I heard guys on 610am radio at 10:50 this morning talking about problems with Houston Texans games. This is the Houston Texans radio station and the guys are Texans fans.
One of the topics was attendance.
They’re tired of not seeing butts in the seats. To many season ticket holders (corporate) not going to games or getting others to use them.
They’re tired of games where the Dallas Cowboys come to town and half the crowd wearing Cowboys gear or colors.
Looks like it’s not entirely the University of Houston’s fault for poor attendance to UH football games. It’s in the DNA of City of Houston residents to not attend football games and fill the stadiums.
By the way they gave a shout out to UH’s very good offense during this time. a
And to Case Keenum’s Chicago Bears win keeping the Keenum legacy alive in Houston.
I’ve been telling you Houston will support what makes it look cool. If you’re losing people in Houston don’t want to take selfies at your games. But it’s still 400% worse for local colleges. I don’t know how Rice runs a sports program.
city full of transplants now and you get no grief for bragging on supporting your team from a previous city - same person gets to Houston and that passion they had fo their college in a previous city it goes away due to doing other things
the locals who were born here for some reason refuse to support what’s here and will rather support pro sports win or lose if that - but they love to complain but won’t put their money up
I think myopia is as big an issue here as anything else. Sure, the stadium’s gonna be half-full of Cowboys fans on Sunday when they play here. But it’s also half-full of Texans fans when they play in Arlington. I’ve heard this exact complaint across a huge number of different cities – Dallas, NYC, Miami, LA, San Francisco, Phoenix, Atlanta – that it’s gotta be the norm at this point rather than the exception to the rule. Very large markets have fans from all over the country, and they’re also easier to travel to. That means unless you’re seriously contending for Super Bowls, there are gonna be a ton of fans of the visitor.
The midsize markets seem more loyal because nobody’s moving to Cleveland or Green Bay or Buffalo, and flights there are more expensive because they’re spokes, not hubs.
I said this in a semi-lighthearted way. I don’t take this as any scientific fact. That said, I have been attending Houston area sports since:
• the Astros were first organized as the Colt 45s
• as a kid when during the Houston Oilers first 2 seasons at the old Jeppesen stadium (later renamed Robertson).
I was fortunate to occasionally see the Astros play during their Astrodome days with seats right behind the catcher (my mother managed one of the local Houston TV stations). A lot of great players but seldom a large crowd.
Had season tickets to the Oilers during the Luv Ya Blue years. Prior to that audiences were not very good.
Houstonians seem to require a team that’s above average every year. It helped that before free agency that there was continuity with players on teams.
I think it’s a lot tougher (more like almost impossible) these days to develop a die hard game attending fan base in a major metropolitan city.
Well, in the case of the Browns, I think it’s sort of like the Chicago Cubs in baseball for over a century.
Certain teams become “lovable and losable,” or “lovable losers” over time.
The Browns, Guardians, and Chicago Cubs are perfect examples. They maintain large followings simply because they are everybody’s favorite bunch of losers.
I saw something very interesting watching the USC/Oregon game, USC had crisp tarps with retired Jersey’s, Heisman winners, ect. It looked like it was part of the stadium. Could we put Yeoman, Ware and Keenum tarps to function as making the stadium look better and recognize our greats?
The baseball all day aspect of the still relatively new wildcard thing is actually awesome, imo.
It’s also Tuesday in football season. Minimizes competition to roll out the postseason which has been getting lost in the shuffle for years now, except in your local market which is just gonna be mostly what it is no matter what.
The Cubs have a great fan base. When we were in the Central with them they would always have a ton of fans at Minute Maid. When you consider how little they’ve actually won, they’re probably the easy pick for most loyal fan base.
Part of that is the fact that WGN America had them on National TV every day, so they have a national fanbase that’s disproportionately large relative to their local one. It means you can have a lot of “traveling” fans even when the home stadium isn’t necessarily packed.
Wrigley is also unique in that it literally sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood (“Wrigleyville”). You can walk right up to it.
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Bultokid
("I've Done More With Less, My Whole Life")
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Been going to UH games since 60’s, Houston always has been and always will be a Pro town and a front runner at that…it is what it is. Penn St had an awful lot of fans disguised as empty seats this past weekend as well. The over gouging of fans is reaching a saturation point as well…much easier to sit at home and watch it in comfort of your own home and not get bent over on parking, $10 bottled water and $15 luke warm beer