By: Alex Faust, News Staff

Outside of fancy media consulting companies or web traffic/analytics services, the “buzz” or “excitement” for a product can be hard to measure. In sports, the most tangible measurement the industry has is gate attendance. If people attend games consistently, then the assumption can be made that fans are excited about what they see.

This semester, there haven’t been any men’s hockey or men’s basketball games, yet it’s hard to deny the excitement that’s been building for their upcoming seasons.

In the past, a freshman’s first taste of Huskies sports was Northeastern football. Let’s be honest:  That was’nt exactly a sparkling representation of our athletic programs. For the first time, the focus is not force-feeding new students a sport that didn’t generate much interest off the field, but offering sports fans look forward to attending.

The disappearance of football freed the marketing folks at Northeastern to draw attention to other sports, and gave fans the opportunity to sample all the other sports options on campus, slowly building to a crescendo when hockey season begins.

For example, Tuesday night “The N Zone” fan group staged a flash-mob of sorts, sending hordes of fans to Northeastern volleyball’s home opener against the University of Connecticut. According to the group’s Facebook page, they were fed up with waiting for basketball season to begin, so they figured the volleyball game would be a good warm-up for fans’ vocal cords. Think about that for a minute:  fans getting restless in September because they desperately crave Northeastern sports – any Northeastern sports.

Northeastern volleyball was not the focus, nor was it the primary reason fans attended. Despite the 3-0 victory for the Huskies, students attended a volleyball game wearing face-paint on a Tuesday night simply because they couldn’t contain their enthusiasm for the new season.

If that isn’t tangible excitement, I’m not sure what is.

On Oct. 9, Northeastern men’s hockey will play its first home game against defending national champion Boston College – a game which will undoubtedly sell out in advance (and become the toughest ticket to get in Boston that night.)

On Nov. 12, Matthews Arena will be packed with hoops fans as Boston University visits to open up the men’s basketball season.

This will be my fourth year at Northeastern. It amazes me to think back to my first sports season, when most of this excitment would be beyond belief. Back then, there was no serious recruitment by fan sections at orientation. If all goes according to plan, we may see sellout crowds for both basketball and hockey to start the season. I’m struggling to think of a time in our school’s history when that has happened before – not since at least the 1980s. Even then, it might be hard to top this year’s upcoming season openers.

More students who enroll at Northeastern are demanding a Division I experience. Thankfully, over the past few years, the university has coupled on-field successes with facility improvements to meet this demand. There was a lot of whining (I’m guilty of this myself), but the tangible results speak for themselves.