QUOTE(Tio Rana @ Aug 5 2010, 12:02 PM) [snapback]607859[/snapback]
The perception others have about you goes hand in hand with your perception of yourself. There have been several people here that said they feel embarrassed and humilated about a perceived lack of support. Well that idea is rubbish, and if TCU fans cant even recognize it, then how can we expect ESPN to recognize it?
Im sure some of you have seen the analysis done by the Purple Wimple blog on attendance relative to enrollment, but I think that every Frog fan should have that stat memorized, so that we dont feel embarassed, AND maybe we can start to change the outside perception by others. But we cant change the perception of others, without first changing our own perception of ourselves.
Here is the stat; As a % of enrollment, TCU football attendance ranks 2nd only to Notre Dame. We have 9000 students and 40,000 people at our games, which is quite impressive. A&M gets twice as many people to games, but they need more than 5 times the enrollment to do it! Thats lousy!
If every Frog Fan understood this, and pointed it out every time someone tried to throw attendance in our face, that would help with perception. Also, our media relations dept gives talking points to the TV guys for the games, why not make sure to include that little nugget of info? I would also love to see an exact figure of attendance as a % of living alumni as well. We should have those numbers in every media guide and talking points that we give to every schmo with a camera and a mike that says anything about TCU football.
The best control their own image, by making others see them the way the see themselves. We clearly have an image problem relative to attendance, primarily because even our own fans are embarrassed by it. The point is that we shouldnt be embarrassed by it, because relative to size we have the 2nd best attendance in the country! I like the fact that we are the little guy. What good has having 80,000 fans buy tickets done for A&M? Our students and alumni are some of the most supportive in the country. If we dont recognize it, then no one else will either. Thats the problem we have with attendance.
I've seen all of that. it doesn't change the fact that folks don't like to watch games with empty stadiums on tv. TV eyeballs are what this is/will all be about in the end.