Gameday Experience

[PK]

Every concession stand had only two registers while there is room for four if they tried. Even three would have helped reduce the wait times. Have bottled water spots like for beer sales would help particularly when its hot like Saturday was.

[Silk]

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.

I gather several of the "support" departments are seriously understaffed, but there are stories like that at some other schools with bigger budgets, too

[SoCal_Pony]

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.

I gather several of the "support" departments are seriously understaffed, but there are stories like that at some other schools with bigger budgets, too

I’m calling BS on the understaffed excuse.

Incompetency and lack of caring are the bigger issues…which combined makes a fatal combination in the real world.

re-read the tristatecoog post. How difficult is it to get Gatorade and Water in Ice Buckets and walk up and down the aisles at $5 a pop. Bring plenty of ice, bring plenty of drinks. That alone would mask many of your other numerous shortcomings.

News Flash to our incompetent ADept…there will be hellishly hot days at Ford Stadium.

[docabel]

Going to many other college stadiums and seeing how well they solve some of the same issues is what makes me down on the administration at SMU as it doesn't seem like we have made any changes in years.

Baylor actually handles the heat and water situation very well. You can bring an empty bottle into the stadium (which I see Hart just announced yesterday for Ford), but they also have huge water dispensers situated throughout the concourses - multiple places to fill and the water is iced down cold to boot. Sure it costs some money but I hope we are not relying on bottled water sales to fund our athletic teams.

[Pony ^]

We have the worst stadium and worst administration in the entire country.

It's a joke

No food. No water. Bathrooms are from 1937 with dead crickets and leaks all over the place. The sound system is worse than a high school stadium. The stadium is an absolute nightmare that the administration has never even bothered to touch up. Don't even get me started on the concourse area.

Terrible experience. 1/10. Tired of it and have no interest in going back. I've been going to games all my life but this one just about did me in. The administration just doesn't care. SMU just screams little time football with no adjustments in sight. I feel bad for the players and their families.

And Ricky Hart's response is "bring a water bottle and fill it up in a water fountain". Dude should have been fired after year 1 of his tenure.


Rick - you have already lost me from basketball games due to your incompetence with Moody. Now you have lost me from football games. Goodbye.

[docabel]

https://twitter.com/JoeJHoyt/status/1574456007824216083?s=20&t=vOqdt1JGDnItoZGsdg9Jww

Hoyt looking to do a piece on this for the DMN. This may actually touch the ears of the big $$ donors as they are 100x more likely to be reading the print edition of the DMN than a social media page.

[crispy_taco]

Got a hot dog and it was f*cking inedible. Makes complete sense people left. How does one manage to not be prepared for this game? If anything be over prepared. The people working the concessions took 5 minutes to input the orders into the cash registers.

[BIGHORSE]

I had a chilli dog, and it gave me the screaming squirts.

[Rla1022]

An easy way to fix is to increase the game day experience to encompass the entire area around the stadium. Have some food trucks and bring in fencing to create a secure area to open it up. Porta potties and drinks. Something to help with traffic and congestion. If you look at apogee they use all their space around the stadium.

[Charleston Pony]

It's not rocket science but you need competent people who actually care about the product in charge

[Bergermeister]

An easy way to fix is to increase the game day experience to encompass the entire area around the stadium. Have some food trucks and bring in fencing to create a secure area to open it up. Porta potties and drinks. Something to help with traffic and congestion. If you look at apogee they use all their space around the stadium.

A competent athletic administration should know ALL of this. File this one with the Moody reseat fiasco.

[PK]

To top it all off, none of the TVs were on so you could watch the game while waiting in the long concession lines.

[Lefty]

Got a hot dog and it was f*cking inedible. Makes complete sense people left. How does one manage to not be prepared for this game? If anything be over prepared. The people working the concessions took 5 minutes to input the orders into the cash registers.

At the bare minimum, water should be more readily available ... but leaving at halftime looks like Cowboys fans.

[SMULaxer]

How big is the bureaucracy at SMU? Does anyone know the administrator to student ratio?

All this money coming in to universities, my hunch is the administration is bloating. Inexcusable not to have a buttoned up game day operation.

[NavyCrimson]

When all is said and done it all leads to Turner's office. Like any big or small organization. The very top. This has been going on for 30 something years so why get upset now? Nothing will change until the head guy is replaced with the RIGHT "leader". This is just another reason why no conference is considering SMU nor will ever as long as we are what we are.