Flying Dutchmen Fans

I wrote Roger Rubin an email, actually sent him two but this time he responded to me about the ridiculous amount of coverage St. John's has been getting vs. us or any other school on LI.

This was his response:

I, personally, don’t think it should be either/or. We should write about the Red Storm AND Hofstra AND Farmingdale State.



That said, I don’t make the decisions on what we cover.



However: St. John’s stories get read more than Hofstra stories (triple or quadruple maybe), so there is an aspect of ‘give the people what they want.’ And they clearly want St. John’s.



I’d like to see everything college basketball covered on LI, so consider me on your side. But not at the expense of the most popular team.



We didn’t stop covering the Mets when they dumped the season last summer.

Any thoughts???? I will be replying...

What, no love for Stony Brook?

Seriously, I understand why St. John's gets so much coverage. They are the biggest MBB program east of NYC. Newsday doesn't cover Seton Hall, another major program, or any other NJ schools.

His comment about the Mets is ridiculous. Local media (print, radio, TV) always cover all professional teams, whether they win or lose.

Newsday does a good job of covering high school sports, but they clearly publish more articles about local colleges. Maybe they could devote a page a week to local colleges, including us, SBU, Adelphi, Farmingdale, LIU and others (maybe even written by some local college students). I realize newsroom staffing has been and will continue to be under pressure, but that's the state of newspapers in 2024.

BTW, Roger is not Newsday employee. His LinkedIn profile says he is a freelance writer.

I never got a response to my e-mail I told them(at the time) that we had the leading scorer in college basketball playing for us. Asked him whether that was news worthy?? Today another article about Pitino!! What a waste of ink, IMO!!

Let’s be honest. Newsday does just a terrible job covering its hometown college basketball teams. St John’s basketball teams sucks, but I guess we have to have a daily story, anyway, on a boring team and it’s tortured, depressed millionaire coach.


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Mark19th wrote: ↑Tue Feb 20, 2024 11:51 pm Let’s be honest. Newsday does just a terrible job covering its hometown college basketball teams. St John’s basketball teams sucks, but I guess we have to have a daily story, anyway, on a boring team and it’s tortured, depressed millionaire coach.


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That's just the point...they are fawning all over this guy and ignoring the rest of the college sports scene on Long Island...I told Roger about Tyler Thomas and the incrfedible game Carlos had but he ignored those points...very frustrating.

Could not find ONE WORD re: our game vs. Drexel last night.
SHAMEFUL!

HUSID80 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2024 10:34 am Could not find ONE WORD re: our game vs. Drexel last night.
SHAMEFUL!

Someone from Newsday was covering the past several home games but I was surprised to see that no one from there was at the table last night. I'd imagine they'd be there tomorrow for Senior Night.

Wags wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2024 11:30 am

HUSID80 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2024 10:34 am Could not find ONE WORD re: our game vs. Drexel last night.
SHAMEFUL!

Someone from Newsday was covering the past several home games but I was surprised to see that no one from there was at the table last night. I'd imagine they'd be there tomorrow for Senior Night.

Why Wags? They've ignored us all year...too busy covering what Pitino ate for breakfast and throwing his team under the bus!

Page A41 under the heading "IN BRIEF" there was a TINY 5 line article about our game. I'm surprised there wasn't a huge article about Pitino in the sports section. They're a waste of time and it has been like this for many years. Now that St John's has a coach that has a resume they're getting much too much press.

triplec2195 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2024 12:58 pm Page A41 under the heading "IN BRIEF" there was a TINY 5 line article about our game. I'm surprised there wasn't a huge article about Pitino in the sports section. They're a waste of time and it has been like this for many years. Now that St John's has a coach that has a resume they're getting much too much press.

Agreed triplec, what has he accomplished? They're barely ahead of the LAST PLACE TEAM in the Big East...pathetic!

And meanwhile ESPN covers our MONEY drop on Sports Center!

This has been the major complaint for many years. You have to face it, we are in a conference where the average reader couldn't identify a majority of our opponents. This is not going to generate interest for the general public when even the causal sports fan has heard of the teams in the Big East.

