The Alumni

MeanMag · September 12, 2014

We need Munthe to step up again.

GRN-WHT · September 12, 2014

We need Munthe to step up again.

No, we need the people who actually get paid to do a job to step up.

MeanMag · September 12, 2014

No, we need the people who actually get paid to do a job to step up.

I'm sure he gets paid by someone to do something.

aztecskin · September 12, 2014

Too bad they need to be reminded every year, every game that we have a football team. Guess they forget they saw them play when they were undergrads. Guess they forget that we were talked about in the DMN after they beat SMU. Guess they forgot they can check on the internet for game time and tickets. Guess they forgot they can take some initiative. Guess their moms signed them up for college and took them to class and did their homework and bought them clothes and fed them and wiped their asses and breathed for them.

Too bad all of that prevents them for showing up.

They've given up on promoting to non-students. Plain and simple.

Edited September 12, 2014 by aztecskin

GRN-WHT · September 12, 2014

Too bad they need to be reminded every year, every game that we have a football team. Guess they forget they saw them play when they were undergrads. Guess they forget that we were talked in the DMN after they beat SMU. Guess they forgot they can check on the internet for game time and tickets. Guess they forgot they can take some initiative. Guess their moms signed them up for college and took them to class and did their homework and bought them clothes and fed them and wiped their asses and breathed for them.

Too bad all of that prevents them for showing up.

Silly argument.

Then why do TV commercials, web ads, billboards, mailers, etc, exist?

6k less people showed up tonight compared to last years Thursday game.

That should tell everybody what they need to know about how well RV's marketing efforts are working out.

eulessismore · September 12, 2014

Ryan, it's time for the coaches to put the product on the field; offense, defense, and special teams. You can't sell even the best product without the right marketing, but all the marketing in the world can't sell a product that isn't there.

Ben Gooding · September 12, 2014

This thread is not a bash on you and you shouldn't be disgusted at the turnout. It's not your fault we have a bunch of half-hearted lazy alums. To be absolutely honest until the business and engineering departments start really booming the turnout will be similar. Flocks of the same feather flock together. Music folks don't like this football shit. It's not cool to them. It's too "mainstream" and not enough hair dye. We are unfortunately a music school that attracts the music genre of people. That is what that is. So until our school starts getting more non-music majors the turnout will be similar. Yeah, the student turnout has been great, but imagine if 1/2 of the students showed to games instead of 1/4. However, the blame is not the students, at all. You have done your part if that is the area you have devoted yourself to. It takes years to build a great fan base. But it does start with the current students. But as Euless pointed out it takes a solid product to keep them there.

No hard feelings to the music folks on here, if there are any. Rock on.

eulessismore · September 12, 2014

Look, this kind of offense ultimately turns fans off, even when it's working well. When it's not, well you get the picture.

CMJ · September 12, 2014

This thread is not a bash on you and you shouldn't be disgusted at the turnout. It's not your fault we have a bunch of half-hearted lazy alums. To be absolutely honest until the business and engineering departments start really booming the turnout will be similar. Flocks of the same feather flock together. Music folks don't like this football shit. It's not cool to them. It's too "mainstream" and not enough hair dye. We are unfortunately a music school that attracts the music genre of people. That is what that is. So until our school starts getting more non-music majors the turnout will be similar. Yeah, the student turnout has been great, but imagine if 1/2 of the students showed to games instead of 1/4. However, the blame is not the students, at all. You have done your part if that is the area you have devoted yourself to. It takes years to build a great fan base. But it does start with the current students. But as Euless pointed out it takes a solid product to keep them there.

No hard feelings to the music folks on here, if there are any. Rock on.

Dude, the College of Music doesn't have a majority of the undergrads. That is such a lame ass excuse.

I am surprised about the poor turnout though. Lack of promotions or not - we just won a Bowl game last year. Our first in over ten seasons and only our third ever. I am sort of at a loss as to why people aren't showing up. You can't even give the "product on the field" excuse, since we're a week removed from blowing SMU's doors off.

Edited September 12, 2014 by CMJ

James329 · September 12, 2014

I'm not going to pretend like I read this thread. But I'm a young alum. I bought a $400 HOD Bowl helmet. Not only was it a pain, I was never once asked to buy season ticket or join mean green club. They are flat incompetent.

TheWestie · September 12, 2014

I kept telling myself up until almost halftime that the alumni side was so empty because it was a Thursday game and people had to get to Denton after work.

