TERRE HAUTE —
Though a group of Indiana State University students learned about statistics in class, they discovered even more at a baseball stadium.
Students in the Business 305 course taught by Ken Jones, lecturer of operations management and analysis, analyzed attendance data of the Terre Haute Rex, a summer collegiate baseball team in the Prospect League.
The students reviewed attendance figures and additional information, such as theme nights and average attendance for all the Prospect League teams, to determine what influences fan turnout. The project incorporated some of the classroom lessons to a project that can help the baseball organization.
“It just applies the concepts to real-life situations, not just numbers and stuff on a paper,” said senior Seth Bayless, a business administration major from Robinson, Ill., who worked on the project. “It’s something you can actually see, and you can grasp the big picture. It makes you think more analytically.”
The group created two different models, one predicting the Rex attendance, and a different one which incorporated league-wide attendance factors. The class found some interesting results: Rain on game day impacted attendance figures more than the day’s temperature, and a correlation existed between the number of players who eventually played for a Major League Baseball team and high turnout.
“With the Rex, we had our own information, and we did everything ourselves, so we were using what we actually learned in a real-life situation, so it actually made more sense once you look at the data,” said Halee Myers, a senior accounting major from Terre Haute.
Students also found that the average income of community residents did not influence attendance figures. A community’s size also did not significantly impact fan turnout – the Outlaws of Nashville, Tenn., attracted the fewest fans per game of any team in the league, according to figures on the Prospect League website. Nashville is much larger than most other league cities, which include Terre Haute, Danville, Ill., and Chillicothe, Ohio.
The Outlaws’ attendance may have been hindered by ownership issues, said Casey DeGroote, operations manager for the Terre Haute Rex. The Prospect League website posted a newspaper article in June that the league at the time was searching for a team owner. DeGroote thinks that the Nashville team’s attendance could increase within the coming years.
“The market down there is flooded with entertainment, so it might take a little longer than it probably did for us to get a fan base,” DeGroote said. “With us, I think the community is so yearning for baseball that we didn’t really have to do much.”
Additional factors, such as team success, also affected the attendance figures. That factor benefited the Rex, which made the postseason in just the team’s second year in the league. The team’s attendance increased by about 190 fans from its inaugural season to just over 1,000 fans per home game this year.
“Our last three games were three of our biggest nights, so that was right when the playoff hunt was going on,” said Matt Foster, finance manager for the Terre Haute Rex. “The class presented that winning percentage has a lot to do with your attendance, and that really showed towards the end of the season.”
DeGroote and Foster attended a presentation by the stats class students, who discussed their findings about the data. Foster said the information from the project will help with forecasting budgets and ticket sales next year.
“There are a lot of unknown variables in there, such as whether it will rain, so we have to be conservative when we are forecasting,” he said after the presentation. But the project “shows the affect it has on attendance, so it will help with forecasting that for next year.”
Jones conceived the idea for the project after learning about the Rex, which plays its games “literally about four or five blocks” from ISU’s Scott College of Business.
“Initially, we thought as a class that maybe we could perform some classic analysis in the classroom -- looking at win-loss records or socioeconomic demographics,” Jones said, “but very quickly, we deduced that maybe there was more we could do to help the Rex organization operationally, to help them succeed in some way.”
The project also will help the participating students become more employable, since they can reference the experience in which they used class lessons to benefit an organization, Myers said.
The Rex members hope to keep the momentum from this season going into next year, as they plan to build off increasing attendance this season.
“We need to bring them in that one time,” DeGroote said of fans. “If they enjoy it, then I think we can lure them in, which is pretty important on our end … to try to create a fun atmosphere for them.”
Terre Haute Rex
America’s (Class) Time: ISU students analyze Rex attendance data for class project
- Terre Haute Rex
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2012 an up, down season for Rex
The Terre Haute Rex went through plenty of trials and tribulations during the summer of 2012.
The team got off to a sluggish start to settle for third place during the first half of the Prospect League race, but manager Brian Dorsett rallied the troops to a second-half title. -
Metro Roundup: Dorsett, Rex players honored in Prospect League postseason awards
Terre Haute Rex closer Nick Blount won one award and shared another and Brian Dorsett shared Manager of the Year honors as the Prospect League announced postseason awards Saturday.
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Rex out of playoffs
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Rex mix, match their way to win
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Rex turn eye to Prospect playoffs
Fans attending this evening’s Terre Haute Rex game should expect some handouts, some surprises — and probably better start by the home team than the Rex could provide Saturday night.
