APSU Athletic Director Ryan Ivey, recently unveiled his plans to get students more involved with athletics and increase attendance at sporting events.
Ivey’s plans include getting more involvement on campus.
“What I really want to do is sit down and have conversations with them and find out what makes [students] want to come to Governor’s athletic games,” Ivey said. “Once we get that understanding and build that partnership, then we’ll start to build a culture of students coming to athletic events.”
With more information, Ivey plans to make athletic events enjoyable for everyone. An important factor to consider is student participation according to Ivey. If APSU students are not involved at sporting events, less donors, alumni and corporate sponsors will attend.
During the Ohio Valley Conference press conference, Ivey mentioned his plans on marketing APSU with an inside-out approach focusing on students.
“If we can’t get our students to come to our games and support us, then how can we expect our fans, our community, our donors and our alumni to come back as well?” Ivey said.
Another part of the plan for increasing student involvement and attendance is internal student athlete support at events, suggesting one team picking another team to support all season as often as possible.
“We start internally with our own student athletes, then go to our students, and then try to rally our campus community to get involved,” Ivey said. “Then we go to the Clarksville community, then we go to the regional community and do things to really increase our exposure and awareness and create opportunities for people to become involved and engage with APSU athletics.”
APSU is an NCAA Division I school while Texas A&M University at Commerce is a smaller Division II school. Ivey said the biggest difference between the two is volume and exposure. Commerce is a smaller school and community with less exposure and media coverage compared to APSU.
“[This] is a good thing,” Ivey said.
Ryan said meeting people in Clarksville will be more difficult because of the significant size difference compared to Commerce, Tex.
“Most importantly, we’re going to have some fun doing it,” Ivey said. “The future is bright here, and I know we can achieve great things together.”
