OFFICIAL SMU- LAMAR ATTENDANCE PREDICTIONS

[ALEX LIFESON]

By the way, the announced attendance was 26,509.
Any guesses on how many people, were actually in the stadium?

[tristatecoog]

Not far off that figure. There were fans in every section. The press box side was quite full and the south EZ was the most packed in history. My freshman left after halftime because most of his friends did. My junior daughter stayed the whole game. TCU should sell out people will have to sit in assigned seats. I hope it’s not an afternoon game.

[Terry Webster]

Not far off that figure. There were fans in every section. The press box side was quite full and the south EZ was the most packed in history. My freshman left after halftime because most of his friends did. My junior daughter stayed the whole game. TCU should sell out people will have to sit in assigned seats. I hope it’s not an afternoon game.

And I bet there will be abut 6k in the student end zone.

[SoCal_Pony]

I do not believe attendance has anything to do with conference selection. If our stadium was empty but all of Dallas had their TVs on our game, we would be in great demand. We need the good product more than butts in seats.

Sorry Mrydel, but I’m going to have to respectfully disagree on some of what you said.

If Dallas did indeed support SMU via TV viewership with respectable #s, it would be be reflected in better fan support at the games. That’s not happening.

I do agree that we need good product on the field, but IMO we HAVE had good product for over a decade now, so our ADept should have been marketing us better….most certainly since we made a national splash hire in June Jones. It seems our MO is hire a good coach, win, and HOPE fans will come.

JJ - arguably biggest hire in SMU sports history. He wins, fan support ho-hum.
Chad - huge hire. He wins, fan support ho-hum.
Sonny - discount hire. He wins, fan support ho-hum.
Rhett - very impressive so far, but verdict is out.

Other factor not discussed. Butts in seats impacts recruiting. Recruiting determines quality of product. Quality of product ‘helps’ attendance, most certainly impacts ability to align with better conference.

Sorry, but IMO i give SMU extremely low marks on building fan support. I know you could find posts from me on PFs years ago. I said Circle of Champions funds should not only be for a HC salary but also for a Mustang Mania type campaign. I stand by that.

[SoCal_Pony]

Not far off that figure. There were fans in every section. The press box side was quite full and the south EZ was the most packed in history. My freshman left after halftime because most of his friends did. My junior daughter stayed the whole game. TCU should sell out people will have to sit in assigned seats. I hope it’s not an afternoon game.

Good to hear, it certainly didn’t look that way on TV. I think they should have done more to make this game a sellout.

[Water Pony]

26500

TEAM NOTES

SMU Student Attendance 4,435 (Game Attendance 26,509)

Nailed it!

[mrydel]

I do not believe attendance has anything to do with conference selection. If our stadium was empty but all of Dallas had their TVs on our game, we would be in great demand. We need the good product more than butts in seats.

Sorry Mrydel, but I’m going to have to respectfully disagree on some of what you said.

If Dallas did indeed support SMU via TV viewership with respectable #s, it would be be reflected in better fan support at the games. That’s not happening.

I do agree that we need good product on the field, but IMO we HAVE had good product for over a decade now, so our ADept should have been marketing us better….most certainly since we made a national splash hire in June Jones. It seems our MO is hire a good coach, win, and HOPE fans will come.

JJ - arguably biggest hire in SMU sports history. He wins, fan support ho-hum.
Chad - huge hire. He wins, fan support ho-hum.
Sonny - discount hire. He wins, fan support ho-hum.
Rhett - very impressive so far, but verdict is out.

Other factor not discussed. Butts in seats impacts recruiting. Recruiting determines quality of product. Quality of product ‘helps’ attendance, most certainly impacts ability to align with better conference.

Sorry, but IMO i give SMU extremely low marks on building fan support. I know you could find posts from me on PFs years ago. I said Circle of Champions funds should not only be for a HC salary but also for a Mustang Mania type campaign. I stand by that.

I do not think we disagree on much. I totally agree we have many issues with fan support. And I know the TV sets are not tuning us in when we played opposite Ohio State/Notre Dame. My only disagreement is that I do not think attendance is a major factor in conference realignment. Does anyone not think our attendance would improve if we were in a P5 conference?

