Guys, it must mean that UCF has no asians, hispanics or immigrants for students or almuni. That’s what’s holding back UH attendance, according to some posters here.
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Except for an NBA team
It’s not about ethnicity, Norbert, it’s about a passion to make a life long relationship with your University- that comes in any race or ethnicity.
There are some white studebts who want nothing to do with a college experience while there are minorities who do and vice versa
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I didn’t post that lame excuse. Another poster did. Basically blamed minorities for lack of attendance and other posters agreed with him.
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Which definitely isn’t true because a lot of them are the most rabid UH fans on gameday.
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They have disneyworld and resident discounts for tickets. That’s even better.
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It’s going to take a magical run by the Coogs to have huge crowds at TDECU - much like the hoops repeated runs to the NCAA tourney.
UH fans only support a winner - pro or college.
The game day atmosphere is lacking unless you enjoy the manufactured tailgating along the Corporate / Alumni / Fraternity concrete jungle out in front of the stadium.
And I don’t expect regular sell outs after the move to the Big XII. Better attendance? Sure, I hope so. It would be nice to get an OU or UT on campus once before they leave. Football fans will show up for that one.
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The sell-outs ain’t gonna happen unless UH regularly lands in the top-10 and contends for the playoffs. I started attending games the year after the first SWC championship and Cotton Bowl win. The first game of the season had less than 30k, and I think it was against Miami. In the following years I never saw a sell-out at the Dome unless UH was playing UTA, Arkansas (once for the conference title), or ATM. Houston doesn’t support college football, Houston supports events and winners. I hate to bring this up, but the majority of folks in my section at TDECU are white. The enrollment at UH isn’t. Hopefully that will change, but I"m afraid that some of you are in fantasyland when you dream of sell-outs once we’re in the Big-12. At one time I worked with a Hispanic lady with undergrad and grad degrees from UH. I once asked her how many football games she’d been to, she said “one.” Though it’s nice to see that the minority attendance at UH games seems to be growing, I’m still betting that among minority populations, attending college football games is still perceived as a “white” thing to do. If they’re first generation college graduates with families they might just prefer to spend their dollars elsewhere. I know I’m sticking my neck out there. Prove me wrong, somebody.
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Ucf has 6.5 percent Asians, we have about 23% and ucf has about 23 or 25 percent Hispanics. So I don’t think the diversity is much diff from UH. They are 47 percent white.
We just need to get it done. I do see all demographics at our game so they are showing up.
Again the big12 will help
If y’all are opening up that can of worms -
Look at HISD, Aldine, Alief and your former football power programs at Fort Bend ISD - there’s been a major demographic shift and nearly 95% of the football playing schools in those districts can’t draw flies to football games anymore and the lack of support is very evident now
20-30 years ago selling out a stadium wasn’t an issue for them
When those students come to UH your already behind the 8 ball as you think they’ll love sports and atmosphere magically?
As far as a theme park in Houston, yes it would help a lot. We have everything except the theme park. There is grand theme texas in Porter Texas up north from where I live with plans for a future theme park. They built the water park etc and bought over 600 acres for future growth. We have a beach nearby in Galveston and a great city but we lack a theme park which would help but it could happen down the road with grand theme texas.
The irony of this sort of statement is that the UCF AD is also in the demographic of not being white. They are still doing well.
UH isn’t targeting students from Aldine, Alief, etc., that aren’t higher achievers. Those schools have a higher than average poverty level and several students don’t speak English as their primary language. Those aren’t the student that UH is targeting. By far. So that has nothing to do with UH’s attendance problem specifically.
20-30 years ago, selling out a stadium for UH was still an issue. Our issue goes beyond our university’s walls and ethnicity isn’t the core of that issue.
I still take the Comical and almost every day there’s an article on ATM or utA athletics. Almost every flipping day. Maybe twice a week there’s something about UH athletics. Promotion, promotion, promotion.
