Bama vs Wisconsin , only sold 40,000 tickets so far..

[SMU 86]

Bama / Michigan game set a JerryWorld attendance record a few years ago.

Bama was just coming off a national championship then. This time they are not.

[Pony Boss]

College Football is a sport which is built upon students, alumni, family and friends of the university. At a state school that includes the T-Shirt state residents/fans. In small towns it serves as a semi-professional "only game in town" entertainment. I think it somewhat reflective of my belief that SMU will never build a big fanbase in Dallas outside of its own students, alumni, family and friends of the university. The biggest college football game in the country is a big yawn to Big D. They should have included a Big 12 South team if they wanted a sellout-or at least Texas or Texas A&M. Texas v Notre Dame would sellout-so would Texas A&M v Arizona St.

Big 12 south you mean only Texas? Because with the exception of Texas, none of TCU, Baylor, Tech would sell out jerryworld.

And as far as big fanbase outside those groups, where would you put Baylor and TCU? Do they just have a larger student, alumni, family and friend group? I just don't see them ever having a big fan base either especially when they go back to mediocrity or losing seasons.

[smusic 00]

Baylor can't sell more than 16k in a town 90 miles from campus with half their alum and ranked top 5.

[WordUpBU]

Based upon the guaranteed payouts to the schools, someone is losing money if they can't draw 50K.

Next year's game is USC-Alabama so they better draw 70K+. If not, they should have done a home-and-home.

Probably the schools eat the brunt of it here by not getting a home game they'd draw 80%+ capacity & revenue from even against a weak sister. BU-Tech is typically arranged where each school gets most of half a stadium's worth of tickets, Jerry gets concessions and parking. I'm sure TV threw money into the deal but tv's will still tune in & advertisers will buy spots to where they get their investment back.

[Stallion]

In the Advocare Classic at Jerry World TCU had over 46,000 when they played Oregon St (another stupid matchup) and over 80,000 against LSU a game that makes perfect sense. This year tickets are priced from $95 (endzone) to $300

in a third game at Jerry World TCU v BYU drew over 50,000-another game that really doesn't make sense. TCU v Alabama would get over 75,000

[WordUpBU]

Baylor can't sell more than 16k in a town 90 miles from campus with half their alum and ranked top 5.

Baylor nearly doubles that vs Tech every year. BU also filled up 3/4 of Jerryworld for the Cotton Bowl, practically the entire Alamodome for the Alamo Bowl, and 70% of NRG Stadium for our bowl in 2010.

-BU has roughly 28% of the living alumni base (40/140k) in DFW
-It's 6pm on Friday of Labor Day weekend, work schedules interfere with travel for many.
- It's against a team that went 1-11, fans not as pumped for a sure blowout.
-We will still bring over 10k at minimum and this one will sell out or come close to it.
-We also play Tech and TCU in the Metroplex and have 7 home games all within driving distance. I can easily see why some people skipped this one, right or wrong. This isn't Tech where it's one of two games that aren't 4-5+ hours away and everyone shows up because they never get to see the team live.

If you want to talk attendance smack where our visiting contingent might still potentially be larger than your season ticket base, well...

I like SMU and don't want to smack talk at all but ragging US on attendance of a road game is pretty misplaced.

[gostangs]

It's not a great venue. Now that the newness is worn off, I don't know why anyone would go out there it's a pain to get there and the stadium is not very viewer friendly, concourses are a mess and concessions are ridiculous. It sucks all around for basically anything, but especially any college sport.

[Stallion]

SMU took less than 2,000 to Ft Worth on last trip and less than 1,000 to College Station on last trip-these are easy drives against long time traditional SWC rivals. We couldn't come close to selling our allotment. Forgot exactly about last year in Waco but again no where near our allotment-we dumped a bunch of tickets back in Baylor lap

[gostangs]

Do you really blame our fans for that? I don't.

[Stallion]

can you blame P5 conferences for ignoring SMU when they list teams for conference affiliation- I don't

Seriously, we need some people to understand that SMU will not get a special consideration for a P5 conference inclusion because we have about 5 rich alumni who want to buy a seat at the table-we either boast attendance to at least our capacity of 35,000 or so or there is no real basis for considering SMU

[RebStang]

Bama has bought most of the 40,000 tickets sold according to the Cowboys' front office. SMU evidently travels better than Wisconsin ... Remember the B-ham bowl???

I've talked to a lot of people here in Tuscaloosa that are going to the game... but, I get the feeling that Alabama fans are starting to get sick of "neutral site" games when some of these marquee opponents should played home and home instead of one time at a venue where fans have to pay thousands just to attend.

[TidePony]

Right on Reb! Hope Grad school is going well for you!

[smusic 00]

Baylor can't sell more than 16k in a town 90 miles from campus with half their alum and ranked top 5.

Baylor nearly doubles that vs Tech every year. BU also filled up 3/4 of Jerryworld for the Cotton Bowl, practically the entire Alamodome for the Alamo Bowl, and 70% of NRG Stadium for our bowl in 2010.

-BU has roughly 28% of the living alumni base (40/140k) in DFW
-It's 6pm on Friday of Labor Day weekend, work schedules interfere with travel for many.
- It's against a team that went 1-11, fans not as pumped for a sure blowout.
-We will still bring over 10k at minimum and this one will sell out or come close to it.
-We also play Tech and TCU in the Metroplex and have 7 home games all within driving distance. I can easily see why some people skipped this one, right or wrong. This isn't Tech where it's one of two games that aren't 4-5+ hours away and everyone shows up because they never get to see the team live.

If you want to talk attendance smack where our visiting contingent might still potentially be larger than your season ticket base, well...

I like SMU and don't want to smack talk at all but ragging US on attendance of a road game is pretty misplaced.

Wasn't talking smack, just pointing it out; it's tough to be a small school with 80% of alum apathetic at best about going to games.

[Pony Boss]

Alum are apathetic for good reason. SMU needs to give them a reason to come back, so it is up to them to make the right moves. Chad Morris hire was a good move, let's see what they do to reengage the alums. There are around 50k alum in DFW so get those on board first.

[StallionsModelT]

can you blame P5 conferences for ignoring SMU when they list teams for conference affiliation- I don't

Seriously, we need some people to understand that SMU will not get a special consideration for a P5 conference inclusion because we have about 5 rich alumni who want to buy a seat at the table-we either boast attendance to at least our capacity of 35,000 or so or there is no real basis for considering SMU

As if attendance is even close to being a major bullet point for realignment.