Herman Challenges UH Fans

[Stallion]

your math is a little off-I went to SMU games for almost 15 years before I ever set foot on SMU for class. Alumni buy season tickets for other members of their family. There are also faculty, staff, players' family and other members of the SMU community. The truth is we probably got only about 4,000 season ticket holders that are actually alumni of the university

[SMUer]

your math is a little off-I went to SMU games for almost 15 years before I ever set foot on SMU for class. Alumni buy season tickets for other members of their family. There are also faculty, staff, players' family and other members of the SMU community. The truth is we probably got only about 4,000 season ticket holders that are actually alumni of the university

You are saying that 4,000 alumni are season ticket holders...or about 10% of our living DFW alumni...the other typical 6,000 are family of players, friends of season ticket holders, faculty and other already interested members. Most of those members are mostly fixed in number (number of professors, family members of players, number of friends alumni are willing to buy tickets for) and as a result we get 10,000-ish fans that we can mostly count on to regularly show. We have 22,000 seats left to find butts for. That represents either 50% of our remaining DFW alumni...bringing our total ticket contribution to 60% of DFW alumni...or we need to find additional butts from DFW, or to be supplemented by opposing fans, whose contribution ranges from 1,000 to 17,000. Best POA? Find a way to get 12,000-15,000 Dallas residents to make SMU their adopted team.

Find me an alumni-base that gets 50% of their area alumni to purchase season tickets....doesn't happen. That's what really irks me when we talk about (and bash) our fan support, or when we are criticized by the media. We are a very small school, with a small local alumni base, with a losing tradition, and a disenfranchised fanbase that has been screwed internal and externally by the football world. It isn't reasonable to ask or expect our fans to go buy their season tickets and the tickets of several of their non-affiliated, but interested friends too. It's up to our University to make itself beloved in its own community, so that they can share in the support of it. What's the plan?

[skyscraper]

at what point did moody start selling out? how many games into the LB era? im thinking the students got behind the team & LB and made it a good environment, consistently, before romo was showing up and we were competing for the conference.

i dont imagine the mob (13-14 version) is a bunch of people that only like basketball, and these are easier tickets to get...

i think if we can survive baylor w/ pride intact, the UNT game will be moody-esque and if we trounce them, that momentum can carry through the rest of our home slate, as none of the remaining teams that come to ford are going to be kicking our asses.

Moody was about half full for LB's first season. Nowhere close to sold out.
The first sell out was the UCONN game that reopened Moody and then we were off to the races.

[Bergermeister]

If Morris was shocked by last year's team, or June's recruiting.....his head is going to explode when he actually sees the lack of support for the program .

I thought the same thing when I was watching the Clemson vs Florida State replay last night.

[SMUer]

To put that 2013-2014 BBall season into football terms...the equivalent would be for SMU to completely renovate the entire upper deck of Ford in 2016 to include only box-suits and a wrap-around party deck level, completely upgrade the sound system, hire a bada$$ DJ and install laser graphics system on the field...our first game there would be #17 ranked Michigan, and we'd win, and also go undefeated at home until we played #11 ranked UCF at the end of the season, play so fantastically against B12 rivals on the road that ESPN applauded us, and we'd win a Top 25 game on the road. Methinks our attendance issue would be gone, at least while we still are winning. Grab your checkbooks, lets do this!

[ghost]

SMU doesn't have to invent the wheel so to speak. Others have gone before them to show them the way. Baylor took the losses for years but gobbled up the Big 12 money to improve facilities and then hit big with RG3 to garner excitement for the new stadium with fans and a big donor. TCU was winning 10 games a year for a decade and still had trouble getting 25-30,000 in the seats until they made it Fort Worth's team. So SMU is in a better market and top city so they have to act like a bigtime athletic program first...yes, you have to add baseball and why not womens softball since in the middle of the top high school players in the country.Too expensive well then you don't deserve to be playing with the big boys then. It is not going to happen overnight. Sell the sizzle and just being part of a bigtime program and gameday fun and being part of the foundation of something special. Cowboys games are unaffordable to so many and college and big-time high school fans have so much fun because they actually think THEY are part of it. Do fans feel part of it at SMU? NO..only the wealthy donors and that has to change.

[lwjr]

at what point did moody start selling out? how many games into the LB era? im thinking the students got behind the team & LB and made it a good environment, consistently, before romo was showing up and we were competing for the conference.

i dont imagine the mob (13-14 version) is a bunch of people that only like basketball, and these are easier tickets to get...

i think if we can survive baylor w/ pride intact, the UNT game will be moody-esque and if we trounce them, that momentum can carry through the rest of our home slate, as none of the remaining teams that come to ford are going to be kicking our asses.

