Make UNT the Dallas team

[UNTeagle88]

So i remember us talking about this when we were discussing the Heart of Dallas Bowl. I couldnt help but think that if UNT has a successful season.. we can convince the alumni in the DFW metroplex to wake up and smell the coffee. I think part of this is SMU's suckiness will continue.. I project SMU to start the season 0-5..

Their schedule next season for the first 5 games...SMU is going to suck. We should take advantage of this..

08/31/14 at Baylor

9/06/14 at North Texas

09/20/14 vs. Texas A&M

09/27/14 vs. TCU

10/04/14 at East Carolina

I think rather than us.. being semi-bored with this blog because we dont have alot of content to discuss right now.. that we come up with ideas for the next season to get the word out about UNT football.

The first thing i am going to do is try and get the pedestrian bridge to apogee to have its lights changed to green to grab the attention of drivers on the highway. I already proposed this to a high ranking city official and he loved the idea... also loved it because it wouldnt cost alot of money and its doable.

Remember this... didnt this happen due to someone on this blog mentioning something to the omni.. We have a little over 5 months, imagine what we could do if we worked on things now..

This post has been promoted to an article Edited March 15, 2014 by UNTeagle88

[UNTeagle88]

[UNT90]

SMU is not going to be easy.

Surely they don't play A&M at home again, do they?

[SilverEagle]

8-31-14 @ Baylor? I thought Baylor was opening their new stadium with some cupcake team.

[emmitt01]

8-31-14 @ Baylor? I thought Baylor was opening their new stadium with some cupcake team.

They are

[DT 90]

8-31-14 @ Baylor? I thought Baylor was opening their new stadium with some cupcake team.

It will be their first sell out. We will never hear the end of it.

[Texas Stranger]

Surely they don't play A&M at home again, do they?

Aggy needs DFW games, both for recruiting and alumni demand. Scheduling SMU is the easiest way for them to do it. Cheaper than playing a Pac-10 or Big-10 team at Jerry World, and a much better chance of winning. SMU gives them return games at Kyle Field of course. And their fans would have an easier time getting non-allotment tickets at Ford than at Apogee or Amon Carter.

[meangreener]

I've been trying to do this for months! Unfortunately, it's very difficult to do stuff in the offseason. I'm going to ramp up my campaign before and after the Spring Game.

Best advice, make your own, get involved, talk to people on campus. I started with something simple--a twitter account--and it evolved into a campus and area wide marketing campaign.

I really have only focused on the students and alumni, there's a whole Dallas area ripe for the picking! If you want to help, send me a PM or make your own and feel free to ask if you need to bounce ideas.

I am not in DFW enough to really make a mark outside of Denton, unfortunately.

Look at what SMU did for basketball. They bombarded the metroplex with publicity and the Moody became the hottest ticket in Dallas. Their football, however, is dying a slow, bleeding death and we should capitalize.

We need more T-shirt fans.

Edited March 15, 2014 by meangreener

[UNTeagle88]

i would love to help in any way possible.. i am proficient in Adobe Photoshop, Premier Pro, Illustrator, and After Effects. I design for a department on the UNT campus as is..

Here is my thing.. i dont know how many people go to this website on a daily basis.. maybe the administrators can give us an idea.

There is one thing that i find interesting.. we have resources and word of mouth on this forum. The people are our resources, each person is good at something.. we can come together and make things happen.

What do you think?

[JesseMartin]

I think you'd have to figure out the most reasonable targets aside from billboards (which we should do year round in my opinion). For instance, the Omni was being well-paid to host a good chunk of the Bowl festivities and was the preferred hotel, so it made sense for them to light up with UNT themes at the time, because they were making a boatload of money off of it. If we're the HOD team again this year, I expect the same around that time. So the key is to determine what/where and specifically when.

For instance, you could have Development/Alumni Association check to see if there are any alumni who own (or run businesses in) large buildings in Dallas. If so, and we see what would fit within zoning regulations, that would be the prime means to find someone to promote us. A huge painted mural on the side of a building along a major thoroughfare wouldn't be overly expensive to create or keep up, and could be a year-round opportunity. Things like this would be the best ways to get rolling without asking unaffiliated businesses to promote us without a definite "what's in it for me" outcome. If you asked the Omni or similar business to do something constantly or even fairly regularly with the only impetus being "we have a lot of alumni in the area" then you'd probably get the cold shoulder. Of course if UNT were to sign on to make them a "preferred business" with some sort of affinity perks (put up our stuff and give the UNT community a discount or by 2 get 1 or something, and we'll advertise for you on our website, alumni magazine, etc.) then we might be able to swing something really big, but you'd have to get the whole admin behind you. It's feasible, but would take a LONG time compared to some other possibilities, so if you want to push for something like that, you'd probably want to get started now if you expected to have it done within a year or two.