I hope I was right.

MeanGreenDan · September 12, 2014

Keep going back to the fact that I'm on every mailing list known to man from UNT, and got not one email this week about a game. Why is every group, Alumni association, MGC, etc not doing blasts?

SHOSS · September 12, 2014

I am not a season ticket holder for the first time in 10 years because the mean green club people can not seem to do some basic things to make my corp gift matching work, can not admit they screwed up, and finally they wanted me to pay because they screwed up.

I would have missed the smu game due to coaching my kids in sports, but if not for the mean green club's incompetence, I would have been there last night to see a dissappointing loss.

Honestly, team performance did not dictate my attendance in the past, and it would not in the future. I was there, in most cases, no matter what. My kids are entering a busy time in their lives and they do take priority when there is a conflict.

I will have to get over the mean green club's incompetence to get season tickets starting next year again. I will come to some of the more easy to attend games the rest of the way this year. The games being on tv and not during convenient times are the likely the drivers for the poor alumni attendance in the first 2 home games.

oldguystudent · September 12, 2014

You know I'm going to be at every game. I very strongly considered putting my tickets up for sale for this one. Not because I'm pissed off at the caliber of play, but because a Thursday night game in September is probably going to ultimately be a component of the package my firm someday puts together to "manage me out." Believe me that they would much rather I stuck around at work for another 11 or 58 hour last night, and my departure was not met with approval.

The television revenue from these Thursday night games is great, but it really does put a huge burden on the working poor like me. For the diehards with flexible schedules out there, I think you really need to give people a break on this one.

I did leave at halftime. I'd gotten up at 3:30 in the morning to haul ass at work and get my time in so I could get to Denton. Halftime was about 8:30 and I was utterly passing out. Watching us get three yards of offense wasn't worth staying up any later for.

rcade · September 12, 2014

I live in Florida so this issue is far removed from me.

But I was in DFW a few weeks ago and drove from East Dallas to Denton on a weeknight. I-35E was a nightmare both ways -- I spent an hour between Carrollton and Lewisville in stop-and-go traffic going up and an hour around Lewisville Lake going back home. There was all kinds of construction going on. A bartender at Oak Street Drafthouse even warned me that I better get out of Denton before 9 p.m. because after that lanes are closed for construction.

Maybe that had something to do with the sad alumni showing.

Edited September 12, 2014 by rcade

TIgreen01 · September 12, 2014

Lower ticket prices
Ticket specials
Promote the next game more in stadium
Give away tickets to schools (w/coupon for $10 adult tickets)
Give tickets away with chicken buckets if you have to
Giveaways at the door
Improve the in-stadium atmosphere (too much dead air, too much fly like an eagle)

Everyone on here, and in our AD, need to realize that our market is the same market as the local minor league sports teams (plus FC Dallas, which is technically major league here but the sport is treated as minor). FCD sits right in the middle of the fastest growing suburb of Dallas (Frisco) and has a great setup with its stadium being in the middle of a downtown/restaurant/entertainment zone in the city. This team could barely get 10k to show up to games for the past 10-15 years. Until this year. They still don't quite sell the stadium out, but they get it 75% full most games now. They are doing exactly what grn-wht lists above. ALL of it. I bought tickets ONE time last year and have been completely inundated with special promotions and mini game packs and packages (like our family fun pack, etc). They used to market the team the same way UNT markets....basically all of what Ryan Munthe lists above ( all manner of Twitter, Facebook, email reminders) but without the price slashing right before games.

We can keep beating ours heads against the wall and discourage kids like Ryan....or we can pull our heads out of our butts and realize that we need to FILL the stadium first and foremost. Our ticket office knows exactly how many seats have been sold for every game. Start offering discounts a couple weeks in advance of every game and email literally every single person who has ever even bought one ticket to ANY UNT sporting event in the last 5 years as well as get the word out via commercial and online media. We need $10 or less end zone seat prices...right now they are $20+. We need to do be creative with packages, and slash prices if they aren't selling. If the market responds to you by not buying tickets, you need to find the point at which they WILL.

Edited September 12, 2014 by TIgreen01

ForneyGreen · September 12, 2014

Lots of good marketing ideas on this thread - but after seeing the home section of the stadium on TV, I have to cast stones even at myself for not getting my arse up to Denton last night. I hate Thursday night games and wish we didn't schedule them, but odd date/time games are now a fact-of-life for college football. Getting to Denton for me last night would have required a lot of work, but it wasn't impossible and I should have made the trip to support my team.

