CROWD MAKES ME PUKE --- DO WE HAVE ANY STUDENTS?

[Dwan]

Crazy thing about attendance is attendance on the BLVD is fantastic. You have people on the doorstep, they just have no interest in walking into the stadium.

[gostangs]

Suggestion - set up blaster tornado warning horns on poles every 100 feet or so. Starting 25 min before kickoff set off the very loud horns every five minutes. Then shut off all power at game time.

I'm not kidding.

[Bergermeister]

Brunch. Brunch. We’re talking about brunch? Brunch.

No kidding. What's next, linner?

[SMU Football Blog]

If you want to solve the attendance problem, you need to win consistently and have patience. You also need to put the work in yourself.

In the early days of TCU being good, they wondered where all the people where, too. That being said, they never had the problems we do today. But then again, TCU didn't kick its fanbase in the nuts for 20+ years either.

Now, when I bring up TCU, some moron always says that people in Fort Worth go to TCU games because there is nothing else to do and there is so much more going on in Dallas. If you believe that, you are what we refer to in the business as an "idiot." Fort Worth has a current population of 850,000. There are, in fact, restaurants and bars in Fort Worth. There are theaters and museums as well. There is a social scene and charity events and galas and all that other crap.

When Fort Worth people want to go see a pro team play a sport or go to a concert, they are more than willing to drive to the AAC in Fort Worth. Newsflash-the Rangers and Cowboys are even closer. The house I grew up in is 37 miles from the AAC, my coworker's place in Frisco is 27 miles from the AAC. 11 miles difference doesn't stop people.

Bottom line is that SMU's attendance problem is the same problem that SMU's attendance problem has been for years. If the students and alums who supposedly care can't be bothered to show up, then the non-students and non-alums are certainly not going to show up.

Alums are out of the habit of going or they never did have a habit of going dating back to when they were a student. They choose kiddo soccer or Little Gym over SMU football; they choose wife's sister's boyfriend's UT watching party over SMU football; they choose to go fishing over SMU football. They do; we all know they do; we all know the ones that do that; hell, a lot of us have done it too.

IT IS UP TO YOU. IT IS UP TO YOU. IT IS UP TO YOU.

If you want to solve SMU's attendance problem, you need to bring more people to the game yourself. You need to do it. SMU can't do it as an institution by itself.

SMU needs to stop giving tickets away to people that will never buy a ticket. It is all a nice gesture, but I would rather SMU give tickets to people who might come back. Give extra tickets to season ticket holders to give away to fellow alums and friends and neighbors. Sell tickets to non-season ticket holding alums for $5 each.

My recollection was that in Year 2 of June (we went to a bow), they gave out on this forum a code to buy tickets on line for a dollar. I gave that code to everyone I could find. I sent an email to everyone I knew at work. Did I get 100 people to the game? No, but I got 10 or 15. We need to do more of that.

I say it again:

IT IS UP TO YOU. IT IS UP TO YOU. IT IS UP TO YOU.

[newshound]

Myth Number 1, 2 and 3: "Win and they will come."

June was 5-1, had beaten TCU and no one came. He ripped the fans. He then quit on the program. But he did get new stadium lights (even though we had no night games scheduled the rest of the season) and new mascots that no one wanted.

Chad was 3-1, playing at home at 3 p.m. on a gorgeous day. No one came. And, lord knows he could have complained. In the postgame he said he was mystified that his team was flat. Well, come flying out of that tunnel to an empty stadium -- with music blaring OVER the Mustang Band trying to play -- and well, you get the point ... (Tip of the cap to the coach for biting his lip).

What they've been doing forever on gameday is such inside-the-box, copycat cliche scripted nonsense -- and it DOES NOT WORK!

When people do come, the gameday experience is not ideal; it actually is now detracting from the on-field product. ... This includes, but is not limited to ...

> virtually crippled cellphones (except for yesterday, because the crowd was so small)
> bad, loud music (copied from Dallas Cowboys games) and PA glitches throughout the game
> boring, way-too-long, energy-sucking video board vignettes
> uncreative promotions
> very, very, very little use of spirit squads, band and an awesome live mascot
> lack of in-game stats and information and out-of-town scores (on the video board and via the PA system)
> disorganized concessions with lines backed up into the concourse (food trucks are great nut why not park them just outside the gates instead of making people hike to the end zones?)
> no radio call in the restrooms
> relatively no merchandise purchase points (not that I could find, at least). And, if they are there, they are NEVER promoted. Ever.
> terrible, crowded and slow access to stadium gates for entry
> no ushers or greeters
> unmanned "marketing" stations with posters and schedule cards spilling onto the floor
> hugely unpopular changes to student tailgate policy and alienation of Greeks
> lack of promotion of the remaining schedule

I could go on ...

In other words, gameday in the stadium has a clear lack of anything that DIFFERENTIATES SMU and SMU football. It is simply not inviting. So, if you did come for the first time, why would you come back?

For years now, everyone walks away saying, "That's too bad no one comes. It's such a nice stadium." They don't market north of Loop 12 or South of Mockingbird Lane and never have. There's no wow factor (W and Dallas Cowboys sitting courtside). This is a HUGE media market. Market the product accordingly.

Winning actually "cures" very little. Fix the "broken windows" first. And there are dozens of them. If you don't what I am talking about, read Malcolm Gladwell.

