Here's how Missouri State's rivals are filling the bleachers at basketball games

CARBONDALE, Ill. — On a Wednesday night at the Banterra Center in Carbondale, Illinois, students started to arrive about an hour before tipoff. Closer and closer to game time, the bleachers filled with students wearing SIU uniforms that were handed out at the door.

Ahead of a Missouri Valley Conference battle, the students were loud and ready, the arena filled with the sort of infectious energy that would keep fans coming back whether the Salukis won or lost that night.

When Missouri State’s starting lineup was read, those in the student section stood with their backs to the court and started to rip up newspapers. When it was Southern Illinois’ turn, the standing crowd roared in unison.

After the starters were read, the students tossed the paper in the air as the newspaper confetti rained down, the tradition creating a picturesque moment that added to the excitement in the building.

It went just as senior Dylan Chambers imagined, the latest achievement among many that have made the Dawg Pound the gold standard for student sections in the Missouri Valley Conference.

“We’re a basketball school,” Chambers said. “Look at the banners we have in here. This is what it’s all about.”

Chambers, along with more than 230 members of the Dawg Pound, set an example for other schools of SIU’s size about how to build a consistent student section that creates the desired college basketball atmosphere where others, including Missouri State, have struggled. Student leaders from across the Midwest have gone to SIU’s Dawg Pound leader for advice.

University administrators at Southern Illinois have invested in the student organization, knowing the impact it has on its athletics event and university as a whole.

After restrictions were lifted following the COVID-19 pandemic, the Southern Illinois chancellor approached Chambers with the hopes that he would lead the Dawg Pound.

Chambers was well-known in the community. He became one of the youngest aldermen in Illinois history when he was 18 and was active at the university as a residential advisor. He had previous student section leadership history while in high school but he wanted to take on the challenge.

He helped build the student section from the ground up. There wasn’t a lot of interaction between those in the student section and the university at the time, nor were there many giveaways at games. He felt a disconnect between athletics and student affairs. That has changed dramatically.

“The university’s as bought in just as much as the athletic department is now,” Chambers said. “Everybody’s seeing what it takes to make this great.”

Chambers is in constant communication with SIU Athletics Director Tim Leonard about ways to improve, trading daily text messages. That's in contrast to Missouri State's student section leader, who said he's never had a conversation with MSU Athletics Director Kyle Moats but has instead been redirected elsewhere at the school.

Chambers recently started sitting in on game operations meetings to pitch in with ideas for making the gameday atmosphere one that will keep students coming back — whether it’s the music being played, cameras getting students on TV or the in-game entertainment.

In the days or hours before games, he also receives text messages from different head coaches offering support.

Salukis men’s basketball coach Brian Mullins, for example, sends frequent texts to Chambers ahead of games asking if there’s anything he can do to help. He’s paid for pizza in the past and recently paid for about 30 tickets to send a group of students on a bus to Murray, Kentucky, where they witnessed the Salukis rally from 20 points down to beat the Racers.

SIU football coach Nick Hill also communicates, as does women’s basketball head coach Kelly Bond-White among others. The Dawg Pound sent a bus of students to watch its women’s basketball game at Evansville this past week for free.

“It’s such a blessing because you never really know or expect it,” Chambers said. “We get excited because they see what we’re trying to do. They’re so bought into our community and into our student section and they know what it takes.”

Chambers puts in the legwork as well. In addition to his city council duties, he participates in student government and somehow still has time to get his homework done. He estimates 20-30 hours goes into trying to make the Dawg Pound each week.

He doesn’t give in to the excuse that some would rather stream the game and watch from home. Instead, he asks himself what it’s going to take to make sure students would rather be a part of the big moments instead of watching on TV.

That includes going to local businesses looking for sponsorships. The giveaway uniforms the Salukis gave to students before their matchup against Missouri State were sold out in two minutes. The most expensive giveaway of the year wouldn’t have happened without Chambers going out and securing the funds.

That fundraising is combined with a one-time $20 membership fee that covers a student until they’re no longer at Southern Illinois. Students get into games for “free” as a part of their student fees.

“One of the pillars through the university with our IMAGiNE 2030 campaign is student engagement and retention,” Chambers said. “Retaining students here is a big deal. We’re the first piece of that. If they’re coming to games and kind of being out of their dorm, you’re more than likely to retain them because they’ll try to come back. That’s what I’ve learned and what’s kept me around.”

