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I know that I'm the 1st one to complain about our not having a large fan following, but after all, we are a small private school that few outside of the SMU community are going to identify with. Yes, having a top 10 caliber team will bring out some locals for some games, but it's not going to make season ticket holders/loyal fans out of them

We have an undergraduate enrollment of 6,249 and manage to attract twice that number for our games. Compare that with our conference mates' undergraduate enrollment and their attendance:

UCF 50,968 - I think they usually draw close to 40k
USF 47,646 - they are drawing about 30k for a horrible team
Houston 32,639 - are they drawing even 32k on average for a pretty good team?
Temple 27,567 - they draw about 20k per game
Cincy 21,598 - they draw high 20's for most games
ECU 21,298 - our future conference mates draw close to 40k most games
Memphis 17,528 - they are struggling this year but usually draw more than 17k
Tulane 8,423 - they draw our kind of numbers or just a little stronger
Tulsa 3,160 - they draw multiple times their undergrad population

Best comparison for SMU is Tulane; similar size and type school located in a city that has professional teams competing for entertainment dollars. They draw just slightly better than we do and have plans to build an on-campus facility that will seat fewer than Ford

Tulsa might be the most impressive, but then again they are the only game in town

Bottom line here is that Houston has no business bagging SMU. Relative to their enrollment, they should be drawing 60k and complaining when they don't. I guess what I'm saying is that this attendance thing is all relative, but we aren't as bad as we tend to think. We are what we are.

Oh...and for those UNT lurkers who like to laugh about our attendance...you have an undergraduate enrollment of 28,911 and a team competing for a conference championship...but struggle to draw your enrollment.

Good point. A lot of those schools (UH, UCF, etc) are commuter schools where many in the undergraduate population have little to no "connection" with the university or its athletic program. Of course, we have the same problem as well, with students not identifying with SMU athletics. However, if we had an undergraduate enrollment of 20k + I think we could draw a few more fans out to Ford.

I wonder if the new dorms behind the stadium that will be open for next season will help increase student attendance at all?

Our other big problem is that a lot of our alumni move elsewhere after college and don't stay in the DFW area

Stop trying to justify crappy attendance. Our stadium held 31k and we put 32k in there consistently, now we are being rewarded with a much bigger stadium.

This year, we are playing in multiple venues across the city and have put 34k in the stands twice and the other games hovering around25- 30k. We will average somewhere between 35k at the lowest and 42k at the highest next fall.


You fill in what your stadium holds and we will continue to laugh at SMU's attendance until they do something about it. Fan support is one of the reasons why UH outrecruits SMU.

Cougar King wrote:Stop trying to justify crappy attendance. Our stadium held 31k and we put 32k in there consistently, now we are being rewarded with a much bigger stadium.

This year, we are playing in multiple venues across the city and have put 34k in the stands twice and the other games hovering around25- 30k. We will average somewhere between 35k at the lowest and 42k at the highest next fall.


You fill in what your stadium holds and we will continue to laugh at SMU's attendance until they do something about it. Fan support is one of the reasons why UH outrecruits SMU.

Don't forget the 10,000 that show up at the BBVA soccer field

Adding on to my post above, your research is terrible. ECU averages 50k per game in most years but has averaged 44k this year due to playing subpar competition, their only sellout so far against Virginia Tech.

Memphis drew 43k at the beginning of the year before they showed everybody they suck again.

East Coast Mustang wrote:Good point. A lot of those schools (UH, UCF, etc) are commuter schools where many in the undergraduate population have little to no "connection" with the university or its athletic program. Of course, we have the same problem as well, with students not identifying with SMU athletics. However, if we had an undergraduate enrollment of 20k + I think we could draw a few more fans out to Ford.

I wonder if the new dorms behind the stadium that will be open for next season will help increase student attendance at all?

I guarantee that the typical football fan in Houston and Orlando identify with UH and UCF than the typical Dallas fan does with SMU.

Let's not even get into what SMU students think about their school's athletics.

LHS81 wrote:

Cougar King wrote:Stop trying to justify crappy attendance. Our stadium held 31k and we put 32k in there consistently, now we are being rewarded with a much bigger stadium.

