Pitt Athletics Really Needs to Step Up Their Support of Baseball

[brdst11]

This team has won 16 home games in a row, and have won the first 2 games against a ranked opponent. Next week, they have one of the best teams in the country coming to Pitt.

Yet, attendance will likely be lackluster. Why? Most people in Pittsburgh (even Pitt fans) don't know anything about Pitt baseball or even that Pitt has a team.

Now that Pitt is in one of the top conferences in the country, there's no excuse not to do more to promote the team. Tickets are already extremely cheap and they play in a nice, new stadium. Why not treat Pitt baseball like a minor league game? Have giveaways, promotions, etc? How about having promotions for students so that some of them come to the games? It's a short walk from Sutherland and the new dorms yet almost none do.

Given what they've already invested in baseball, making these additional investments to get more attendance seems like a no brainer.

 

[mdpitt]

It could start on this site with a Baseball section instead of Olympic.

I'm a big sports fan with limited knowledge of our baseball program because this site doesn't cover it.

This site is essentially my "clearinghouse" for much of Pitt Athletics.

As an aside, it would be pretty interesting if PNC PARK could be a location for a Super Regional in 3-4 years so there is a time clock ticking for Pitt's rise and hope they could be part of it. It would be great exposure for the City and bring more visitors out of state than a 3 game series against the Cubs,Cardinals or Nationals.

 

[goalieman]

Re: It could start on this site with a Baseball section instead of Olympic.

Originally posted by mdpitt:
I'm a big sports fan with limited knowledge of our baseball program because this site doesn't cover it.

This site is essentially my "clearinghouse" for much of Pitt Athletics.

As an aside, it would be pretty interesting if PNC PARK could be a location for a Super Regional in 3-4 years so there is a time clock ticking for Pitt's rise and hope they could be part of it. It would be great exposure for the City and bring more visitors out of state than a 3 game series against the Cubs,Cardinals or Nationals.

This sight probably covers Pitt baseball and wrestling better then any other site of it's kind..... the coverage is by interested posters.

For example, the thread from yesterday's game started by "California Panther" gives the score of the game (many games there is an inning by inning update), the box score, season statistics, a game article from the Pitt website, my OBSERVATIONS from attending the game which gives a bunch of thoughts about the game that I don't think you will find anywhere else, and the information that Sunday's game will start at noon instead of 1 PM.... that's a lot of coverage of Pitt baseball right here on the "lair".

There are also a group of posters that do a good job of discussing Pitt wrestling.

Now, we don''t have media credentials and can't interview Coach Jordano and the players like Chris, Josh, and Matt can do with football and basketball but there is a lot of information discussed on this site regarding at least baseball and wrestling .... I'm old but still work 60 hours per week. However, when I retire, if Chris wants me to be involved with Pitt baseball for this site, I'll be available ..... LOL !!!!!!!!!

The biggest problem IMO is that the University of Pittsburgh Athletic Department doesn't do nearly enough in publicizing and promoting Pitt's Olympic Sports especially baseball and wrestling both of which could be very highly rated programs IMO.

 

[GoneFisching]

No offense, but if you are a dad in the Pittsburgh area, or just a casual baseball fan and you are not taking advantage of the opportunity to see live college baseball in a great venue, it's your fault. Personally I think it would be a great idea for Pitt to hire someone in their ticket office to send blast emails to their football and basketball season ticket holders or others that have bought individual tickets with "what's happening in Pitt athletics this week". They already send us some emails on what has happened, and they do have the calendar and stories about what's happening through their app, so maybe they need to hit people over the head with an invitation to watch Pitt play. I live in Charlotte and I've been to 8 Pitt baseball games the year, all in the Carolinas. Wish I lived closer.

 

[bwh05]

Re: It could start on this site with a Baseball section instead of Olympic.

You get what you pay for. Media relations is underpaid and understaffed compared to other like programs.

