I'll start off by saying I am a Billikens basketball fan. I have followed the team from the days of Roland Gray right on through to the current era. Nothing is better than having a packed house for a meaningful conference basketball game in February. But have you noticed that there is very little buzz about the Billikens. Shouldn't there have been more than 8,134 reported fans in the building for the season opener? SLU spent a lot of money to bring in the big hire head coach (Rick Majerus) and yet there seems to be no interest by the St. Louis sportsfan. Why is that?

First, the university has spent little to no money on promotion whereas the Blues have spent tons of money on promotion and have reaped the rewards by filling the Scottrade Center for what is right now a .500 hockey team. The Billikens (a 20-win basketball team from last year) reported eight thousand but in reality there was maybe about 5,000 people there. The second thing is unlike the Blues who are very open to getting their players and management out in front of the cameras the Billikens have been very scarce. Majerus has closed off his practices and made his players very unavailable. That is his prerogative and I am not to judge what is best for his team but it does cut both ways. If you are very secretive and don't want to be in the public eye then it is tough to have the casual sports fan interested in your product. The gamble that Majerus is making is that I will win and the fans will come. I sure hope he is right. Because I can see the scenario three years from now if the team isn't winning that there is only about 3,000 fans in the building for a conference game against Fordham and the SLU officials are wondering aloud why no one is here to watch them play in a new building? The gamble is win and they will come. Hopefully for the Billikens and the university it will pan out.

Tim Klutsarits

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