Knee-jerk reaction - are we finished?

[ponyte]

To begin, think this move hurts a lot of colleges including us. But I wonder at the long term viability of this marketing strategy. College football has suffered declining interest for some time. This transcends college and is even at he HS level. If true, then contracting markets is a sure fire way to increase that decline..

In economics, competition drives product and increases demand. By decreasing competition and opportunity for athletes, is seems the long term strategy is to decrease demand and market share in football.

One would think with the increase demand in BB and soccer, that SMU could increase it's market share and fan base in non traditional sports. These are the market growth opportunities, not football.

We can hang on to a decreasing market share sport or really work hard to increase the emerging market sports. If we can, then we increase our attractiveness to larger conferences.

Don't get me wrong, I love football but its not growing right now and other sports that we excel in are. Take advantage of our strengths while others work to create a monopoly in a dying sport.

[Dukie]

Re: 2011's 5-1 start

We got extremely lucky against TCU and nearly gave it away...one game doesn't christen a contender and we only needed to meet the next decent opponent on the road to wash away that shine. String some 8-9-10 win seasons together before we start complaining.

I thought the reference to 5-1 was to SMU's home crowd against UCF following the win at TCU, and the UCF home crowd was ... not good.

[redpony]

Everybody (esp. tiki) bashes the crowd that was at that game. I went to that game with some family members and didn't think the attendance was that bad. Consider that UCF does not travel so that was a factor. Also, we just were not a hot item at that time and were playing a team that draws very little interest from the Dallas community. Question- how does the attendance from that game compare with the average attendance that year? from the average attendance of the prior year?

The real significant result of that game was that tiki decided to check out and just collect a check for the rest of his contract. I suspect that if we had won CUSA that year and been top 25 the crowds would have started showing up.

I think the bball program proves that if you have a winner and a good product people will come to see it.

[Stallion]

There has been no year since our return from DP 25 years when we have had attendance suggesting that we are even marginal candidate for a P5 conference. Some of you may think attendance wasn't so bad for UCF. Let me clarify for you-its always been bad. ALL of the real few remaining contenders for P5 inclusion have had at least a few years when attendance was spiking to competitive levels. SMU has not. Compare also to TCU, Louisville, Utah who have made the jump

[Grant Carter]

we just were not a hot item at that time.

I think everyone agrees with this. Isn't the debate over whether we should have been a hot item based on a 5-1 start, not whether we were? If we were a hot item then people would have been in the stands.

[GiddyUp]

Re: 2011's 5-1 start

We got extremely lucky against TCU and nearly gave it away...one game doesn't christen a contender and we only needed to meet the next decent opponent on the road to wash away that shine. String some 8-9-10 win seasons together before we start complaining.

I thought the reference to 5-1 was to SMU's home crowd against UCF following the win at TCU, and the UCF home crowd was ... not good.

. Correcto

[EastStang]

Let's see, we were just ahead of our time. Now let's do some math. Fire Jones and hire a good coach and staff for $1 Million a year. That saves about $5 Million. Let's see out of 90 players give 60 minimum stipends of $5000 that's $300,000. That leave $4.7 Million to use on 30 players. $156,000 per player average. That means some might get $75,000. Others, $225,000. But let's at least make the Alabamas, LSUs, TCU's have to spend some real money out-bidding us plus they have to spend $$$$$ on their coaches. After awhile, they'll invite us in just to get us to stop bidding up the talent.

[smusportspage]

Now that is what I am talking about.

[Stallion]

Its ridiculous and not what autonomy is about. The stipend is a maximum to be determined in the next few months by the P5 projected to be between $2,000-$5,000. Since the judge said the NCAA could limit pooled advertising stipend to each recruit to $5,000 then that is probably where this heading. Where are you guys getting this open market in recruiting theme from. Its disinformation. Anything over the P5 autonomous stipend limit wilt still be against NCAA rules just like it is today with regard to the room/board stipend today

[StallionsModelT]

There will still be rampant cheating. Stipend or no stipend.

[Topper]

Everybody (esp. tiki) bashes the crowd that was at that game. I went to that game with some family members and didn't think the attendance was that bad. Consider that UCF does not travel so that was a factor. Also, we just were not a hot item at that time and were playing a team that draws very little interest from the Dallas community. Question- how does the attendance from that game compare with the average attendance that year? from the average attendance of the prior year?

The real significant result of that game was that tiki decided to check out and just collect a check for the rest of his contract. I suspect that if we had won CUSA that year and been top 25 the crowds would have started showing up.

I think the bball program proves that if you have a winner and a good product people will come to see it.

It was a beautiful day, we had just beaten TCU, we were playing the defending champion of our league, and the crowd was pathetic, embarrasing, and an insult to the team and the coaches. The team's play that day was a testament to their character in light of what was practically zero fan interest.

[SMUer]

It seriously wasn't that bad...same as any other CUSA game...SMU fans were just waiting for the other shoe to finally drop, and in short time, it did. I think our crowd to Rice June's first game or last year's UCF attendance was waaay more embarrassing. He threw a fit because unrealistic expectations were not met...boohoo

[sbsmith]

It was a beautiful day, we had just beaten TCU, we were playing the defending champion of our league, and the crowd was pathetic, embarrasing, and an insult to the team and the coaches. The team's play that day was a testament to their character in light of what was practically zero fan interest.

I wish that character would have shown up in the following games, maybe they could have shown all those no-shows what they were missing.

[StallionsModelT]

It was no better or worse than our other CUSA opponents and I've been to every home game since 2003.

[PK]

Everybody (esp. tiki) bashes the crowd that was at that game. I went to that game with some family members and didn't think the attendance was that bad. Consider that UCF does not travel so that was a factor. Also, we just were not a hot item at that time and were playing a team that draws very little interest from the Dallas community. Question- how does the attendance from that game compare with the average attendance that year? from the average attendance of the prior year?

The real significant result of that game was that tiki decided to check out and just collect a check for the rest of his contract. I suspect that if we had won CUSA that year and been top 25 the crowds would have started showing up.

I think the bball program proves that if you have a winner and a good product people will come to see it.

It was a beautiful day, we had just beaten TCU, we were playing the defending champion of our league, and the crowd was pathetic, embarrasing, and an insult to the team and the coaches. The team's play that day was a testament to their character in light of what was practically zero fan interest.

Not that it is a good excuse, but IIRC weren't the Rangers playing a playoff game or a world series game that day also? We do unfortunately live in a city with lots of pro sports teams to compete with. I for one was at the SMU game, but then I'm a die hard fan.