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So which team is the home team?

If we truly root for our team to win every game, why invite the opposing fans to see "history" with their team's "first win" in the Rose Bowl?

If we support our team, our players - why not focus on the challenge? - "see your team fight ours". Why not be bold? "Come see your futility in the Rose Bowl continue".

History?? First win? Sounds like we are prepared to lose!

BTW - I believe with Fresno's injuries and travel schedule of late - we'll beat a very tired team Sat and get back on track.

Crap - reading the comments on Bruingold and Bruinzone on this. If it is just about money and selling tickets why not just advertise in the Daily Trojan and have their fans come out and laugh at us? They aren't playing Saturday so why not?

Besides, they're already laughing at us on their messages boards about this.

Anyway you slice it, it stinks! Hope recruiting doesn't take a hit because of this.

We cancelled our season seats after last season. We had them the year before moving to the Rose Bowl. It's stuff like this that drove to finally decide enough is enough. And you know what? Not one call from UCLA asking us to reconsider or wondering why we cancelled. And we were donors, too.

If UCLA doesn't care that we are there, then why should we give a rip about the goodwill of UCLA Athletics. Still love the teams, but the Athletic Department hasn't figured it out - your season ticket holders, your most loyal and dedicated customers, are you most important and valued customers.

Apparently it's more important for UCLA Athletics to make sure that they sell the most tickets they can even if means turning their backs on their own, and welcoming the opposition and catering to them, spending money on them, and making sure that they fell welcomed in our house.

Sounds like a great environment to watch your home play.

No thanks. We're done playing that game...

I think the ads are lame, but this topic has been absolutely beaten to death and is boring.

You're welcome for this little tid bit of info. Check my comment under "Touchdown club" to see where Dohn gets his info from. If you need anymore inside info Dohn, just let me know.

rejn: I can't truly believe you were donors for that many years and they never called you. Were you guys one of those sets of donors that complain about everything all the time, so when you fell of the list they knew why you probably did. You sound VERY high maintenance. I probably wouldn't have called you either!

Its most important for UCLA Athletics to sell as many tickets as possible to everyone - and bring in as much revenue as possible. See how they started "Operation Bruin"....they're trying to gain UCLA supporters. When your own base isn't buying enough tickets then you have to look elsewhere.

I can't wait for the next comment someone makes about how they don't have good enough facilities or support staff..blah blah blah...well it takes money to do that stuff.

Quit complaining about how your rear end wasn't kissed and buy a 5 game season ticket and support your Bruins! If you still had season tickets then there would be two or four less to sell to Fresno State fans.

Its starts with us!!

(BY THE WAY, NEITHER ONE OF THESE ADS SAYS BE THERE TO WATCH UCLA LOSE OR FRESNO STATE GET THEIR 1ST WIN AT THE ROSE BOWL!!)

Anonymous,

Good one. Perhaps the flaw is that I posted something about the ads early in the morning, well before your comment under "Touchdown Club," or did you not notice that?

Cry me a river rejn. If you need a butt kissing from the athletic department to go to a game then you're probably not the kind of fan we want there anyway.

Let me guess, you're the gentleman who gets upset when us true fans are standing up and cheering right behind you...am I right?

READ THE ARTICLE CAREFULLY OR LISTEN TO THE RADIO AD FOR THE FRESNO STATE FIRST WIN HISTORY CRAP!

I totally agree with SBBruin. REJN, sack up and buy some season tickets again. Let me guess, you're going to complain about how the seats you used to have are not there anymore. Guess what, they prob gave them to someone else!!

Why do some people complain about our Athletic Department being "unwilling to pay for top coaches, etc." and then also complain when they're trying to fill up the Rose Bowl?!? You can't do the first without the second folks.

Quit thinking like just emotional fans and start thinking like business people who are trying to grow and maintain all the sports.

Scenario:
UCLA fans aren't buying tickets (because of a poor product on the field) and the Athletic Dept. would like to sell tickets rather than give them to cheer/school kids.

Question:
How do you sell more tickets?

Let's see what real answers WTF and the other complainers have.

