Gameday Experience

[giacfsp]

Very impressive when the home PA announcer enthusiastically announced that Tre Siggers' first touchdown had been scored by "Number Zero, Camar Wheaton!"

Wheaton has barely played, they look and run nothing like each other, and oh yeah ... they have different jersey numbers.

Mess up the other team, not "Dallas's Team."

[Charleston Pony]

bush league; they said the clocks overheated. Concession opportunities blown. There are plenty of schools hosting games in heat as bad as it was Saturday that have not experienced the same issues.

[giacfsp]

Just trying to park on (or even near) campus was an omen.

The $100M football building will be cool, but they'd better raise money for a few more parking garages, too.

[mtrout]

bush league; they said the clocks overheated. Concession opportunities blown. There are plenty of schools hosting games in heat as bad as it was Saturday that have not experienced the same issues.

That sounds like a poorly constructed lie.

[ALEX LIFESON]

Alex, if you were in charge of Gameday Experience, how much better would it be????

Without question I would hire a different vendor, they are incompetent and bus in untrained employees for game day. For this game they could have had restrooms and more concessions in the end zone, that would have relieved some of the Log Jam in the concourses.

[Webmaster]

Alex, if you were in charge of Gameday Experience, how much better would it be????

Without question I would hire a different vendor, they are incompetent and bus in untrained employees for game day. For this game they could have had restrooms and more concessions in the end zone, that would have relieved some of the Log Jam in the concourses.

Our gameday experience was so bad that I’m going to write a letter to Rick. There is really no excuse for the dumpster fire that was offered to fans last week. But for now, I’ll limit my comments to concessions.

Because we were so late (due to someone changing the cash parking I’ve used for every home game for the last 5 or 6 years to “coupon only” without notice or signage), we had no time for the Blvd and arrived at Ford hungry.

After waiting in the aforementioned lines, we attempted to order our food. The brisket nachos were unavailable because they were out of brisket. So regular nachos then. Oh, no jalapeños either. Really, OK. Well, just give me some luke warm convenience store cheese with stale chips fo $10 please. Oh, and throw in a stale pretzel for anther $10. I took one bite of that.

That would have been only bad if the lady operating the cash register knew how to operate the cash register. There were literally two people standing there trying to figure out how to work it. Finally a third person had to come over to “help”, but they couldn’t figure it out either. They overcharged me, and I had to literally count it out on my fingers to demonstrate the math to them. Jeez, no wonder the line took so long. They never could get the cash register to ring up correctly, but at least they could key in the correct amount on the credit card machine to bypass the cash register.

Despite all that, we made it to our seat before the kickoff. Later in the game though, when we got thirsty, I didn’t want to go through the concession ordeal again, so I scanned the barcode on my seat and placed a delivery order. The order got there in a reasonable amount of time, but I couldn’t say it was our order because ZERO of the items delivered were what we ordered. Knowing a few things about the Internet and e-commerce, I believe it is possible for items to be “out of stock” so that your customers don’t order items that you can’t deliver. Furthermore, if you deliver crap beer instead of good beer and water instead of Poweraide, you should probably charge for what was delivered rather than for what was ordered. Not to mention the dis-service fee. So we’ll see if anyone at sEATz will help resolve that cluster.

[DC-Pony]

This all sounds like an embarrassing demonstration of incompetence. These things are not vexing operational problems. They are simple things at scale that only require a little planning and attention to detail. In theory they could be fixed at SMU's very next home game if there was a will to do so.

Last week I attended the SMU game at Maryland, and none of these things were issues with virtually the same number of fans in attendance. As a visiting fan I was able to purchase parking at an on-campus parking garage a few blocks away (https://umd.aceparking.com/events/resul ... ege%20Park). Concessions were never backed up. Food quality was acceptable (actually a fairly tasty hot and fresh pretzel). The three times I used the rest rooms I waited no time twice and 3 mins when leaving. BTW, I also attended the SMU-hosted tailgate ahead of the game. The food and attention to detail for that operation were terrific.

