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Poor Bobcats....

G

GeauxGriz

Well-known member
They have nothing better to complain about than the national mascot of the year.....jealousy is a B....


Opinion: Monte is main attraction for Griz fans


By TONY CASTLEBERRY, Chronicle Sports Writer
Too bad the University of Montana has already had Monte the Mascot Appreciation Night.



The Grizzly men's basketball team sold out Dahlberg Arena on the night it honored the beloved Monte, who won some kind of nationwide mascot talent search that was hyped by cute commercials on ESPN. (That sorry show 'Around the Horn' isn't bad enough? The "Worldwide Leader in Sports" has to promote mascots now? Oy.)



As mascots go, and I'm guessing they don't go very far, Monte is darn entertaining. He's funny and seems to be pretty athletic, what with all the running around after cheerleaders and teasing the opposing teams and dogging officials and stuff.



But he's a mascot. By their own admission, the Grizzlies still have "plenty of premium seats remaining" for this weekend's Montana State-Montana basketball games. They can't sell out a 'Cat-Griz game (which MSU did Jan. 25 in Worthington Arena), but UM fans turn out in droves to honor Monte?



They must have thought it was a football game.
 
Don't the sports writers in Bozo have anything better to talk about than OUR mascot, the condesending tone is jelousy of some sort. They have the worst sports writers of any paper I've seen. They can't even decide whether or not to support their own football team, and by the sounds of things they have the same confustion about hoops.
Anyone have any predictions about what they will write about after the Griz get some paybacks this comming season. My guess, they will write about either; how the kitty's aren't for real, or Monty. Or possibly they will write about last season's win by a thread.
 
Kinda reminds me of them damn hyenas. They'll take a meal however they can get it, even if it means scavenging. And Castleberry, he wants to talk about 'dogging'? What does he think he just did with that article? Is it me or are all 'Cat fans this hypocritical? :shocked!:
 
If you go over to the MSU ESPN message board, everything they say has something to do with the Griz one way or another. They are completely fixated on beating the Griz. It's as if nothing else matters to them. To them, the Cats' ultimate goal for a season is to beat Montana. That is all they want. The rest of the season is spent demeaning the Griz instead of discussing other teams and other goals. It's time they all crawl out of their hole. It would be easy for the Missoulian to write an article about how the Bobcat mascot sucks, but no one around here would give a rat's ass. (or even worse, a cat's ass)
 
I don’t blame them from suffering from mascot envy. Take a close look at the cat; it has to be a 30-year-old costume that’s falling apart. They have duct tape covering up the holes. Last time I was at the cat box I watched her come out and just stand around…the only entertainment value was laughing at it. The student that shaves msu into his hairy back would be a better mascot. They just don’t get it....... but the longer they don't the happier I'll be.
 
You have to understand, it has been so long since they have won any kind of championship in Bozeman that they forgot that you honor national champions. They are so used to losing that they despise all champions!

Seriously, though, he does have a point in that this game should be at least as well attended as the Monte game. Especially since this game could decide who gets to host a first-round game, so it is a very critical game for the Griz. A quick look at the basketball BB confirms there is little excitement here for the game. I don't think it was necessry to slam on Monte, but he is correct that fans here are more interested in Monte than they are in the basketball game. That is understandable for my 3 year old, but I really wonder about the students, alumni and boosters, and the lack of interest there.

Is it a lack of interest in basketball in general, or do they only support a dominant winner? It can't be the price, as the games are cheap. It does make you wonder, though, if fans here only support the teams when they are dominant, what happens when the FB team has a bad year or 2 (changing coaches every 3 years, it is going to happen, no way around that)? Will fan support erode for FB as well?

I wonder what people who were here in the 70's and early 80's (when the FB teams was terrible and the BB teams ruled, and Missoula had a national reputation as a difficult place to play for opposing teams) think about this?
 
That is a little wierd that so many people show up to see Monty, instead of, (or along with) the game. Monty is great, but he is only there because of the game. Although, for the most part, I'm guessing it is parents brining their kids and stuff like that. I'm not a basket ball fan....at all. But it does make it seem like we have some fair weather fans. But also consider this. There are a lot more B-Ball games, including mens and womens as well, than FB games. Home FB games are few relatively. Also, maybe someone goes to a womens game but not a mens game, and vise versa. There is nothing competing with Football. No one is going to say, "well i went to the (substitue a sport) game, so I think I'll stay home for the FB game to get some stuff done around the house.
 