Hofstra needs to work on promoting themselves. I went to one SB game a bunch of years ago with my son's scout troop. Each week, SB sends me an email with an overview of the week's games and a game day email. They have promotions such as $6.31 tickets and a $20 game and buffet combo. HU needs to cultivate their own fan base. I live in Suffolk, so I don't know if HU target Nassau schools/scouts/etc. but when the McKillop tournament outdraws the college game, it shows where the interest is. I understand that LI loves a winner, but #of fans correlates to # of readers in the mind of Newsday. After all, it is a business.

It all works hand in hand. When Newsday covered us we had more fans and more interest. I did marketing for the program for a couple of years and we bought space in Newsday highlighting the upcoming games and running promotions...that was our best attendance year ever. We averaged more than 3500 per game.
Still a paper that gives at leat 2-4 pages to high schools could surely devote some space to the LI colleges.

Newsday is awful and I haven't read that paper in many MANY years. Not sure why any of you still do. It's a terrible outlet, hates on a lot of things they shouldn't, is not well respected, and has NEVER respected HU.

That said, I fully agree it is still important for HU. And I completely agree that Newsday could at least provide some coverage for each game, doesn't need to take a lot of space, but give something.

I think HU needs to be a lot more proactive and make the attention vs depending on Newsday to do it organically. Like HUSID said, there are ways to get fans in the seats and promote, but HU has to actually do it. Newsday isn't going to do it for them.

But you guys also have to understand the economics - there are way more SJU fans than HU. That was also quite clear at UBS. Why in the world would they cover HU over SJU, esp when Pitino is coaching them? You all love to hate this guy, it's hilarious - he's one of the greatest coaches of all time. He's the ONLY reason SJU even bothered to play HU this year. He has a lot of love and respect for Speedy and for HU. Might want to be thankful instead of hateful.

The reality here is that HU is bad team this year despite the mental gymnastics some of you do to justify otherwise, they have zero juice about them having beaten no one with a pulse all year, and they play in an AWFUL league that literally no one cares about.

I think there is stuff to promote, i.e. Thomas Carlos Dubar etc, but HU needs to do it. And they need to do more than just social media. They've done a great job there, but that's their cop out because it's relatively free. They need to actually INVEST in other outlets. If the paper won't do it, then YOU do it.

I can't stand Newsday, and they should absolutely do better, but frankly so should HU.

HUSID80 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2024 11:38 am

Wags wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2024 11:30 am

HUSID80 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2024 10:34 am Could not find ONE WORD re: our game vs. Drexel last night.
SHAMEFUL!

Someone from Newsday was covering the past several home games but I was surprised to see that no one from there was at the table last night. I'd imagine they'd be there tomorrow for Senior Night.

Why Wags? They've ignored us all year...too busy covering what Pitino ate for breakfast and throwing his team under the bus!

You were right. They weren't there last night again.

do you want to get Newsday there?
Get a men’s basketball game and let’s promote Newsday
Get the writers there give them free food
Hell even give them a sweatshirt
Anything to get the word out?

At least one NY newspaper giving us and Tyler Thomas some love:
https://outlook.live.com/mail/0/inbox/i ... 7g8AAAA%3D

Spoke to someone in athletic department’s info office. They’re aware of the Newsday non-coverage of Hofstra basketball, but don’t currently know what to do about it. Guy said they will try to talk about it at a future department meeting.
Meanwhile, I expect Newsday to soon have daily, in-depth, articles on Rick Pitino’s dinner plans, called ‘Dinner with Rick.’ Will he have a steak or go for the roast chicken? ice cream or Jello for dessert?


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They’re aware of the Newsday non-coverage of Hofstra basketball, but don’t currently know what to do about it.

This right here is the problem, and a microcosm of HU admin. This needs to change. HU desperately needs to hire more true high level collegiate athletics experts that have the know-how and skill to navigate all the things needed. Why I continue to be concerned about our future. Not seeing the leadership and expertise required.


And SJU just knocked off #15 Creighton in the garden. They've had a rough 1st year under Pitino, but that program has been a dumpster fire - they will win out in media because they have lots of opportunities to gain attention.

I've rooted against SJU for a very long time, but right now with him there and being supportive of HU, it will be better to have them solid again. He'll get them there.

The Newsday problem is simple...buy some advertising to promote our games and guess what? They will start covering us.