Winning just makes yesterday's "crowd" more of an embarrassment. Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, College GameDay is coming to town this weekend. And, on the field, Chad has gotten the team a lot closer to TCU than people might think. Off the field? It's MLB vs. American Legion ball.

SMU consistently hosts some of the best overall on-campus events in the universe. Everything is buttoned up, Every. Little. Thing. The room is loaded with A-list guests. No stone goes unturned. Even men's basketball is pretty entertaining. It's just unfathomable that some of these awesome events are hosted by the very same school that can't make a home football game a special event.

Here's one suggestion: Stop spending ridiculous money on interior wall graphics that NO ONE outside the program ever sees. Wall graphics don't make up for the optics of a 70 percent empty stadium seen by recruits and their parents. And stop spending money on billboards across the street from campus. Hire 2-3 polished, big-market marketing executives with attendance- and
commission-based salary incentives. Use the greatest resource in the world -- undergraduate marketing and sports management majors -- to create a real marketing plan and to execute hosting 32,000 people on campus 6-7 times a year. And that means starting from scratch on the gameday presentation.

[JasonB]

Gameday needs to improve - yes.

The 2011 season, everyone had the wind taken out with the A&M game where we didn't really compete. But yes, the UCF attendance was embarrassing.

Win against Houston and Cincy and the local media will be talking enough to drive attendance up.

[sacklunch]

Until we start playing a P5 schedule, then we will have P5 attendance. Casual fans in Dallas don’t want to come out and watch us play the likes of UCONN, Memphis, Tulsa, or Tulane.

Our only hope is to get in a better conference


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SMU_Alum11]

It’s not a myth regarding win and they will come. Yes June did defeat TCU but that’s it and it was one time. When we refer to winning consistently, we also refer to beating P5 teams and not sun belt, FCS, etc teams... BORING. Believe me, I’ve tried getting co workers and friends to go, but they’re like who is SMU playing? UCONN... ahh nah maybe next time! It happens. Now sadly, our conference is the best we got for G5 considered but it’s still not interesting to most people. So our only hope is to take on P5s during the OOC schedule to drive interest.

[tristatecoog]

If Ponies beat UH and UC, Chad can overtly ask for support. Maybe SMU will be getting votes or ranked and lots of local media pub. Then the national media will also be talking about Chad leaving like they are with Scott Frost.

[mtrout]

Reality alert: We're still #70 on sagarin. We might get real votes if we win the next 4 in a row.

[SMU21TCU10]

I think that when people say "win and they will come", they mean have a Boise state type season or two, make it to one of the big bowls, beat a few blue bloods etc. like TCU did. 3-1 to start the year three years after being the worst team in the country isn't winning.

[SMUer]

New idea: Cut every DB and LB on scholarship who is a sophomore or older (2-3 yet in our model rebuild, and the new guys just get better and better, right?), use our special teams guys to fill in the gaps (could they be much worse?), and roll all this saved cash into installing a giant AtmosFX projection screen lining the outside of the field so that we can project cheering fans onto them. The screens are fairly see-through from the projector-side so the 1,500 actual fans could still see the game (they’d have to sit in the dark), but our players would think they are playing in Death Valley...err...Bryant-Denny...well, some other real stadium with real fans who stand by their teams. We’d just have to keep recruits on the field. And the population on the Boulevard might convince them that a stadium that full is possible at SMU. Brilliant.

Seriously, knock out the blue seats and ring the horseshoe with private suites (they sell out), install the blue seats where some of the red seats are to make a pretty pattern, knock out the end zone seats and make a bier garten/outdoor drinking area, ditch the worthless MustangXI (sorry, it looks sad now) and promote more Mob-style exclusive seating sections and do everything possible to make those sections as wild and fun as possible. Oh and market our games, can’t hurt.

[SMU_Alum11]

I know people love sagarin but I like how ESPN views us: #58.

[sbsmith]

Until we start playing a P5 schedule, then we will have P5 attendance. Casual fans in Dallas don’t want to come out and watch us play the likes of UCONN, Memphis, Tulsa, or Tulane.

Our only hope is to get in a better conference


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah we're screwed on the P5 front.

[edwa]

New idea: Cut every DB and LB on scholarship who is a sophomore or older (2-3 yet in our model rebuild, and the new guys just get better and better, right?), use our special teams guys to fill in the gaps (could they be much worse?), and roll all this saved cash into installing a giant AtmosFX projection screen lining the outside of the field so that we can project cheering fans onto them. The screens are fairly see-through from the projector-side so the 1,500 actual fans could still see the game (they’d have to sit in the dark), but our players would think they are playing in Death Valley...err...Bryant-Denny...well, some other real stadium with real fans who stand by their teams. We’d just have to keep recruits on the field. And the population on the Boulevard might convince them that a stadium that full is possible at SMU. Brilliant.

Seriously, knock out the blue seats and ring the horseshoe with private suites (they sell out), install the blue seats where some of the red seats are to make a pretty pattern, knock out the end zone seats and make a bier garten/outdoor drinking area, ditch the worthless MustangXI (sorry, it looks sad now) and promote more Mob-style exclusive seating sections and do everything possible to make those sections as wild and fun as possible. Oh and market our games, can’t hurt.

this would involve cutting Jordan Wyatt our best player on D.... i do like the stadium upgrade ideas though