DRC Sunday/Monday column: Attendance issues are not just about UNT

MeanGreenTexan · October 30, 2017

24 minutes ago, cdizzle86 said:

I truly believe this weeks lack of attendance is caused by the FAU hangover. Had we won that game we probably would've had another 5-8k at the game. This is the exact definition of fair weather fans. Until we get used to winning and grow our "diehard" fans, it will continue to be this way.

I don't. It was the weather.

Look,
No one outside of the die-hards (who are already going to be there) took notice of the FAU game. The casual fans (who didn't come) may have heard we LOST, but I hardly doubt the details of the game are known by those who did NOT show up.

cdizzle86 · October 30, 2017

1 minute ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

I don't. It was the weather.

Look,
No one outside of the die-hards (who are already going to be there) took notice of the FAU game. The casual fans (who didn't come) may have heard we LOST, but I hardly doubt the details of the game are known by those who did NOT show up.

I can see weather having an impact, but not to the tune of 5-8k less people. We got our butts handed to us the week before and people took notice and decided not to waste their time. You can't lose a game that bad and expect North Texas fans to come and show up the next week. That's never been the case here and won't until we make significant progress and maintain it for several years.

oldguystudent · October 30, 2017

All I know is when I can get coffin races at noon and UNT game in the evening, it's always one of my favorite Denton days of the year.

Matt from A700 · October 30, 2017

18.8K was the announced attendance Saturday? Maybe that's the total number of cheeks instead of butts in seats.

UNTFan23 · October 30, 2017

1 hour ago, oldguystudent said:

Who is Charles Ramsey Stafford responding to Brett's article? Man. Somebody get that guy some Tuck's medicated pads.

Employees (sadly) always have been, always will be the most replaceable asset to any enterprise.

untjim1995 · October 30, 2017

51 minutes ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

I don't. It was the weather.

Look,
No one outside of the die-hards (who are already going to be there) took notice of the FAU game. The casual fans (who didn't come) may have heard we LOST, but I hardly doubt the details of the game are known by those who did NOT show up.

This.

Most UNT students and alumni don't even care to see who we play, then for those that do, they saw us lose to some team that sounds like an airport, then went back to watching whatever P5 game was on. The gmg.com crowd is fully in, so they want to believe that many others feel like they do. They don't.

Its ok to accept that 98% don't care about UNT Sports...if you are in the 1-2% that do, just enjoy it for what it is. You probably don't go to a music recital or art exhibit on campus or some lecture, so don't get pissed when they don't come watch something that they are conditioned to either not care about or to absolutely loathe its existence.

meangreen08 · October 30, 2017

regarding this past week,

we were 4-3 (3-1) going into sat and it was a night and day difference from UTSA in attendance.

that was a pathetic showing by our fans.

the attendance felt like late in 2015.

aztecskin · October 30, 2017

Spectator sports as entertainment is losing to HD TV and other, more bespoke modes of entertainment. I do not think this is a huge revelation.

I mean, I grew up watching sports when the national game of the week was all I had. I _had_ to watch the Braves, or Cubs, (TBS, WGN) or the ABC college football game. Like, that was it.

It also follows that one reason for the rise in popularity of soccer is that is is now as available (maybe more) as the local college football team. It also follows that SportsCenter is losing popularity when twitter can stream the highlights of the day in real time. Instead of begging ESPN to please show the highlight of the day, CUSA's twitter account can retweet it easily.

If NT wants to boost attendance it has to boost interest in football, college football, and then NT college football specifically in that order. That's a lot to ask of Wren Baker in just one year. A winning team, good weather, and otherwise perfect circumstances mean that NT will get a nice bump here and there.

diehardUNTfan · October 30, 2017

1 hour ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

I don't. It was the weather.

Look,
No one outside of the die-hards (who are already going to be there) took notice of the FAU game. The casual fans (who didn't come) may have heard we LOST, but I hardly doubt the details of the game are known by those who did NOT show up.

exactly. The weather wasn't even that bad but I heard a lot of students and "fans" just watched it on ESPN. Pretty lame.

Edited October 30, 2017 by diehardUNTfan

TIgreen01 · October 30, 2017

Yes, HD and the proliferation of college football tv games are hurting, but that has been the case for at least the past 5 years. I don't buy these excuses for UNT THIS year.

What is hurting us this year is pretty clearly two things:

1 - The new ticket app screw up the first week of the season turned a lot of students off, and for whatever reason, they aren't coming back or trying again.