I was on the sidelines looking at crowds of 13,000 in the Cotton Bowl in my days. I saw 60,000 in Texas Stadium that consisted of 45,000 Aggies or Longhorns.

Mustang Mania was great and I would fully support something similar if it is thought it would work, but if you look at the whole package at least from the 60’s forward, attendance has been a dismal sight for us, and yet I still think our odds of getting into a P5 are pretty good regardless.

[AusTxPony]

"Butts in seats impacts recruiting". I would disagree that attendance impacts recruiting much. Coaches, conference affiliation, ability to play early, NIL, education, location of team, etc., far outweigh butts in seats IMO. If attendance mattered much, then we would not be getting the athletes we do.

[SoCal_Pony]

Myrdel, i think we might sneak into P5 due in large part to something out of our control, NIL payments made legal. That and our generous wealthy alumni.

Assume we get into the PAC, we still will have attendance issues. We need to address this or i think it could/would impact us in the next round of consolidation.

I doubt we will because that’s not how our AD rolls.

Alex says attendance was 26.5k, Ford hold 32k. How difficult would it had been to have Methodist Day at SMU to bring in an additional 5k and make Rhett’s coaching premier a sellout??? Little things like that…always winning…always trying to be the best….we don’t do that.

Having said that, i will give huge props to our recent marketing of Eric Dickerson.

[mrydel]

We have been doing those special “days” for as long as I have been around. They lost me when I paid many dollars to support busing in a lot of kids from somewhere and then learned the buses never left SMU to go get anyone.

I am tired of the gimmicks. I want people to support our team because they want to. You can only do so much promotional activities. At some point you need the product to be the selling point.

And I agree the PAC may not be as good for attendance. I would prefer B12 first and ACC second but regardless I want somewhere to start getting some decent pay for play.

[Charleston Pony]

If SMU does someday get invited to the PAC, attendance may well be worse than it already is...except maybe when Oregon (if they stay in the PAC) comes to town. Dallas' college football fans will come out to see Top 10 caliber teams but I doubt we will get much help from any PAC visitors. Oh...and as an east coast guy, I will really hate the 10:00 and even what could become 11:00 pm start times for games. We will need to continue scheduling regional Big XII schools and even UNT to help with attendance at Ford

[ALEX LIFESON]

Alex says attendance was 26.5k, Ford hold 32k. How difficult would it had been to have Methodist Day at SMU to bring in an additional 5k and make Rhett’s coaching premier a sellout??? Little things like that…always winning…always trying to be the best….we don’t do that.


SMU announced that attendance number, I don't think actual butts and seats, was anywhere close to that. That number SMU put out, was tickets distributed.

[Charleston Pony]

There was this:

https://www.hpumc.org/events/faith-family-football-2022

But no question SMU could do better marketing this program and the game day experience at The Boulevard and Ford

[mtrout]

I can't remember seeing the entire grass area filled with students before. Especially not against an FCS opponent.

[crispy_taco]

Again I agree with mrydel that while attendance is dismal it’s not the end of the world.
I’m just have a very tough time believing a “Methodist day” would bring in a substantial amount of fans. I grew up a bike ride distance from LSU and I have seen a precipitous decline in people actually going INTO the stadium. Keep in mind that tiger stadium is the most electric atmosphere in the entire country. That’s an experience that’s easy to sell.

Yet, I was at the Florida game last year and it was probably 60 percent full. Take a look at the student attendance for Ole miss home opener. Their student attendance may have been less than ours and that’s a much larger university. Less people want to exert the effort of going to a 4 hour game these days when it’s on TV and there’s no non sellout blackouts. It’s one thing to go to the parade grounds, grove, or blvd but it’s tough to get people in seats. Seems like the only reason people go to live events is to film sh*t on their damn phones anyway

Our product is OK if we’re being honest. Not bad, but what do we have to show for it no conference championships. It may not be what we want, but we just have to follow the U of Miami model because that’s really our full potential. No one’s gonna care when we aren’t winning big time. But if you put out an electric, fun, and willing product they will come.