[UNTexas]

How about selling out our stadium in Denton while winning in the process and worry about silly titles after a string of great seasons?

[UNTeagle88]

How about selling out our stadium in Denton while winning in the process and worry about silly titles after a string of great seasons?

I think UNT having a dominant presence in DFW is not a silly title when we cannot sell out our stadium. We cannot find find North Texas merchandise easily in the metroplex, we still have alot of people who are apathetic towards their university..we have titles that should no longer stick around...

Examples of sayings that need to die...

"UNT is just a commuter school."

"UNT Sucks"

"UNT has nothing for me to want to go there"

These things need to change...i disagree, its not silly.

[ragpicker]

I've been trying to do this for months! Unfortunately, it's very difficult to do stuff in the offseason. I'm going to ramp up my campaign before and after the Spring Game.

Best advice, make your own, get involved, talk to people on campus. I started with something simple--a twitter account--and it evolved into a campus and area wide marketing campaign.

I really have only focused on the students and alumni, there's a whole Dallas area ripe for the picking! If you want to help, send me a PM or make your own and feel free to ask if you need to bounce ideas.

I am not in DFW enough to really make a mark outside of Denton, unfortunately.

Look at what SMU did for basketball. They bombarded the metroplex with publicity and the Moody became the hottest ticket in Dallas. Their football, however, is dying a slow, bleeding death and we should capitalize.

We need more T-shirt fans.

Good points and your key word is publicity. (And T-Shirts}. You know, I was just wondering if we could convince DCTA to provide a party train for games back and forth to Dallas. It is just the right distance for a drink or two and could be quite festive. Keeping drinkers off of the highway would also be a responsible thing to do. Perhaps DART could become involved as well.

We could even get this thing started by having UNT representatives (Cheerleaders, Talons etc.} greeting fans at certain stations along the way. It all may sound far - fetched, but we just have to find a way to get Dallas fans to our athletic events and driving to Denton on 1-35 is going to be less and less appealing as time goes by.

[Green Mean]

Just win.

[Ben Gooding]

Winning will take care of everything. Just win.

[gksmith]

Winning cures all ills.

[KenTuck]

I've been a UNT fan a long time and the last time UNT players said SMU was a bad team, the Eagles got seriously embarrassed. SMU will not be easy. SHould be a great game and party while hosting SMU in the (still) new stadium.

[VideoEagle]

Winning doesn't completely cure all, but it really helps! Beat SMU and we will get noticed by the local media at least for that weekend.

SMU is NOT going to be a "gimmie" game!

[ColoradoEagle]

The best, and easiest, way to grab some attention is to get the businesses (especially car dealerships) along 35 to have visible support on game days. A suggestion I made a long time ago to the AD, which I doubt was ever followed up, was to talk with Classic Mazda about either putting a battle flag below or in place of the US flag on game days.

Little things like that, all up and down that road once you enter town, would grab some attention from drivers. Also made the same suggestion about having flags up on the square on game days since the equipment is already in place for 4th of July, Labor Day, etc.

Apparently these types of things require more than the zero amount of effort our "marketing department" is capable of, so it's a moot point.

Edited March 17, 2014 by ColoradoEagle

[DallasGreen]

How about selling out our stadium in Denton while winning in the process and worry about silly titles after a string of great seasons?

It's not just coincidence that the two biggest UNT crowds ever were in Dallas not Denton! If you want to schedule a home and home with a major BCS team it has to be in Dallas. A third State Fair game in the Cotton Bowl ala La Tech/ Army last year would be a great start much better than Nichols State at Apogee. Fans need to let the AD know that we need a Dallas game to start with to get those same fans to then come to Denton. Beating SMU @ Apogee would really boost an otherwise yawnable home schedule this year.

[ragpicker]

The best, and easiest, way to grab some attention is to get the businesses (especially car dealerships) along 35 to have visible support on game days. A suggestion I made a long time ago to the AD, which I doubt was ever followed up, was to talk with Classic Mazda about either putting a battle flag below or in place of the US flag on game days.

Little things like that, all up and down that road once you enter town, would grab some attention from drivers. Also made the same suggestion about having flags up on the square on game days since the equipment is already in place for 4th of July, Labor Day, etc.

