Another thread about how to increase fan engagement (besides WINNING!!)

[Matt from A700]

With the athletics department recently posting a Director of Marketing and Fan Engagement position, I thought this would be a good time to revisit some of the ideas we had - you know, us! The people who don't get paid to think of these things. Maybe we can help the new guy/gal out.

This thread is for ideas other than the inevitable "Just win, baby." comment!!

Some thoughts I had:

• Bring back the homecoming parade. The student interest/sustainability is BS. And also, pick a game that'll make the mostly unengaged alumni say, "Wow, this is good football. Our defense doesn't look like the worst in the country. I'm going to come back." Gotta be September 28th vs. Tulsa this year (November 9th vs. Army should be a higher attended game anyway).
• Promote the skills and productions of other student organizations at games. Organizations who may be made up of students who don't normally like sports. Have student musicians/bands perform national anthems or halftime, have pregame art galleries, screen Media Arts film festival winners at halftimes.
• Do whatever it takes to stabilize the Greek presence at football/basketball games. Extend tailgate season to weekend conference home games in basketball, move them inside when it's cold. Incentivize RA's to have their floors/dorms out at games.
• Run campus buses strategically to provide transportation to games.
• Go back to putting bus trips together for away games in the area (SMU, UTA, etc. etc.).
• Have a ticket center in the UNT Union/bookstore, somewhere almost all students visit daily, plus almost every visitor. Signage everywhere on campus promoting games. Students should never not know "when the next game is."
• Start a mailing campaign offering four free tickets to every household in Denton, Wise, and Cooke Counties (possibly even Collin and Grayson Counties since there are no major universities there either). Not sure what the cost of this would be, but the combined population of these five counties in 2020 was 2,216,730. So you could start with the promotion for football, at least expand it to men's/women's basketball, then depending on the cost even expand it to the other three spectator sports, although "supplies" will be even more limited for those sports. Or go county-by-county year after year. Hopefully you get several hundred or a few thousand new sales leads out of this. The next year, send the mailers out to only the households who didn't take advantage while trying to sell tickets to the people who attended. Rinse and repeat for 3-5 years.
• Until we can regularly fill up our student section, extend the free ticket program to Denton high school (or Denton County high school) students, maybe limiting to a certain number per school. Have each high school get their own tailgating area. This may be tricky from a liability standpoint though? If a high school kid wants an alcoholic beverage I'm sure he/she'll have no problem getting it. Work with some of the local community colleges to provide the same opportunity for football - like NCTC and Collin College.
• Loosen up media credential ability while we continue to get little coverage. Allow/encourage local Denton high school newspaper/video production/photography organizations to be a part of North Texas game days.
• Beyond our basic First Responder days, Parents weekends, work with the closeby districts who have education foundations to have "Gainesville ISD Day" or "Decatur ISD Day" at DATCU/the Super Pit where part of each ticket purchased goes to their foundation. Or could be an elementary/middle school PTO.
• Every TV in a public space on campus should be playing our away games for any sport. Arrange watch parties for the dorm TV's.
• Like student emails allows students to access Microsoft programs for free, extend this to Disney bundles (Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+).
• Showcase our university by operating our facilities as premier venue options. We're not getting any premier concerts after all the new venues that have been built around the area since 1974, or even 2013. But DATCU should be hosting a higher-class playoff football game every Friday/Saturday it's available till the state championship. Same with the Super Pit.

 

What else?

[Cr1028]

The problem with engagement and getting new potential fans out is if they don’t enjoy the on-the-field product then it was all for naught. The odds of them showing again is almost zero. Regardless of this person’s job, it will start and end with Morris and Mosley and if they can build a program people want to watch. We almost sold out LaTech in 2018 and had we beaten them and continued the winning streak I bet we would have sold out at least once that season.

[untphd]

3 hours ago, Matt from A700 said:

With the athletics department recently posting a Director of Marketing and Fan Engagement position, I thought this would be a good time to revisit some of the ideas we had - you know, us! The people who don't get paid to think of these things. Maybe we can help the new guy/gal out.

This thread is for ideas other than the inevitable "Just win, baby." comment!!

