A Sea Of Red

Each school year ball coach, probably attends more Liberty athletic events than anyone, and he has brought some tickets.

Purple Haize wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 11:16 am

Ill flame wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 11:08 am The free ticket idea would only be for away games. That we most likely won't have many fans for anyway.

Regardless. Bad idea and for the same reasons. Instead why not offer ticket packages for a game day experience? Say $20 for game ticket and official pre game tailgate with an opportunity to me <fill in celebrity here>. This way you are adding value instead of subtracting it. You are attempting to make it an even and you are trying to get these people to take a vested interest in you as opposed to the other way around

Way to copy my idea.

I like the direction your ideas are going. If we are going to play an independent schedule against schools from all over the country it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a pregame event before away games to try to bring as many liberty fans as possible to each game.
It would help grow the national fanbase we are looking for and develop a reputation for traveling well which helps with scheduling in the long term.

When were played at West Point, there was a pre game event.

Jonathan Carone wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 11:44 am

Purple Haize wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 11:16 am

Ill flame wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 11:08 am The free ticket idea would only be for away games. That we most likely won't have many fans for anyway.

Regardless. Bad idea and for the same reasons. Instead why not offer ticket packages for a game day experience? Say $20 for game ticket and official pre game tailgate with an opportunity to me <fill in celebrity here>. This way you are adding value instead of subtracting it. You are attempting to make it an even and you are trying to get these people to take a vested interest in you as opposed to the other way around

Way to copy my idea.

I did? I call it common sense for people who’ve done this before

Look at the post immediately above yours. We posted basically the same thing a minute apart.

My wife and I are traveling to the Bowling Green game on October 3rd, 2020. This is the closest Liberty is playing to our home in western Chicago suburbs. It's a 4 hour 35 minute drive. Will be our first opportunity to see LU Football live in person.

I will be curious to see what kind of showing Liberty has at that game as it is not close to Lynchburg. Can we get 500 fans there?

I like what some of you are saying about marketing to LU online students or alumni in the greater Bowling Green/Toledo area. Do we know if our Athletic Marketing staff makes any efforts to boost attendance for road games by reaching out to Online students and/or Alumni?

Geraldos Mustache wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 12:28 pmDo we know if our Athletic Marketing staff makes any efforts to boost attendance for road games by reaching out to Online students and/or Alumni?

They do. But overall, the online student community has shown over the past 10-15 years that they really aren't that interested in Liberty athletics. That could change, and there are certainly outliers, but most online students are Liberty students for convenience more than anything else.

I will travel to UConn and Syracuse next year. I hope that we will have a planned pre-game gathering at both! We need to "officially" show up for road games that are within a reasonable distance of Lynchburg. Syracuse is little far, but the magnitude of the opponent offsets (IMHO) the distance.

I'd agree that LU is probably doing all it can off the field. Over the course of the past year, I've had more people recognize, and comment, about LU when I'm wearing LU attire. I've also had more conversations with people who said their high schoolers are looking at LU for post secondary. As for the increase in FB specifically....I think this year can serve as a good snap shot of what we need to build on. Winning consistently and going to a bowl game. Bowl games=exposure, which i think brings people to being curious about LU generally and our FB program specifically. My men's group has one LU grad in it.....me....but all of those guys root for LU now, unless we are playing their alma mater or favorite team. Me talking about our FB team, HCHF, and the progress of the program and bowl game has created a default FB program for them to root for. IMHO....the best way to increase our fandom besides what the university is doing off the field and what the team is doing on the field, is through the current fan base.

My wife and I always grab a couple extra season tickets so we can invite other friends to come to FB games. This year we brought couples to three football games that knew nothing about LU other than my affiliation and well.....Jerry Jr. They had a great time, were really impressed with the university, developed a more positive perception of our university, AND now follow LU football because they have a better reference and experience to do so....

Not saying they will be die hard fans....but I think it's a start. All these folks have kids in Christian peer groups who are progressing toward higher education. Who knows what their "new LU exposure" might evolve into.

Liberty is pretty popular in the military community because of it's convenience but most who attend Liberty Online have very little interest in their athletics programs. I am not sure why that is the dynamic with online students but it is the reality. If we could find a way to tap into that group then we would really accelerate our nationwide popularity.

Win.

thepostman wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 12:54 pm Liberty is pretty popular in the military community because of it's convenience but most who attend Liberty Online have very little interest in their athletics programs. I am not sure why that is the dynamic with online students but it is the reality. If we could find a way to tap into that group then we would really accelerate our nationwide popularity.

JK37 wrote:Win.

Win some notable games and suddenly those online students won't be so hesitant to identify with and support the Flames.

A few years back, I was searching for a way to watch the West Virginia / LU football game. At that time, game was on no network or app. I discovered that WV had a Charlotte chapter of their fan club. Furthermore, I discovered that they had established a relationship with Whiskey River in Charlotte to pipe in their games so they could have a watch party every week.