The Bozeman Chronicle shouldn't be talking. We have a higher average basketball attendence than MSU. They expect us to treat the Griz/Cat game like it's the event of the year when it's no more critical than any of our other conference games. Sure, it would be nice to get bigger crowds for basketball than we have been, but I'd like to think that the fans going to the games this weekend are going to see the Griz, not the Griz and the Bobcats.
 
Jimus said:
The Bozeman Chronicle shouldn't be talking. We have a higher average basketball attendence than MSU. They expect us to treat the Griz/Cat game like it's the event of the year when it's no more critical than any of our other conference games. Sure, it would be nice to get bigger crowds for basketball than we have been, but I'd like to think that the fans going to the games this weekend are going to see the Griz, not the Griz and the Bobcats.
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That sell out for honoring Monte, the Gonzaga game, and a game where they gave out free tickets, brought the average up over 4000 fans. The average attendance for Montana is scewed because of these 3 games. Take those games out, and average attendance would be closer to 3,500.
 
I got numbers:
Montana - 4,274 over 12 home games
Montana State - 4,048 over 13 home games

Tomorrow night's game will boost our average significantly, and MSU has already had the honor of hosting the Griz so those averages won't be as close. I don't think students are counted in our totals unless it is a set number, because we can all just walk right in the arena if we have a Griz Card. I know MSU students have to get their own tickets each game. By the way, when I was in Bozeman for that game it was definitely not a sell-out despite what the box score says.
 
Regardless of how the place get's filled - we are getting significqantly more butts on the bleachers thie year than last though right? I don't care if the hand out free beer and hookers to get more fans in - once you get hooked on going - you keep going - so any marketing scheme to get that to happen is a good thing as far as I see it.
I could see the point if it was one game that made the differnece but three? Don't complain about more fans going to basketball no matter how they get there - that's a reverse of a trend over the last few years and a good thing overall for athletics at the U!
 
First of all dosen't the Bozeman Chronicle have more pressing sports issues to deal with such as dealing with MSU's stdium which is so high-school looking. Or one on how maany people showed up at MSU's cross-country meets. The Chronicle writers have always been first graders trying to publsh a high school paper.

Secondly, attendance will get better for the Griz. Heck its gotta be better than when they were playing in the high school gyms a few years back.
 
grizfaninkalamazoo said:
First of all dosen't the Bozeman Chronicle have more pressing sports issues to deal with such as dealing with MSU's stdium which is so high-school looking. Or one on how maany people showed up at MSU's cross-country meets. The Chronicle writers have always been first graders trying to publsh a high school paper.

Secondly, attendance will get better for the Griz. Heck its gotta be better than when they were playing in the high school gyms a few years back.
Click to expand...


Dang, with my grammar and other writing errors to my first message I am a shoe in as editor at the Bozeman Chronicle :)
 
UPWIMT said:
Regardless of how the place get's filled - we are getting significqantly more butts on the bleachers thie year than last though right? I don't care if the hand out free beer and hookers to get more fans in - once you get hooked on going - you keep going - so any marketing scheme to get that to happen is a good thing as far as I see it.
I could see the point if it was one game that made the differnece but three? Don't complain about more fans going to basketball no matter how they get there - that's a reverse of a trend over the last few years and a good thing overall for athletics at the U!
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I would agree if the marketing scheme did bring in more fans. But when attendance drops right back down to previous games levels prior, the marketing didn't work. The two games following the game honoring Monte went right back down to the 3,700 level.

Same with the 2 other games I mentioned. Giving away free tickets would have really helped if there were a lot of interest in watching college basketball. But it didn't sustain the level of attendance that the game brought in, even though the actuall number that came to the game did not look like the number of fans that were announced. Attendance dropped right back down for the following games after it.

