1 winning record every year
2 win against a couple of high profile teams a year they do not have to be ranked or have amazing years they just have to be traditional powers
3 promote yourself (keep your name in the news as often as possible)
Good article. I was thinking of doing something along these lines to try and see how our attendance fared in these exact situations. Thanks for the link.
This is a good article.
“4. Large City population and the presence of pro teams hurt attendance”
This is something I have had to explain to some friends/Cougar fans (that don’t live in town) when they complain about attendance. Houston might have 4 Million plus people, but not all of them are football fans, and those that are might just be starting to take notice. Plus for the casual fan, there is a lot of other things competing for their entertainment dollar from museums to sports teams to festivals to recreation. I do believe that we can continue to build on the success and our best hope for increasing attendance every year is that the student population buys in as a student and continues to buy in after graduation.
Having a super star on the team.like what JJ Watts does for the Texans
For us this year it is probably Ward
.
Good point, if there is someone getting a lot of press and possible Heisman contender you will get more eyeballs on the screen and butts in the seats just wanting to see a glimpse of greatness.
I think the coach can be the superstar. I think UH has that covered!
SAT scores correlate with attendance because SAT scores correlate with 4-6 year graduation rates.
Kids who start as freshmen and graduate in 4-6 years (i.e. the cohort measured by the published 4-6 year graduation rates) are statistically more likely to develop a love for the school that translates into football attendance.
Not to say kids who transfer in, or kids who start as freshmen but go part time, can’t develop a love for the school.
But when you look at the Big 10 schools graduating 80-90% of their freshmen in 6 years while UH has been stuck in the 40% range for decades, and you get a taste of what I am talking about.
For example, I went back and calculated for several Texas colleges (using the Common Data Sets): how many students graduated within 6 years for the freshmen class of 1996 through the 2009 freshman (the last 14 years). It’s not pretty:
A&M = 76K
Tech = 32K
Baylor = 28K
Texas State = 21K
North Texas = 19K
Houston = 18K
TCU = 15K
SMU = 14K
Fortunately, our graduation rates are on the rise. 51% for the class of 2009. Projected 65% for the class of 2015.
Not coincidentally, the class of 2015 has a much higher average SAT than the class of 2009.