If SMU has any ambition of increasing the number of fans that come to home games, this all has to be fixed immediately. Currently it sounds like (I live on the East coast and don't get to games in Dallas, so taking all of your reports for the details) the game day experience will inhibit new fans from returning. Why would they return with the experiences described by you all above?

Suggestion: If you're writing to AD Hart, I would cc: the SMU President as well as the big Donors (e.g., Webber and Armstrong) and The Daily Campus. Hart currently presides over what is being done (aka, he clearly isn't the solution). The others need to be made aware. In fact, regarding the Daily Campus, I would suggest getting in personal contact with the Editor to see if they will do their own reporting on this.

[GHammond]

....and away from Ford, further super negative gameday expereince. A group of young SAE alums had a tent in front of Fondren, just in front of and to the left of Dallas Hall...before they bailed, beer cans, bottles, foil wrappers, etc were ankle deep + in there tent zone...embarassingly disrepectful...they could have cared less. A slew of drunken entitled punks. I will call the boulevard folks to encourage never again for this bunch of idiots. I always remeber the SAE’s being pretty cool, fun, crazy likeall of us, but not drunken children.

[TwoTimeGrad]

Yes, kickoff is driven by TV. However, sitting in the stands near the press box last Saturday was a broiler. It was 95F, but worse the sun was not only high above, but also bouncing off the press box glass. I'd guess a third or half of the folks (including TCU fans), that went to sit in Section 204 didn't last more than one quarter. Some left in less than 10 minutes. The gates downstairs looked like a MASH facility. Not fun, and hard to show a lot of enthusiasm when the metal bleachers are giving permanent tattoos.

[Bergermeister]

Lots of complaints and constructive criticism but nothing will change. SMU keeps doing the same things over-and-over expecting improved results. SMU just doesn't get it.

[Insane_Pony_Posse]

In theory they could be fixed at SMU's very next home game if there was a will to do so.

Oh it will be much better at the next home game, but for the wrong reasons. We very well could lose on the road to UCF this weekend. So after this TCU disaster gameday "run people off from coming again" experience and quite possibly 3 straight losses, what will attendance look like at Ford at the next home game? Yeah they'll announce 20K for the Navy game, but between late arrivers from the BLVD and early bailers there wont be 12K in the stands half way thru the 3rd quarter. It's kind of sad, but a half full stadium will help solve a lot of these gameday issues.

[GHammond]

The Dale Carienge flunkee that wàs sitting next to us had two of those blue cushions side by side...we had the isle seat and the next one in, Section 205, season ticket holder...but, with those two cushions, plus everyone else pqcked in, we essentially had a seat and a half, maybe a seat and 2/3rds...asked for some help, nothing, asked to work this out, crickets...half my backside was in the isle....i would have gone for an usher, but SAT was such a cluster. Looking to get my seats moved.

[Hoofbeat83]

I'll add my low value 2 cents.

Someone already mentioned it, but I was chapped that the parking lot I have always parked in (across from the Sigma Chi house) was permit parking only for this game, with no notice given to us, unless I missed it, in which case never mind.

Does anyone in the Athletic Department know or even care about these problems? Yes, they're mostly fixable but I wonder if the AD is even willing to try and do something to fix. Or do we just have to accept this as 'the way it is'. Very, very frustrating. They should AT THE VERY LEAST send an email to the mailing list acknowledging the melt down.

[tristatecoog]

Halftime was wall to wall people on the east side. Some were bailing just to get air. It was hard to tell where one line started and another ended.

Couldn't you have cash, water and Gatorade only lines for $5 each? You could also have vendors walking down the aisles and they'd have made a bundle.

[JasonB]

The worst part of all of this is that they knew this was going to be a huge crowd well in advance. Can you imagine the negative press if we actually had to host college gameday?

These are all signs of an organization that is stretched too thin - nobody has time to think about the ratio of vendors to people or how to deal with the heat, or even that we have 6 tents for players that look like they are 10 years old while TCU has 10 that look brand new. Or, heck, just tell ESPN that the game can't be moved to morning or mid-day because it is just too hot for everyone.