attendance problems

[Alaric]

I'd say those attendance numbers were pretty weak given the high quality teams we fielded.

SMU needs to become Dallas' team like U of Miami is south Florida's team. There are some obvious differences of course but I really think if SMU was halfway successful you could get area people into the stands. These fans would be a more stable fan base. Anyone will be able to shoot a few holes in this idea but with a fairly successful team, creative effective marketing and some money thrown at it, I believe it would work. SMU just isn't big enough to have good attendance relying on students and area alumni.

[mr. pony]

[quote="Alaric"]
SMU needs to become Dallas' team like U of Miami is south Florida's team. There are some obvious differences of course but I really think if SMU was halfway successful you could get area people into the stands. [quote]

Agree.

[EastStang]

Miam has averaged as high as 69,539 in the year following their national championship and as low as 39,263 since 1998. Last year they averaged 41,908 which included a game against FSU of 71,481. Otherwise, their average attendance was in the 30,000 range. This year will be interesting they have games against Marshall, Florida Atlantic, Texas A&M, Georgia Tech, NC State, and UVa. With that schedule, they will be lucky to average 40,000 this year. None of those teams will draw 71,000 this year.

[Mustang98]

The general consensus on this thread seems to show that 30,000 is a good number to go after for home attendance. We averaged 30,000 in the early 1980's, so shouldn't our target be more like 35,000 - 40,000 based on the fact that the Metroplex population has grown since 1982? I am not a statistics guy, but I would think the number could go up given the population increase. The flip side is that there is more to compete with entertainment wise in 2007 than in 1982. Cable TV was in it's infancy in 1982 and there sure weren't places like Dave and Busters. Maybe 30,000 is still a good goal to average on home attendance.

[mrydel]

The goal should be to consistantly sell out our games and have an extraordinary season ticket holder count. We should be arguing about whether or not to do the expansion to 45,000 rather than how to increase over 13,000. The metroplex has plenty of people to fill our seats. They merely ask we give them something to be proud of when they come. I want to see people getting arrested for scalping outside of Ford.

[ponyte]

WIN! Attendence will take care of itself.

[jtstang]

No way. That's too simple.

[SMU Football Blog]

Absolutely. That is way too simple. It must be Belo's fault.

[Mustang98]

I agree. Way too simple.

[EastStang]

By having a stadium that is sold out every game, you create a demand for season's tickets. The Redskins sold out RFK every year to their season ticket base and had a waiting list of like 50,000. Then they built the new stadium which holds 85,000-90,000 and now have empty seats. They still sell well over 50,000 season tickets. You want to get to a point where you have to build the expansion because no one can get seats as a walk-up and you can tell visiting schools that they're limited to 1500 seats.

[Charleston Pony]

Our GOAL should be to sell more than 16,000 season tickets - half the available seats - and then to increase that number beyond 20,000. With students and visitors and single game purchases, you would then be looking at sellout crowds or close to it for every game. Only then can you start talking about finishing the bowl. The question is whether you can do it (average better than 30k) while not competing at that "next rung down" from BCS level. I think TCU is answering that question, although I don't know what their season ticket numbers might be.

[Stallion]

in reality the last time I heard we sold about 6,000 down from just about 9,000 when Ford opened

[RGV Pony]

in reality the last time I heard we sold about 6,000 down from just about 9,000 when Ford opened

was that before last year's quoted number of less than 5,000, or is that the new & improved number this year?