Long story shorter, I posted info on this site about the watch party. My wife and I were shocked when we went to watch the game. I would estimate that at least a third to half of the crowd were young, mobile LU grads wearing their colors. They had a great time socalizing.

I don't care if a game is easily seen on tv now days, if you have one establishment in each large city having a LU watch party, I think you might be surprised to see the results. Young people, either single or married sometimes just need a reason to gather together. If they know that others will be there, they will come.

thepostman wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 12:54 pm Liberty is pretty popular in the military community because of it's convenience but most who attend Liberty Online have very little interest in their athletics programs. I am not sure why that is the dynamic with online students but it is the reality. If we could find a way to tap into that group then we would really accelerate our nationwide popularity.

If LU knew certain bases had a threshold number of online, they could work with military affairs(at LU) and with the Force Support groups on the ground to get a group together for games. Most large online schools don't have the athletics, so LU could probably do it without it becoming too cumbersome on the military side of things.

The last few posts above are all excellent posts. My favorite one was the one that said , "win".

Winning and going to bowl games will be the single most important factor in growing the fan base, outside Lynchburg . And go to different bowl venues vs Power 5 teams.

When growing the fan base, include all sports. We don't want to develop a reputation as a One Sport School.

One thing that will help get us attention across the nation specifically to key groups mentioned above. That is the growth and development of academia. Not to long ago, LU posted this about the school of engineering:

https://www.liberty.edu/engineering/adv ... gineering/

This is huge for the university, since this field is a big value along with medicine, law, Science and government. What matters more is academia, that will give us more respect along with the growh of athletics. If you look at most of the AAC, most of their schools are R2 (look up Carnegie classifications for higher learning [https://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/ ... /basic.php] for more details). We are only R3 and should proceed to receive an R2 in the upcoming classification year. Of course almost all P5 schools are R1. This is what establish schools to connect and established conferences since its foundation. The money is there and our athletics can grow , but we need to continue working on academia. We will never get a chance to get into the AAC or even a power 5 in the future if our academia is low. Now we will have more interest of coming to school if there is value to academics from Christians all over the nation/world. If you think it's mostly because of Jerry's tweets, then I don't know what to tell you. There are students (and I've talked to many about this) who don't like Jerry much but loves the school and what is has and what is to come as more studies become accredited. We have to be a valuable school school first and then having great athletic programs is a bonus (fan support and donations). That's just my humble opinion.

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 3:45 pm The last few posts above are all excellent posts. My favorite one was the one that said , "win".

Well, crap. If that isn’t a kiss of death to an idea, I don’t know is what is.

cruzan_flame13 wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 5:17 pm One thing that will help get us attention across the nation specifically to key groups mentioned above. That is the growth and development of academia. Not to long ago, LU posted this about the school of engineering:

https://www.liberty.edu/engineering/adv ... gineering/

This is huge for the university, since this field is a big value along with medicine, law, Science and government. What matters more is academia, that will give us more respect along with the growh of athletics. If you look at most of the AAC, most of their schools are R2 (look up Carnegie classifications for higher learning [https://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/ ... /basic.php] for more details). We are only R3 and should proceed to receive an R2 in the upcoming classification year. Of course almost all P5 schools are R1. This is what establish schools to connect and established conferences since its foundation. The money is there and our athletics can grow , but we need to continue working on academia. We will never get a chance to get into the AAC or even a power 5 in the future if our academia is low. Now we will have more interest of coming to school if there is value to academics from Christians all over the nation/world. If you think it's mostly because of Jerry's tweets, then I don't know what to tell you. There are students (and I've talked to many about this) who don't like Jerry much but loves the school and what is has and what is to come as more studies become accredited. We have to be a valuable school school first and then having great athletic programs is a bonus (fan support and donations). That's just my humble opinion.

Louisville got into ACC with low academics. When conferences admit new members, athletics outweigh academics in my opinion.

Louisville is also in a big city. If liberty was closer to Charlotte or DC conferences would be more willing to ignore stuff like that

I dream of the day that LU plays a SEC team in a Bowl game, that's televised on ESPN to a national audience. That will spread the Liberty message to millions.

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑January 21st, 2020, 10:28 am I dream of the day that LU plays a SEC team in a Bowl game, that's televised on ESPN to a national audience. That will spread the Liberty message to millions.

What is the Liberty message?

SumItUp wrote: ↑January 21st, 2020, 2:45 pm

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑January 21st, 2020, 10:28 am I dream of the day that LU plays a SEC team in a Bowl game, that's televised on ESPN to a national audience. That will spread the Liberty message to millions.

What is the Liberty message?

#Risen

Anyone on this board who doesn't know the Liberty message, should come to campus and find out for yourself.

SumItUp wrote: ↑January 21st, 2020, 2:45 pm

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑January 21st, 2020, 10:28 am I dream of the day that LU plays a SEC team in a Bowl game, that's televised on ESPN to a national audience. That will spread the Liberty message to millions.

What is the Liberty message?

Conservatives good. Libruhls bad.

Oh. And Jesus.