 

[Bakkush]

Re: It could start on this site with a Baseball section instead of Olympic.


If Pitt would hire a professional and experienced marketing director it would help their attendance in both baseball, football, women's basketball and even for the OOC men's basketball games. They have marketing and "promotional" personnel who have been in the program progressing primarily because they have stayed at the University, but have no real pros. Look at the Pirates marketing and the Penguins marketing and you see the vast difference. Even When both those teams were down they were drawing good crowds and young people who are now committed fans of both teams.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Re: It could start on this site with a Baseball section instead of Olympic.

Originally posted by Bakkush:

If Pitt would hire a professional and experienced marketing director it would help their attendance in both baseball, football, women's basketball and even for the OOC men's basketball games. They have marketing and "promotional" personnel who have been in the program progressing primarily because they have stayed at the University, but have no real pros. Look at the Pirates marketing and the Penguins marketing and you see the vast difference. Even When both those teams were down they were drawing good crowds and young people who are now committed fans of both teams.

Comes down to money. I'd love to see them promote baseball but they dont have the money to do it and even if they did, you'd wonder why they just wouldnt put that extra money towards football and basketball. They dont even advertise the Pitt baseball team at Pitt basketball games where they have a captive audience of Pitt fans.

An idea would be to print out 20,000 small flyers to give to people coming out of PNC Park adveritsing the UVa series but Pitt probably doesnt have it in their baseball budget to incur that type of expense.

 

[TIGER-PAUL]

are they on tv at all?

 

[brdst11]

Games this weekend aren't on TV but they are available on the net on ESPN3

 

[brdst11]

Re: It could start on this site with a Baseball section instead of Olympic.

SMF:

Pitt could do a lot of promotions while spending little or no money. They already have PR/marketing people on the payroll, along with interns. I understand that they're doing promos for Spring football but they have to be able to spare some time to promote baseball.

They also have plenty of ways to get the word out which don't cost money. They could have Coach Jordano appear on the FAN (which actually mentioned that Pitt was playing WVU today), they could get stories out in the local papers, and they could send out messages via email/twitter/facebook.

They could also put up signs in the dorms/around campus. They may actually be doing this because at the game tonight they announced that Saturday is "student Saturday" with prizes for students. If so, it's a great idea.

Pitt could also have promos/giveaways that wouldn't cost them anything if they were covered by sponsors. This would also improve the in-game atmosphere, making it more likely that people would come back to future games.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Re: It could start on this site with a Baseball section instead of Olympic.

Originally posted by brdst11:
SMF:

Pitt could do a lot of promotions while spending little or no money. They already have PR/marketing people on the payroll, along with interns. I understand that they're doing promos for Spring football but they have to be able to spare some time to promote baseball.

They also have plenty of ways to get the word out which don't cost money. They could have Coach Jordano appear on the FAN (which actually mentioned that Pitt was playing WVU today), they could get stories out in the local papers, and they could send out messages via email/twitter/facebook.

They could also put up signs in the dorms/around campus. They may actually be doing this because at the game tonight they announced that Saturday is "student Saturday" with prizes for students. If so, it's a great idea.

Pitt could also have promos/giveaways that wouldn't cost them anything if they were covered by sponsors. This would also improve the in-game atmosphere, making it more likely that people would come back to future games.

I'd like to see what you're saying but also besides money, to comes down to apathy. Pitt has a baseball team only because they are required to field a certain amount of D1 sports. They dont care about it in the least. They spend no money on it and devote little time to it.

 

[OriginalEther]

Re: It could start on this site with a Baseball section instead of Olympic.

I'm not sure how much promoting it would cost, but if I'm not mistaken, tickets are free, correct?
If so, I can see the hesitancy to spend money on something that isn't likely to make money anytime soon. Especially given how we have a fanbase that divides itself into hoops and football, with both sides taking swipes at each other.

