Thursdays With Greg Byrne - 5/21/09
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FOOTBALL SEASON TICKET SALES OFF TO A GREAT START The priority deadline for ordering football season tickets has come and gone, and we are excited about where we stand as of that May 15 deadline. At this point in the sales campaign, we are running approximately 370 percent ahead of the number of season tickets we had sold through the same date in 2008. In fact, as of May 15, we were less than 6,000 season tickets behind where we finished up a year ago just prior to kickoff. Including a minimum expected student ticket sale, we are over 31,000 in football season tickets at this time. Of course, season tickets remain on sale. Orders will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis at this point, but will still be processed before individual game tickets go on sale (if available) in July. Contact the Athletic Ticket Office in the Bryan Athletic Administration Building (1-888-GO-DAWGS) or order on-line at www.mstateathletics.com/tickets. * * * TEAM ACCOMPLISHMENT, NEW FACES HIGHLIGHT 2008-09 With the competitive season nearly complete (only men’s and women’s track still have athletes competing nationally), we’d like to take a minute to single out some highlights from the past school year. Our men’s and women’s basketball teams, men’s golf and women’s softball teams, and the aforementioned track teams, all qualified for post-season play this year. The SEC tournament championship by Coach Rick Stansbury’s men’s team qualified our team for the NCAA Tournament, and Coach Sharon Fanning’s first-round NCAA win over Texas were department highlights. Coaches Clay Homan and Jay Miller had their men’s golf and women’s softball teams in NCAA play, as well. We have all the confidence in the world that Coach John Cohen will rebuild our baseball program to past glory, and new head coach Jenny Hazelwood brings a similar passion to our women’s volleyball program. In fact, Mike Nemeth and I had our first year-end review with Coach Cohen yesterday, and despite a record that no one is happy about, there were several improvements from 2008 to 2009. First and foremost, the overall record was better (25-29 vs. 23-33), the team batting average was nine points higher (.298 vs. .289), the on-base percentage was nearly 20 points better (.398 vs. .379), we turned more double plays (56 vs. 45) and grounded into less (26 vs. 57) than the previous year, stolen bases were up (72 vs. 47) ? as were sacrifice bunts (46 vs. 32) and flies (25 vs. 14) ? the fielding percentage was better (.968 vs. .965) Even the earned run average was improved (6.57 vs. 6.82), though not where it needs to be. It is not a coincidence that of Coach Cohen’s signing class, 11 are pitchers or dual-position pitcher-players. The foundation of the athletic department and the athletic plant itself has also received a facelift. The Bulldog Club is now over 8,000 members strong. We have maintained solid academic performance and have strengthened our positioning there with the addition of the new Templeton Athletic Academic Building. New video boards have been constructed at football and baseball, and a new scoreboard was erected at soccer. * * * MSTATEATHLETICS.COM CONTINUES TO GROW As we continue to develop unique programming and timely sports news coverage for our website, mstateathletics.com, our fans and supporters are reaching out to our site in constantly improving numbers. Through the first four months of 2009, our website recorded 4,768,750 page views (a 15 percent growth over a year ago), and 484,256 unique browsers. Revenue generated from Maroon to the Max subscriptions, plus various other sources, experienced a 142 percent growth from 12 months prior. * * * VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE BASKETBALL FLOOR DESIGN Currently running on the mstateathletics.com website is a survey for our fans to vote for their favorite basketball floor design. We will be repainting the floor this summer, and we need your help in determining the look for the playing surface. You can vote as many times as you like, but only one vote per IP address will be counted. * * * BYRNE THURSDAY TO TAKE A SUMMER BREAK As we have said many times previously, a priority for us will be to maintain communication with you, the Bulldog fan, ticket buyer and supporter. With our competitive seasons largely completed, however, and the fact that we will be involved in Southeastern Conference meetings next week in Destin, Fla., we will begin a summer schedule of column communications. You can expect to hear from us every few weeks as we continue to update you as the summer progresses. * * * We appreciate what you do for Mississippi State Athletics and want to encourage you to get others involved. There are three things you can do to help Mississippi State reach its desired goals -
1. Buy Season Tickets
2. Financially Support the Bulldog Club
3. Get Others To Do The Same
Thanks for taking the time to read this update.
Go Dawgs!
Greg Byrne
byrne@athletics.msstate.edu