SUNY Oswego tries to change lack of attendance for sport’s games

OSWEGO, N.Y.- SUNY Oswego is known for having sport teams that help to put the campus on the map and make a name for the university.

However, while everyone outside of the school may seem to see SUNY Oswego as a top tier competitor, what about the love that comes from inside the campus itself? SUNY Oswego men’s teams receives a lot of support and advertisement due to their success and passion for the sports. The women’s teams also receive support for the games as well, but it doesn’t seem to be as much as the men’s teams.

SUNY Oswego houses many different sports and teams in a variety of ways. SUNY Oswego has varsity teams, clubs and even intramural teams for people to join. While intramural and club teams are for fun and don’t really require announcement of their games, the varsity teams are different and while there are announcements for some of the men’s game there is even little for the women’s.

Sabrina Taylor is a former Oswego student who has now graduated and was on the varsity volleyball team. She herself experienced the low advertisement for her and her team’s games.

“The only way people ever really knew about it was if the girls on the team advertised,” Taylor said. “Or it being shown in the myoswego daily mail, through the SUNY Oswego mail just saying there’s a volleyball game versus whoever today.”

Even with no male team to compete with for audiences SUNY Oswego still does less in helping create a bigger outreach for one of the women teams at SUNY Oswego.

Women’s teams at SUNY Oswego aren’t the only thing that doesn’t get as much attention among the faculty or students.

“For instance, I’m also a part of theater and theater was only ever witnessed and participated by other theater students,” Taylor said. “It wasn’t advertised to buildings like Shineman or MCC.”

There are many things that go under the radar of students and professors due to a lack of communication and advertisement.

Even those who are in charge of making sure that there is an equal amount of attention for both the men’s and women’s teams recognize that there isn’t enough attention for the women teams.

Cory Moehringer is the assistant director of athletic communications and has only been at SUNY Oswego for a month. However, in that time frame he was able to see what it is like and the difference in attendance and engagement.

“I would say we get the most , uh, highest attendance and highest engagement with the men’s teams,” Moehringer said.

One thing SUNY Oswego is also doing is changing. One thing that constantly changes is the people who work on the campus and when new people come in it usually means new ideas are on the horizon and ready to be implemented.

“Really getting down to like making sure we know who was posted, when they were posted, and the same thing with games,” Moehringer said. “So that I would say what’s been implemented is just like the more specific tracking of who’s getting the coverage and when.”

Moehringer has only been with SUNY Oswego for a short time but is eager to get change out there to help make sure that the women’s teams at SUNY Oswego are getting the same amount of coverage and audience as the men’s.

Moehringer plans to continue to evolve his ideas at SUNY Oswego as he goes onto make sure that everyone has an equal amount of opportunity and coverage. Something that is helping him to do this is tracking the games themselves.

“So that’s something we track. So we track like our engagement our posting to see like what we have posted, when we posted, who was on the post, how often they’re being posted,” Moehringer said.

One thing Moehringer really wants for SUNY Oswego currently is to help raise awareness for not just certain games but of all games. His goal is to create a bigger audience for each team that plays their games.

“The idea is that if we can build like the attention onto that, that these things are happening, these are the exciting things that are happening on campus and you should come out and support then that will kind of grown the attendance and attraction for the teams,” Moehringer said.

Moehringer might have only been with SUNY Oswego for a short amount of time so far but he has already gained the trust and respect of that of his fellow coworkers and other staff members as well such as the women’s hockey team coach Mark Digby.

“You know I think as they get acclimated here, it’s been fun to see more and more stuff coming our way,” Digby said. “And I think the future of our schedule is exciting too, knowing some of the programming that they’re pushing to try to help get larger attendants for our program and for our players.”

Digby has shown his appreciation toward Moehringer and everything he has done so far and continues to look forward to what they come up with next to help give more traction to not only their games but also that of other teams as well.

While Digby has confidence that Moehringer and his team can bring a better audience to the women’s games he also knows that there are things beyond his control such as the timing and placement of games when the schedules are made.

“The men’s Plattsburgh game, the White Out game, if that falls in January, there’s no students here,” Digby said. “It’s not as well attended, right? And I think some of it’s just timing.”

Digby knows that at the end of the day the players do not get to choose what their game schedules look like and that this time around the men’s team schedule lined up better for them than the women’s team. 

However, Digby believes next year with the women’s hockey team doing the same days the men played this year they will see a boost in attendance and overall a much bigger audience compared to what was tracked this year.

With the men and women teams constantly going through changes involving players and schedules it is possible that they will not only see a fluctuation of people attending these games but also an equal amount of people going as well.

With Moehringer behind the wheel, teams are confident that there will be change to come and see. Until then, both the men and women teams at SUNY Oswego will continue to give it their all no matter the outcome.