Red Panda meets the Pit: UNM continues push to enhance game day experience

The Rolling Stones.

Johnny Tapia. Danny Romero. Bobby Foster.

Don Flanagan, Jim Hulsman, "The Bear," Lou Henson, Ralph Tasker, Bob King.

Jim Valvano looking for someone to hug.

Royce Olney looking for another opponent's heart to rip out.

The Pit has been home to legends and legendary performances.

And Wednesday night, during the Fresno State vs. New Mexico men's basketball game, a new chapter in the iconic arena's lore will be written.

Red Panda, meet the Pit.

Ring Niu, arguably the most famous halftime entertainer in the world, has entertained myriad NBA and college basketball fans over the years. While seated on her elevated unicycle, she launches bowls into the air with her foot only to have them land and balance on her head. This week, she'll make her first appearance in the Pit.

Hyperbole aside, UNM's move to get headliner acts is in line with continued efforts to revamp, reenergize, fix, improve — whatever you want to call it — the game day experience for Lobo fans.

"With the Pit, I feel like it's something that families go do and it's generational," said Kasey Byers, senior associate athletics director for external relations. Byers left a job at the University of Washington to return for a second stint at UNM when former AD Fernando Lovo asked him to head up the creative and marketing sides of the department. "I think despite whatever fans think one year or the next about intro videos or sound system or certain things, they're always going to gather in that place, because it's a cathedral in New Mexico. ...

"But we've always felt like the Pit needs a pro-level experience because it's a pro-level team here and the fans deserve that from us."

While winning was likely the catalyst, improving the game day experience for football — such as adding more pregame and in-game activities for fans — also helped the program lead the nation in year-over-year average home attendance growth this past season.

Attendance at the men's basketball games, on the other hand, has always, and still is, tops in the Mountain West. The Pit experience, as Byers described it, "transcends" a lot of the need for sideshows and in-game promotions. Still, UNM sought ways to continue enhancing the game day experience.

"In today's world with social media and with how much your device can entertain you, you've got to find ways to make sure it's something that people want to go to," Byers said.

"This isn't 20 years ago. It's not 30 years ago. While I do think that the Pit transcends some of that, you can't have that mindset. You can't not feed the lion that leaves the pride."

Like it did with football, UNM is soliciting regular feedback from fans at games, knowing that for every idea that hits — how about that in-arena light show? — there are promotions that, well, flush away with time — remember those motorized toilet races?

Then there are things that become a hit for reasons nobody ever saw coming, like how fans are falling more and more in love with the tic-tac-toe layup contest after at least four fans in the past two seasons have, almost inexplicably, lost for seeming to be among the only people alive who don't know the rules of one of the world's most basic games.

Nevertheless, UNM plans to keep pushing forward with new ideas, especially in an era when attendance is down across the country in almost all sports.

In addition to Red Panda on Wednesday, UNM is rolling out a retro 1990s-themed game day experience for Saturday's game vs. Nevada and former Lobo coaches Steve Alford and Craig Neal (the women's retro game is Jan. 31).

There will be a turn-back-the-clock promotion with retro uniforms, retro gear being sold in the Lobo Den store, a "vintage" living room set up in the concourse where fans can take pictures amid throwback Lobo posters and even in-game tweaks to video board graphics.

The nostalgia cost some man-hours and digging up old posters (Interim Athletics Director and lifelong Lobo hoops diehard Ryan Berryman took care of a lot of that from his childhood storage bins), and the Red Panda didn't exactly break the bank.

According to her contract the Journal reviewed through an open records request, Niu is paid $3,350 and requires such things as a dressing room, an 8-foot ladder, two on-site assistants and early access to the arena.

Hardly a queen's ransom to add another legend's name to the arena's story.

Reach Geoff Grammer at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.