It has to be deflating to the team when they run onto the field with a half-empty stadium... I think that I would be deflated at that sight.

silverc10 · September 12, 2014

I did the Living Social ticket deals for several games last year, which required email and an account to be created to make the purchase. Never have received follow-up promotions - I would think that base of people (I know a lot of others that used it, too) would be one of the best opportunities the department has?

GRN-WHT · September 12, 2014

I get paid.
I'm a marketing intern.
I'd like to say we've helped fix student turnout which was one of my biggest goals.
Every time I look at the alumni side or the empty wing, it eats at me. Sounds melodramatic, but I'm legitimately pissed when I see an empty section and feel somehow I'm at fault. I know we deserve better. I talk about crowd to people who really don't seem to care as much as I do.
I don't know what else we can do to reach out to alums. I can twitter market all I want and what's crazy is people will retweet these things, but still not show up. My account and campaign was originally to fix the student attendance, and we've had two record setting turnouts, and yet I still feel guilty over a half empty alumni section.
But what else can I do? I hear y'all bitch about everything from our season ticket commercial (which Old Hat did, they're the guys who do that stuff for every major school, btw) to posters on the square which I've personally walked around in the boiling heat putting up. I've done a lot and I know there's a LOT done behind the scenes that y'all don't necessarily see to help engage alums.
But they still won't come.
And I do think that the AD has decided students are priority #1, because the alumni battle is a losing fight.
I try every week to engage disconnected famous alums on Fill Apogee, and they ignore me. I try to engage sports media, sometimes they reply, sometimes they don't. Hasn't helped.
Fill Apogee is a silly Twitter campaign that has made me feel like I'm responsible for alumni turnout now...but at this point, what else is there to do? Have you noticed we have more of a twitter presence than most similar sized schools? What does it do in the end run? 16K.
I'm just a little defeated at this point.

Hey Ryan,

Sorry I didn't realize that you were getting paid. I'm glad you're getting compensated and you should be earning a lot more.

That season ticket commercial isn't anywhere near Old Hat's best work, I was kind of perplexed they allowed that to go out. The stadium animation looked cheap and amateurish. It looked like the original stadium renderings from 2000 or whenever. Plus, the shots of old dudes standing around (sorry Chris Walker, dig the beard though) wouldn't make anybody want to come out to a game. That commercial isn't going to cut it in an area where the pro sports teams come out with some really good ads. It's not a money thing, they just think outside of the voice of god yelling to come out to games box.

Posters in the square are great, but I and a ton of other alums live in Dallas and all over the metroplex, I don't see much happening outside of Denton. It's a big area.

Not everybody has Twitter. Some like me are slightly uncool and only have Facebook. Some of the minor league teams around here do a good job on Facebook. Don't be afraid to promote the next football game more on Facebook. A post should go up daily promoting the next game. If you promote it sparingly, it's going to get buried. If you promote Nicholls daily starting now, you're going to get a lot more views.

The stadium video is there for you guys to promote stuff. I knew attendance was going to be weak last night when I saw the game only promoted once during the SMU game. It should have been hammered down everybody's throats. There's ton of dead air on the in-game presentation. Don't let the dead air go to waste. Promote the next FB game, promote Beyond the Green, the soccer game tonight should have been hammered down everybody's throats last night. I bet tonight's soccer attendance would be a lot better if you guys promoted it heavily last night. Show that awesome goal from the Vandy game. You have that big nice video board, if there's not a play going on, it should be used to sell me something. After you do the "Macisims" segment on the video board, why not promote Beyond the Green?

And by god, when the PA announcer is talking at length, like starting lineups, advertising reads etc, but some music under him. Trust me. It gets boring listening to him talk for a while, music under him while he talks will help that.

Ryan, this isn't directed at you personally, just at those in charge of marketing and the in-game presentation. There are a lot of things that can be done to improve things that don't cost money, only a little creativity is necessary.

Keep up the good work.

GRN-WHT · September 12, 2014

We're small beans to them.