The success of the student section has resulted in some of the larger crowds in the Missouri Valley Conference. After the Missouri State game on Jan. 31, the Salukis ranked third in the Valley, behind Bradley and Murray State, for the highest attendance in the league. Missouri State ranked ninth.

Seven of the Salukis’ first 14 home games at that point in the season reached an attendance of 5,000 or more — a number the Bears haven’t crossed since Feb. 6, 2022. The last time MSU had seven games with more than 5,000 in attendance came in Ford’s first season in 2018-19.

Consistent student engagement has been a problem for the Bears, who are trending toward one of their least-attended seasons since they played at McDonald Arena in the 1970s. As far as winning games, the Salukis haven't been much more successful than the Bears in recent years. The team hasn't won a conference championship or reached the NCAA Tournament since 2007.

The Salukis have found a way to get people and students interested despite the lack of overwhelming success. Chambers said he’s had communication with student leaders at different universities in recent years. He always gives them the same advice.

“It’s effort,” Chambers said. “How much time are you putting in a week? It’s every day. It’s a lot of hours. My chief of operations puts so many hours in, just to try and make sure it’s great. We’ve had happy days, the sad days and angry days. We’re just passionate about it.”

Mizzou's attendance has boomed since it started treating every sporting event like a party

When Desiree Reed-Francois was hired as Mizzou’s athletics director, the mindset of everyone in the department changed.

She entered with a focus on enhancing the student-athlete experience. Her first step was to get fans in the stands by giving them an experience that couldn’t be replicated by streaming the game from their living room.

A few short years later, Mizzou has experienced one of the biggest attendance booms in college athletics. Those responsible for the Tigers’ success believe their focus on providing those in attendance with “the biggest party in town” at each sporting event can be replicated elsewhere, no matter how much money those schools have or how many points they're putting on the scoreboard.

More: What's being done to save Missouri State's dying men's basketball fanbase?

Tony Daniel, Mizzou’s associate director of athletics, is in charge of the school’s marketing and fan experience. He was with the Tigers nearly three years before Reed-Francois’ arrival and saw the impact she's had quickly.

“We’re just thinking differently,” Daniel said. “Not that we weren’t doing it before, but we wanted to take the fans’ information and see what we could do to fully make their experience better. We took those things and asked ‘How can we think about this differently?’”

Constant surveys have been central to Mizzou’s strategy. After each home game for football and men’s and women’s basketball, fans receive an email asking for their feedback; with other sports it's a little less frequent.

Questions seek honest answers, whether about concession stands, parking, videos on the scoreboard, entertainment during timeouts and halftime and others. Mizzou’s trying to hit on every little piece of information, knowing that there’s at least one kid who is attending a game for the first time — an experience the Tigers hope will make them a fan for life.

Every minute detail is considered when the department discusses how to get better after every event. Hours-long meetings have resulted in the reintroduction of lost traditions, such as having the mascot rappel from the ceiling before a basketball game, new social media promotions and simple acts of hospitality, such as having workers hand out free mints to fans on their way out of the stadium.

“We call it ‘driveway to driveway,’” Daniel said. “It goes from the moment you leave your driveway to our sporting event to the moment you return and everything that happens in between. Those are all the things we want to know about.”

Out of more than a dozen Missouri State men's basketball fans the News-Leader surveyed for this series of stories, only one said they had ever received a request for feedback about games they've attended. Most said they didn't know where that sort of feedback could be submitted.

Before Mizzou, Reed-Francois was a successful athletics director at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She reminds her staff frequently that she spent time at the entertainment capital of the world and that fans are going to their games looking to be entertained, not only by how their home teams perform.

In Daniel’s words, each game needs to be treated like the biggest party in town. Dave Matter, a longtime Mizzou beat writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who is now the university’s assistant AD for communications and storytelling, has seen the gameday experience take off in ways he hadn’t seen since he began covering the program at the Columbia Tribune in 1998.

“You can build those things into your gameday experience,” Matter said. “It goes back to the core value of innovation; whether it’s pricing, whether it’s halftime entertainment, it’s all things that are emphasized heavily here.

“(Reed-Francois) says all the time that football gamedays, we’re throwing a party for 62,000 people and you have to think about every excruciating detail because, at the end of the day, we can’t control what Brady Cook or Luther Burden or Cody Schrader do on the field. But we can put the department and university in the best position to have the best gameday experience.”

