15,475

[expony18]

ur old

[MrMustang1965]

I saw a LOT of empty seats in Tulsa's stadium on TV last night.

did you see the east side of ford on saturday?

Yes. But weren't we talking about the Tulsa game?

[expony18]

I saw a LOT of empty seats in Tulsa's stadium on TV last night.

did you see the east side of ford on saturday?

Yes. But weren't we talking about the Tulsa game?

but isnt this thread about our 15,475 ? im confused

[MrMustang1965]

[
but isnt this thread about our 15,475 ? im confused

Don't be confused. Just be at the SMU v UTEP game this Saturday! See ya @ Ford!

[expony18]

[
but isnt this thread about our 15,475 ? im confused

Don't be confused. Just be at the SMU v UTEP game this Saturday! See ya @ Ford!

i wish i could but i will be backing up my house in tulsa, and getting ready to move back next week

[MrMustang1965]

[
but isnt this thread about our 15,475 ? im confused

Don't be confused. Just be at the SMU v UTEP game this Saturday! See ya @ Ford!

i wish i could but i will be backing up my house in tulsa, and getting ready to move back next week

Shouldn't be too difficult. Is this your home?

[lwjr]

Bring back 10 cent beer specials. That will bring them to the stadium.

In all seriousness, SMU needs to start scheduling more NTSU and Baylor type teams that will bring more visitors. Since those teams are on future schedules, hopefully along with the team improving we will see larger crowds.

PONY UP!!!!!!
PICK THE MINERS !!!!!!

[EastStang]

We have two problems which affect attendance. (1) Small private school. (2) Bad teams for 20 years. These two items added together hurt attendance. We only have about 50,000 Dallas living and walking Dallas area alums. Assume half of those are fine arts majors and there you go, half are definitely women who might not like sports that much. 20 years of ineptitude hurt. Did getting rid of Pigskin Revue possibly hurt attendance? Did the classes which had reunions this year have high or low turnouts at their parties?

Remember when we were in the WAC and Fresno and Boise State had BIS attendance under 10,000? These were schools that football fans should want to come out and see and they didn't draw flies. So, 15,000 for Rice (who probably had not many travel) is about right. As we improve the casual fan will come out to watch and may even start to adopt us (like inner city DC folks adopted Georgetown for basketball-talk about a rich kids whitebread school).

[froglicious]

Not that it helps our situation any but the TCU Froggies - ranked in the top 5 - can't even sell out Amon Carter!

You know, Amon Carter does seat about 12,000 more than Ford. And we are averaging a home attendance that exceeds Ford Stadium's total capacity by about 3,000 every single week. Plus, next Saturday vs. Utah should be a sellout.

Just thought I'd add a little perspective to a pretty blindered comment.

So what was your reason for adding all those extra seats if you're not putting butts in them?

Bottom line: TCU has a team ranked #4 in THE NATION and you're not selling out Amon Carter!

from your own fan board: http://www.killerfrogs.com/msgboard/ind ... pic=102686

NativeFrog puts it all into perspective:

The simple explanation is we have a small enrollment, outside of the students there is a limited number of people interested in TCU sports, and the vast majority of the opponents who come to Amon Carter don't bring many fans. We wouldn't sell out Amon Carter if the Coton Bowl was being played in the stadium and TCU was one of the teams. We need to quit talking about te lack of attendance. It ain't gonna change, so let's forget about it.

Don't understand how every thread morphs into a TCU attendance mockery. SMU, more than any other should know that there are no, as in zero, T-Shirt College Football fans in the Metroplex. Those all affiliate with the Cowboys. Look back to the Pony Express days. Schools in NFL Metro areas have difficulty drawing fans. Pick any NFL City and you will see what I mean.

Couple that with the lack of Regional matchups and small schools are going to struggle regardless of record. Our students (7,500) show up and our regional alumni (approx 25k in metro area) support the team as well as any other school. We'll never have the Walmart T-Shirt fans, UT, atm and TT get. Don't really care.

[03Mustang]

I agree with all of that.

[Charleston Pony]

the problem remains what it has been since the Cowboys arrived in Dallas. SMU is no longer Dallas' team (as it was in the Doak Walker era). As Texas big public universities have grown, the interest gap has widened and the fact SMU doesn't compete at the highest level (BCS conference level) has further hurt interest. Even if we play ECU for the CUSA Championship, don't look for Ford Stadium to be anywhere near full. If we can reach the level that TCU has, we will at least bring our own people back out of the closet and should eventually see 25-30k crowds no matter who we play. I think TCU will always do "slightly" better than SMU (relatively speaking) because folks in Ft Worth might identify with them slightly moreso than Dallas does with SMU.

the Blvd was packed Saturday and I thought there could be close to 20k coming to the game after seeing that crowd. I should have known from the "fashion show" that is the Blvd, that the majority of those who dress to kill on gameday aren't doing so to go to a football game. I wonder how many people were on the Blvd as the game was being played or had simply moved on to their day's next activity?

I'm not sure how you get Dallas to identify more with SMU. Obviously recruiting Dallas area kids would help (sat near several Dallas area friends/family of some Rice players). I will say I was impressed by how many diverse groups we saw touring the campus on Friday and took that as a sign of SMU reaching out...but are those groups targeted as kids who can afford to attend? Is SMU increasing scholarship money available to promote diversity?

As for the Tulsa comparison, it would undoubtedly help if we were the University of Dallas and had no major league professional sports alternatives. The challenge remains in getting Dallas to identify with SMU and that means being more inclusive. That's tough to do at a cost of $40k/yr.

[expony18]

Shouldn't be too difficult. Is this your home?

im in oklahoma not arkansas

[MrMustang1965]

But you said 'backing up'. None of those residences that you posted are easy to 'back up' although it could probably be done with a little help from some neighbors.

[SMU2007]

i have no real way of judging what 15k looks like but here's a picture i took of the home sideline. looks pretty full. endzone seats were not this full.

(right side of image cut off when i try to post?)

[MrMustang1965]

SMU2007: what quarter was that? I thought there were more people than that on the home side.