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Last year's season was simply miserable all the way around. Waking up early for Blvd's, getting our asses kicked every week. I don't blame anyone outside of the diehard fans (aka the people that read this board routinely) for not wanting to watch those games. The Chad has said time and time again that he wouldn't have left Clemson if it wasn't for a program that he felt had serious upside. Him coming to SMU was a calculated career choice on his part, I am sure he is well aware of the serious attendance issues we have and I am sure there's a plan in place to blanket DFW in a marketing scheme to attract the casual fan. Let's face it, we're not gonna be that great this year while we transition into the new offense and get legit recruits in the system, I wouldn't be surprised if the athletic department was waiting a year until we got better to roll out the big marketing campaign focused on targeting the casual dfw fan.

Fresno Mustang wrote:Last year's season was simply miserable all the way around. Waking up early for Blvd's, getting our asses kicked every week. I don't blame anyone outside of the diehard fans (aka the people that read this board routinely) for not wanting to watch those games. The Chad has said time and time again that he wouldn't have left Clemson if it wasn't for a program that he felt had serious upside. Him coming to SMU was a calculated career choice on his part, I am sure he is well aware of the serious attendance issues we have and I am sure there's a plan in place to blanket DFW in a marketing scheme to attract the casual fan. Let's face it, we're not gonna be that great this year while we transition into the new offense and get legit recruits in the system, I wouldn't be surprised if the athletic department was waiting a year until we got better to roll out the big marketing campaign focused on targeting the casual dfw fan.

Agreed- 2016 is the year to go all-in with the marketing resources

The goal is to grow the fanbase with non SMU affiliated people (alumni, students etc) and it is possible. Tshirt fans do become hardcore fans and could become permanent fans. That is what our rivals to the west have done. No way they fill 40k when they have around 40k living alumni in DFW. It's most likely tshirt fans filling up the other half.. 20k tshirt fans.

that's wildly speculative based in 50 years of watching SMU athletics-TCU doesn't have close to half that many T-shirt fans. Really? We'd be lucky to get 2,000 fans who aren't part of the alumni, faculty, students, family and friends of the university. This always makes me chuckle when people think we are going to get Dallas college football fans to fill our stadium to watch AAC football against teams they don't care about when they can watch 50 games every weekend including their alma mater. Way off base. Maybe in a city like Lubbock or Waco-not in Dallas

Stallion wrote:that's wildly speculative based in 50 years of watching SMU athletics-TCU doesn't have close to half that many T-shirt fans. Really? We'd be lucky to get 2,000 fans who aren't part of the alumni, faculty, students, family and friends of the university. This always makes me chuckle when people think we are going to get Dallas college football fans to fill our stadium to watch AAC football against teams they don't care about when they can watch 50 games every weekend including their alma mater. Way off base. Maybe in a city like Lubbock or Waco-not in Dallas

So SMU football is screwed?....or you think there are 25-30,000 alumni, faculty, students, family and friends of the university?

TCU obviously benefits from all the Texas, Oklahoma, Tech, etc. fans helping to fill their stadium, where we'll get next to none of that from UConn, Temple, USF, Tulsa, etc.etc.

how many of you can really say with a straight face that you know 5 alumni friends from your class that have season tickets to SMU games-and I was in the No. 1 fraternity at SMU. I'm counting -maybe I can get to 10 if I spread it across about 4 years. There is plenty of room for improvement in season tickets-its embarrassingly low. We only have about 4,000 SMU alumni that buy season tickets

So the growth must come from the alumni base then, Stallion?

RGV Pony wrote:Idk... Serious question : let's say we are idk 15-1 going into the game vs Gonzaga in Feb and they are 16-0, both with top 5 rankings. Do you guys think we would sell out the AAC if that was a sometimes alternate venue?

I'll acknowledge that bball and fball are two different sports etc etc etc. And I'm not suggesting AAC should be a venue. Wondering what our ceiling for Dallas support might be. Maybe it's 7000 in hoops and 25000 fball?

RGV, you posed your question about SMU playing a ranked opponent whose fan base doesn't travel well to Dallas. Could they sell-out an 18,500 seat arena?, I'd say not only SMU, but even UT couldn't sell-out the AAC against Gonzaga.

Now a Nov game between two talented SMU & UT teams?, maybe. Maybe.

Pony Boss wrote:So the growth must come from the alumni base then, Stallion?

As long as we have ECU, Temple, USF, CT & Tulane on our schedule, what do you think?

SoCal_Pony wrote:

Pony Boss wrote:So the growth must come from the alumni base then, Stallion?

As long as we have ECU, Temple, USF, CT & Tulane on our schedule, what do you think?

Well yeah those teams suck, but you can still grow your fanbase. Boise state fills a decent amount and they play mountain west opponents. I know the AAC doesn't have the best brand names, but until we dominate this conference, we aren't going anywhere.

now we're getting somewhere

Next question-forget about the AAC where we averaged probably around 16,000 over 2 years now-can we get them to watch James Madison, Montana St. Sam Houston or SFA? I've said I think NTSU and Texas State may some sense but only because they will bring some of their own fans

Boise has no competition-in that sense it is a bigger Lubbock or Waco

I think you underestimate the draw of a top 10 to top 25 team. When it gets to that point, hopefully the Chad stays a few more years like Patterson, Leach and Boise coaches.

Stallion wrote:how many of you can really say with a straight face that you know 5 alumni friends from your class that have season tickets to SMU games-and I was in the No. 1 fraternity at SMU. I'm counting -maybe I can get to 10 if I spread it across about 4 years. There is plenty of room for improvement in season tickets-its embarrassingly low. We only have about 4,000 SMU alumni that buy season tickets

What is the No1 fraternity you were in?


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Somebody really needs to do some research and analysis on how to reclaim the lost generation.

tristatecoog wrote:I think you underestimate the draw of a top 10 to top 25 team. When it gets to that point, hopefully the Chad stays a few more years like Patterson, Leach and Boise coaches.

This. And I do think there is a lot of upside in reclaiming that lost generation (1989-2008). Apathy is the name of the game for them, but hopefully reaching out, plus the appeal of top 25 football and basketball will bring em back.