Green Mean · September 12, 2014

This thread is not a bash on you and you shouldn't be disgusted at the turnout. It's not your fault we have a bunch of half-hearted lazy alums. To be absolutely honest until the business and engineering departments start really booming the turnout will be similar. Flocks of the same feather flock together. Music folks don't like this football shit. It's not cool to them. It's too "mainstream" and not enough hair dye. We are unfortunately a music school that attracts the music genre of people. That is what that is. So until our school starts getting more non-music majors the turnout will be similar. Yeah, the student turnout has been great, but imagine if 1/2 of the students showed to games instead of 1/4. However, the blame is not the students, at all. You have done your part if that is the area you have devoted yourself to. It takes years to build a great fan base. But it does start with the current students. But as Euless pointed out it takes a solid product to keep them there.

No hard feelings to the music folks on here, if there are any. Rock on.

I'm sorry but that's just complete BS. Having a degree in music or something artsy has absolutely zero to do with people caring about their school and sports. NT has other colleges/programs that are quite big such as business, engineering so are you meaning to say that the majority of them attend and care? I seriously doubt that...they're no different than music or arts majors. I got my degree in RTVF myself and I'm a diehard that purchases season tickets and supports the teams. I mingled with mostly arts type people during my school days and like everyone else there were those that were apathetic and those that were fans of the team and took initiative in going to games and supporting the team. We just simply need more fans and that takes winning. Just because you have one good season after being if not the worst one of the worst CFB programs in the country for close to a decade it doesn't cure everything.

The excuses of blaming the music and/or arts majors needs to stop because that is far far from the true and deep problem.

meaniegreenie · September 12, 2014

Several straight years of winning is the best marketing tool ever invented for team sports.

ColoradoEagle · September 12, 2014

If people wanted to come, they would come. I agree that there should have been more advertising of last night's game during the SMU game, but last night was 99% on the alums/fans for not showing up.

The Fake Lonnie Finch · September 12, 2014

Here's what I think, when I'm thinking about it:

(1) Everyone who went to North Texas knows North Texas has a football team.

(2) Everyone who lives in Texas knows its football season.

Therefore,

(3) Everyone who is a North Texas graduate and a football fan knows that tickets are available to go watch the North Texas football team.

You all are saying winning will bring people in, cash and prizes will bring people in, Brock Berglund II playing QB will bring people in...

...but, the truth is, we have won before, and it didn't bring people in.

...they've marketed every which way but loose, and it didn't bring people in.

...we've had record-breaking/exciting players before, and it didn't bring people in.

You have to someday accept that we all went to a school where most of the current alumni didn't give a rip about football, and still don't.

We (and by we, I mean you, not me) are confused by it because we like football and North Texas. But, We (and by we, I mean you, not me) need to understand that not everyone who sat beside us in our UNT (or NTSU) classrooms for four or five years cares about UNT football.

So, what to do?

Well, Dead Bob Marley say move to Colorado and smoke some marijuana. It's just as big of a waste of time and money as trying to figure out how to reach the alumni who went to NTSU/UNT when it was a commuter school and 75% of the people showed up to class with Texas A&M, Texas, and OU hats and t-shirts on day after day, week after week, year after year whilst the football teams pissed around in the Southland Conference.

Don't bogart!

Edited September 12, 2014 by The Fake Lonnie Finch

The Fake Lonnie Finch · September 12, 2014

Here's a secret I will tell you that I've only told those closest to me and, when drunk, to total strangers.

In the 1993/94 time period, I was still a strapping young buck at North Texas, rutting away at Rick's Place, Otay's, Riprocks, and The Flying Tomato. One of my classmates back then was Dallas Cowboy LB Robert Jones' wife, Maneesha. We talked about football and whatnot before classes.

But, now looky here, they've both got sons who are playing college football now, but not at North Texas. And, if you happen to see the Jones' on twitter or facebook, it's still the back home team they support - East Carolina.

Okay? You know what I mean?

Now, not everyone who went to North Texas was a married to Robert Jones. That's not what I'm trying to say.

But, what I am trying to say is that there was a certain time frame where NTSU/UNT was the cheapest local university for people to obtain their degrees. And, because the North Texas area has been a magnet for people leaving/freed from scum-ridden union/liberal states, there were many student back then who went to NTSU/UNT based on price/location, but kept their old back home/family allegiances.

I don't like it any more than you do. But, unfortunately, those people were the bulk of UNT students back then...and, they are now in the 35-50+ age bracket that should be spending. They aren't from Texas, never were NTSU/UNT fans, and never will be. Those people are not going to come to UNT games...ever.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry someone has to say it out loud and confront you with an awful truth.

Please don't kick your dog, though. And, drink responsibly.

Edited September 12, 2014 by The Fake Lonnie Finch