The College Park Center, which seats 7,000 people, has yet to be sold out for a UTA sporting event since 2012. Feb. 22 is the opportunity to do so.
UTA Athletics is hoping to “Pack The Park” as the men’s basketball team faces in-state rival Tarleton State University at 7 p.m. Saturday. The game will be broadcast for national audiences on ESPNU.
The department is looking to set a new CPC attendance record, going the extra mile to do so. The current record sits at 6,421 seats filled as of Nov. 12, 2012.
Duane Lewis, external relations senior associate athletics director, said the match won’t be a typical basketball game, but rather an event including entertainment for all attendees.
“This is our basketball Super Bowl,” Lewis said.
In collaboration with the Division of Student Affairs, the game will feature a halftime dunk show from Air Elite Dunkers and a postgame concert headlined by singer-songwriter K CAMP.
This effort is a reflection of the culture that Athletics director Jon Fagg is trying to build at UTA going forward, comparing the department to sharks.
“We talk about shark culture a lot,” he said. “Sharks are always moving forward. They never move backwards, they go forward. They’re always hungry, always looking for something to eat, and as soon as they eat something, they look for the next thing.”
There isn’t anything more fun than rooting for your school at a game, Fagg said. As a university with no football program, the department is pushing students to build a culture within themselves.
“That’s what athletics does. It’s a rallying point,” he said. “It’s a connection point to campus and to your fellow students.”
Fagg has built an incredible staff for UTA Athletics, one with varying viewpoints that has helped them push the program forward.
“We’ve been lucky enough to find them, and then hopefully we’re compelling enough to bring them here. That’s how it works and that’s how you get better,” he said. “You have to have great people with varied backgrounds. Then, all pushing in the same direction.”
The department recognizes that winning is the simplest fix to increasing attendance. Coming off a season where UTA volleyball finished with a 29-3 overall record and clutched a conference championship, Fagg said attendance for those games has increased 200%.
The women’s basketball team has a perfect 10-0 at CPC this season, with the men sitting at 8-3. The department wants students to know how their energy can influence results, showcasing that home-court advantage exists.
“You can make a difference in us winning and losing,” Lewis said.
Richard Haifley, external services associate athletics director, said the department wants to capture data for Saturday’s game as it will give the department an idea of who attends and who to market going forward.
Students will need to claim tickets, which isn’t usually the case for CPC games, but admission remains free for them and one guest. Additional tickets are available starting at $5 on UTAtickets.com or can be purchased at the arena’s box office.
It takes a lot to put an event like this together, and it’s come with the help of notable officials in the area. Arlington mayor Jim Ross, Grand Prairie mayor Ron Jensen and Michael Evans, Mansfield mayor and UTA alumnus, were among those who made promotional videos for the department.
A pitch the department is making to corral people to the game is that students have the opportunity to be a part of history Saturday.
“Come for the event. Come be a part of the history. Come be a part of the national TV crowd,” Lewis said.
Aside from the planned spectacle, there’s still a game that needs to be played, something student athletes haven’t lost sight of. The Mavericks are winding down their regular season and are coming up on a big stretch of games prior to the Western Athletic Conference championship tournament.
“It’s pretty cool, but I feel like it’s still just another game for us,” junior guard Brody Robinson said. “It’s another game in conference, and we have to focus on the task at hand. We can’t get caught up in the, ‘Oh, it’s on national TV.’ We got to show out, we got to continue what we’ve been doing.”
Senior guard Brandyn Talbot, who has spent his entire career at UTA, appreciates the campus’ growth and expects a bigger jump going forward.
He said he looks forward to playing TSU, who handed the Mavericks their first conference loss of the season. UTA’s “mini-bye” will allow for the team to be extra prepared for the upcoming matchup.
“Coming into a game, a big hype game like this, you know we want to get our get back,” Talbot said.
Fagg explained that the event is much more than a game and urged students to show up even if they aren’t basketball fans.
“Sports is not about winning and losing as a fan, it’s about making memories with each other, and that’s what we’re trying to get people to understand,” he said. “Come out here, make memories.”
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