PonyFans.com

Thank you Otto. Once we get out of the "House that Doak Built" nostalgia, we have always had attendance problems.

We did not have 65k ppl watching us at TX Stadium. Again, love the nostalgia but the whole Russ Potts selling out Tx Stadium, Mustang Mania and what not is an old man's revisionist history.

We have a tiny fan base because we are a small school. Comparisons to big state schools are nonsensical. Those schools graduate in a few years the totality of our entire living alumni base.

We solve problems by embracing reality. Not pretending we were selling out TX Stadium with a bunch of stickers plastered around.

Nedward wrote:Thank you Otto. Once we get out of the "House that Doak Built" nostalgia, we have always had attendance problems.

We did not have 65k ppl watching us at TX Stadium. Again, love the nostalgia but the whole Russ Potts selling out Tx Stadium, Mustang Mania and what not is an old man's revisionist history.

We have a tiny fan base because we are a small school. Comparisons to big state schools are nonsensical. Those schools graduate in a few years the totality of our entire living alumni base.

We solve problems by embracing reality. Not pretending we were selling out TX Stadium with a bunch of stickers plastered around.

Since I'm one of those "nostalgia" folks, I am forced to agree that there were "plenty of seats available" (optimist, even now) with even the Horns, Aggies or Raiders coming to the Cotton Bowl or Texas Stadium.

That said, I still have a couple of stickers...

Well i was at a game at Texas Stadium…maybe’82 but probably ‘84.

It was vs TCU, early in the season. There was no Mustang Mania. Texas Stadium seated ~66k. There was close to 60k in attendance. I thought we had finally arrived.

Of course i was also at a Rice game earlier in that era when we were Top 10 and had closer to 22k fans.

A lot has changed since then. But just focusing on THIS season, we have a terrific home schedule, we have 1 guaranteed sell-out game (rare occurrence at Ford), we have a new HC people are excited about, we are at a critical junction in FB program history….if our AD does nothing to seriously promote our other home games, including give-always, Band Day, Methodist Day, promoting the Blvd…WHATEVER…if they do nothing, i think it is a massive failure on the part of our leadership.

I won’t be surprised if they do nothing, but i will be once again disappointed.

Our goal should be simple yet achievable. Average over 28k. Have no games below 25k.

Bottom line. It is going to take building a team that can beat anybody. We know what that takes. Money. We have done this before and now what we did is legal. Do you want to go to Yucky place U and play ball, get a piece of paper and get 5K a year on the side for NIL. Or, do you get a great education, live in and get, Dallas contacts and get 20K a year for the NIL.

It is going to take Big Money Donors getting into the Pony Sports DTX Collective..... With the rest of us... the legal work is done. It just needs the support.

If SMU beats everyone, they play... We are wanted.
Peace
G

went to a lot of games at Tx Stadium during the Pony Express days.
To put things into perspective. TX. Stadium capacity 65k+. Now if we had been playing those games in Ford Stadium we would have been close to sell out crowds (with a capacity of 32k).
Yes, current attendance is an issue due to a variety of reasons. Will it change? Maybe some but not much unless we get teams of interest to play there and start winning big time.

Not too sure that will happen unless we get into a much better conference and at present that doesn't look real likely. However, hope springs eternal.

Marketing helps. Who can forget the "from 6k to 60k" campaign vs Rice where attendance actually increased that much for those Cotton Bowl games against the Owls? Shouldn't be all that difficult to average better than 25k and that's a respectable looking crowd in Ford

redpony wrote:went to a lot of games at Tx Stadium during the Pony Express days.
To put things into perspective. TX. Stadium capacity 65k+. Now if we had been playing those games in Ford Stadium we would have been close to sell out crowds (with a capacity of 32k).
Yes, current attendance is an issue due to a variety of reasons. Will it change? Maybe some but not much unless we get teams of interest to play there and start winning big time.

First SMU game I saw in person was 1979 vs. Rice, drew 60,217. All about promotion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_SMU_ ... tball_team

Other than a Pac12 invite, I’m hoping for a big crowd at UNT to start the year. Not feeling a lot of excitement for that one.

tristatecoog wrote:Other than a Pac12 invite, I’m hoping for a big crowd at UNT to start the year. Not feeling a lot of excitement for that one.

Future conference mate UNT will be fired up for this game. Hope our guys come in excited about a new season and can make a statement in Denton

True. UNT is always fired up to play us. I have a UNT friend at work who said "no question" they (UNT fans) would be willing to lose all conference games if they can beat SMU. That may change when it's a conference game, and surely UNT administrators and coaches and players want to win their conference games. But make no mistake, this is a huge game to UNT. Ponies are better but need to be ready.

Buddha wrote:True. UNT is always fired up to play us. I have a UNT friend at work who said "no question" they (UNT fans) would be willing to lose all conference games if they can beat SMU. That may change when it's a conference game, and surely UNT administrators and coaches and players want to win their conference games. But make no mistake, this is a huge game to UNT. Ponies are better but need to be ready.

Have a brother in law the same way. If we ever get out of this awful version of the AAC let’s not renew that schedule with UNT please.