As it turns out, 80% capacity is still pretty bad.
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Ok our AD needs to get on this and do family packs cheap etc.
Itās on him to help market our team.
Heās got fundraising and fb attendance as the only issues to address.
Unlike other ADās that had to deal with conference affiliation and facilities
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I donāt have a personal dog in the fight, other than wanting Houston to do well. Obviously winning, and winning consistently, is the most important part of selling tickets. But itās not all of it.
Almost as important is the atmosphere felt by being there. I havenāt been to a football game in Houston, but I did attend the ISU/Houston bball game a few years ago. The Fertitta was AWESOME for a game. It was small/intimate, the fans were great, and your students were down on the floor, which makes for an electric atmosphere and intimidating for visiting teams.
Itās āeasierā to sell basketball tickets as the environment is all indoors. Fans show up for the game and they leave right after. There is no āpartyā atmosphere required for basketball.
But for football tailgating and pregame festivities can comprise the majority of the allure. Noon game? Most well-attended stadiums have thousands of fans tailgating by 5-6 am. Itās an all day party. IMO, a major inhibitor for football/attendance, is the area around the stadium. Obviously Iām not local, but there didnāt seem to be a bevy of parking lots around the stadium. Then there is the area across the stadium thatās uninviting to say the least.
How can/does the university make game day inviting for the fans? Winning is part of it, but Houston needs to create a gameday atmosphere to give the fans (more) reason to come.
The circumstances arenāt exactly the same, but I look at Houston and Minnesota as programs with a lot of untapped fan potential. Huge metros, LOTS of potential corporate support, yet both seem to underutilize potential resources. My brother is a Gopher fan and we talk about the fan apathy all the time. Huge university, 3.5 million metro, and the only D1 football program in the state, yet it plays in a 50k stadium (expandable to 75 or 80k I believe). It also has less suite revenue than Iowa, which is pathetic given it has the most 500 company presence, per capita, of any US metro area.
If Houston gets it right youāll fill the seats and make a lot of money on suites.
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It really isnāt about numbersā¦ it is about how the stadium looks in person and TVā¦ 37K in a 40K stadium is goodā¦ 43K in a 60K stadium not as good.
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After we beat LSU it sets the stage for a Top 25 ranking to start 2026.
Should see attendance go up.
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The solution is not giving tickets away. That cheapens the product and puts you in a downward spiral. The solution is to enhance the overall situation making tailgating situation better, entertainment before and after games, better and more affordable concessions, sponsored back giveaways etc.
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We need BOBBLEHEADS!
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CWF Bobblehead Night
I disagree, at least theoretically; to whatever extent a large, energetic crowd is important to the gameday experience having fans in the stands is part of the Athletic Departmentās product. To that end, they need to prioritize getting butts on bleachers however they can do it. If that means giveaways (Iām actually pretty unconvinced that it does) then give the tickets away. Worry about cheapening the product when you have enough demand to clear it.
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I donāt think giving tickets away is the answer, either, though it would probably bring a few more to the game. Even free tickets in Houston come with a cost - traffic, time, parking, etc. So to your point, there has to be a something compelling to the audience to bring them back.
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Yeah, Iāve wondered for a while how many more fans, if any, weād get if tickets were free. I suspect the number isnāt large, for exactly those reasons. I just donāt think Houstonians like what we have to offer, and we gotta find a way to fix that.
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My guess before the start of the year was 33.5k. Disappointing we missed that mark because we actually started out on pace to surpass it. But still up about 4k from the year before. Maybe next year we can push closer to 35k. Key will be season ticket sales. Hopefully we win our bowl and finish in the top 25. Pretty much every T-25 team from last year was in the preseason T-25 so that would give us a little extra hype heading into the year.
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I wouldnāt say āthe oneāā¦ I pick us to go undefeated every year!
I will give you credit for that. You were as optimistic about our win total as anyone.
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So, you went over in your predictionā¦which is a bust.
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We used to have a pretty good tailgatng atmosphere prior to the new stadiumā¦
That was actually kind of the trade-off with the new stadium; better stadium digs but worse tailgating by the stadium.
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I would guess that if IOWA gets better suite support than Minnesota would be because there aināt another game in town there and thereās plenty in Minneapolis NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB, MLS, WNBA, etc.
In my experience, Minnesota has better diehard base in-person fan support than UH. Meaning the floor of who shows up when the team is terrible. The basketball team has been pretty terrible lately and the fan support is definitely markedly worse here than it was when I was in school circa Clem Haskins. But as anyone can tell you, UH was strikingly bad during the lean years.
Overall I donāt need a comparison to be perfect and this is pretty apt.
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