Sometimes the best home games are not at home. This article uncovers exactly what goes into hosting a contest at a neutral site.
By Nate Dougherty
Nate Dougherty is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management. He can be reached at: nd@momentummedia.com.
For an ice hockey player, there may be nothing more exciting than walking down the corridor toward the rink at Madison Square Garden and having the bright lights and crisp ice open up before your eyes. While this experience is normally reserved for professional players, the Cornell University men’s ice hockey team felt the thrill this past season.
Cornell faced rival Boston University in front of a sold out crowd of 18,200 fans, and while the Terriers bested the Big Red 6-3, the contest was still an overwhelming success for Cornell’s athletic department. Alumni in the New York City area got to see their team play on a national stage, the great moments and players in school history were honored with a video montage on the arena’s high definition video scoreboard, and the contest was aired on CSTV.
Though Cornell administrators say they would rather keep most home games at home, the idea of playing a marquee game in the “world’s most famous arena” was a win-win situation. Both universities have large alumni bases in New York City, and the game was planned for Thanksgiving weekend, when students would be off campus anyway.
“We realized this was an opportunity to play a one-of-a-kind game and reach a different market,” says Matt Coats, Cornell’s Assistant Director of Athletics for Operations. “When you’re planning a game like this—with the potential of drawing beyond what your arena can hold—it makes sense to look at options off campus.”
Today, more schools like Boston and Cornell are increasingly opting to take selected home contests off campus to reach new fans and alums or to garner the additional revenue that comes from selling out a larger arena. While this can mean extra work in game planning and new challenges in marketing the event, schools are finding the reward well worth the effort.
MANY BENEFITS
While it was nice to sell out Madison Square Garden, crowd size isn’t the only reason Cornell considers taking games off campus. For the past two seasons, the Big Red men’s lacrosse team has played contests on Long Island—a high school lacrosse hotbed. In addition to generating alumni support, the games help recruit students and student-athletes to Cornell.
“Kids on Long Island aren’t used to seeing Cornell lacrosse, and maybe they aren’t thinking of going to Cornell,” Coats says. “So these games are a way to reach out to a new community, make some new fans, and get some potential recruits thinking about us.
“We also have a lot of athletes on the team who come from that area and this game is a ‘thank you’ to them and their families for coming to Cornell,” he continues. “It’s something special in their backyard that their friends and family can attend.”
The plan has definitely been a success. After selling out Hewlett High School in 2007, Cornell moved to the larger Mitchell Athletic Complex this spring and has decided to make games on Long Island an annual event.
At the University of Maine, nearly all of the school’s teams travel 140 miles for an off-site game in Portland at least once every couple of years. In a state where vast expanses are sparsely populated, these events help the school reach the largest population base in Maine.
“There are only so many potential fans around Orono, where the university is located,” says Maine Athletic Director Blake James. “But Portland is the major economic center of the state. Creating an awareness of our program outside our home market provides a wonderful opportunity to build our fan base. Then, once we make new fans, we hope they will want to make the trip to see our team play on campus.”
In addition, Portland games allow student-athletes to play in front of larger crowds and the athletic department to sell more tickets. For example, men’s ice hockey games played at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland often draw 1,300 more fans than games played at home.
The off-campus contests also attract the many alumni who live in and around Portland. And, finally, it publicizes the University of Maine to those not familiar with the school. “These games not only benefit the athletic department, they also help spread awareness of the university,” James says.
Schools with large groups of alumni and fans spread across the country find that distant off-campus games give far-flung fans a chance to see their program. After the NCAA Division I college football schedule increased to 12 regular-season games, administrators at the University of Notre Dame decided to schedule one off-site contest every year to bring the team to areas of the country it doesn’t normally get to visit.
“We’ve historically scheduled away games in the Midwest and eastern portion of the country, but we don’t often get to the South or Southwest,” says Senior Associate Athletic Director John Heisler. “So we looked at places like Florida and Texas where we recruit from and that also contain large alumni bases that can’t easily travel to South Bend. It is also easier for fans to get tickets for these games than for our home games.”
Schools located in large population centers have less incentive to move contests off campus. But doing so can still work well for special events. When Rice University was scheduled to host the University of Texas in football two seasons ago, administrators decided to move the game from Rice Stadium to nearby Reliant Stadium, home of the NFL’s Houston Texans. There, the contest drew 40,000 fans, which was 25,000 more than Rice averaged for its other four home games.
Athletic Director Chris DelConte says Rice’s decision to move the game off campus did not come easily, but the circumstances fit perfectly—a visiting team with a large and nearby fan base, a nationally ranked opponent, and a chance for his players to compete at an NFL facility.
“Playing off campus is a decision the athletic director has to make based on what’s best for the entire athletic program,” DelConte says. “I would rather see college events stay on campus, but if we do take an event off campus there has to be a special circumstance, like an opportunity to create an event that’s good for the sport. A team can’t decide to host an off-site game just for the sake of doing it.”
Robert Zullo, an Assistant Professor of Kinesiology at Mississippi State University and an expert on scheduling college contests, says neutral sites can also work well if you are looking to expand your fan base nationally. “Sometimes, a school and its administrators need to accept making less revenue than a home game would generate in order to help gain new fans,” he says. “For example, schools with a non-revenue sport that’s a national contender year in and year out might be willing to take a financial risk and move a game off campus if that contest is showcased in front of fans who may not have seen the team or the sport before.”