Apparently these types of things require more than the zero amount of effort our "marketing department" is capable of, so it's a moot point.

I agree with Colorado Eagle and Dallas Eagle on both of their points. When it comes to creative marketing, we are about as creative as a slug. And yes, we do need a Dallas (Cotton Bowl) game.

[ragpicker]

I agree with Colorado Eagle and Dallas Eagle on both of their points. When it comes to creative marketing, we are about as creative as a slug. And yes, we do need a Dallas (Cotton Bowl) game.

Make that Dallas Green.

[UNTLifer]

It's not just coincidence that the two biggest UNT crowds ever were in Dallas not Denton! If you want to schedule a home and home with a major BCS team it has to be in Dallas. A third State Fair game in the Cotton Bowl ala La Tech/ Army last year would be a great start much better than Nichols State at Apogee. Fans need to let the AD know that we need a Dallas game to start with to get those same fans to then come to Denton. Beating SMU @ Apogee would really boost an otherwise yawnable home schedule this year.

We need these people on campus IN DENTON. Set up the Mean Green Express (A Train), get the downtown establishments to offer post game specials, run a shuttle from the train station to Apogee and have the A Train's return trips a couple hours after the game with multiple runs. Make Denton the destination, not counting on these folks to come to one game a year in Dallas.

[Ben Gooding]

Stay away from Dallas. Make Denton the Saturday destination, not Dallas. We have a great stadium, great town, great potential atmosphere. If a Buffalo Wild Wings or a legitimate Grill/bar could buyout the Ponchos and set up shop. Having a good eating/drinking destination in walking distance would be a very good start.

[meangreener]

It's not just coincidence that the two biggest UNT crowds ever were in Dallas not Denton! If you want to schedule a home and home with a major BCS team it has to be in Dallas. A third State Fair game in the Cotton Bowl ala La Tech/ Army last year would be a great start much better than Nichols State at Apogee. Fans need to let the AD know that we need a Dallas game to start with to get those same fans to then come to Denton. Beating SMU @ Apogee would really boost an otherwise yawnable home schedule this year.

Why the hell would you pull people OUT of Denton? The HoD crowd was because of success. The UGA game got us attention. People came to the UTEP game and I'd bet a LOT of money had the weather not been unseasonably cold, we would've outdid the UTEP attendance vs UTSA. People aren't coming to games because historically we've sucked not because they can't drive 45 minutes to Denton.

We need people IN Denton, experiencing the new campus, the new stadium, the top notch tailgating, and the best small town in America & the best college town in Texas. We need people to come early, grab lunch at RG Burgers, Crooked Crust or LSA, grab beer at Midway Mart, check out the Square, pop in some shops, walk around campus and head over to the game. We need to be working up the "college" aspect. We have a small, intimate and loud stadium on a beautiful campus in an incredible city. Re-experience UNT, not fighting off muggers at Fair Park or buying $50 parking and $10 beers at Jerry World. I'd bet a lot of the new fans that showed up at the HoD Bowl haven't been back to campus in forever. No offense to alumni as I'm starting to want to move on from the student section myself, the students are what make college games and our student turnout rivaled SEC teams vs Rice and UTEP. Go to Dallas, and it becomes UTSA. Big crowd, dead atmosphere.

Giving up home games for Dallas games would be idiotic and would kill student attendance.

I realize it's SEC, but Atlanta people all drive into Athens for Georgia. That's 45 minutes away from Atlanta. College Station with A&M. They come to experience the town and the college. We have a town and college equalled to those two (way superior to CStat) and we need to be taking advantage.

Stop with this silly Dallas talk. We don't even need to be Dallas's team. We need to be NORTH Texas's team. Sanger, Krum, Denton, Gainesville, Justin, Prosper, McKinney, Aubrey...those are the places we need to mooch off of. Way too much competition in DFW with the Dallas Brandon Weedens and Big 12 TCU. If I was in the marketing office, I'd be putting up billboards, signs all over the little towns to the North and sides of us, get the coaches doing caravans over there, getting local business interested, tons of advertising, etc. Instead of traveling 2 hours to OU, come 20 minutes to Apogee. Instead of traveling an hour and a half to TCU, come 20 minutes to Apogee.

Nobody wants to admit defeat, but the alumni from DFW will come if we win. The T-shirts will come if they care. Make them care. Keep a minimum of advertising inside the metroplex and expand to real NORTH Texas.

Tired of hearing DFW DFW DFW when there are way more than enough people ripe for the picking surrounding us that would fill a 50,000 seat Apogee.

Edited March 18, 2014 by meangreener