Football attendance in perspective

[Treadway21]

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

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.

I think the city of Dallas has the same opinion of the city of Houston that gostang stated.

[Stallion]

This thread is so much [deleted]. Tulsa and Tulane are not the most similar examples. TCU is. and there a bunch more students than 6,000 on our campus. We have a law school, business graduate school, divinity school and other graduate programs on campus that give us a larger enrollment. We have posters on this board and some of our most prominent alumni who identify with SMU through the law school, business school, divinity school and other graduate programs. I guarantee you a bunch of these graduates students are on the Boulevard every week. You people are excuse makers for an entitled alumni base. There were about 5,000 in the stands Saturday, only 800 went to College Station to see an old rival and we sent back more than 2,000 ticket in our TCU allotment for an hour drive against our No, 1 rivals. I know from past experience that we are underachieving. I've seen the student body when enrollment was much less fill the bottom bowl of Moody and fill twice as much space as they do today. If TCU can sellout 2 straight seasons then we might as well give up the ghost if we can't get 25,000-32,000 tickets sold every game. Right now we have only about 4,000 alumni that buy season tickets-and bring their wives, kids and others. We aren't going to make the next cut unless we solve this problem. We have to overachieve to have any shot-just like TCU has

[East Coast Mustang]

This thread is so much [deleted]. Tulsa and Tulane are not the most similar examples. TCU is. and there a bunch more students than 6,000 on our campus. We have a law school, business graduate school and other graduate programs on campus that give us a larger enrollment. We have posters on this board and some of our most prominent alumni who identify with SMU through the law school, business school and other graduate programs. You people are excuse makers for an entitled alumni base. There were about 5,000 in the stands Saturday, only 800 went to College Station to see an old rival and we sent back more than 2,000 ticket in our TCU allotment for an hour drive against our No, 1 rivals. I've seen the student body when enrollment was much less fill the bottom bowl of Moody and fill twice as much space as they do today.

TCU has won consistently for a decade and been to two BCS bowls, including a Rose Bowl win. Plus, there is considerably less competition for entertainment in Ft. Worth and most of their student body is from Texas, unlike ours where many graduates move away after four years. You bring up the graduate schools, but let's be honest, 95% of people in SMU graduate schools identify with their undergraduate institution, not SMU.

While SMU has attempted to become a "national university," this creates a problem for football because many alumni move back home after they graduate. Not excusing the alumni who do stay here and don't care, though.

I'm curious, Stallion- you're always quick to call out our fanbase (and rightfully so in some instances), but do you have any solutions you'd like to propose? Anyone can complain. Do you have any problem-solving ideas?

[CoxMustangFan]

This thread is so much [deleted]. Tulsa and Tulane are not the most similar examples. TCU is. and there a bunch more students than 6,000 on our campus. We have a law school, business graduate school, divinity school and other graduate programs on campus that give us a larger enrollment. We have posters on this board and some of our most prominent alumni who identify with SMU through the law school, business school, divinity school and other graduate programs. I guarantee you a bunch of these graduates students are on the Boulevard every week. You people are excuse makers for an entitled alumni base. There were about 5,000 in the stands Saturday, only 800 went to College Station to see an old rival and we sent back more than 2,000 ticket in our TCU allotment for an hour drive against our No, 1 rivals. I know from past experience that we are underachieving. I've seen the student body when enrollment was much less fill the bottom bowl of Moody and fill twice as much space as they do today. If TCU can sellout 2 straight seasons then we might as well give up the ghost if we can't get 25,000-32,000 tickets sold every game. Right now we have only about 4,000 alumni that buy season tickets-and bring their wives, kids and others. We aren't going to make the next cut unless we solve this problem. We have to overachieve to have any shot-just like TCU has

Couldn't agree more Stallion.

[RGV Pony]

Yeah

[Mustangsabu]

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.

With 32000 students that is not a huge achievement

[ftworthmustang]

How do you get the casual Dallas football fan away from the TV, watching an SEC or Big 12 game, to come to SMU, fight traffic, parking, etc. to watch SMU play a team they've never heard of? My wife and I went to the Temple game and my wife (who I would say is a casual fan at best) thought Temple was from somewhere in east Texas!

[East Coast Mustang]

How do you get the casual Dallas football fan away from the TV, watching an SEC or Big 12 game, to come to SMU, fight traffic, parking, etc. to watch SMU play a team they've never heard of? My wife and I went to the Temple game and my wife (who I would say is a casual fan at best) thought Temple was from somewhere in east Texas!

Hell, if we could get the majority of people on the Blvd into the actual game we'd be in great shape.

As to your point about competition about entertainment, you're right. It's tough to get people away from the Texas/LSU/A&M/Alabama game for three hours. That's why I propose leveling the top section of the north endzone seats and making it a massive patio with an awning, AC, full bar, big screen TVs showing other games, etc.

