Seniors Michael Seitz, Joseph Gombatto, Thomas Reilly, Eric Bernhardt, Jimmy McKeown, Jace Frazier and Jack Gombatto tour Times Square prior to the team’s NIT matchup at Madison Square Garden
Tucker Reilly/ The Bona Venture
BY: TUCKER REILLY, ADVISORY EDITOR
St. Bonaventure University’s basketball program is no stranger to the national stage.
In addition to games in the NCAA, NIT and Atlantic 10 tournaments, the team has played a significant number of games on channels like NBC Sports and CBS Sports Network. While it is difficult to quantify, members of the university’s administration agree that these games have a substantial effect on Bonaventure’s public profile.
The most visible link between basketball and television is in advertising. Seth Johnson, the university’s Senior Associate Athletic Director for External Operations, described how potential sponsors look for opportunities.
“Some people … equate ‘nationally televised’ with ‘relevant.’ To some degree, it’s true,” said Johnson. “From a sponsor’s perspective, there’s a reason why everyone has their advertising at center court: It’s seen. For many local businesses, they’re only interested in the local impact; for others, that national attention is very valuable.”
A key influence in the number of national games a team plays is the expectation of success. Bonaventure had 13 nationally televised games last regular season after ranking 23rd in the AP Preseason Top 25 poll. This year, it is scheduled to play 11.
“In the last 15 years since Coach [Mark] Schmidt has been here, we’ve had sustained success which has given us more opportunities on TV,” said Tom Missel, Bonaventure’s chief communications officer. “It’s allowed the conference to want to put us in better spots. I think that people recognize this program matters — they’re contenders. They’re competitive.”
As a small, regional university in the Division I landscape, Bonaventure relies heavily on alumni and student involvement to make the university a household name.
“The most glaring example is the NIT tournament in 2022,” said Missel. “We may have been closer to New York City than Xavier was, but it was dominant. We took over Madison Square Garden with an alumni base of 30,000 or 31,000 everywhere. And I think when people see that, it may spark them to find out more about this school because these people are nuts!”
Student and alumni attendance at games is affected by a number of factors, including scheduling during the week. Because students make up a large and active portion of attendees, having healthy turnout is critical for the game-time atmosphere.
“The biggest factor for us has always been the day of the week, comparing weekends to weekdays. With our regional fans — Buffalo, Rochester — they come down for games,” said Johnson. “We could play a frontrunner in the A-10 on a Tuesday night and get beat out by a lower-stakes weekend game because people still have to get up for work in the morning.”
According to Missel, the most important aspect of nationally televised games is appealing to students or parents that had not previously considered Bonaventure.
“It’s funny… when we were on CBS for our [A-10] title game or in an NCAA game, you could see our Google analytics go through the roof,” said Missel. “People come to a website having never heard of St. Bonaventure. But the reality is that now we’ve helped with the awareness.”
Through the national attention brought by these games, the university is able to reach an audience far beyond its size and sphere of influence.
“It doesn’t matter if just one person comes to our website and says, ‘I never knew it was that kind of school, that had an alumni base that’s so passionate or has the program I was looking for,’’ said Missel. “If one person ends up going to college because of the ripple effect of having to see us on TV, that’s absolutely worth it.”
reillyt19@bonaventure.edu