Some thoughts I had:

• Bring back the homecoming parade. The student interest/sustainability is BS. And also, pick a game that'll make the mostly unengaged alumni say, "Wow, this is good football. Our defense doesn't look like the worst in the country. I'm going to come back." Gotta be September 28th vs. Tulsa this year (November 9th vs. Army should be a higher attended game anyway).
• Promote the skills and productions of other student organizations at games. Organizations who may be made up of students who don't normally like sports. Have student musicians/bands perform national anthems or halftime, have pregame art galleries, screen Media Arts film festival winners at halftimes.
• Do whatever it takes to stabilize the Greek presence at football/basketball games. Extend tailgate season to weekend conference home games in basketball, move them inside when it's cold. Incentivize RA's to have their floors/dorms out at games.
• Run campus buses strategically to provide transportation to games.
• Go back to putting bus trips together for away games in the area (SMU, UTA, etc. etc.).
• Have a ticket center in the UNT Union/bookstore, somewhere almost all students visit daily, plus almost every visitor. Signage everywhere on campus promoting games. Students should never not know "when the next game is."
• Start a mailing campaign offering four free tickets to every household in Denton, Wise, and Cooke Counties (possibly even Collin and Grayson Counties since there are no major universities there either). Not sure what the cost of this would be, but the combined population of these five counties in 2020 was 2,216,730. So you could start with the promotion for football, at least expand it to men's/women's basketball, then depending on the cost even expand it to the other three spectator sports, although "supplies" will be even more limited for those sports. Or go county-by-county year after year. Hopefully you get several hundred or a few thousand new sales leads out of this. The next year, send the mailers out to only the households who didn't take advantage while trying to sell tickets to the people who attended. Rinse and repeat for 3-5 years.
• Until we can regularly fill up our student section, extend the free ticket program to Denton high school (or Denton County high school) students, maybe limiting to a certain number per school. Have each high school get their own tailgating area. This may be tricky from a liability standpoint though? If a high school kid wants an alcoholic beverage I'm sure he/she'll have no problem getting it. Work with some of the local community colleges to provide the same opportunity for football - like NCTC and Collin College.
• Loosen up media credential ability while we continue to get little coverage. Allow/encourage local Denton high school newspaper/video production/photography organizations to be a part of North Texas game days.
• Beyond our basic First Responder days, Parents weekends, work with the closeby districts who have education foundations to have "Gainesville ISD Day" or "Decatur ISD Day" at DATCU/the Super Pit where part of each ticket purchased goes to their foundation. Or could be an elementary/middle school PTO.
• Every TV in a public space on campus should be playing our away games for any sport. Arrange watch parties for the dorm TV's.
• Like student emails allows students to access Microsoft programs for free, extend this to Disney bundles (Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+).
• Showcase our university by operating our facilities as premier venue options. We're not getting any premier concerts after all the new venues that have been built around the area since 1974, or even 2013. But DATCU should be hosting a higher-class playoff football game every Friday/Saturday it's available till the state championship. Same with the Super Pit.

 

What else?

Not sure what else, but I like all of your ideas.

[Jonnyeagle]

Love your ideas man!

[Big Z]

Free food, free drinks, get YouTube celebrities to show up for the student section. Make a rewards system for showing up to games to build points to use. 

[Meangreen Fight]

2 hours ago, Cr1028 said:

The problem with engagement and getting new potential fans out is if they don’t enjoy the on-the-field product then it was all for naught. The odds of them showing again is almost zero. Regardless of this person’s job, it will start and end with Morris and Mosley and if they can build a program people want to watch. We almost sold out LaTech in 2018 and had we beaten them and continued the winning streak I bet we would have sold out at least once that season.

You're right and that was the collimation of a season 1/2 of good football.  But these are all good ideas that should maximize the possible engagement that the on the field performance makes possible.  I speculate a7-5 program with all/most of these intiatives implemented will get 20,000 in home game attendance but the same team with that support may barely top 16,000 fans.  

[UNTLifer]

Invite local kid’s to sit in the Kid’s Corner. 

[NT93]

• Have a ticket center in the UNT Union/bookstore, somewhere almost all students visit daily, plus almost every visitor. Signage everywhere on campus promoting games. Students should never not know "when the next game is."
• Run campus buses strategically to provide transportation to games.
• Promote the skills and productions of other student organizations at games. Organizations who may be made up of students who don't normally like sports. Have student musicians/bands perform national anthems or halftime, have pregame art galleries, screen Media Arts film festival winners at halftimes

I like all of your ideas, but these three seem so easy and relatively inexpensive.    Plus, they are all geared towards current students who obviously have a connection to the university.

 

[Matt from A700]

24 minutes ago, NT93 said:

• Have a ticket center in the UNT Union/bookstore, somewhere almost all students visit daily, plus almost every visitor. Signage everywhere on campus promoting games. Students should never not know "when the next game is."
• Run campus buses strategically to provide transportation to games.
• Promote the skills and productions of other student organizations at games. Organizations who may be made up of students who don't normally like sports. Have student musicians/bands perform national anthems or halftime, have pregame art galleries, screen Media Arts film festival winners at halftimes

I like all of your ideas, but these three seem so easy and relatively inexpensive.    Plus, they are all geared towards current students who obviously have a connection to the university.