Moody was about half full for LB's first season. Nowhere close to sold out.
The first sell out was the UCONN game that reopened Moody and then we were off to the races.

Most was not even half full during LB's first season. At least the four or five games I attended had maybe 2500 people.

[RGV Pony]

And look at it this way. Moody was sold out all last year. 7000 or so seats, some full of band students etc.. But our total season ticket base is around 1600 accounts. 1600 fills 7000. So extrapolate that out to Ford..its not 32000 individuals we need to find

[East Coast Mustang]

And look at it this way. Moody was sold out all last year. 7000 or so seats, some full of band students etc.. But our total season ticket base is around 1600 accounts. 1600 fills 7000. So extrapolate that out to Ford..its not 32000 individuals we need to find

Here's the issue: SMU basketball games don't always overlap with Duke, Kansas, and UNC games. But the casual football fan would rather be at a sportsbar and watch all the CFB games than sit at Ford watching one game for three hours. Harsh reality but true.

[JasonB]

Another way to look at it - We turned basketball attendance around in the first year of good basketball and appropriate facilities. And that was basketball.

If word gets around that SMU plays good football and the tailgate scene is incredible, people will come. We will sell the place out.

If we squeak by wins against bad teams, get a winning record, but have a head coach who pisses some of the alumni off, we get 20K.

If word gets around that SMU got manhandled by BU in the first game and still sucks, then people won't and we will get 15K every game.

[footballdad]

If Morris was shocked by last year's team, or June's recruiting.....his head is going to explode when he actually sees the lack of support for the program.

Filling that stadium is by far his biggest challenge.

I would be shocked if he wasn't aware of that issue. However, fans don't really enjoy watching a team go 1-11. I really don't understand how you can say what you say when your son is part of that team that went 1-11.

What does that have to do with anything? Doesn't matter whether we're talking about the 1-11 team, the 5-7 Gilbert team, or previous June bowl teams, it's really no different. As much money as they're investing in coaches & facilities, let's hope they increase the marketing budget 10 fold in order to attract the casual Dallas fan or nothing will change all that much. Problem is much bigger than 'just win'. Low hanging fruit might be for Morris to issue a Herman type challenge to everyone on the blvd.

CFB attendance going down across the board only going to exaggerate problem in future. No easy fix, hopefully someone has a definitive plan.

[Stallion]

There is no small private school exemption on the P5 Tollway. If SMU wants to reach its goal it will be judged in comparison to the other candidate whether they have 40-50,000 students or 8,000 like SMU. Bottom Line. Butts in seats, TV /geographical draw and athletic success. SMU has to over-perform to reach that goal like TCU did.

[peruna81]

There is no small private school exemption on the P5 Tollway. If SMU wants to reach its goal it will be judged in comparison to the other candidate whether they have 40-50,000 students or 8,000 like SMU. Bottom Line. Butts in seats, TV /geographical draw and athletic success. SMU has to over-perform to reach that goal like TCU did.

^This^

[PerunasHoof]

[/quote] What does that have to do with anything? Doesn't matter whether we're talking about the 1-11 team, the 5-7 Gilbert team, or previous June bowl teams, it's really no different. As much money as they're investing in coaches & facilities, let's hope they increase the marketing budget 10 fold in order to attract the casual Dallas fan or nothing will change all that much. Problem is much bigger than 'just win'. Low hanging fruit might be for Morris to issue a Herman type challenge to everyone on the blvd.

CFB attendance going down across the board only going to exaggerate problem in future. No easy fix, hopefully someone has a definitive plan.[/quote]

People bailed on the team last year because it was painful to watch. You (personally) can't blame the casual fan base for not coming when your son was part of that problem. Or, I guess you can, but you are ignoring the real problem.

I was at every game last year, besides Houston as I left for Thanksgiving, so it's not people like me that are the issue. The team needs to play good football and be competitive against every team we line up against. If they do that, the other fans will come. It's going to also help that we'll have a coach that doesn't go out of his way to [deleted] off the fan base.

If, however, in the next 2-3 years we beat a Big 12 team and go 11-1/10-2 and still have attendance issues I will cede the point to you. Until then, why don't we wait and see what happens?

[CalallenStang]

Find me an alumni-base that gets 50% of their area alumni to purchase season tickets....doesn't happen.

With no data to back me up, some guesses:

Notre Dame
Arkansas
Alabama
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
Georgia
Florida
Penn State
Missouri
BYU

Basically, find schools that both have success in football and very small local areas - I'd guess all of them that meet that criteria also meet your criteria.

Among schools in large cities, I bet none have 50% of local alumni buying tickets.