Funny you said that, just spoke with a woman on the phone (telemarketer) who lives in Alabama saying her and her husband coming to Houston just to see the town, no relatives here ( I asked her), just want to experience eating at the Turkey Leg Hut
blame local migration from your largest ISD in the state - your left with low level football with little fan support when that was an easy base to attract at one time - decent football starts at Highway 6 off 288, Beltway 8 on the East Side, 1960 to thenorth and Grand Parkway wets and northwest
those folks ain;t driving into the loop consistently
This is an ancient problem. Happened in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
The root cause is our student experiences. Simple example. Last Friday I attended a birthday party for my Granddaughter, a U. of Arizona student. She rooms with 3 other young ladies. Two are from Cali, other 2 are from Phoenix. All 4 are fired up about Wildcat Football though it sucks.
Why? Because Tucson is a College Town and on that campus there is interest in College Sports. Why, if you don’t support The Wildcats…what is wrong with you?
Same is true at Texas Tech, A$M, etc.
Never been true at UH. Initially it was a commuter school. Few beds on campus or nearby. Finally we have beds on and around the campus.
This is a big, permanent problem. That is why fans only show up if we are winning, and winning big. Otherwise they do not care, and that started during student days.
Start by making 10,000 seats available to students, and make them low cost. Part of the normal student fees cost. Then just show I.D. to get in.
And lastly only night games will sellout. That was true in the 1960’s. Day games are spotty. Always have been. When did we pack in 44,000 for Louisville? At night. When did we have large crowds for Georgia, Ole Miss, UT, and A$M? Night games. You will find few exceptions to this in our history.
When our TV contracts mandate a day game then hope for the best. Huge student turnout is the only thing that will really help.
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Thanks, have always wanted to visit that area, heard it’s beautiful
HTown has UH, Rice, HBU, TSU and PVAM all playing D1 football
No.
I have never heard PV referred to as Houston area
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People on the 290 side of town can get to Prairie View before they can get to Pasadena. It’s in the Houston Area.
Apparently the Census Bureau counts it, but yeesh. Might as well throw in Sam and Aggie while we’re at it.
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With the new Daikin plant built out there and the exploding infrastructure, only matter of time
My UH Graduate friends live in Ft. Bend, Spring, The Woodlands, etc.
Way, way far from campus. They simply will not put forth the effort to attend day games. But night games become more viable. And not Thursday night. Saturday night.
This isn’t new and is unlikely to change.
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Well grand theme texas has a water park that is really good with future plans for a theme park they say. If it happens, it helps but so far no theme park. We have Galveston near by so we just need the theme park then we’re as good as we can be for tourists.
No buzz, PR, marketing from Holgerson.
They don’t have kids soccer games to attend. Haha.
Have George Strait and Snoop Dogg perform at halftime.
He’s not that type of guy. It would be great to have a Herman type but a lot of it is bs hype then they try and leave. The kanas coach is prob better but no hype. We just need Dana to win or we can try another hype type coach and see if he stays bc we’re big12 vs g5 like with Herman.
I’d de okay if Herman came back and stayed but I doubt we make that move. There are plenty of good coaches out there and we have to stick with Dana bc the buyout is too big and it’s still too soon. If he fails the rest of the way and we get beat to much in the big 12 the yr or 2, the admin will react. So we just show up and support and hope it works out. Issue is we haven’t had enough time to recruit up to the big 12 yet. Let’s see how this recruiting cycle goes this yr and next. Kanas is gonna beat a lot of people this yr then we will feel better somewhat.
Kids go to TT or UT and they are away from home. The school is their new home and their fellow students are their neighbors. Students from this area at UH are already home, even if they live on campus or another apartment.
Their community isn’t necessarily UH. They still have their friends, favorite bars, nothing really new. The isolation of young people going off to college alone causes them to forge friendships and affections for the community surrounding their school, including sports teams. They get to go and feel as if they belong because none of what they grew up with is nearby. They return after graduation for games because it reminds them of that sense of community.
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We need to recruit more out of city students or just a smaller portion then it’s new to them and more exciting. If you get kids from out of town, they will embrace what’s here and have that out of town experience. Give ships to a certain amount or partial ships to them. If I was in some small rural town in Texas and UH gave me a ship or some discount or other, I’d think going to UH would be that new experience. It’s the same for kids in Houston going elsewhere. It’s the new experience.
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Having lived in the DC metro for several years, I can tell you that only Maryland football and Georgetown basketball get serious media coverage there.
Otherwise, it’s all about the Skins, Caps, and Nats.
A chronic problem, we need to be super creative. Weekday evening is one way since we can’t compete with Pros Sports in Houston. It’s just too many teams and activities on the weekend. And winning is just one of the solutions IMO.
Give away to boy scout and girl scout…let’s do some brainstorming folks.