The new mindset has paid dividends for Mizzou athletics across all sports. The attendance surge in 2022-23 saw Mizzou notch a 75.3% increase in men’s basketball attendance, the largest improvement in the country. This past fall, Mizzou football led the SEC in attendance increase for the second straight year.

Volleyball this past year saw a 453% increase, while wrestling, gymnastics, baseball and softball all set records of their own.

Student attendance across all sports? It shot up 121%.

It’s easy to point to Mizzou’s success on various fields as the reason for the growth, and winning games certainly doesn’t hurt. The Tigers’ men’s basketball team had a 25-10 season in 2022-23, its first under head coach Dennis Gates, which resulted in an NCAA Tournament bid. Football is taking off under Eliah Drinkwitz, whose Tigers finished with an 11-2 record this past season, a Cotton Bowl victory and a No. 8 postseason rank by both major polls.

Men’s basketball, however, has taken a step back from its first year under Gates. The Tigers are well below .500 and have been dreadful in SEC play.

But that hasn’t led to the dip in attendance you might expect. Mizzou Arena averaged 11,571 fans a year ago and it still draws nearly 11,000. That compares to a 2021-22 season in which the Tigers went 12-21 and averaged 6,168 per night.

“They’re Mizzou fans and they bleed black and gold at heart and they love their Tigers,” Daniel said. “But there are a couple of things that go into that. We’re trying to throw a party every night and we’ve had a heavy emphasis on students. We understand that’s super important and that was another directive by our leadership. You know the students drive the energy at all of our facilities.

“When they have a great showing and when they’re there and loud and supporting, that makes our building a lot more fun. We show them how much we love their support and what we want to do for them.”

Survey responses have helped Mizzou tap into its student fanbase. Athletics staff have emphasized social media and putting out content that makes games look fun to attend while also helping students connect with their classmates.

New traditions have been created such as “Mizzou Madness” now taking place annually late at night in front of the university’s iconic columns. Plenty of giveaways take place while igniting excitement around the men’s and women’s basketball teams in a community carnival-like setting that boasts a DJ, food trucks and a laser show.

That excitement is carried over into the season. The 18-22 year-old demographic is part of the focus when selecting music to play throughout the game but it’s not all rap and whatever the kids are into these days — '70s and '80s hits are part of the mix for all 11,000 in attendance.

“I think that’s what makes it fun is that there’s always something for everyone,” Daniel said. “Everything goes into play and I just go back to the surveys and that’s where we listen.”

According to the USA Today NCAA finances database, Mizzou had over $141 million in revenue in 2022. That’s more than $110 million more than Missouri State had in the same year. Mizzou has clear advantages in what it can do compared to what can be done for the Bears.

“Yes, there’s a gap between the revenue that an SEC makes and what a Missouri Valley school makes and then what they’re capable of doing to pull off these things,” Matter said. “But if you look at the revenues within the SEC, there’s a gap between the Alabamas, the Georgias, the Texas A&Ms and programs like Missouri and the Mississippi schools. We’re still able to put on a show that’s every bit as good, if not better than what some of those programs are doing."

Missouri State ranked at the top of the Valley’s public schools in revenue while Mizzou was ranked 11th among public SEC programs. Mizzou made about $73 million less than Alabama — at the top of the SEC — made in 2022.

That doesn't stop those at Mizzou from believing a fun environment can be replicated elsewhere, as long as those in charge are constantly communicating with fans and giving them something to enjoy every time they step into the building.

“It’s not always about money," Matter continued. "Money is obviously crucial, but I think it goes back to innovative thinking and really listening to what your fans want and not everything they want is answered by dollars. Some of it is just by extra care and more thought and having smart, strategic people putting their heads together and coming up with ideas.

“We don’t sit around here and say ‘Gosh, if only we had the revenue the other school has, then we could have a great gameday atmosphere.’ That’s never the case. We never talk about things like that over here.”

Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email at wwheeler@news-leader.com or X at @WyattWheeler_NL.

Once Proud: Next in this three-part series

Sunday and online now: Missouri State basketball games are emptier than ever. What happened, and what's next?

Tuesday: What is Missouri State doing to save its dying men's basketball fanbase?

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: How Mizzou, Southern Illinois find success with basketball attendance