Look trying to sell tickets is one thing. The fact you try to sell to opposing fans is damaging enough. Think of the recruiting implications - an opposing coach will point to the ads as evidence of the downward spiral of the program that can't sell to their own fans and only want you as fresh body to toss out there to make money for the school.

Second, look at the way it is being marketed. First win, make history - to say you were there?? There for what? All this implies a Fresno win or thrashing. If it was a challenge to them why not use words like that - "support your team in their futile battle with us" pr something else!

Third - even though our players brush it aside - what do ads like these do for their morale? Ads produced by their own school!

I would much rather have discounted tickets to local school kids who will eat tons of hot dogs and drink. sodas. Maybe some will come to love our school because of their early experiences!

I ain't complaining just to complain. I take issue with how marketing is going about their business

1. In the L.A. Times this morning there were some inferences and a quote from bruins players stating that they were upset over the attempts to bring in Fresno State fans to their house. That says it all from a personal point of view.

2. However, schools are under financial pressure as is every institution and person in America today. Reasonable minds can balance the interest of winning with a home crowd and bringing in additional revenue through a "foreign" crowd (and thus diluting the home field advantage).

3. A poster said SC on its blog is regaling in ucla's problems. Not true, not one comment. SC is apathetic about bruin situations, and Trojans have enough on their plate with playing Oregon State in the rain tonight.

As a fan, it is appalling that UCLA would market the opponent's fans. As a businessman, you have to admire the Athletic Department's quest for the bucks! An local ad would not be cost effective. But an ad geared toward the Central Valley fans who have a top 25 ranked team -- now that's ad dollars well spent!

let's get real! Although the ads don't EXPLICITLY say 'Watch the Bruins get Beat" the implication is all too real! Remember, this plays right into Coach Hill's mentality that the Pac-10 scholls don't want to go to Fresno, so go to the Rose Bowl and watch the #24 team beat a Pac 10 opponent.

Way to go, UCLA marketing! Way to go!

ONLYTHETRUTH

uh - I said their message boards - have you seen the thread on wearesc this morning?

I used my savings so that I can enjoy the games and other TV experiences on a BIG Screen HDTV... I love it. And furthermore, watching my nieces and nephews play soccer on Saturdays is a much more valued investment and just as enjoyable if not more so. It doesn't even compare, nor will it ever, even when (if???) UCLA starts winning again.

BTW, I got upset when fans stood up in FRONT of me, not behind. I'm a forward looking guy, not backwards...

Of course our seats are gone. We had an extremely good location. If I have one regret it's this. We gave our seats up too easily. I probably should have kept them and gone through the secondary ticket market. I'm sure our BIG screen would have been bigger if I thought of Stub Hub, Razor Gator, ebay, etc...

Oh well, no big deal. I'm not complaining, and happy where we are.

I blame rejn for this whole ordeal

Well at least if we get alot of Fresno fans the stands won't be empty in the 4th quarter. The people here, excluding the true fans, don't deserve the Bruins. They have no passion, no heart....kind of like the team they say they support. Pathetic is the word that comes to mind!

WTF, you did state SC fans were laughing at ucla on its message boards, not the blog. I did not read it so I will take your word for it.

That said, it is sad that people enjoy other people's misery, but it really seems to be an SC-ucla thing.

Of course, it is only sports, not a $700 Billion bailout issue, so I guess it all really does not matter.

They are going to laugh regardless. It is the nature of any cross town rivalry. I just wish our own marketing wouldn't shoot us in the foot and give them more ammunition to use.

This kind of thing cannot help recruiting wise.

Thanks

rejn...

Call 310 UCLA WIN and re-join us at the Rose Bowl! C'mon...you know you want to!!! HDTV is nice...but nothing beats being there with the sound of the crowd and the band.

Can the Marketing department fix the telecast listing for this Saturday? I can even setup either my TiVo or DirectTV DVR because the game is not even listed.

mostly targeted at wtf,

i love when people talk like they are recruiting experts or analyze how our team's morale will be affected by various incidents. almost everybody who does this has absolutely no expertise on these subjects. first off, recruits aren't swayed by every single thing. coaches throw a million things at them to get them to come, and other coaches will bash our school with a million things to make sure they don't come. second, there is a way to spin everything in recruiting, more likely than not we will pitch that potential recruits can 'fill up the stadium with their amazing performances' or something like that.

and unless we know these players personally, we have no idea about their psychological fortitude. for all we know this gets our o-line angry and they play like beasts en route to 300 yards rushing. or maybe it breaks our wide outs' spirits and they drop ten passes. THERE IS NO WAY TO KNOW ANY OF THESE THINGS. IT IS ALL RIDICULOUS SPECULATION.

