BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Syracuse Orange are Central New York’s professional team. There’s no debating that. Filling upwards of 20,000 seats at the JMA Wireless Dome, SU has a fanbase that many in college sports
can only dream of. While the market is big enough to have its own television, radio, and print affiliates, it’s not big enough to have a major sports team, so it’s the Orange that get the lion’s share of attention. But they’re also the only high-major basketball program in all of upstate New York, and reaching beyond Central New York could prove to help expand the fanbase’s engagement geographically and support the fans who typically drive hours on Saturdays to pack the Dome. This weekend, that came in Buffalo, a two-and-a-half hour drive from Syracuse, where the Orange played an exhibition at the KeyBank Center. Underneath the banners honoring Sabres legends like Gilbert Perreault and Dominik Hasek, SU defeated the hometown Buffalo Bulls 76-66. Syracuse fans from across Western New York made the trip and turned the arena into a fun venue for an exhibition game, with plenty of fans from both sides filling up the lower deck. It marked the Orange’s first foray outside of Syracuse in upstate New York since hosting a preseason event in Rochester during Adrian Autry’s first season. The Orange haven’t played a regular-season game in Rochester since 1984, and haven’t played in Albany since the East Regional in 2003. “Always looking to try to play, especially upstate,” Autry said. “Syracuse comprises of anywhere from Albany to Buffalo to Rochester, so whenever a good situation comes again, Buffalo is a good team, I just thought every time we get a chance to do that, we have to take advantage of that.” For JJ Starling, a resident of Baldwinsville, expanding Syracuse’s footprint is valuable. “It means a lot to play games in Upstate New York and reach our fanbase out here,” Starling said. “Even with a game like this, we still had a good turnout, and I feel like it’s going to be good for our program to continue playing games like this.” It remains to be seen whether the Orange will follow through on continuing to play games across upstate New York, but with the additional exhibition game that the NCAA has allowed for, one can imagine it opens up these opportunities. Considering the Orange aren’t playing against Central NY rivals Colgate and Cornell this year, expanding the connection. Syracuse returns to the 315 on Wednesday to face Division II Pace in the final tune-up inside the JMA Wireless Dome.
