In Game Entertainment Ideas

[NM Green]

The benefit of a Thursday night affair and bye week is that it leaves you with football options over the weekend. So off to Tucson it was to see my first game in Arizona Stadium. Gosh I wish I would have went to that game we played out there back in the day.

Some things I liked about the experience:

1. Tighten up the space - They have a very concentrated tailgate zone in the center of campus. That is the only drawback to our palace being so far away from the heart of our school. It costs good money to drive a truck into that zone which consists of kid zone, pop up two story deck - it almost looked like a Gameday setup. We have many of those ingredients on the hump just outside the gate - I think we just continue to ramp that environment up with different live bands beginning to play 30 - 45 minute sets 3 hours before the game. Get more game giveaways - make it like a carnival zone where people drift in and out of when they need a stretch break from their car tailgates.

2. Big banner - with our passionate and growing student zone it is time to unveil the Big Banner between the 3rd and 4th period. Of course this will have to relocate (Hey baby - so over that, so very over that) because you need high energy music either from the band or sound system as the big banner rolls up from row one to row 25 and shakes like mad until the end of the song. I saw this in the Marriott Center at a BYU basketball game and that banner traveled up from the floor to the last row which was really cool. The Zoo's banner rolled out, was stationery, shook like heck and then disappeared back in the front row in flash - very cool. You can only do this with students that we now have coming to the games. I love the Pit Crew in basketball. Does our football student section have a name? There is another contest waiting to launch.

3. Beats & gift cards - at the front of the game they announced that students who had signed up were eligible to win a prize if they were present in the fourth quarter. They gave away 10 sets of beats and gift cards to 10 students who had signed up for the drawing. I loved how they announced multiple times, you must be present to claim your prize. In the fourth quarter they put all ten names up on the video board.

4. I salute you - in honor of it being 9/11 weekend they honored local military members from the Air Force base as part of the halftime presentation. They had approximately 6-8 soldiers they introduced on the video board almost like a homecoming announcing their roles and work in the military. Each one as you imagine was completely celebrated with a booming applause. They also introduced a U of A student who had just returned from Afghanistan and he was ecstatic to be on the field getting a rousing applause of appreciation for his service for our country. It was heartwarming and then the band played a tribute to all the service academies including the Coast Guard. Everyone just stood and clapped the entire time, and the announcer was interactive introducing each group to a new excited big applause. It was just incredibly well orchestrated and we should have a military night for one of our games in 2015.

5. Fan shots - I mean the video board was nonstop fan shots which kept somebody in the stadium getting crazy every moment of the game! It was unbelievable. They spent a lot of time in the Zoo student section but also circled around to kids, to the band, to the cheerleaders, to the alumni to the big donors, to everyone but Nevada fans. There was so much fan shot that I even made the darn video board on two occasions - thank goodness my friend bought me a Bear Down shirt. I just loved the fact that everybody gets crazy when the camera comes their way and it was non-stop only breaking to show plays and highlights. They also had a third down earthquake shout. I actually LOVE our North Texas Fight interactive chant with the band - we are keeping the alumni side alive and loud this year! Trying to match the students.

Now U of A is not even one of the hardcore football venues in the country. In fact it is a basketball school. But they brought it in the form of creating some interesting distractions and energy during the game. Rich Rod's offense kept it entertaining and overall I had a blast. I learned the Cat sign and left there hoping to come back in Green sometime.

Forgive the novel but I just can't hold ideas inside when some could be easily replicated for the betterment of our Mean Green experience.

GMG

[Harry]

Good info. We should be open to adopting things that work well for other schools on gameday.

I enjoy the tailgating scene we have but in some ways miss the way everything was more centralized at Fouts. With the impending construction of the hotel and convention center it would not be a bad idea to rethink how we organize the tailgating going forward.

[GRN-WHT]

4. I salute you - in honor of it being 9/11 weekend they honored local military members from the Air Force base as part of the halftime presentation. They had approximately 6-8 soldiers they introduced on the video board almost like a homecoming announcing their roles and work in the military. Each one as you imagine was completely celebrated with a booming applause. They also introduced a U of A student who had just returned from Afghanistan and he was ecstatic to be on the field getting a rousing applause of appreciation for his service for our country. It was heartwarming and then the band played a tribute to all the service academies including the Coast Guard. Everyone just stood and clapped the entire time, and the announcer was interactive introducing each group to a new excited big applause. It was just incredibly well orchestrated and we should have a military night for one of our games in 2015.

I wish we had an on-field salute for members of the military on 9/11. There were certainly some present, there were 2 in uniform in my section. The RV video fell flat.

[meangreenacct]

Passing on first down? Getting first downs earlier than a couple minutes before halftime. These things would entertain me...

[jdennis82]

5. Fan shots - I mean the video board was nonstop fan shots which kept somebody in the stadium getting crazy every moment of the game! It was unbelievable. They spent a lot of time in the Zoo student section but also circled around to kids, to the band, to the cheerleaders, to the alumni to the big donors, to everyone but Nevada fans. There was so much fan shot that I even made the darn video board on two occasions - thank goodness my friend bought me a Bear Down shirt. I just loved the fact that everybody gets crazy when the camera comes their way and it was non-stop only breaking to show plays and highlights. They also had a third down earthquake shout. I actually LOVE our North Texas Fight interactive chant with the band - we are keeping the alumni side alive and loud this year! Trying to match the students.

First, great post and thanks taking the time to put out some new ideas based on these observations.

I love the idea of having more fan shots. Personally, I have no interest in being on camera but too many people do - especially the younger generation - so now that we are on TV so frequently, fan shots should dominate the down time. I'd take it one step further by combining this with an element already in place...

Apogee Live Pics

Currently, they have fans tweet the Athletic Dept pics taken before & during the game and then they post the picture on the jumbotron. Have the camera scan for crowd shots getting people's reaction as usual but after finding a great fan shot, settle into a more focused picture at then snap an "Apogee Live Pic." That picture is then immediately tweeted by the @meangreensports. Everyone in the shot would (1) make sure they're following the twitter account, and (2) retweet the picture

Just scattershooting an idea here. I'm sure a much more creative name or application for the idea could be hashed out, but it's what came to mind after reading your post

[oldguystudent]

BBQ'd wings in the wing zone.

When the conference tells us once and for all that we can't have any seats whatsoever in the new "Recent Alumni" section of the stadium, remove the seats and install water slides and hot tubs.

Replace the on field ice machines with bounce houses -- proven to reduce opposing urination by 73%!

Disco demolition night:

And last but not least, ten cent beer night!

So then, athletic department, am I hired or what?