Hello - listen to my point. Sure you don't know if this will have a negative impact - hopefully not!!!

The point is there is no reason for our own marketing department to be running these ads because it just makes us look BAD! Why give these other coaches more ammunition that is supplied by us? Do the Yankees bus in Boston fans just because they want a sell out?

Look at the flip side - I'd question the commitment and psychological fortitude of a kid that sees his own team marketing department selling out as a POSITIVE in his recruitment. "Hey great easier for my folks to see me play live"

Spin this into a positive - really try. When it smacks of desparation and money it is hard to disguise and heard to portray as a positive for the university.

Look - I'm not the only one that feels this way

http://bruingold.com/forums/index.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=71863&mode=full&page=

Sorry, can't do it. I love going to my nieces and nephews soccer games alot more than UCLA Football games. Lots of positive memories of UCLA Football at the Rose Bowl - almost 30 years worth. Remember when Karl Morgan sacked Tinsley? When Gaston Green and company ran all over USC and gave Tim Green an old fashion whoppin? How about the BYU game - Young versus Bono? The Nebraska win when Matt Darby laid that monster hit on the Nebraska receiver? Rodney Peete and chicken pocks? Coach Neu's senior year? So frustrating and yet so good... What about the Elway game at the Coliseum? What a comeback in the second half. I loved Freeman McNeil. And of course the near SC brawl in 2006 – the most intense moment I had ever seen at the Rose Bowl.

The memories will never fade. Never. Those were some of the most exciting Saturdays. And for those who criticize me, call me high maintenance, needing a butt kissing, a complainer, and whatever else, well I had a blast and will never forget. Things have changed and rightly so. But when things change such that it promotes dysfunction or a quality of product that is not what it should (for whatever reason), after 30 years of support, well, it served its purpose and served it very well.

Family comes before UCLA athletics, and will always be that way. Whenever there's a way to combine the two, it will happen, but at the same time there's NOTHING that compares to watching my niece score a goal when she's got two defenders chasing her down and all over her, or my nephew stopping a shot in goal and encouraging him to do again, and again. To watch my other niece take the ball up the side line and make a cross pass to her sister or other teammate and go for the goal. That kind of stuff is priceless and will never be traded for anything else as long as I can help it.

And when you want to talk basketball, I'd love to share the memories - the Alcindor days, one of my favorites - Mike Warren. Wicks, Rowe. Meyers. Does it get any better? (Don't say Howland either. As much as I love Coach Howland, he still hasn't won a NC. Hope that's coming soon)

GO BRUINS!

By the way. If you need my help, YOU CAN CALL ME...

haha, I love how "WTF" is now written all over the comments on this post. WTF is the only acceptable response to these ads.

blah blah, rejn. nobody cares.

Rejn, it sounds like you wouldn't have come back even if the Athletic Department had called.

WTF,

i'm not saying it's helping, cus obviously its way harder to spin as a good thing than a bad thing. but then again, i'm not being paid millions of dollars to do so unlike our coaches. so i'm sure they are very good at it.

for now, let's just cheer on oregon state.

Anonymous,

You hit the nail on the head. My comment about them calling/not calling was a complaint, but instead an observation and a statement to reinforce my point about the agenda and priorities of the Athletic Department. They don't care. If they don't care, then why should I/we (or any of us) care? It's things like this that mounted and finally when it was time, it was time - with no regrets. On the other hand, it's sad that they don't care nor do they get it. But it's money they want and I guess they will do whatever it takes to try and generate as much revenue as they can. I can only assume that they are pretty hungry for money. I'm not too excited to do business who cares more for the dollar than the customer.

Have fun at the game Saturday. Hopefully a W is on its way.

Go Beavs - beat SC!