’t come out just for the promotions,” says Kent.
“But they certainly helped ease the pain of 49 to nothing halftime scores.”
The fan file
The issue: Fan support for Ottawa varsity sports teams.
What’s new: Both the U of O and Carleton cite moderate increases in event attendance this year.
What it means: Marketing and promotions for both schools seem to be putting more people in the seats.
What’s next: Continued promotion to keep increasing attendance.