The Golden Eagles defeated top-ranked Villanova Jan. 24 in what is being called the greatest regular season game in the history of the men’s basketball program. An unranked team beating the No. 1 team in the nation is a very rare occurrence. It has implications for the team’s tournament hopes, but also for several other facets of the university.
Marquette’s social media accounts are a prime example of this. Immediately following the win, accounts were hit with a barrage of interactions.
Tim Cigelske, director of social media in the Office of Marketing and Communication, said 210,000 impressions flooded Marquette’s primary Facebook account, and the primary Twitter account received roughly 156,000 impressions. Marquette’s Instagram account also received 18,400 impressions. It includes a picture of the freshly stormed court that currently has over 4,800 likes on Instagram, more than twice the amount of likes as any other Instagram post.
In total, the Marquette social media team recorded 11,000 incoming messages across all social media in the management system Sprout Social. This includes replies, comments and retweets. Sprout Social recorded 950 new Twitter followers for official Marquette accounts. There was also an uptick in Facebook fans with about 300 new fans across all official accounts.
Support for the basketball team in person also received a considerable boost. The crowd at Saturday’s game against Providence amassed 15,369 attendees.
“This is one of our best non-National Marquette Day Big East crowds in the past few years,” Brian Hardin, deputy athletics director, said. “The crowd of 15,369 was our sixth-best in the last 23 Big East games, including two National Marquette Day games.”
Walk-up ticket sales for the Providence game were nine times greater than that of the Villanova game, and 256 percent more than the Saturday, Jan. 14 game against DePaul.
The Spirit Shop received a boost as a result of the win. While protocol restricts them from giving details, associate director of the Spirit Shop Larry Burke said:
“We often experience a significant bump in sales both in the store and online after any major win by the men’s basketball program. This was the case with the recent upset win over #1 Villanova.”
Online purchase numbers were significantly higher Wednesday, Jan. 25, than any other post-game Wednesday this season. According to Hardin, numbers recorded on Wednesday’s online orders were about a 2,000 percent increase compared to the Thursday after the men’s basketball win over Seton Hall on Jan. 11.
From a business standpoint, the money made from the Spirit Shop and tickets sales can help fund the $5,000 fine that Marquette accrued for having fans storm the court.
