And we can ignore that they threw an INT into our end zone in the 1st half.
Isnât that the defense doing their job or are you implying that a defense isnât dominating if they are allowing no points about allow a team to cross the 50?
I think you are downplaying the game between Dabo and $75M Jimbo. It will be hyped by ESPN to the point of making us sick of hearing about it. This isnât Tulsa vs. UT.
As far as fan / alumni support, I am not sure why the expectations are higher this season. UH is not coming off a NY6 Bowl win. The support will wait to see how the season is going before deciding whether to jump on board. In the words of the famous philosopher David Byrne: âSame as it ever was, same as it ever wasâ
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99% you set the bar really high, Houston isnât a one horse town still and we all know it. Lots of alums from elsewhere that donât give two tops about us, and plenty of folks who donât care about football at all. Of you said 50 maybe 60% Iâd agree with you. But 99 is a ridiculously high bar and unattainable.
His point is that it takes about 1% of the Houston population to sell out the stadium.
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So you are implying that casual UH football fans, the 1%ers, wonât realize UH is playing a game against a coach that left UH in the dust because they will be too busy watching stories about Jimbo on ESPN or are you implying casual UH fans wonât care enough about the Arizona game because they will be so hyped for the A&M game they want to be well rested before kickoff?
It takes less than 1% of the Houston population to sell out a game. 8k-10k will be students and 15k-20k season ticket holders. Means the general Houston population only needs to buy 10k-17k tickets. So even if up to 99% of the population has better things to do, we still sell out.
I am saying that UH has weak alumni support for their athletics (we all know this). We can count on about 50% of the stadium to be full every game assuming UH is not below .500 for a couple of season. For there to be a sellout, there has to be a very compelling reason for the âcasualâ (very loosely used) UH football fan or just the non-UH college football fan to be motivated to fill the rest of the stadium.
My point about the A&M game is that the game could overshadow the national story, all-week coverage you referenced especially if the A&M game is the GameDay location. There may be some coverage given to UH vs. Arizona especially since Oliver is expected to be a high draft pick but I donât see it being a major story. This will impact the casual fans if they are not pounded with national stories / media feeds about the UH game. And, if UH is not running discounted tickets, I think you will see some waiting to see how these early season games go before they decide whether to jump on the 2018 Cougar train.
Donât get me wrong â I would love to see a packed house with lots of buzz but I cannot remember a sellout this early in the season except for the TDECU opener. When is the last time UH sold out a home opener other than when they opened TDECU? Granted most of the home openers were not against P5 teams. UCLA in 2011 was probably close. I expect 32k to 35k to show up â a good crowd but not a sellout. Again, I hope I am wrong.
â12 was a selloutâŠlast one we had until TDECU openedâŠLevine 
â16 was close, just missed out against Lamar. If that had been at night, would have sold out.
2010 was a sellout too. It was also against TXST.
Itâs kind of cheating for him to say âfor a home openerâ since he obviously wouldnât count OU and most of our home openers are against teams like Rice.
OU 71k
Louisville 40k
The Texas Tech ticket sales were a debacle. They held back single ticket sales until the last second and were charing around $40 for the upper deck corners. It looks like the UH ticket guru learned their lesson.
Oh last yearâs ticket sales were an all-around travesty. I had heard prior to the season that they were going to use last season as a barometer to see how far they could push in regards to pricing as they were hoping to recoup some money for the department. Yurachek signed off on that whole-heartedly as he was expecting another '15-'16 type season.
Price hikes? Hello. General Admission in the end zone upper decks? Gone. Family plans? Gone until they realized season tickets werenât selling. Mini-plans? Supposed to be gone until they realized season tickets werenât selling. Yurachek and his cronies literally thought that CMAâs name (âheâs a star in Texasâ) would help sell tickets even with the disappointing end to '16. Oops.
Honestly, if they were going to do all those things, the year before with the 6 home games+OU would have been the better time to do it. However, they were so worried about boosting ticket sales for the Big12, that they didnât realize the demand was going to be high anyway coming off the '15 season. In the end, the department lost potential money because they severely underpriced tickets that would have probably sold at last yearâs prices. Again, thank Yurachek for that as he (per recommendation from his staff) completely misread the situation both years.
Hunter was good for some things, but he had no clue on the fan engagement side.
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Sorry I compared a home opener to other home openers. I donât see the buzz leading into the season that will make it sell out even if both teams are 1-0. OU was Top 5 and UH was coming off the Peach Bowl win - much different. I am going to guess that most casual fans donât know right now that Oliver is projected in top 5 in the draft, Briles is the OC and that Sumlin is now at Arizona.
It will be a good atmosphere - probably the best for this season unless UH is having a magical season again. But no one failed if it does not sell out.
Iâm hoping for somewhere around the Tech gameâs attendance last year (36K+), but wouldnât be surprised if itâs less. Arizona wonât bring as many fans as Tech and just arenât a national brand. There will be some that come out because itâs against Summie, but there will be some that stay home to avoid the 11 am start.
I donât disagree with @shaggylivesâ thoughts that our fanbase should fill the stadium because heâs correct, but I also agree with you that weâre probably all going to be disappointed if we expect a sell-out. Looking at how the schedule shakes out, my guess is that USF would be the first chance at a sell-out this year if we stay undefeated up to that point and they come in ranked.
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Sadly, if our past is an indicator of our future, we didnât even sell out our home game against Cincy when we were 8-0 and ranked 25th. I just hold on to a glimmer of hope that as more UH students graduate, our fan base grows even if season ticket sales have not.
Speaking of, anyone have a list of our season ticket totals since TDECU opened and what we have sold for this year?
I have trouble seeing USF being ranked and if they continue with these 11 a.m. starts, sellouts are out of the question. Night games at 7:00 on Saturdays with plenty of tailgate time against decent opponents are the key to UH selloutsâŠHaving Case Keenum helps also !!!
This year, I feel that watching Oliver is worth the price of admission !!
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Itâs sort of a damned if you do and damned if you donât. Remember when UH was so desperate for television exposure that they occasionally put a game on PBS? It would be awesome if every game early in the year were night games and later in the year were day games but UH football gets much better exposure playing an ABC regional telecast at 11am than on ESPN3 at 7pm. Even solid top 25 P5 programs have to bend to the will of filling up TV time slots that no one wants.
Look at the televised 7pm games for that Saturday:
PSU at PITT on ABC
Tulsa at Texas on Longhorn Network
Cincy at M-Ohio on ESPN3
Nicholls Collonels at Tulane on ESPN3
Southern Utah at Oregon State on PAC12
USC at Stanford on FOX
Which do you think is better for UH football exposure and recruiting? Playing at 7pm on ESPN3 or 11am on ABC?
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[quote=âshaggylives, post:55, topic:12821, full:trueâ]
Iâll have to dig around a bit to find those numbers. I know they wonât release this yearâs until they get closer to the season.
Well, since I donât watch Home games on TV, I am going with the 7 pm game times.
And having attended UH games for 54 years, I donât recall being that hyped for the âexposureâ you mention.
So what you are saying, it would be most beneficial to UH sports if they blocked all TV games locally unless itâs a sellout?