 

But yet it appears they aren't happening. Yes UNT has a large commuter population but there's still like 9,000 students on campus plus all these apartments around campus that keep popping up. Yet student attendance, even at basketball, is declining. The disconnect with Greek Life seems to be increasing. And while the Maniacs have taken over basketball, overall I'm wondering where the hell are the Talons? It seems like either their membership has declined or member requirements have loosened up.

[keith]

Curious to hear about the student ticketing process for games.  It seems there is always a press to get students to "claim" their tickets early, why?  I suppose from a planning perspective it's nice for the AD to know expected turnout prior to game day.  What does this do to the student that can't make up their mind or procrastinates and doesn't decide until an hour or so before the game to get out of their dorm room and walk over to DATCU or the Super Pit for the game?  How does it work for these students?  In the past, the student ID was the ticket and you just flashed that at the gate.  Easy-peasy.   Let's say a student doesn't have a ticket loaded on their phones comes to the tailgate and decides minutes before kick-off that they want to attend the game.  What do these "game-time decision" students have to do to get a ticket for a game?  

[SilverEagle]

Find a way to keep the students from broiling in their seats. Such as no games before 6 PM early in the season. 

Get the spirit groups more involved in engaging the students and alumni DURING the game (I don't give a crap about our cheerleader's gymnastic skills) They (the aforementioned students and alumni) come back when they feel that they have been an active part of the team's win.

The cheer/ Talon staff should try to engage/encourage the tailgaters to participate in the pre-game team walk into the stadium. Start the "NORTH-TEXAS" chant and continue it until they are past the crowd. It would be a great start for crowd participation prior to the game.

 

  

 

[GRN-WHT]

The school administration has to change the profile of the type student they market to. Period. Until then, the "Director of Marketing and Fan Engagement" is going to have an uphill climb.

[UNTLifer]

1 hour ago, GRN-WHT said:

The school administration has to change the profile of the type student they market to. Period. Until then, the "Director of Marketing and Fan Engagement" is going to have an uphill climb.

Yep.  Still running that terrible commercial.  Have we ever had a good commercial?

[jtm0097]

1 hour ago, GRN-WHT said:

The school administration has to change the profile of the type student they market to. Period. Until then, the "Director of Marketing and Fan Engagement" is going to have an uphill climb.

Yep, we need to target the Business/Engineering students. The weird art kids are not going to attend a football or basketball game. 

[GrandGreen]

On 3/17/2024 at 6:43 PM, Big Z said:

Free food, free drinks, get YouTube celebrities to show up for the student section. Make a rewards system for showing up to games to build points to use. 

Why not just pay anyone that can be bought to attend?

 

[THOR]

On 3/18/2024 at 4:09 PM, UNTLifer said:

Yep.  Still running that terrible commercial.  Have we ever had a good commercial?

i am always disappointed in the North Texas commercials.  they always look cheap, thrown together, and not focusing of the best parts of the school.  during conference tournament times, it's cool seeing the other schools videos....those campuses look nice.

[cousin oliver]

2 minutes ago, THOR said:

i am always disappointed in the North Texas commercials.  they always look cheap, thrown together, and not focusing of the best parts of the school.  during conference tournament times, it's cool seeing the other schools videos....those campuses look nice.

Yes me too.  And what is funny is we have a very good film department that should be able to do better.

[drex]

I am one of those weird art students and I will put my NT pedigree against any of you.  Having said that, we need to spotlight fans at the games.  Any organization that alerts the athletic department in a timely manner should be recognized at the game, either through announcements or on the video board.  Many years ago we recognized the 'starting crowd at today's game' and all student organizations got a shout out.  Also, bring back the idea of having alumni stand up and be recognized by decade that they graduated.  Everyone likes some attention at the games.  The bottom line is that whoever has the game day participation job at NT needs to eat, breathe and sleep North Texas.  You guys have touched on some great ideas and many of them are quite doable if the departments works at it.

[Meangreen Fight]

On 3/18/2024 at 4:40 PM, jtm0097 said:

Yep, we need to target the Business/Engineering students. The weird art kids are not going to attend a football or basketball game. 

I am engineering grad.  NONE of my classmates attended games while in school nor have I seen any of them at games as alumni except maybe at a random homecoming over the past 20 years.  Students would be foolish to come here expecting good football and basketball (men's or women's).   Stop blaming the "customer" for the earned reputation of putting out a bad product.  That is why find it comical that so many scoffed at the mere suggestion that school pursue a Coach like Deion Sanders before he left for Colorado.  The attention of the pursuit alone would make an impact on the perception of the program.  Just like Cowboys fans are super skeptical of "All In" when you don't even call one of the best running backs in the league to gauge his interest when he lives in DALLAS and your team needs a RB to support your QB.

