What could SUU do better to make sports better?

The obvious answer is money. More money, less problems. Currently SUU Athletics has the lowest budget in the Big Sky and it's not very close. More money equals better facilities, better marketing, better fan experience and better overall atmosphere. The hard part of that equation is where does it come from? You can't raise the dollar amount on students, they already complain about that fee. You can't really raise ticket prices, because attendance is already an issue when tickets are free or less than 10 dollars. You could go after alumni, but most are willing to unfold their wallets for academic purposes and not necessarily athletic initiatives. So even though money is the obvious answer it isn't the realistic one.

So what could be done? It's all about buy in. How do you get students and the community to buy into SUU athletics. Think about it for a second Eccles Coliseum sits around 7,000 and the Centrum about 5,000. Cedar City's population is just south of 30,000. Meaning you only need 25% of the community to attend a game for it to be a sell out. With support like that, a crowd behind the team (even when they are struggling) it wouldn't matter that we play is average arenas and stadiums or that our weight room isn't the quality of the nation's top programs. We would have unity and with that we would have strength. The environment has to be built. How is that done? The answer isn't easy, or it would already be in place. SUU which is built on community ties has the biggest issues with having that same strong support in the athletic arena. I don't know how that is done, but that's what I would do.