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Rex drop road game to Sliders 7-1
One night after a dramatic come-from-behind victory, the Terre Haute Rex went down meekly to the Springfield Sliders 7-1 in Prospect League baseball Friday night.
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Rex defeat Springfield twice, clinch spot in playoffs
It was a long but fruitful night for the playoff-bound Terre Haute Rex.
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Playoff march continues: Rex creep closer to postseason with victory over Dans
Hire the band, make the floats, and rent out a street.
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Rex split, retain 3 1⁄2-game advantage in West Division
A five-run ninth-inning rally fell far short for the Terre Haute Rex on Sunday night in Prospect League baseball.
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No no-hitter, but Rex triumphs
Kyle Zimmerman took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, lost his control and the lead, but the Terre Haute Rex offense had an immediate answer Friday night at Bob Warn Field.
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Travel baseball teams enjoy busy summer
So in the past two or three years, the increase in local travel baseball options has been led by three groups, Indiana (formerly Terre Haute) Havoc, Riley Recreation League and Junior Rex.
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First-place Rex top rival Bombers
If you haven’t been to a Terre Haute Rex game yet this season, tonight might be the time to go.
The Rex have a second straight home game against the Dubois County Bombers, a potential Prospect League West Division playoff preview — and a battle between maybe the division’s two biggest rivals. -
Rex top Cavemen, raise record to 14-6
The first-place Terre Haute Rex picked up a 6-4 victory Wednesday at Hannibal, Mo., against the Cavemen.
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Rex win first game of Saturday doubleheader
Terre Haute maintained its stronghold on first place in the Prospect League West Division on Saturday, the Rex defeating Dubois County 6-1 in the first game of a doubleheader.
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Strunc fans 10, Rex win 12-10
Power pitching and power hitting kept a season-high crowd of 1,732 Rex fans on the edge of their seats Friday night at Bob Warn Field.
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Starting role suits Cunningham as Rex win
Nick Cunningham took the mound Thursday in his relatively new role as starting pitcher looking to give the Terre Haute Rex some breathing room atop the Prospect League West Division standings.
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Rex fall at Danville, maintain two-game division lead
The Terre Haute Rex lost 7-4 on Wednesday at Danville, falling to 9-4 in the second half of the Prospect League schedule.
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High drama, but no win
Pinch-hitter Michael Eberle provided patient Terre Haute Rex fans with plenty of excitement by belting a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to tie the score against the Springfield Sliders at 9-9.
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Rex cool off against Springfield
It was a game Terre Haute probably didn’t deserve to win, and, despite an outstanding bullpen effort and focused hitting in the last few innings, the Rex did lose Monday for the first time since July 4 at Quincy.
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Rex roll to lead in division
A constant theme repeated by Terre Haute Rex manager Brian Dorsett is how his summer-league collegians adjust to the everyday schedule, rather than the four or five-game slates they’re used to.
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Rex bounce back, dominate Dans
Terre Haute reaped the bounty of three Danville errors in the second inning. The Rex made the Dans pay for each of their errors with eight base hits in the inning and Terre Haute never looked back on its way to an 11-4 victory in front of sweltering crowd of 669.
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Rex open second half with victory at Quincy
The Terre Haute Rex opened the second half of the Prospect League season with a 8-7 victory Tuesday night at Quincy Stadium.
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Head coach could be next stop for Prettyman
Credited in part to some unforgettable memories at Cal State Fullerton, where Ronnie Prettyman scored the winning run in the 2004 College World Series, the Indiana State and Terre Haute Rex assistant coach wants to pursue a future in college coaching.
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Cunningham, McCurdy pace Rex to win over league leader
What was essentially a meaningless baseball game as far as the standings were concerned couldn’t have gone much better for the Terre Haute Rex on Saturday night at Bob Warn Field.
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Rex score 4 before getting first hit, then hang on for win
With temperatures over 100 degrees Friday, affairs at Bob Warn Field took a walk on the wild side.
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Rex duo working overtime
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Rex fall 7-1 to Hannibal
The Terre Haute Rex lost 7-1 on Thursday, falling behind 4-0 after the first inning at Bob Warn Field.
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Rex have winning streak snapped
The season-long five-game winning streak of the Terre Haute Rex came to an end Wednesday night at Dubois County.
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Rex move within four games of first-place Dubois County
The Terre Haute Rex moved within four games of the first-place Dubois County Bombers, scoring the first 11 runs in a 12-6 shellacking at Bob Warn Field on Tuesday.
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Rex take third straight, move to 12-11 overall
Wildness cost the Terre Haute Rex a precarious lead in the fifth inning, but thankfully for the home team Quincy returned the favor in the bottom of the ninth inning.
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