That’s a bowl game though. BYU has excellent home attendance. Not sure about GT.
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Did UH make a bad choice by not putting TDECU where the intramural fields are by I-45, or would that have just opened another can of worms to complain about?
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BYU is a hot expensive ticket at home and pricey too! Plus, the BYU fans are nasty mean.
People BMWed about the Dome too.
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There’s a WHOLE thread about that lol
If only we kept calling it that haha, I remember the students voted on it to be the nickname but we just keep calling it “tudekku”
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I know. My family had season tickets from.1973 until my epilepsy stopped me from going to games after the Herman years. The only games I remember the Dome having large crowds were Texas, Texas A&M, or Arkansas.
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Big time. This was brought up on the podcast that our AD appeared on. Something about putting it where Robertson was, the CFO or so of UH or another company getting a kickback, and not using the IM fields.
UH lost out on a HUGE marketing opportunity for that reason alone, not putting it next to the highway, and it also could have opened up those possibilities for the bar/entertainment district that everyone on here has been asking about.
In my eyes, that’s still possible, doesn’t have to be near Scott, can be on the other side and people can walk over to TDECU. There’s plots on campus to do it at, and finding people to buy up near-shut down businsses on Scott can fix it up, too.
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True! The pigs, the farmers, and the cows were the biggest draws I remember.
The one takeaway UH should have when they build a new football stadium, who knows when, considering TDECU and NRG Stadiums and Daikin Park, is to make sure the football stadium has a roof on it. No open air, no retractable roof, a covered stadium. Both NRG and Daikin have retractable roofs and 95% of the time (my guesstimate), the roofs are closed. Fans in Houston have come to expect it and will not tolerate being too hot, too cold, too windy, rained on, etc.
I am going to dust off a phrase used when the Astrodome first opened. “Fans want to feel like they are going to the theater.” Yes, it is over the top, but the fact remains that Houston fans do not want to be out in the elements.
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It will be a community based, INVESTMENT based effort. it CAN be done!! Folks may not remember what Montrose, the Heights, and the area off Harrisburg used to be like. All got a new life with effort and investment. Look at Dallas and the area around the Cotton Bowl. The area around USC in LA is another area that has been rebuilt. The University of Houston can do the same thing. The rednecks (aka Texas Tech) rebuilt the area around its campus as well. UH is making progress.
It didn’t help when we were in the SWC. The years we had Jack Pardee and Andre Ware won the Heisman, nobody came to the games at the Astrodome, and we were banned from live TV games.
Washington, Ohio State, Utah, and UT don’t seem to struggle, but each of those schools has the advantage of being their particular state’s flagship public university, which is a privilege we do not enjoy.
That makes it easier for them.
What kept UH from building a fanbase when I was there in the 90’s (besides Kim Helton) was diversity. Most people on my floor at Moody Towers thought I was talking about soccer when asked if they were going to the football game.
That should be solved any moment, now that diversity is illegal.
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100% correct. Look at the UH student demographics compared to the other P4 conference schools and that will tell most of the story on why we can’t get students to the games.
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Take a look at our student section. Our fans aren’t restricted to one demographic. It’s a reflection of Houston – the most diverse city in the country.
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It’s not a problem now. Look at the student section at any of our our football games. As diverse as it can be. And they have been filling up as consistently as we could ask.
I don’t know why people keep talking about student fan support as if that’s the problem currently. The probably always has been alumni support. I’m definitely not worried about alumni support in the future, but we have a problem now that needs to be solved.
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How true! Everyone gripes about the attendance, traffic, concessions, parking, etc.etc. The cost/prices for all of these continue to climb with no improvement in any of them–its like you are so privileged to be able to come here and pay these costs. What does it cost for the long distance folks to come and just park? (gas, parking fees) Don’t know what the average fan (whatever that is) pays for a single game, even in the “cheap seats.” IMO we can forget attendance improvement until someone or something does about this, improvements for the “average fan”.
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And if the Coog’s filled the stadium like that, what would haters say?