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you say that like it is a bad thing.

Look - just relax on attendance. Like i said - its not how many, its who they are. We deliver a really strong demographic - we aren't a bunch of tee shirt fans with borrowed money in their pocket. Lets embrace who we are. Small, powerful, capable, lost of disposable income. Its a good thing that lots of businesses should want to get in front of. Let UT fill up their 100k with tons of losers.

If tons of fans is your measuring stick you will never be happy.

Stallion wrote:yeah I've had no ideas on that subject EVER.

1. You need a Mustang Mania style promotion campaign. You are so clueless you are talking about what great attendance we had against SFA a few years ago and don't realize that was an Operation Sellout promotion. I've brought up Mustang Mania style promotion campaign only about a hundred times because I was actually there when it happened and participated in some of it while working for the SID office

Tell me how MM is going to work in 2013. This isn't 1978. There's 1,000 TV channels and almost every college game you could want to watch you can get on your TV at home. The competition for entertainment and people's attention is exponentially higher now than it was then.

Stallion wrote:2. Schedule teams SMU fans care about and hire a Coach to get it done. SMU flushed about 20,000 down the drain by cancelling Baylor game this year.

No disagreements here. I think we're doing a good job going forward with TCU, Baylor, and UNT on the OOC slate. Unfortunately our current conference alignment affords few opportunities for such games

If SMU were to become a Powerhouse, I think attendance would be the least of our worries...


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In 1983, coming off an undefeated season and a Cotton Bowl victory, we averaged right at 30K if you exclude the UT game which drew an announced 63K. I was at all of those games and I suspect the true average was around 25K, exlcuding UT. We had many more yard line seats at Texas Stadium and I think that the large pct of end zone seats at Ford would hold attendance down even more.

Until we get a better product on the field, don't think any kind of marketing will get people in the stands.

ftworthmustang wrote:Until we get a better product on the field, don't think any kind of marketing will get people in the stands.

This X 1000

gostangs wrote:you say that like it is a bad thing.

Look - just relax on attendance. Like i said - its not how many, its who they are. We deliver a really strong demographic - we aren't a bunch of tee shirt fans with borrowed money in their pocket. Lets embrace who we are. Small, powerful, capable, lost of disposable income. Its a good thing that lots of businesses should want to get in front of. Let UT fill up their 100k with tons of losers.

If tons of fans is your measuring stick you will never be happy.

Wow, and we wonder why we cannot connect with the community at large/are considered such elitists? This is among the most ridiculous defenses I've ever seen for our terrible attendance. An argument that the QUALITY of money is more important than the quantity. Good luck with that one.

The only thing that comes to mind that might get more fans NOW would be to give away tickets to local little football players and their parents. Might get a couple hundred more fans in the stands and maybe get some future SMU fans. It's not big, but a small step. Build a good team that plays well and competes at a high level each week and marketing will be much easier. We don't have a huge following, but I can't see why we can't to get 25,000 to 30,000 every week with an improved team.

ftworthmustang wrote:We don't have a huge following, but I can't see why we can't to get 25,000 to 30,000 every week with an improved team.

i

When is the improvement going to happen? The team still pisses down its leg against "real" BCS competition and against just about any team with a winning record.

When is it going to change? I don't know. I have no control over those decisions. My comment was based on "IF" we have an improved team. Until we get a coaching staff that has or can build relationships with local high schools/coaches and can bring in more talented players, we'll remain where we are.

sbsmith wrote:

ftworthmustang wrote:Until we get a better product on the field, don't think any kind of marketing will get people in the stands.

This X 1000

Like I've said a million times, winning solves a lot of problems

I keep reading the same solutions over and over...all of them are good...but the solution is not either/or:

We have to have better recruiting/coaching/game plans...coaches.

We have to have better performance on the field and engagement with the fans...players.

We have to show up/talk up/fire up for the games...fans.

We have to have better game day experience, marketing and school support...Athletic Department.

Everyone is going to have to show up...everyone...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrTsuvykUZk

It STARTS with the current students. If they show up in strong numbers to support their classmates, they are likely to come back and attend games as alumni and bring family and friends with them. It will take several generations of more supportive students/alumni to ever get to the point where we can put a good looking crowd (20k plus) of our own fans in Ford, no matter who the opponent. The real challenge is: how do you change a culture and get SMU students interested?

Let's hope we can accomplish that in Moody this year

For those who dont think winning (10-2+ and thats including beating TCU/Tech quality teams) will solve the attendance problem, how will we ever know if we havent even gotten there yet. 8-4 was our best regular season record I believe.... thats not really doing much. Thats great for us when it looked like we were on an upward trend but to be a high point is not going to bring 25k+ fans to the stadium. Mediocrity doesnt reside well in Dallas.

The key is competing with TCU, A&M, Baylor and Tech and beating some of them year in and year out. That will get us noticed and fans will respond. As has been mentioned by numerous people, we never get a following of 80,000 no matter what we do. We should be able to get 25,000 to 30,000 every week if we play competitively with the big boys. This year, we played TCU even for a half before falling apart. We played Tech even for 3 quarters before falling apart. A&M let off the gas pedal after the first series of the second half, or that would have been much worse. If we'd played Baylor, we'd probably have ended up in the record books. Local area fans don't have much interest in the other AAC teams and they are not going to support a team that doesn't compete with the teams they know. As you said "Mediocrity doesn't reside well in Dallas."