Now, what I would like to know, is who determines whether or not the [baseball] team gets covered in the paper or not. I've quit reading both of them online, but I wouldn't see anything on them until maybe the end of the season, if things were going well. Whether that's the newspapers being lazy/ignoring the story, or the papers waiting for something for Pitt to put out, I don't know.

I don't think fan apathy is really the right term. I think a lot of fans just don't know about the team.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Re: It could start on this site with a Baseball section instead of Olympic.

Originally posted by OriginalEther:
I'm not sure how much promoting it would cost, but if I'm not mistaken, tickets are free, correct?
If so, I can see the hesitancy to spend money on something that isn't likely to make money anytime soon. Especially given how we have a fanbase that divides itself into hoops and football, with both sides taking swipes at each other.

Now, what I would like to know, is who determines whether or not the [baseball] team gets covered in the paper or not. I've quit reading both of them online, but I wouldn't see anything on them until maybe the end of the season, if things were going well. Whether that's the newspapers being lazy/ignoring the story, or the papers waiting for something for Pitt to put out, I don't know.

I don't think fan apathy is really the right term. I think a lot of fans just don't know about the team.

Its not fan apathy. Its apathy on the part of the administration. Most Pittsburghers dont even know Pitt has a baseball team and probably a large percentage of Pitt alums dont even know so you cant be apathetic if you dont know about it. My point was the administration doesnt care about baseball. They are doing as much as they can to remain competitive in football and basketball and its taking every dime to do that. The olympic sports simply exist.

And tickets are only free for students. They would get some type of ROI in terms of ticket sales if they promoted the program more but it would still be a net negative.

As for newspaper coverage, I've found it interesting that the Cincinnati newsaper covers the Cincy baseball team, a team very similar to Pitt in many ways (not a great program, MLB city, etc). At the very least, there should be game write-ups in the newspaper.

 

[fitzburgh]

How do you not know you have a baseball team?

Whenever I go on our official site to look up schedules or get some gear, it shows every sport. College baseball just isn't a big deal around here, that's the way it is. I agree about the game write ups though, at least a 3-4 sentence summary would be good.

 

[OriginalEther]

Re: It could start on this site with a Baseball section instead of Olympic.

Ok. I stand corrected on the cost of tickets part.

I don't think apathy is the right word for the fan's attitude. I think they would care, but they are presented with little to no information on the team from the local media. Makes it hard to follow them. Fan apathy I think is better reserved for the Pirates during the losing streak, or even Pitt football.

I'm sure the Pitt administration cares to some extent, but without being there to read their minds, that's something that's much harder to convince someone otherwise. Still, base (and wrestling) has been one of Pitt's better revenue sports, so I'm thinking there is at least some institutional support for the program, especially when you consider the financial issues Pitt has compared to other schools.

 

[brdst11]

Re: It could start on this site with a Baseball section instead of Olympic.

Tickets are $5. However, if one doesn't want to pay, you can watch the game from outside the park and go in when they shut down the ticket booth an hour or so into the game.

 

[Ray-Ray]

Re: It could start on this site with a Baseball section instead of Olympic.

Originally posted by mdpitt:
I'm a big sports fan with limited knowledge of our baseball program because this site doesn't cover it.

This site is essentially my "clearinghouse" for much of Pitt Athletics.

As an aside, it would be pretty interesting if PNC PARK could be a location for a Super Regional in 3-4 years so there is a time clock ticking for Pitt's rise and hope they could be part of it. It would be great exposure for the City and bring more visitors out of state than a 3 game series against the Cubs,Cardinals or Nationals.

+1. Baseball is not even an Olympic sport. I always wondered why it was included in this section.

 

[Zeldas Greenhouse]

I wonder what is the use of Pitt Panther Television sometimes. I checked to see what they put on during the baseball game and they have another replay of the Syracuse women's basketball game from three months ago. It shouldn't be that much coin to televise the baseball game today.

 

[brdst11]

Today's game is on ESPN3.com. I imagine they have exclusive live rights
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