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I can’t find the post on reddit, but it was from a female UCF Engineering grad who married a USF grad. They would go to each other’s games, but they lived in Tampa, so she was mostly around USF.
First thing she said about the Big XII move was: “HA! We got into the XII because we promoted our athletes and built better facilities”. She mentioned that she ate a lot of crow for years because USF alums would talk a lot of garbage that UCF was the less academic school and that USF is on its way to the AAU. That would then help USF be in a top tier conference. UCF has the largest school in the country, but they are organically and strategically molding the tradition of the school. They seem to maintain a communication and relationship with their graduates as well.
I personally don’t think location is the main issue. UCLA has a strong alumni and camraderie with a football stadium that’s almost four times the distance that the dome was to UH. (The Rose Bowl is also notoriously awful to get to from the parking lot). In fact, UCLA fans basically only show up (like most LA based sporting teams) when they are winning. Despite all this, UCLA has a prideful alumni base and I think what matters are maintaining a strong administration that Alumni communicate to, regarding the necessary upgrades for future generations. That academics and research keep growing to be top notch and that prospective students feel that they can get great jobs with a UH degree. The athletic conference will help elevate things as well.
I think UH alums should be more vocal to tell the school when they’re doing well or screwing up, even outside of athletics.
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Maybe UH folks need to consult with UCF folks find out what there doing right in communicating with their alum base. There’s a fix it’s up to UH admins to find it. I know winning cures everything, until you don’t. UM still drew fans and filled their stadium even though there program been mediocre for years on end. There’s a answer.
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Personally, I think it has a lot to do with competence. UH has one of the best Presidents in the country, but she can’t do it all. I get that UH is doing a lot with little funding, but I sometimes think that some of the management/employees don’t know what they don’t know. They’ve never worked at or been through a top 25-50 school to understand what to instill at UH. It takes money to buy whiskey, but some key appointments in the right places could drive immediate changes. I think UH should recruit quality people that are management material from public AAU schools that are not in Texas.
This is going to be pedantic, but, as a finance/accounting professional, my eyebrows raise when I look at the UH finance/treasury websites for investment updates and I see how unfriendly it is for readers. UH has fought for its endowments, but why the hell can’t I find any details on its investment team (specifically, the Treasurer)? This gives me the impression that UH’s team outsources its work to investment banks instead of hiring credentialed people to do the work in conjunction with the banking advisors. Then I go look at the annual financial reports… these are not annual reports. They’re just financial statements without any story to them. I’m not saying there is any misappropriation, but this is an example of how I see the school is accepting output as “good enough for government work”. If this is how the money areas are handled, I’m curious what other issues there are.
UH’s Annual Financial Report:
UCLA’s Annual Financial Report:
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Bingo!
The UH hype-machine is non-existent. It almost was a thing when Keenum was here shredding everyone and again for a moment when that fella that came from ohio st coached about 3/8 as good as he ran his mouth. But the world has changed since either of those times, especially in how quickly content spreads and how fast people click on to the next thing.
UH does a poor job of utilizing the algorithms of those channels in their favor.
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Consulting with UCF would be a good idea. Not sure there is one fix that will work for all schools, but see what UCF did and see how it can be adapted to UH.
While I do not think race is an issue, some culture can be. I know in Houston there are many first generations of immigrants (no idea on Orlando) and football is a uniquely American sport to follow. It takes time to learn about it and maybe a way to bring an educational aspect of campus traditions such as attending football. Freshman orientation may be a place to start. Ongoing fall activities that get students near the stadium if not in it on a Saturday. More bright and fun signs around campus during home game weeks and something for watch parties on away weeks.
Of course winning cures most all. Even TCU sold out season tickets when winning from 2010 -2015. That is with far less students than UCF, and a higher sales number. Not to mention the Cowboys right next door in Arlington.
I went to UH and bleed red, but my kids went to UT, Baylor and Baylor. Bottom line is they wanted to move away for college. Those are terrific schools and it’s their dream, not mine.
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