WORKING WITH THE VENUE
Once the decision to move a game off campus is made, the next step is finding the right venue and working out the logistics. For Notre Dame, the first criteria on the list is a location’s familiarity with big-time college football.
“One of the things we look for right away is whether a facility has hosted a college bowl game,” Heisler says. “Knowing they have that type of experience gives us a better comfort level. Even though we’re considered the home team, we don’t want to bring our whole game-day operations staff down there. Basically, we’re looking for a turn-key operation.”
Notre Dame’s athletic administrators start the planning process for off-site football games more than a year in advance, traveling to prospective host stadiums and looking for people who offer great cooperation. “The selection process can be much more time consuming than you anticipate,” Heisler says. “You have to see the places you’re considering playing at and sit down face-to-face with the people who will be running the game.
“Normally, scheduling games is a two-way relationship between teams, but in this case it’s a three-way relationship—sometimes four or five when you bring alumni organizations or local sports councils to the table,” he continues. “That’s why we factor in extra time to account for all the back-and-forth negotiations on ticket revenue or game-day staff responsibilities that take place during the planning stages.”
When negotiating with a venue, DelConte suggests pushing for a good deal. “Facilities are always looking for dates to book, especially when those places are funded with municipal bonds and have debt to pay off,” he says. “The game you’re going to bring means more revenue and publicity, which gives you a great deal of leverage. As a result, it’s much easier to say, ‘If you want my event and the money it will bring in, here are the things we need to make it work.’”
Relationships with the facility’s staff become especially important when the venue is small or lacks experience hosting college contests. When Maine brings games to Portland, the school’s athletic administrators carefully research every aspect of game-day operations and convey the university’s philosophy and approach to hosting events.
“Before we pick a facility, we talk with them about our expectations, how we operate, and how we are going to handle different ticketing issues,” says James. “We also ask who will be in charge of game day operations and things like scheduling practices for each team. We’ve found that you need to have very good, open lines of communication with the facility staff.”
Coats says there is more at stake than simply making sure the game gets played. “You want to be sure that the event not only runs smoothly, but also reflects the way you want your school to be perceived by those watching it,” he says. “You want the fans to know they’re watching a Division I event, so it’s important that it’s handled professionally at all levels.”
That’s why Coats reaches out beyond the top level of administrators at the venue, finding out who will be responsible for every detail of maintenance and security, meeting those people, and asking who will be the right supervisor to talk with if there are concerns or questions. He also establishes contacts outside the arena for amenities it doesn’t provide.
“For instance, if the PA announcer for your home games can’t be there, you might need to reach into the community and see who is available,” Coats says. “For our lacrosse game, we ended up getting Hofstra University’s announcer. We also hired ball boys from the Hewlett High School lacrosse team and scoreboard operators from the local junior college. You have to be thorough in your preparations.”
You also have to be ready for any unforeseen problems. Cornell found this out when a foot of snow blanketed the Mitchell Sports Complex the night before its lacrosse game there. But through contacts Cornell administrators established with county officials, they were able to bring in crews to clean off the field.
MARKETING THE GAME
With all the work that goes into setting up a game at a different site, you want to make sure a lot of fans show up, and that the atmosphere is positive. It often works well to team up with your institution’s alumni relations department.
“We worked closely with our alumni association to get the word out about the game at Madison Square Garden,” says Jeff Hall, Cornell’s Sports Marketing Director. “They have a huge database of alumni they can reach through e-mail and mailings, and they put out a lot of correspondence about the game through every channel they could.”
Figuring out ticket prices is another part of marketing the game. For its hockey game, Cornell worked closely with BU to come up with the right prices to ensure that the game sold out. Notre Dame often works with the host venue to figure out the best way to fill the stands.
“The people connected with the venue are already well versed in how to market games in the area,” Heisler says. “For instance, the stadiums we play in may already be offering tickets to their postseason bowl game and find it’s very advantageous to offer a ticket to an additional game like ours as part of a package. That’s important in making sure we can pack the stadium with great fans who will help give the game an unforgettable atmosphere.”
When taking your show on the road, that atmosphere is a key component to an event’s success. To get fans excited for their hockey games, the University of Maine holds a free skate for children to share the ice with the Black Bears hockey team the day of its Portland games. Between periods of its game at Madison Square Garden, Cornell honored members of its NCAA national championship teams and notable former players like NHL great Joe Nieuwendyk.
“If we had just put on a normal contest and not made it into an event, the game would not have had the same draw,” Hall says. “If you’re playing at a special venue, it makes it so much more memorable for fans if you can tie the event in with your history. Making our game a commemorative event worked great for us.”
Once the contest is over, it’s important to keep in touch with the fans who attended. Maine works hard to reach out to its Portland-based fans throughout the year. For example, the department hosted a fan appreciation night at a minor league baseball game where those in attendance could meet the school’s coaches and enter drawings to win Black Bears tickets.
“We get e-mails all the time from people in the Portland area asking when we’re going to be back,” says Jeff Wildey, the school’s Athletic Marketing and Promotions Director. “It can be hard to stay in touch with a fan base with all the other activities competing for their attention, which is why having one special event a year for them is great.”