Huge Attendence issues for CUSA schools

[Cerebus]

Remember how UTSA fans thought they would keep attendance growing and it was only a matter of time before they were in the B12:

 

 

 

SA Express News: UTSA looking for answers to record low attendance

Quote

For games against UAB on Oct. 12 and Rice on Oct. 19, UTSA announced an average attendance of 16,693. The average actual attendance for the two games was 8,489, according to data provided by UTSA in response to a public information request.

 

 

And, just to share the misery, MTSU has it's problems as well:

 

[UNTLifer]

Huge issues for two losing programs, not all CUSA. 

[untjim1995]

In both of those games, I'll go back to the biggest issue that CUSA has. Nobody gives a rip about Rice in Tennessee--and even worse, Rice isn't bringing any of their fans to Murfeesboro, TN for many reasons. UTSA and USM isn't as bad, but again, its not just around the corner to go from Hattiesburg, MS to San Antonio, either, so if your team sucks (like UTSA), you aren't getting much help at all from the other team's fanbase.

Until these SBCUSA schools realize that geography has to rule the day for divisions AND conferences, this kind of embarrassing images will continue. 

 

[Cerebus]

4 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

Huge issues for two losing programs, not all CUSA. 

UTSA has never been a winning program.  Didn't stop them from drawing very large crowds when they first started up. 

MTSU is having a bad but they had gone to 4 straight bowl game, and 7 in the last ten years.  Not a losing program. 

[UNTLifer]

Just now, Cerebus said:

UTSA has never been a winning program.  Didn't stop them from drawing very large crowds when they first started up. 

MTSU is having a bad but they had gone to 4 straight bowl game, and 7 in the last ten years.  Not a losing program. 

Just referring to this season although I believe UTSA's fans have been not happy with Wilson for a couple of years now.

[Big Z]

1 hour ago, Cerebus said:

UTSA has never been a winning program.  Didn't stop them from drawing very large crowds when they first started up. 

MTSU is having a bad but they had gone to 4 straight bowl game, and 7 in the last ten years.  Not a losing program. 

Didn’t MTSU host the CUSA championship game last season? As I recall that game had low attendance as well.

Edited November 18, 2019 by Big Z

[Pavlovs Eagle]

There isn't a "culture" of football at a lot of C-USA schools that are ultimately "Commuter Schools"... Even UNT has suffered from Commuter School stigma although it appears it's is slowly overcoming that generalization.

[MeanGreenTexan]

1 hour ago, Cerebus said:

 

 

To me, this is partly due to the of the lack of an on-campus stadium.   I would think there might be a few more students if they could just walk to their stadium instead of having to drive 20-30 minutes to get there.   There are 3 Universities closer to the Alamodome than UTSA, and one of them is a FCS school with their own on-campus stadium.

[UNT86]

2013- 21030

2014- 19271

2015 - 13621 (was 19702 before the homecoming meltdown)

2016- 19839

2017- 22392

2018- 23355

2019- 22340

Makes these numbers for us look a lot better. 

And in only three of those are we probably going to have a winning season.

 

 

[Mean Green Matt]

I would love to know what our tickets scanned numbers are. Thought it was interesting the San Antonio paper got that through a FOIA request. 

[Danish43]

9 hours ago, Cerebus said:

UTSA has never been a winning program.  Didn't stop them from drawing very large crowds when they first started up. 

MTSU is having a bad but they had gone to 4 straight bowl game, and 7 in the last ten years.  Not a losing program. 

I remember that first game when they played Division II Northeast and they had 40,000 fans.

[Cerebus]

1 hour ago, Mean Green Matt said:

I would love to know what our tickets scanned numbers are. Thought it was interesting the San Antonio paper got that through a FOIA request. 

You have to report both to the NCAA.

 Let’s just say people play games with the scanned numbers as well.

[Salsa_Verde]

9 hours ago, Big Z said:

Didn’t MTSU host the CUSA championship game last season? As I recall that game had low attendance as well.

Beat me to it. Now that was truly embarrassing. 

[Big Z]

4 minutes ago, Salsa_Verde said:

Beat me to it. Now that was truly embarrassing. 

It looked like 50 people in stands during that game.

[Pavlovs Eagle]

9 hours ago, Big Z said:

It looked like 50 people in stands during that game.

Sounds like our 2017 CUSA CCG trip to Boca.

[Salsa_Verde]

I truly believe North Texas is capable of having a sell out for hosting a CUSA championship game...outside of that? I’m not really sure. 

[GreenN'walinsVet]

1 hour ago, Salsa_Verde said:

I truly believe North Texas is capable of having a sell out for hosting a CUSA championship game...outside of that? I’m not really sure. 

Schools hosting a Championship game that would sell out?  my money would be on UNT, LA Tech, Southern Miss, Marshall, ODU, and maybe UAB.  

[Big Z]

Just now, GreenN'walinsVet said:

Schools hosting a Championship game that would sell out?  my money would be on UNT, LA Tech, Southern Miss, Marshall, ODU, and maybe UAB.  

Lol yep UAB would sell out Legion Field that holds 71,500 people...

[GreenN'walinsVet]

Just now, Big Z said:

Lol yep UAB would sell out Legion Field that holds 71,500 people...

touche, was thinking about their new stadium, but didnt think about it not being open yet.

[UNT86]

I don't think the top deck of Legion Field is open anymore.  It wasn't last time I went there.

If they only used the bottom deck, they could probably come close.

I think Rice may do the same with their stadium. 

[Big Z]

8 minutes ago, UNT86 said:

I don't think the top deck of Legion Field is open anymore.  It wasn't last time I went there.

If they only used the bottom deck, they could probably come close.

I think Rice may do the same with their stadium. 

Lol 

[Big Z]

1 hour ago, UNT86 said:

I don't think the top deck of Legion Field is open anymore.  It wasn't last time I went there.

If they only used the bottom deck, they could probably come close.

I think Rice may do the same with their stadium. 

The 2013 Rice team hosted the CUSA championship game against Marshall, won and only had 20,000 in attendance in a 47,000 seat stadium. That’s with the tarps being added in 2006.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Big Z

[Salsa_Verde]

6 hours ago, GreenN'walinsVet said:

Schools hosting a Championship game that would sell out?  my money would be on UNT, LA Tech, Southern Miss, Marshall, ODU, and maybe UAB.  

Marshall for sure. 

[HoustonEagle]

It’s all relative as every university is struggling with attendance but some are down from much higher numbers.  One quick example is Notre Dame sellout streak just ended at 273 games.  The second longest streak in the nation.   

So the question is why do people not like football as much as they used to?  Some may say they just don’t like going to games as much anymore but I tend to disagree.  I have discussed this with many friends and while the answer is certainly convoluted many think two big factors is penalties and injuries.  The game is not the one that was played 30 years ago.  

[untjim1995]

16 minutes ago, HoustonEagle said:

It’s all relative as every university is struggling with attendance but some are down from much higher numbers.  One quick example is Notre Dame sellout streak just ended at 273 games.  The second longest streak in the nation.   

So the question is why do people not like football as much as they used to?  Some may say they just don’t like going to games as much anymore but I tend to disagree.  I have discussed this with many friends and while the answer is certainly convoluted many think two big factors is penalties and injuries.  The game is not the one that was played 30 years ago.  

Football today takes too long to play a game. Factor in the spread offense that dominates college football and you get a 4 hour game fairly often. The NCAA needs to change the rule of stopping the clock on every first down or stopping the clock on every down that someone goes out of bounds. The NFL gets this right...