ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. (WXYZ) — It’s the opening round of March Madness and inside RJ’s Pub in Rochester Hills Friday night, all eyes are on that day's games. However, the hearts and minds of these fans are still on Oakland.
“It was so great. I had Trey (Townsend) in class. I've had all the Townsend kids in class,” said Oakland University fan Pat Crowe, who’s a teacher at Oxford High School, where OU star Trey Townsend attended high school. “It was awesome to see Trey do what he does.”
“I was jumping up and down and yelling,” said Donna Bourgoin of Rochester and a parent of two OU alumni. “It was fun.”
As the Golden Grizzlies pulled off the upset over 3 seed and perennial blue-blood Kentucky, fans at RJ’s went wild. Meanwhile, fans around the country all wondered, where is this school?
“For a short period after the game, the website crashed,” said Oakland University Director of Marketing and Digital Web Services Todd Nucci. ”We had to open up the load balancer a bit to handle that increased traffic.”
Nucci says internet searches for Oakland University are coming from across the country, overwhelming the school's website.
VIDEO: Oakland's March Madness win has the country researching the university and Rochester area:
“That's where we were seeing that traffic to the ‘About’ page, which was up 5,000%. Our ‘History’ page was up 9,000%,” Nucci explained. “So those interested in learning about Oakland, that's where the traffic was going.”
“You can't get this exposure — you can't buy it,” said Oakland University Athletic Director Steve Waterfield. “This is organic, and it’s valuable and it’s real.”
Waterfield was at the game in Pittsburgh and says studies have shown success in March Madness often means success for the entire school.
"They’ve shown an increase in enrollment, increase in applications, increase in donations and an amount of media value that is just remarkable,” Waterfield said.
On top of that, each win in the tournament for Oakland earns the Horizon League $1.8 million, paid to the conference over the course of six years. It’s a big bonus for a small conference.
“Two years ago, Wright State won a game in the NCAA tournament,” Waterfield explained. “With some of the money that win share provided, the league provided mental health grants to all of its schools.”
As for fans, they’re proud the school is putting their hometown on the map, hoping more success is still to come.
“It’s awesome for Rochester,” Crowe said. “No one really knows where OU is unless you live around here.”
“We are so proud of our city and proud of having OU in our city,” Bourgoin added.
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