"And as long as they're keeping score, there will always be people who try to do everything they can to put up more points than the other guy." -Brent Musberger
it really is unacceptable. Students want to be in touch w/ other students via cell phone, if the product on the field is garbage and you cant find your friends inside / see if theyre making their way over to Ford bc your phone wont work, most students will leave. I was at the tcu game last week and a part of the Amon G. renovations included making their stadium more tech friendly, no reason why we shouldnt.
FWIW, AT&T will be constructing an additional new cell tower on Greenville soon, but not in time for the rest of the football season.
SMU's first president, Robert S. Hyer, selected Harvard Crimson and Yale Blue as SMU's colors to symbolize SMU's high academic standards. We are one of the few Universities to have school colors with real meaning...and we just blow them off.
PonyLove wrote:How did we ever watch a football game without a cell phone?
that's irrelevant if you want anyone under 45 to be an active gameday participant in the stands. it's part of life. ESPECIALLY if you're trying to attract and KEEP fans under 30
Ok this is getting ridiculous...I agree with Dutch on THIS ONE POST by him totally
PonyLove wrote:How did we ever watch a football game without a cell phone?
that's irrelevant if you want anyone under 45 to be an active gameday participant in the stands. it's part of life. ESPECIALLY if you're trying to attract and KEEP fans under 30
True dat. Just like the crappy blingy uniforms. No accounting for the horrendous decisions of our youth. All hail to the 20 years olds who know best! But, in the end even me as a 50 something knows that the cell service sucks.
3. Wireless/Cell Issues - It is a big issue. No one debates that. Cell service in the Park Cities is not great and when you put 35,000 people in Ford, it causes big problems. The main issue is that Ford lacks a DAS (distributed antenna system). When Moody was re-done, that was included in the project. To retrofit Ford, the estimated cost is in excess of $1M. (Wisconsin had to spend $6.2M retrofitting Camp-Randall, as a reference.) So while it's a priority, it's not at the top of our list right now. Things like increased meals and snacks for student-athletes and things of the like are at the top of the list (http://www.smumustangs.com/genrel/090514aab.html) since they directly impact student-athletes. If any of you have an extra $1-2M laying around, I'll make sure we earmark it for the project .
yes this is another on-going disaster for the SMU game-day experience
kids, students, like you say anyone in the younger generation are going to say "the hell with this...if I can't use my cell-phone in the stadium then I am not staying long or not even going in". of course there is a "reason" this is happening, but other schools over-come "the reason". now lets go spend a bundle on another pretty water fountain or pavilion and pretend all is good.!
I believe that our administration misses an important point. If you want to be able to continue building new structures on our campus in 20 years you have to be able to engage our students and young alumni now. You can't expect a kid to graduate and have no true interaction with the university and then to come back in 20 years and donate huge sums. They have to be engaged during that entire time and the only way to truly do this is athletics. Every dime that we spend on the game day experience that keeps young people coming back game after game, year after year is an investment. Your are talking pennies now that will come back to you dressed as hundred dollars bills in the years to come.