But a major indicator of what could help attendance more is the Gonzaga game. Have some schools come here to play that a lot of people like to watch play, and fans will come. Griz play them tough, maybe win, these fans will come to enjoy watching the Griz play. This will help more than the marketing ploys of giving away free tickets. Good competition brings more excitement, and more fans. Kennedy has already upgraded the schedule somewhat, but those were road games. These road games, in a way, have upped the interest in basketball a little bit and attendance is up, even with the free ticket give away game and the Monte celebration taken out.
 
Tomorrow night's game will boost our average significantly, and MSU has already had the honor of hosting the Griz so those averages won't be as close. I don't think students are counted in our totals unless it is a set number, because we can all just walk right in the arena if we have a Griz Card. I know MSU students have to get their own tickets each game. By the way, when I was in Bozeman for that game it was definitely not a sell-out despite what the box score says.
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Just to clarify, that's not quite correct. First, students are indeed counted in the totals for every school's attendence. Second, MSU students are able to just walk up to the Fieldhouse for every game except Cat/Griz games. To keep from overloading the stadium, they hand out an allotted number of tickets to students for those games. What happened at this last Cat/Griz game in Bozeman was that a lot of students had to buy cheap-seat tickets so that they could get in because they couldn't get the free tickets, but still crammed into the student section. That is why it didn't look like a complete sell-out, because I did notice there were a few empty seats up in the rafters. But we did sell out every seat in the house. What they should have done is just let more students in, then the place would have really been rocking![/quote]
 
According to the Missoulian only 700 reserve seat tickets remain, GA is sold out. Sounds like we will have a sell out after all. The big question now is how many GAA members who have basketball tickets will show up - will we have a sell out with 1000 empty seats?

The best thing about the Monte game is the student section was sold out, and I think the kids feed off each others energy. Let's face it, 6,000 grandma's in teh stands is not a college basketball game, it requires students for that. If the student section filled up every game overall attendance would increase even more because the students make the crowd fun and exciting.

It seems to me that most of the season ticket holders who attend every game are retired people, who mostly sit on their hands during the game, except when the Griz take or leave the court. I am not trying to be mean, but it gives the games the same atmosphere as a bingo hall - not too much fun. It takes the students excitement (and beligerance) to make the games fun.

I would say the biggest factor this year in increased attendance (other than the promotional games) is the increased attendance of Native American's at the game. I assume that is due to Chavez, but whatever the reason I think it is great, as it has added a lot to the crowd.
 
Grizbeer said:
...
It seems to me that most of the season ticket holders who attend every game are retired people, who mostly sit on their hands during the game, except when the Griz take or leave the court. I am not trying to be mean, but it gives the games the same atmosphere as a bingo hall - not too much fun. It takes the students excitement (and beligerance) to make the games fun.
...
Click to expand...

I am not close to retiring, doesn't look like too many people are about to retire that sit in my area. East and West side seats are all for season ticket holders. That is where you need to put the students if you really want to get a lot of excitement from the students. But it is highly unlikely you will see the Athletic Department wanting to part with the money from these no show season ticket holders.
 
I agree completely. Another reason the U won't put students along the sides is probably because of our long winter break when no one's in town. Then you have even fewer of the good seats filled than we see now at a typical game. If the students really turn out consistently and can make our presence felt even at the least appealing match-ups, then I could see a serious push for that happening. But I'm actually rather pleased with our situation as it is.

3:07 TO GAMETIME
 
I love your quote, "Once a griz always a griz, well at least until they lose a couple in a row."

Hmmm, we lost a couple in a row this year and were still able to pack the house. Come to think of it... we'll probably average over 20,000 a game this year. Come back to this board when you can manage to even average 15,000 at the litter box.
 
Shakermaker said:
I love your quote, "Once a griz always a griz, well at least until they lose a couple in a row."

Hmmm, we lost a couple in a row this year and were still able to pack the house. Come to think of it... we'll probably average over 20,000 a game this year. Come back to this board when you can manage to even average 15,000 at the litter box.
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Uh, Shakermaker, if you read all the posts, you would have noticed that the topic kind of switched to basketball. And you know there won't be 20,000 a game there.

And by the way, I have watched just about every basketball game since fall of 1988 whether they had bad seasons or not. Same goes for football. So, how is your litterbox? I hope you cleaned it.
 
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