Hart/SID/anyone - what can us out of town fans do to help?

[PonyTime]

I still haven't heard anything that us out-of-towners could do to help. Aside from Mustang Club membership and occasional trips to Dallas or bowl locations, I'd like to do something to help attendance.

Go down to Winston Salem and find out how a school with an enrollment similar to ours, in a city much smaller than ours, and with Alumni spread out over a much farther area draws 26,000+ against Presbyterian, 28,000 for UL-Monroe, 28,000 for Liberty, and 29,000 for Gardner Webb.

Report back to Mustang Club HQ with new tactics that we should be utilizing.

[ponyinNC]

I still haven't heard anything that us out-of-towners could do to help. Aside from Mustang Club membership and occasional trips to Dallas or bowl locations, I'd like to do something to help attendance.

Go down to Winston Salem and find out how a school with an enrollment similar to ours, in a city much smaller than ours, and with Alumni spread out over a much farther area draws 26,000+ against Presbyterian, 28,000 for UL-Monroe, 28,000 for Liberty, and 29,000 for Gardner Webb.

Report back to Mustang Club HQ with new tactics that we should be utilizing.

LOL. Well, honestly I have been to a Wake home game, but it was against UNC so the visiting fan base (of which I was a part) was pretty substantial. I came very close to going to law school there, but decided to stay at SMU.

Wake has help in that they are the only game in town for an hour and a half in any direction. They get a lot of local fan support from residents that didn't attend Wake - much like Clemson gets from the surrounding areas of Greenville, Anderson and Spartanburg. Wake has a lot of local T-shirt fans, because it is the only athletic event in town. Dallas is such a different animal.

Wake students support their teams much better than we do - although that is against local rivals and a great conference that they've been a part of for decades. In other words, Wake reaps a lot of the same rewards that we did while part of the SWC - local, long standing rivalries with georgraphic fits that make it easy to attend both home and away games. Meanwhile, we play non-geographical fits like Temple, Uconn, USF/UCF, ECU, Cincy, Rutgers, etc.

For the games that you quoted above that do not feature ACC rivals, that attendance may be helped by student groups such as the "Screamin Deamons" -- Membership in the Screamin’ Demons includes t-shirts for football and basketball games. Screamin’ Demons also receive priority for the best seats at sporting events.

Bottom line - They are a BB school first, and always will be. FB is a stop-gap until BB season arrives. But they reach out to the local community in a way that we just do not / cannot. Much like TCU reached out to become Ft Worth's team, Wake is Winston Salem's team. For SMU --It is tough enough to try to become Dallas' team against every other pro sports, especially when you have America's team in your backyard and when Jerry Jones is hosting every great CFB matchup at Jerryworld.

[feelthehorsepower]

I still haven't heard anything that us out-of-towners could do to help. Aside from Mustang Club membership and occasional trips to Dallas or bowl locations, I'd like to do something to help attendance.

Go down to Winston Salem and find out how a school with an enrollment similar to ours, in a city much smaller than ours, and with Alumni spread out over a much farther area draws 26,000+ against Presbyterian, 28,000 for UL-Monroe, 28,000 for Liberty, and 29,000 for Gardner Webb.

Report back to Mustang Club HQ with new tactics that we should be utilizing.

LOL. Well, honestly I have been to a Wake home game, but it was against UNC so the visiting fan base (of which I was a part) was pretty substantial. I came very close to going to law school there, but decided to stay at SMU.

Wake has help in that they are the only game in town for an hour and a half in any direction. They get a lot of local fan support from residents that didn't attend Wake - much like Clemson gets from the surrounding areas of Greenville, Anderson and Spartanburg. Wake has a lot of local T-shirt fans, because it is the only athletic event in town. Dallas is such a different animal.

Wake students support their teams much better than we do - although that is against local rivals and a great conference that they've been a part of for decades. In other words, Wake reaps a lot of the same rewards that we did while part of the SWC - local, long standing rivalries with georgraphic fits that make it easy to attend both home and away games. Meanwhile, we play non-geographical fits like Temple, Uconn, USF/UCF, ECU, Cincy, Rutgers, etc.

For the games that you quoted above that do not feature ACC rivals, that attendance may be helped by student groups such as the "Screamin Deamons" -- Membership in the Screamin’ Demons includes t-shirts for football and basketball games. Screamin’ Demons also receive priority for the best seats at sporting events.

Bottom line - They are a BB school first, and always will be. FB is a stop-gap until BB season arrives. But they reach out to the local community in a way that we just do not / cannot. Much like TCU reached out to become Ft Worth's team, Wake is Winston Salem's team. For SMU --It is tough enough to try to become Dallas' team against every other pro sports, especially when you have America's team in your backyard and when Jerry Jones is hosting every great CFB matchup at Jerryworld.

We are the only FBS team in Dallas...we can become Dallas team but it will take the school doing a better job at reaching out to the community for support...not just the park cities but the entire city of Dallas and surrounding suburbs.

[Nacho]

smu is a lost cause in football until/unless we get in a bcs conference with name brand schools that bring lots of fans with them.

[ponyinNC]

smu is a lost cause in football until/unless we get in a bcs conference with name brand schools that bring lots of fans with them.

That is sort of a "chicken or egg" argument - BCS conferences (P5) aren't in the habit of giving out invites to middling programs that can't get 20k actual students/alums/fans in the stands without the help of opposing fanbases. So without getting the fan support first, that invite just ain't coming brother.