Edited March 25 by Meangreen Fight

[jtm0097]

20 minutes ago, Meangreen Fight said:

I am engineering grad.  NONE of my classmates attended games while in school nor have I seen any of them at games as alumni except maybe at a random homecoming over the past 20 years.  Students would be foolish to come here expecting good football and basketball (men's or women's).   Stop blaming the "customer" for the earned reputation of putting out a bad product.  That is why find it comical that so many scoffed at the mere suggestion that school pursue a Coach like Deion Sanders before he left for Colorado.  The attention of the pursuit alone would make an impact on the perception of the program.  Just like Cowboys fans are super skeptical of "All In" when you don't even call one of the best running backs in the league to gauge his interest when he lives in DALLAS and your team needs a QB.  

Lol, thanks for confirming that none of your engineering friends from 20 plus years ago don't go to games. I hate to break it to you, but my buddies from the finance program don't go to games now either, and I left UNT 13 years ago. They didn't target the business students when I was in school or when I graduated.

This is exactly my point, the marketing department/student outreach sucks. They need to do a better job of targeting kids currently in Denton. It seems there are a lot of people in the athletic department that do just the bare minimum and collect a paycheck. 

I agree, winning does wonders for a program. It's a damn shame DATCU/APOGEE opened in 2011 and we still haven't sold the stadium out.  

 

[SilverEagle]

On 3/23/2024 at 10:56 AM, jtm0097 said:

This is exactly my point, the marketing department/student outreach sucks. They need to do a better job of targeting kids currently in Denton. It seems there are a lot of people in the athletic department that do just the bare minimum and collect a paycheck. 

I agree, winning does wonders for a program. It's a damn shame DATCU/APOGEE opened in 2011 and we still haven't sold the stadium out.  

 

I used to have a Band Director (NT McAdow student), who one day stopped us in the middle of practice and asked "how many of you believe the old adage that practice makes perfect?". Well, we thought that was an easy question, so we all raised our hands.  "Well you're all wrong" he said. GOOD PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT AND THIS PRACTICE IS THE WORST I'VE EVER SEEN". The rest of practice ended up better.

My point?  Under DD and Littell, North Texas won a lot of games. They set impressive rushing and passing records.  But when it came to winning games that REALLY COUNTED (the good practice part of my analogy) like conference championship games, and bowl games,  and games against La Tech at home with a big crowd watching.........WE GOT OWNED. 

Winning the conference championships, and bowl games, and big games at home in front of large crowds , does wonders for a program.

Edited April 1 by SilverEagle

[greenjoe]

A couple of years ago, my Breakfast Kiwanis Club offered to provide and operate, at no cost to UNT, passenger golf carts to help move, quickly, fans coming to and/or from the stadium.  We would rent the golf carts and simply go back and forth moving as many people as we could.  The Athletic Dept said no.  The catch-all response was “our insurance won’t let us do that.  

 

It’s hard to help when any and all ideas get shot down.  

[NorthTexasWeLove]

On 3/18/2024 at 12:40 PM, GRN-WHT said:

The school administration has to change the profile of the type student they market to. Period. Until then, the "Director of Marketing and Fan Engagement" is going to have an uphill climb.

This. All of this. 

But also winning. 

Also, the athletic department has, as far as I've been able to tell, is filled with people looking for a "better gig" from top to bottom. Until we get someone at the top that WANTS to be at UNT and knows what he/she is doing it will always be more of the same. 

[UNTLifer]

On 3/20/2024 at 8:46 AM, THOR said:

i am always disappointed in the North Texas commercials.  they always look cheap, thrown together, and not focusing of the best parts of the school.  during conference tournament times, it's cool seeing the other schools videos....those campuses look nice.

Anybody watch the softball games against Tulsa and see their commercial?  It was excellent. Highlighting their strong programs, academic accolades, fields of study, etc.  

[Matt from A700]

8 hours ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

Also, the athletic department has, as far as I've been able to tell, is filled with people looking for a "better gig" from top to bottom. Until we get someone at the top that WANTS to be at UNT and knows what he/she is doing it will always be more of the same. 

Thank you, I've been trying to find a way to put this. Also, I know we want the most qualified people in these important roles in the AD but some actual UNT alumni who want to see our athletics succeed before any other P5 team and will work hard to make that a reality would be nice too.