This year, we are playing in multiple venues across the city and have put 34k in the stands twice and the other games hovering around25- 30k. We will average somewhere between 35k at the lowest and 42k at the highest next fall.


You fill in what your stadium holds and we will continue to laugh at SMU's attendance until they do something about it. Fan support is one of the reasons why UH outrecruits SMU.

Don't forget the 10,000 that show up at the BBVA soccer field

Still more people than SMU's homecoming or any other SMU game that doesn't involve another Texas school.

People need to get over attendance. It will take years and years to fix. U of H has 32000 undergrads. We have 6000. To put 30k in the stadium SMU needs to be 5 times better at bringing back alumni.

If they havr enough seats U of H will soon average 60k. So what. If attendance is the main game then we need ti quit because we cannot compete.

Have solid teams that could compete with our "natural and traditional rivals" and our attendance will look like TCU which is all we need.

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I think every school has the issue of alumni moving away from the area. Look at places like Auburn, AL and Clemson, SC where very few alumni live in the same town/city as their school. One big difference is that many who never attended those schools identify with them as "their school". We don't have that going for us

Tulane is probably the best comparison for us and we are in about the same situation. Of course, it would be nice to be in TCU's position because they worked very hard to build enough of a local following that they got invited to play with the big boys, who can now help fill their stadium on gameday.

And Coug...come back and talk trash when you have enough demand to build a 60-80k seat stadium. The numbers speak for themselves...bottom line here is that we aren't the University of Dallas and we are not a public University with 30k students. If we were, Ford's capacity would be far beyond what it is

Cougar King wrote:Stop trying to justify crappy attendance. Our stadium held 31k and we put 32k in there consistently, now we are being rewarded with a much bigger stadium.

This year, we are playing in multiple venues across the city and have put 34k in the stands twice and the other games hovering around25- 30k. We will average somewhere between 35k at the lowest and 42k at the highest next fall.


You fill in what your stadium holds and we will continue to laugh at SMU's attendance until they do something about it. Fan support is one of the reasons why UH outrecruits SMU.

Ha, ok. You have 5x as many undergraduates and considerably more alumni living in your metro area. I know you're not very smart but it's easy to see why UH would outdraw SMU. Question is, why can't yall bring in 50k+? Oh yeah, a lot of those "alumni" are probably working Saturday shifts...

its not how many poor cougar. its who they are.

gostangs wrote:its not how many poor cougar. its who they are.

And yet you wonder why people in Dallas see SMU as unapproachable. Until you get rid of the snobbish attitude, support for SMU will never grow.

Thank, Coug for making my point. So by your own brilliant admission, ECU draws more than twice their undergrad enrollment for most games and Memphis twice their enrollment...and yes, I will also guarantee that people in Houston or Orlando or Memphis or Greenville, NC will identify with those public schools moreso than people in Dallas will identify with SMU. That's the issue with being a PRIVATE school.

You do realize that your argument makes Houston look even worse, right? Again, where are the 60k plus fans you should have to compare favorably with ECU or Memphis?

Charleston Pony wrote:
You do realize that your argument makes Houston look even worse, right? Again, where are the 60k plus fans you should have to compare favorably with ECU or Memphis?

Too busy rooting for Aggy and Bevo like the rest of Houston

The casual fan in Houston not affiliated with UH cares about the Cougars about as much as someone in Dallas cares about SMU. Texas, OU, A&M, Tech, and SEC schools are all above UH in the Houston pecking order, just like they are ahead of us here in Dallas.

CK likes to think UH is somehow "above" SMU in the college football hierarchy, but the truth of the matter is their abysmal academic reputation will prevent any promotion for them and is much harder to fix than our attendance problem.

Yes, finally something fact based and sensible on attendance. The negative attendance threads are tiring. I wish attendance was better too but it has never be huge, at least since the late 60's since I've been going to games - we have a small enrollment compounded by many out of state students migrating out of the Dallas area for employment. Past figures included SWC foes who brought a following. Luckily we have a great local core and with winning can do a heck of a lot better than yesterday but folks it ain't going to be 35K every week. It just isn't.

Oh, and I live in Houston and have two kids who graduated from UH. This CK cat has absolutely nothing to brag about regarding their attendance numbers which for their size is pitiful.