[Dukie]

smu is a lost cause in football until/unless we get in a bcs conference with name brand schools that bring lots of fans with them.

I don't disagree with this, but back on the Wake discussion, Wake did not draw mid-20,000s for no-name opponents until after Jim Grobe took them to an ACC championship and Orange bowl berth, followed by more than one very competitive ACC season since then.

[ponyinNC]

I think a better comaprison to SMU (instead of Wake Forest) would be Tulane - a small private in a large city that has passionate pro fanbases and a lot of competition for entertainment dollars. That's unfortunately the situation SMU finds itself in. I'd like to look back and see what Tulane avg attendance was in their glory years like 1998 (12-0), but I'm too lazy right now. But I bet that attendance was still bad.

There just isn't much to do in Winston-Salem other than attend an ACC footbal game on a saturday. Whereas Dallas has pro sports, concerts, great shopping, tons of bars, etc - all other things to do with your entertainment money.

[East Coast Mustang]

I think a better comaprison to SMU (instead of Wake Forest) would be Tulane - a small private in a large city that has passionate pro fanbases and a lot of competition for entertainment dollars. That's unfortunately the situation SMU finds itself in. I'd like to look back and see what Tulane avg attendance was in their glory years like 1998 (12-0), but I'm too lazy right now. But I bet that attendance was still bad.

There just isn't much to do in Winston-Salem other than attend an ACC footbal game on a saturday. Whereas Dallas has pro sports, concerts, great shopping, tons of bars, etc - all other things to do with your entertainment money.

Their attendance that year wasn't anything to write home about...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Tulan ... tball_team

[ponyinNC]

This was Tulane's home attendance during a 12-0 season with Shuan King at QB -

Navy
19,371

Southern Miss
32,527

Louisville
26,217

SW Louisiana
25,177

Houston
26,978

Louisiana Tech
37,391

vs. BYU*
Liberty Bowl • Memphis, TN (Liberty Bowl)
52,197


Also - I looked and we played Tulane at the Cotton bowl late that year - and you know what the reported attendance was at the house Doak built? 12,316!

Again, when they played us in Dallas, 12k people showed up!!!!!!!

[feelthehorsepower]

smu is a lost cause in football until/unless we get in a bcs conference with name brand schools that bring lots of fans with them.

That is sort of a "chicken or egg" argument - BCS conferences (P5) aren't in the habit of giving out invites to middling programs that can't get 20k actual students/alums/fans in the stands without the help of opposing fanbases. So without getting the fan support first, that invite just ain't coming brother.

It's usually the other way around...BCS Conferences give out invites to winning programs that add value (TV viewers, Packed Houses, local and regional fan support). Right now we will never get an invite unless we get lucky like TCU did in 2012. We need to work on these issues that can be solved without being in a top conference.

The problem is within our community. We need to pump up the hype and get people in our games. We need to find creative ways for students to stay the entire game and pack the student section. These are all things that we need to fix first. The BCS invite will only come when we can claim a sizeable portion of the Dallas TV market (have a market share comparable to Tech, Texas, A&M etc) much like TCU dominates the FW tv market.

[Nacho]

1-no more boulevard
2-tailgaiting to move inside ford-either the grassy knoll or the the north endzone. all the liquor in the world free.
3-crown a queen and king every single game-at different times so that the students have to show up early and can't leave until the coronation-held at various times.
4-free booze to eveyone. all game long.
5-rip out the east side stands for tailgaiting.
6-rip out the west side stands for tailgaiting.
7-free booze for everyone.

[ponyinNC]

1-no more boulevard
2-tailgaiting to move inside ford-either the grassy knoll or the the north endzone. all the liquor in the world free.
3-crown a queen and king every single game-at different times so that the students have to show up early and can't leave until the coronation-held at various times.
4-free booze to eveyone. all game long.
5-rip out the east side stands for tailgaiting.
6-rip out the west side stands for tailgaiting.
7-free booze for everyone.

and our season tix would sell out faster than a Jonas Brothers concert in Raleigh/Durham

[SMUer]

Why don't they call homecoming first runners up at the beginning of the quarters so that the winner is announced after we sing Alma Mater? They'd stay.

[feelthehorsepower]

1-no more boulevard
2-tailgaiting to move inside ford-either the grassy knoll or the the north endzone. all the liquor in the world free.
3-crown a queen and king every single game-at different times so that the students have to show up early and can't leave until the coronation-held at various times.
4-free booze to eveyone. all game long.
5-rip out the east side stands for tailgaiting.
6-rip out the west side stands for tailgaiting.
7-free booze for everyone.

In other words move the tailgate into the Stadium...that would be revolutionary...

The best way would be to get the sororities to go to the game. Frats will follow, that's 100% guaranteed.

What about moving the frat/sorority tents to Pettus and build our IPF in Wescott field?


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[PonySnob]

This was Tulane's home attendance during a 12-0 season with Shuan King at QB -

Navy
19,371

Southern Miss
32,527

Louisville
26,217

SW Louisiana
25,177

Houston
26,978

Louisiana Tech
37,391

vs. BYU*
Liberty Bowl • Memphis, TN (Liberty Bowl)
52,197


Also - I looked and we played Tulane at the Cotton bowl late that year - and you know what the reported attendance was at the house Doak built? 12,316!

Again, when they played us in Dallas, 12k people showed up!!!!!!!

We would kill for home attendance numbers like they had!