2- The Hill is not the 'event' around gameday that it had been for students. Whether that is due to the hardline stance on checking everyone's ID, or something else, I don't know. And no, I'm not advocating that we break the law and start pushing underage drinking as a means to increase attendance---but you can't argue that the Hill is a shell of what it was.

Maybe I'm misinformed, but this is what I get reading through posts on the board for the past couple of months.

Fix those 2 problems and you have a chance to boost attendance, again. I fully expect that Homecoming will provide a big uptick for Hill activities, and in general activities around gameday. This will be the AD's chance to prove the student ticket system is fixed and regain their trust.

Cr1028 · October 30, 2017

Need to go back to scanning IDs. I had many friends join me for the game than otherwise would have simply because it was so easy to get in the game. Peer pressure . It's a lot harder to say you don't have a student ID than to say you didn't go through the process to get a ticket. When we are selling out every game, then we can worry about restrictions, until then, do whatever worked to fill the student section October 31, 2013.

Edited October 30, 2017 by Cr1028

Cerebus · October 30, 2017

I think everyone is missing how cheap it is to get a huge flat screen, a good sound system, and then sit there and watch games from 11AM till past midnight. All while being connected to all their internet devices on home wifi.

A college football fan can either come up here, tailgate for a couple hours, and then go watch a single game. Or they can stay home and watch any of the 30-40 games that will be televised on that day.

Sure, the NT diehards will be there. But the fence sitting alumni who like CFB have a lot of choices they didn't even a few years ago.

@UNTSportsFan · October 30, 2017

5 hours ago, oldguystudent said:

All I know is when I can get coffin races at noon and UNT game in the evening, it's always one of my favorite Denton days of the year.

Attended my 1st DOD festival this past weekend & had a blast. Looking forward to making it an annual tradition

BTG_Fan1 · October 31, 2017

6 hours ago, TIgreen01 said:

1 - The new ticket app screw up the first week of the season turned a lot of students off, and for whatever reason, they aren't coming back or trying again.

The ticket issue has been fixed.. The first week yes had issuse, but they still gave out free tickets to everyone and anyone who had a student ID.. Again, the ticket office is more than willing to help students do it if they are so lazy they don’t follow the 4 steps of how to do it.. The AD office has multiple signs up around Gate 3/4 on the hill, by the gates and the circle.. again, the student ticket thing isn’t difficult because it texts you every game week to claim your ticket after you submit your information the first time..

If a student isn’t coming because of “ticket issuses” they are not trying because I have counted over 10+ signs on the Hill, by the games and on the bridge as well.. on top of the instructions being sent to the students email as well multiple times and likely will stay that way..

Edited October 31, 2017 by BTG_Fan1

TIgreen01 · October 31, 2017

16 hours ago, Cerebus said:

I think everyone is missing how cheap it is to get a huge flat screen, a good sound system, and then sit there and watch games from 11AM till past midnight. All while being connected to all their internet devices on home wifi.

A college football fan can either come up here, tailgate for a couple hours, and then go watch a single game. Or they can stay home and watch any of the 30-40 games that will be televised on that day.

Sure, the NT diehards will be there. But the fence sitting alumni who like CFB have a lot of choices they didn't even a few years ago.

I'm not missing that point, but this has been the case at least the past 5 years. Something has pretty clearly changed just from last year to this year with regard to student attendance.

Edited October 31, 2017 by TIgreen01

southsideguy · October 31, 2017

Watching on TV is nothing like being in the stands for a game. Sure you don't have to wait in line for the restroom and snacks are cheaper but I love the atmoshpere at a live college game. I think the college football is more exciting to watch then a NFL game in person.

untcampbell · October 31, 2017

Will be interesting to see how Homecoming is attended. I think some folks choose a couple of games a year to attend. When looking at the schedule, ODU becomes a lower priority and Homecoming usually brings more people to that game, regardless of opponent. String together a win or two and some decent weather along the way and ARMY should also be well attended.

With all of the options already discussed, some fans chose last Saturday as their BYE week.

No offense (emphasis on the second syllable, I believe), no reason to panic.

GMG

Edited October 31, 2017 by untcampbell

SilverEagle · October 31, 2017

17 hours ago, @UNTSportsFan said:

Attended my 1st DOD festival this past weekend & had a blast. Looking forward to making it an annual tradition

And why hasn't our promotions department tried to find some way to tie into this obviously very popular new celebration. It's one thing to have to compete with something we have no control over like the Texas/OU weekend, but when there is an event in town that draws this many people, why not see if it can be moved to the vicinity of Apogee stadium and/or close by at the campus.

