Mexmustang wrote:I'm only suggesting that when we have input take into consideration our student schedule. Tradition begins with the students, not most of us. We need to get them more involved.
Agreed. But we did not have a game scheduled this year on Thanksgiving until Tulane discovered they had 2 games on the same date early in the season. We changed to the Saturday after Thankksgiving. That is why we had the early open date before TCU. I cringed when I saw it because unless you are star power, TV time entertainment, you will not get any type of crowd on that day. Will our band even be at that game?
All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand
That begs the question...why did Tulane's problem become ours? Certainly they didn't have a conflict with another conference game! One more time, when "we have a chance to provide input, take into consideration our students schedule"!
Biggest thing is beer in the stadium. Not sure, but I think our attendance was actually higher than this in the Cotton Bowl. Being able to walk right outside the stadium and carry a beer back in kept a lot of people there longer (although most of the students were usually only there for the 2nd and 3rd quarters.)
I liked the idea someone put forth about giving tickets to kids from the local Boys/Girls Clubs. Not only would that provide butts in seats and good PR, it breeds a potential future generation of SMU fans.
Another thing that Nebraska does (for road games anyway) is donate extra tickets to local military bases, wounded vets, etc. The alumni groups do this with their extra tickets for most of the road games, and there is a contingent of fans that buy season tickets for the road game teams to make sure they don't lose out on the ticket allotment lottery. Then they donate the left over tickets to local military members. (The bases are very accomodating for this, and there are a lot of military guys who will take a free ticket to any football game they can get to.)
bagice wrote:The Mustang Club line was insane..I also skipped that and found beer and food elsewhere.
We ate at the Meadows School of Arts tent. They required wristbands, too. They impressed upon us that the TABC was 'patrolling' the area. I never saw a single TABC officer unless they were 'undercover'.
MrMustang1965 wrote:what are you doing slumming over here??
Just that. Slumming.
Surely you know there's a perversely satisfying schadenfreude in witnessing the denial and gall of a bitter rival. We've certainly seen plenty of SMU traffic on the TCU board back when the Ponies were more competitive with the Frogs than they are today.
Surely you know there's a perversely satisfying schadenfreude in witnessing the denial and gall of a bitter rival. We've certainly seen plenty of SMU traffic on the TCU board back when the Ponies were more competitive with the Frogs than they are today.
I don't know what the policies and procedures are for this year, but in the past (at least 2 years ago) you could call the ticket office, tell them you were with a non-profit organization (like a church) and they'd say "how many tickets do you want?" The tickets were end zone, but for free, who can complain?
It was my understanding that for the SFA game this year, those folks who bought large quantities of tickets to make the "sell out" donated the tickets to various charitable organizations as well as to the Dallas ISD.
So I don't think it is so much the distribution of tickets, but making an experience where people will want to use the tickets.
While there is plenty of excitement surrounding this team, I think that there's still a lot of "we've been disappointed before" thoughts out there.
I remember a quote attributed to Troy Aikman to the effect that Dallas supports winners. I think the same will be true with SMU. Winning will solve the attendance problems.
Even with our Pony Express teams, the best year was when it all began to turn. Beating a highly ranked Texas in Austin with a freshman qb, etc. We didn't have anything to lose, yet we upset a number of teams.
This team is beginning to turn, if you can't get excited about the development of our young freshman, including our qb, and the joy experienced by our seniors, your are missing the "ride" as Jones says.
TCU doesn't sell out or top 40K because almost all of our opponents bring 100 fans or less and we steamroll everyone. I personally love it but if you look at how TCU has destroyed opponents at home over the last 5 years or so then it makes it tough to get the casual fans out there. When we play a quality opponent we will draw 40K+...if not then we won't.
ReedFrawg wrote: I personally love it but if you look at how TCU has destroyed opponents at home over the last 5 years or so then it makes it tough to get the casual fans out there.
DESTROYING OPPONENTS AT HOME!!!! (i left out a solid group of games that were decided by 14 or less but these numbers tell how TCU DESTROYED their opponents at home 2008 Boise State* W 17-16
2007 Southern Methodist W 21-7 Colorado State W 24-12 Utah L 27-20
2006 Texas Tech W 12-3
2005 at Southern Methodist L 21-10 Utah W 23-20
2004 Northwestern W 48-45 South Florida L 45-44 Houston W 34-27 Tulane L 35-31