Boosting Attendance

December 12, 2007

I noticed that there is a DISD night at the basketball games where DISD students get a coupon to come to a game for free.

Does football do anything similar? Seems like a great way for UNT to get the Denton community more involved in Mean Green football. You have a figure that every kid that comes for free might bring a parent, maybe two. Not to mention that kids love to spend their parents money at the concession stands!

(forgive me if this has been covered in previous threads)

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DISD Day at North Texas

The University of North Texas invites all Denton Independent School District kids and parents to attend Denton ISD Day on December 19th as the North Texas Women’s Basketball host Oklahoma State at 7pm, and on December 20th as Mean Green Basketball host Centenary at 7pm. All DISD youth have been given a voucher for FREE admission to either of these games; additional tickets start at $7 for men’s games and $4 for women’s! Both men’s and women’s basketball feature a fan friendly family oriented atmosphere at the Super Pit with Family Fun Zone play area featuring a bounce house and interactive games open during pregame, halftime, and between games during doubleheaders. Kids are also encouraged to stay for post game autographs opportunities with the Mean Green.

Eagle-96 · December 12, 2007

cue Plumm and the "Band Day" thread in 3, 2, 1

UNTFan23 · December 13, 2007

Where do we put them, the end zones? I'm not sure we can really give those tickets away to try to get more people to come to games.

December 14, 2007

Where do we put them, the end zones? I'm not sure we can really give those tickets away to try to get more people to come to games.

Yes, you give away general admittance ticktets.

I am not sure why you wouldn't give them away. I clearly remember how TCU created the "Your Home Team" campaign in Ft Worth and really got the Ft Worth community involved in TCU athletics. And it worked. Clearly, it worked because it was coupled with the football team being successful. But TCU didn't think small and tried to get the city to embrace them, not just students and alumni.

Of course you want your students and alumni to come to the game, but students and alumni move on. But if you get the community involved you have a sustainable fan base. Not individuals in a community, who can also move away, but the organic entity of community. I remember being a kid in Ft Worth, going to TCU games was the 'in' thing to do. I am not sure the same holds true in Denton. But it should. I am still a TCU fan because of my memories of going to the games throughout my childhood. I have purchased tickets for games, watched TCU on TV, and bought TCU merchandise as an adult because of it.

UNT needs to make the same investment in a new generation of Denton youth. Get them hooked now and you will see long-term dividends. We often talk about how UNT students alone or UNT alumni alone should be filling the stadium each week. Well the same argument could easily be made for Denton residents.

Or do you think that the 45 thousand people at a TCU game are all students and alumni?

KRAM1 · December 14, 2007

How about cahrging a dollar for gerneral admission tickets for a "Day" like you are suggesting. Hey, it's some $$$ and we would get some concession and maybe "parking" dollars out of the deal....well, maybe...just maybe even a new "convert" who will start coming to the games at full face ticket prices. You never know!

December 14, 2007

How about cahrging a dollar for gerneral admission tickets for a "Day" like you are suggesting. Hey, it's some $$$ and we would get some concession and maybe "parking" dollars out of the deal....well, maybe...just maybe even a new "convert" who will start coming to the games at full face ticket prices. You never know!

Free or a dollar. Just something like that. All is know is that if you give a kid a free ticket and he/she brings a parent or friend, you just sold one ticket and brought in 2 people to cheer. And buy drinks and snacks. And maybe pay for parking. And maybe come back the next game when it isn't free.

I would assume that is the logic behind doing this type of thing for basketball. That is why I was wondering out loud if there was a similar program for football.

Edited December 14, 2007 by 97and03

GoMeanGreen1999 · December 14, 2007

How about cahrging a dollar for gerneral admission tickets for a "Day" like you are suggesting. Hey, it's some $$$ and we would get some concession and maybe "parking" dollars out of the deal....well, maybe...just maybe even a new "convert" who will start coming to the games at full face ticket prices. You never know!

Until we get to the point where the games are sold out, I think we should sell all General Admission seats for $1-2 each. After all we get few people as it is out there, this way we could get a lot of folks at least to the concessions.

Stan R · December 14, 2007

Until we get to the point where the games are sold out, I think we should sell all General Admission seats for $1-2 each. After all we get few people as it is out there, this way we could get a lot of folks at least to the concessions.

great idea.

RETSO · December 15, 2007

This is a wonderful idea!

We could also include the many burbs outside of Denton (Argyle ISD, Aubrey ISD, Northwest ISD, Celina ISD etc....)

Give students a free pass for one game and charge $2-5 for parents and we got something.

Rotate home games with the surronding school districts (game one Northwest + Argyle) (Game two Aurbrey + Celina) we could pack the endzones in Fouts!

Of course this would make too much sense, let's keep the bleachers empty instead.

Edited December 15, 2007 by RETSO

JesseMartin · December 16, 2007

Originally I hadn't thought of this, and a couple of the SGA and Greek people mentioned it to me. I brought it up at our Athletics Council meeting, and everybody thought it was a good idea. For some reason (admin at the time?), it never happened.

Maybe this time, if the current SGA or somebody else "officially" recommends it, it might happen.

UNTFan23 · December 16, 2007

I remember the Band Days @ TCU. We arrived at the stadium around noon. We practiced the routine, which consisted of marching onto the field, and play some songs. We did this several times for a couple hours. Kick-off would be something like 4 or 5 in the afternoon. I remember having plenty of time where some of us explored the stadium to help quell the boredom. From what I remembered about the games, TCU rarely had any significant numbers of people in the upper deck, and the students section (given the fact they had I think 6k in enrollment back in the mid 90s) never filled their side of the stadium. We never brought any additional parents to the games outside of the regulars that went to every other game the band traveled to.

The key to getting this done to have the College of Music and the Director of Bands buy into this, and I wish you luck on that. It's a lot of work and I'm not sure our music program is willing to do it.

If we do host area bands in a Band Day, I think there is a minimum price that must be paid for it to count as actual attendance. Also, since we pretty much fill the sideline seats, we'd have to stick those students in the endzone, which I'm sure would make for a real fun experience.

I don't think hosting the Band Day has really had an impact on increasing their attendance. TCU is a school, try as hard as they do, doesn't have a real connection to the city they reside in. Part of it has to do with all the other sport options in town, part of it is that people have a real hard time connecting with a private school.

I think North Texas would be better served if they worked with the area schools and provide discounted tickets to honor roll students. This would work for the school very well in two ways. (1) Potential to increase attendance; (2) work in help recruiting students to North Texas by getting them on to the campus.