UNTFan23 · October 31, 2017

11 minutes ago, SilverEagle said:

And why hasn't our promotions department tried to find some way to tie into this obviously very popular new celebration. It's one thing to have to compete with something we have no control over like the Texas/OU weekend, but when there is an event in town that draws this many people, why not see if it can be moved to the vicinity of Apogee stadium and/or close by at the campus.

Where would one hold such a festival that is close to Apogee yet where the two events wouldn't cause interruption to each other?

SilverEagle · October 31, 2017

2 hours ago, UNTFan23 said:

Where would one hold such a festival that is close to Apogee yet where the two events wouldn't cause interruption to each other?

Well, first of all I'm not getting paid to do planning and logistics for the University, but it would start with just checking( just a few phone calls etc) with the DOD event planners about space needed etc. Off the top of my head, Fouts field has a lot of space.

UNTFan23 · October 31, 2017

9 minutes ago, SilverEagle said:

Well, first of all I'm not getting paid to do planning and logistics for the University, but it would start with just checking( just a few phone calls etc) with the DOD event planners about space needed etc. Off the top of my head, Fouts field has a lot of space.

The bolded text reads like "It's not my job but let me tell you how to do it".

Moving along ...

Here is the schedule for the festival this past Saturday. The Denton Square seems like the perfect place to hold it, especially since Dan's Silverleaf (located just off the Square from what I can tell) hosted the Cirque du Horror show. Plus there were Coffin Car (aka Box Car) races, a haunted house, a pumpkin patch, and a parade.

Someone will have to convince all the businesses on/around the Square that moving the festival to Fouts is a great idea. I'm not sure the group that puts on the festival will be excited to move to a far less natural fit. I also don't see how you could have a haunted house if the festival is moved to Fouts.

I don't know what the parking along with the festival itself would have cost for festival goers but for games, Fouts parking costs $10/car.

With all that said, even if the event were to be moved to Fouts ... what percentage of festival goers do you think might attend both the game and festival? Considering the festival ended at the same time as our game that night, I'm not sure we'd see as good a crossover as you're expecting.

Ryan Munthe · October 31, 2017

Our problem is what I’ve been harping on for years.

Give up on DFW. We lost.

There are thousands of people to the north of us who are too far from Norman. That should be our target market. Gainesville, Sanger, etc. It is asinine to me that we’d rather beat our head against a brick wall trying to get Argyle (lol City of Argyle day) to come to our games, why not cities too far from TCU or SMU?

I mean, do we not think Gainesville has $5 for Wing tickets?

Students—especially our students—are only going to show up if we win. That is reality. And even then, we won’t have more than 10K.

The other issue is that our donors (like Ernie) don’t like Denton. They detest it because they think it’s full of them libs!! No way would they want to interact with our feats that draw them libs!! They’d rather continue to fail to get Dallas interested in a corner of a city with 150K.

Edited October 31, 2017 by Ryan Munthe

SilverEagle · October 31, 2017

1 hour ago, UNTFan23 said:

The bolded text reads like "It's not my job but let me tell you how to do it".

Moving along ...

And here is the bolded statement that I originally posted that you chose to ignore.

Quote

And why hasn't our promotions department tried to find some way to tie into this obviously very popular new celebration.

I didn't say "take over" or "move". i said tie into.

kj86 · October 31, 2017

42 minutes ago, Ryan Munthe said:

Our problem is what I’ve been harping on for years.

Give up on DFW. We lost.

There are thousands of people to the north of us who are too far from Norman. That should be our target market. Gainesville, Sanger, etc. It is asinine to me that we’d rather beat our head against a brick wall trying to get Argyle (lol City of Argyle day) to come to our games, why not cities too far from TCU or SMU?

I mean, do we not think Gainesville has $5 for Wing tickets?

Students—especially our students—are only going to show up if we win. That is reality. And even then, we won’t have more than 10K.

The other issue is that our donors (like Ernie) don’t like Denton. They detest it because they think it’s full of them libs!! No way would they want to interact with our feats that draw them libs!! They’d rather continue to fail to get Dallas interested in a corner of a city with 150K.

I don't see any reason to put much effort into any particular geographic area. All efforts should be put into getting students and alums to attend. There are plenty in that demographic to draw from.

jazzer88 · October 31, 2017

I'm a professor, and in the last few years when I mention football, even pro football, I get more and more blank stares. Of course, there is still a percentage of students who "connect," but there appears to be a growing number who do not. Maybe this late millennial generation cares less about football, like prior generations have cared less about boxing or baseball.