UCLA Announces New Student Initiatives
LOS ANGELES - Building upon record student attendance over the past two years, UCLA Athletics is pleased to announce the creation of a working Den leadership group within the department's marketing unit. The leadership group’s focus will be further growing student attendance, elevating the student game day experience and better communicating programs already in place that benefit students, such as "GolDen Game," "Champed Up," donor subsidized shuttles and early bird Den pass pricing, among others.
Offering a unique hands-on educational experience, for the first time in department history, Den leadership will be housed in athletic's marketing department to collaborate on these and various other student marketing and engagement initiatives. Three students - a Director of Game Day Operations, Director of Marketing/Outreach and Director of Creative Content - will be given the opportunity to develop and execute plans created by the student, for the student.
Accompanying the new model for Den leadership and engagement will be a new Den logo (click here). The official mark of the student section for UCLA sporting events, this new logo instantly provides Den leadership with a fresh, identifiable look, as well as new branding opportunities.
Over the past two years, The Den has seen impressive growth, establishing new student attendance records in both football and men's basketball. In 2014-15, students set a new Den pass sales record with 11,046 passes sold, only the second time on record that this number has surpassed the 10,000 mark. That same year, football experienced its largest student attendance numbers on record at the Rose Bowl, averaging 7,563 students per contest.
Prior to the start of the 2014-15 men's basketball season, UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero bucked national trends with the announcement that he was nearly doubling student seating in the lower bowl. As a result, since UCLA began scanning student attendance in 2007, men's basketball has seen its two largest years of student attendance on record: posting a total of 19,027 (1,057 per game average) in 2014-15 and 20,729 (1,152 per game average) this past season.
With Olympic sport event attendance free to all students and thanks to the generous support of a Wooden Athletic Fund donor, UCLA Athletics has made it easier than ever to attend baseball games with complimentary student shuttle buses to five select home games at Jackie Robinson Stadium during each of the past two seasons.
Additionally, all Olympic sporting events feature one “GolDen Game” in which special giveaway items and promotions are offered to encourage student attendance. These "GolDen Games" time and again have delivered great crowds for our Olympic sport teams while providing our student-athletes an electric atmosphere and true home court/field advantage for some of their most important matchups.
"In talking with fans, donors and alums of all ages, some of the greatest memories they share with me are from their time at UCLA sporting events," said Guerrero. "It's for this reason that ensuring our student experience continues to be second to none is so vitally important to both me and our department as a whole. Those four years go by so fast, but the memories, well, the memories quite literally last a lifetime."
To help ensure that a proud Bruin tradition nearly a century in the making continues to be passed from one generation of UCLA students to the next, UCLA Athletics and the Den will once again welcome all new enrollees to campus in September with the second annual "Champed Up" student athletic welcome event. Featuring high-end giveaways, appearances from head coaches and student-athletes, special guest surprises and more, the "Champed Up" event teaches the finer points of being a Bruin fan - from an education on game-changing alums of different eras like Jackie Robinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Russell Westbrook to the 8-clap to the Pyramid of Success and everything in between.
"Being a part of The Den has been my favorite part of going to UCLA," said Den Co-President Leah Falcon. "The memories I've made at sporting events will stay with me for a very long time. I'm excited for the Den to continue growing stronger and increasing our attendance numbers at games even more."
Perhaps most notable among all athletic department initiatives is the offering of a Den Sports Pass to all UCLA students, one of the best valued student athletic season passes in the nation. For a one-time fee of $169, students can attend each football and men's basketball game for a per game cost that ranges somewhere between $6 and $7 depending on how many total games are played in a respective season. And for the second straight year, next season's Den Sports Pass (2016-17) can be purchased by students at a $40 early bird discount of $129 prior to July 1, 2016, with the price returning to $169 on the first of the month.
For more information on these programs, the Den Pass and more, please visit www.uclabruins.com/theden.