No, it can mean they don’t have the time to attend, it doesn’t mean they lose interest. I’ve been in organizations where they come back in their late 30’s
I used to work in IT at UM. When you file your application for graduation, you fill out your information for the alumni association. It’s part of the process. I should know, I wrote it.
You are given a year’s membership. It’s a good way to get students in as soon as they graduate.
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Instead of continuing to bank on a small loyal base of +/- 15k, and then nothing else, we should ask ourselves why we can’t get the hundreds of thousands of students/alums to just attend ONE game a year?
We do that and we will sell out every game.
This is what other schools do. UT fans, in Houston, make one trip to Austin every year to see their alma mater…because they WANT to. Same with LSU, or Arkansas, etc.
We just have to tap into the WANT part of rhe equation.
The blinn students go to games too there. The whole reason they go to blinn is to get into a&m
Hmm, let’s see. They are undefeated and ranked in the top 10.
Let me rephrase it. How does TCU always fill their 47,000 seat stadium with a small enrollment?
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Ft Worth fans. They identify with TCU like Lubbock does with Tech.
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There are more marketing targets than casual Houston-area fans. Start with the students, follow that up with more effort with the students, then make a concerted effort to connect with alumni, especially local ones. Throwing up your hands because “it’s always been this way” is just totally unacceptable.
It’s easy to dismiss the students in a marketing discussion because they “should” know and blow them off because “if they were interested, they would show up.” Nah. They’re a cheap audience to target, and there’s more to be gained here (short and long term) than any other group. Put in the work and we’ll see results, even if the team isn’t ranked in the top 10. But it’s more than just getting them to a game, which is true of every fan we try to bring in.
Effective and targeted marketing has not existed. I don’t even think it’s about money. I think there’s just too much quit or arrogance in the people who need to push it forward. They need to understand and accept that it’s not a cash machine - this will take a consistent effort over a span of years to build something. Might as well start now.
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I can ask my Aunt about it, she works up there too and got a promotion to move to another dept.
Filling out my application for a PhD there as I read this.
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Not really correct. Most opposing schools may be bringing in the 5-8,000 range this year, not 15,000. Not to mention that TCU was getting many sell outs before they were in the Big 12. Care to guess which school was the opponent for the TCU stadium record? (without looking it up)
Win.
Well not that simple. I can’t say conclusively, but some perspectives.
TCU’s attendance really started jumping up back when they were making their BCS bowl runs in the MWC. I think the winning helped pull people out that were part of the TCU community but not really going to the games. Once given an opportunity to come out and support the school through the football, people “woke up” to attend. Much of it was being part of the community. Good tailgating and social opportunities and get back to part of the TCU lives. A TCU football game is about the event, not just the game (though that has been a little weaker of late, but balanced by the winning this season)
I think feeling part of a TCU community helped build the foundation. Lots to do on campus, be part of organizations, be part of the environment for social activities, etc… This season the school is getting over 6000 students to each game (50+% of the total student body), which will build a foundation for the future.
The community has supported as well. Many businesses support the school, buy tickets, and have people go to games, and I am guessing many are owned by TCU grads.
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It’s been like this since I graduated in '62. I’ve also been involved in student/alumni call-in programs, marketing studies, donations/funding even initially helping fund this site , etc. to encourage participation and enhance attendance. I would say over the years we have had the most fickle, negative, excuse oriented fan base in TX. However, at least we have grown our student fan base, albeit overall we are still the most negative, excuse oriented, unrealistic fan base I’ve ever seen. JMObservation.
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Expand student section and give them more tickets.
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The question is what are we doing wrong that other public schools with 50,000 students are doung right?
Many are even located in metro areas so many of our excuses are hollow.
The sad truth is that 95% of our students/ alums just do not care. The culture that other alums from other schools celebrate, does not resonate here.
Why?
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Every school is a little different. It doesn’t seem like it’s as much an issue of doing something “wrong” as it is hardly doing anything.
We build dorms and redo some student areas without taking the next steps to really draw students in. Since there’s also very little near campus to keep students nearby to hang out, they basically leave the campus area as a first option.
It’s going to require additional investment to do that, but simple things like ensuring people in the dorms are engaged in gamedays isn’t expensive - just requires some time, effort and creativity. We spend too much time whining about how things should be and not enough work changing it.
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The type of student we have is part of the
problem. Not 100% of the problem, but contributes to it. For instance compare UT
to UH part time student profile. We have nearly
7,000 and UT is at 3,200.
93.7%
FULL-TIME ENROLLMENTThe total enrollment at The University of Texas at Austin, both undergraduate and graduate, is 50,476 students. The full-time enrollment at The University of Texas at Austin is 47,298 and the part-time enrollment is 3,178. This means that 93.7% of students enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin are enrolled full-time compared with 76.4% at similar Doctoral Universities.
UH is a big commuter school to many of our
part timers. Simply a means to an end. No
connection to the school; no passion for it.
@strakerak input probably needs to be taken into account as well. I think there are some real
valuable truths there that could help.
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This is very true, and is generally true for all schools and even pro sports teams.
What we need to do is beef that number up to closer to 25K. Then, add in 5K in students, 5K in visiting teams, and all of a sudden, your stadium is at 85 percent capacity on a regular basis.
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I feel like we have all beaten this issue to death. Ultimately sounds like a bunch of whining.
We need to accept who we are: an urban research university. Therefore, our entire brand should be built around that.
This is one of the reasons why myself and many others on this board do not believe that CDH is the man to lead this schools football program. He simply does not fit our brand. He is better off in Morgantown, Stillwater or Lubbock, not Houston, Ft Worth or Orlando.
To me, and many others, Coach Prime is the way to go, although I am skeptical that we can even get him at this point because he will be a hot commodity this year. If not him, then we need to take a look at some other young, hungry up and coming offensive minds who can recruit in 3rd Ward, North Side, FT Bend and SW Houston where all of local athletes live. CDH cannot do that. Sorry, but its a fact. As a result, we keep getting boat raced on the edges on offense and defense.
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I think part of our problem is that our brand varies so heavily with the coach. That’s a thing that doesn’t happen at other schools. Tech or WVU could hire Deion tomorrow and their gameday environment would be about the same, because they found what works and stuck with it. UH, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to know who we are. The H-Town Takeover branding resonated with our city and fanbase harder than anything I’ve ever seen, and yet the moment Applewhite got handed his walking papers, our entire brand identity changed. There was no reason that had to happen.
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We were good in 2015. Just do that again…