[SoCal_Pony]

Well I know this, we could be undefeated right now in conference play (not much of a reach) and we still would not have drawn over 17,000 fans for UConn, or for that matter over 20,000 fans against well over half of our AAC mates this past Saturday. And this could have been our path to a BCS bowl season.

My strong advice to Hart and our CofC. Selecting our next HC is a big part of the equation, but hardly the only part. You spend all your $$$ on our HC staff and none on marketing and you are increasing our chances of failure. Our AD better have a comprehensive plan in place to increase fan support other than just the new energy of a HC or the 'prospects' of winning.

I like the Corral concept discussed a week ago, but the plan has to be more than that, much more.

[East Coast Mustang]

Well I know this, we could be undefeated right now in conference play (not much of a reach) and we still would not have drawn over 17,000 fans for UConn, or for that matter over 20,000 fans against well over half of our AAC mates this past Saturday. And this could have been our path to a BCS bowl season.

My strong advice to Hart and our CofC. Selecting our next HC is a big part of the equation, but hardly the only part. You spend all your $$$ on our HC staff and none on marketing and you are increasing our chances of failure. Our AD better have a comprehensive plan in place to increase fan support other than just the new energy of a HC or the 'prospects' of winning.

I like the Corral concept discussed a week ago, but the plan has to be more than that, much more.

Here's the deal- how much $$ thrown at "marketing" is enough? I mean, we could blanket the city with billboards and TV commercials and I'm still not sure it would drastically increase our paid attendance. In the end, a coach who WINS and makes inroads in the community. 6-6 and 7-5 seasons are better than what we're used to pre-Junesus, but it's not going to get the job done, especially with JJ not giving a [deleted] about marketing the program

[SoCal_Pony]

ECM,

If you are expecting a new coach to 'win' to turn this around you will be sorely disappointed. Our past history is proof enough of that. And, as I stated earlier, we could be undefeated in AAC play this season and it wouldn't have made that big a difference in attendance Saturday.

ALSO, and this is an important ALSO, the quality of this team is so-so at best. It will take a new coach 2 seasons minimum to turn this around to where we can compete for a AAC title or against quality non-OOC opponents, probably 3 as this recruiting year is most likely shot. In the interim, he will need more fans in the stands to help with recruiting, just ask LB.

It's not easy, that's for certain. I just think we need to approach this differently this time.

Mustang Mania by the way was pure brilliance.

[East Coast Mustang]

ECM,

If you are expecting a new coach to 'win' to turn this around you will be sorely disappointed. Our past history is proof enough of that. And, as I stated earlier, we could be undefeated in AAC play this season and it wouldn't have made that big a difference in attendance Saturday.

ALSO, and this is an important ALSO, the quality of this team is so-so at best. It will take a new coach 2 seasons minimum to turn this around to where we can compete for a AAC title or against quality non-OOC opponents, probably 3 as this recruiting year is most likely shot. In the interim, he will need more fans in the stands to help with recruiting, just ask LB.

It's not easy, that's for certain. I just think we need to approach this differently this time.

Mustang Mania by the way was pure brilliance.

JJ, to his credit, got the administration on board with relaxing the admissions standards. A new coach could come in here and compete for the AAC pretty quickly, in my opinion. We might, to the extent we can, need to mine the JUCO ranks for some talent gaps, but I don't think we're a 2-10 team next year or anything.

As for Mustang Mania, it was brilliant, but it won't work this time around. There's too much competition for entertainment in Dallas and channels on TV in 2013 for something like that to work on a large scale, in my opinion.

[SoCal_Pony]

I don't think we are a 2-10 team either, nor do I think we compete for a championship. It's too early, but anything from 4-8 to 7-5 is a real possibility; I'll go with 5-7.

Mustang Mania filled a 65,000 Texas Stadium against well-known regional opponents.

New Mustang Mania needs only 25,000-30,000. Opponents will be much weaker, but we have the advantage of Ford and the Blvd plus metroplex has grown over the past 30 years.

Nobody said it would be easy, but timing may not be too bad as the Cowboys are down trending and going to Jerry World is VERY expensive.

Oh, and I was going to make one final comment that you mentioned as well. New HC better find a JC pipeline PRONTO. Would love to see this years' class filled with quality JC athletes, we need them. We simply don't have the time to build it the 'right way'.

[03Mustang]

If we are going to make the argument that we aren't doing "that bad" on attendance given the size of the school, aren't we effectively saying that we don't belong in the upper tier of schools as we'll never be able to have a large enough fan base?

Wake Forest has a total enrollment of under 8k and draws a home average of well over 30k even if you exclude the premier schools of the ACC like Florida St and Miami.

Excuses won't ever get us to the next level. People are going to support this program or they aren't - and I keep hoping one day we'll see at least a hint of positive momentum....but I'm not holding my breath.

[Stallion]

The AAC is going to be CUSA 2.0 next year especially with the only former BCS schools USF and UNCONN in down-I mean really down-cycles. In addition, Tulsa's program in cratering. No reason we can't beat these teams-it will be the same mediocre programs we've played under June Jones