Season Ticket Holder Survey
- Thread starter tcumaniac
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Froglaw
Full Member
Great idea and add more Crap Rap in its place [#sarcasm].
PurpleBlood87
Active Member
I don't think the band plays Crap Rap but it might be time to update the show. I think they were playing that song when I was at TCU in the 80s.
FrogAbroad
Full Member
A good, albeit rather a long read from SI about declining FBS football attendance.
From 2014 to ’18, attendance across the FBS fell by 7.6%. Last year, on average, 41,856 fans went to games. That’s the lowest turnout since 1996; even major programs like Ohio State, Virginia Tech and Ole Miss suffered declines of greater than 5%. The NCAA has yet to release its full report on 2019’s numbers, but pictures of nearly-empty stadiums, from big to small programs, popped up every fall weekend on Twitter...Yet the numbers might be even worse than they seem: A 2018 Wall Street Journal report found that only 71% of the people who bought tickets to FBS games actually went.
It appears that while trying to make FBS football more entertaining and therefore a more attractive way to spend time and money, schools are not offering their target consumers with enough of the right things to draw and keep a respectable audience. Evidently the parties outside the stadiums are more fun, the alcohol is cheaper and the friends are more plentiful.
https://www.si.com/college/2020/01/10/college-football-attendance-decline-ncaa
From 2014 to ’18, attendance across the FBS fell by 7.6%. Last year, on average, 41,856 fans went to games. That’s the lowest turnout since 1996; even major programs like Ohio State, Virginia Tech and Ole Miss suffered declines of greater than 5%. The NCAA has yet to release its full report on 2019’s numbers, but pictures of nearly-empty stadiums, from big to small programs, popped up every fall weekend on Twitter...Yet the numbers might be even worse than they seem: A 2018 Wall Street Journal report found that only 71% of the people who bought tickets to FBS games actually went.
It appears that while trying to make FBS football more entertaining and therefore a more attractive way to spend time and money, schools are not offering their target consumers with enough of the right things to draw and keep a respectable audience. Evidently the parties outside the stadiums are more fun, the alcohol is cheaper and the friends are more plentiful.
https://www.si.com/college/2020/01/10/college-football-attendance-decline-ncaa
BrewingFrog
Was I supposed to type something here?
The idea of making a College Football game "more entertaining" is silly. I mean, you bought the ticket to see a football game. The other stuff is just filler.
The idea these solons have in their otherwise empty heads is that "If we make the games entertaining then women will come to games as well as men!" The actual result is women attending at about the same rate, and men just throwing up their hands and not going at all.
The ability to simply turn on a TV to see just about any game has rendered the need to drive an hour or two (or 4.5 in our case), put up with parking, lodging, food, etc., a little burdensome. Add to that the aforementioned deafening music, constant sensory barrage of commercials, kiss-cam, dancing helmets, etc., when you actually do go to the game, and sitting at home taking in the game drinking your own beer with a MUTE button in your hand looks damned attractive.
Oh, and get off my lawn!
The idea these solons have in their otherwise empty heads is that "If we make the games entertaining then women will come to games as well as men!" The actual result is women attending at about the same rate, and men just throwing up their hands and not going at all.
The ability to simply turn on a TV to see just about any game has rendered the need to drive an hour or two (or 4.5 in our case), put up with parking, lodging, food, etc., a little burdensome. Add to that the aforementioned deafening music, constant sensory barrage of commercials, kiss-cam, dancing helmets, etc., when you actually do go to the game, and sitting at home taking in the game drinking your own beer with a MUTE button in your hand looks damned attractive.
Oh, and get off my lawn!
FrogAbroad
Full Member
Could not agree with you more, BF. My family and later my spousal unit and myself held TCU football season tickets for several years, even when the football results were, uhm...underwhelming. But after learning about and seeing for myself the product that is now "college sports entertainment" I will avoid the chaos and spend those discretionary dollars elsewhere.
Purp
Active Member
Pretty sure we had these all season. I noticed them often and liked them.
Purp
Active Member
I'm wondering if part of the issue for TCU is somewhat generational. I think we had a larger percentage of passionate fans in each freshman class the last 20 years than we did the 20 years (hell, 50 years) prior. That's not to say we didn't have passionate fans from 1950 to 1999, but on a per capita basis I think the enthusiasm has been much greater in the last 2 decades.
One issue I'm beginning to have with attending games is my kids and their sports games. I started in 1999 and my kids are younger than most of my peers. That means they have had schedule conflicts with football games for 5-10 years where I'm only just now starting to have them the past season or two. Point is, all of the challenges you articulated are further complicated with kids in sports and sometimes and 2:30 kickoff is suddenly impossible for my family if my son has a 1pm soccer game or a 1:30 baseball game. We couldn't even make it until half time and we only live half an hour from the stadium. The thousands of people wasting their lives in Collin County have an even smaller margin for error and it continues to shrink the further away you live.
I have a feeling we'll see a large influx of older fans return when students from the aughts and early teens start getting their kids out of high school and Saturdays are suddenly less chaotic again. Just part of the issue of a small school with a small alumni base.
Froginbedford
Full Member
Froginbedford
Full Member
Like for "solons"....
Boomhauer
Active Member
This is exactly where I’m at right now with 3 kids 10 and under. Unless it’s a night game my chances of going are remote right now.
BrewingFrog
Was I supposed to type something here?
Mrs. Brewingfrog and I have often joked that thanks to Dixon's hiring, we'll have three members of the Class of '87 at Coaches Events in Houston. We generally have about a 10-year cushion on either side of us attendance-wise.
The +4/re-seating really killed a lot of the enthusiasm from the Old Crowd. Many just threw up their hands and haven't returned. I am getting damned close. That 4.5 hour drive isn't getting any better, and the endless construction and congestion on I-35 makes the drive that much less appealing.
Purp
Active Member
My oldest is 6 so he hasn't even started the competitive sports yet. But I'm coaching so I can't miss his games for a TCU game. He's got a 2 year old (almost 3) brother starting his first soccer season in the spring. They have a baby sister who will also likely sports hard when she gets older. I've hit the reality that for the next 18 years I'm going to be happy to make half of our home games. When we hit the years where soccer/baseball/softball/volleyball tournaments are happening in 3 different cities on the same weekend we will be fortunate to make even a single home game for several season. I think this is where a lot of my peers are. I know a few who keep buying season tix and don't come, but also others who stopped buying season tix b/c they never got to use their seats or their parking spot.
flyfishingfrog
Active Member
If you live in FtW, find a league run by a Frog or at least get a coach that is a TCU grad - I am not being sarcastic but dead serious. My younger grandsons play flag football in a league run and scheduled by a TCU grad and he schedules around TCU games because he doesn't want to miss either.
Same for my older grandsons that are playing tackle - their coach is a Frog and he got the regular season schedule aligned so that no one missed the kids games or the TCU home games. Was not until the playoffs that we had a conflict.
Dogfrog
Active Member
There is another theory that suggests the playoff system is partly to blame for attendance slide. Most fans start the season with the thought that “hope springs eternal, maybe this is our year.” Even if that thought is ultra delusional, it promotes attendance. The more exclusive you make the playoff format, the earlier in the season you burst the fans’ bubble. This has an impact on attendance. Those who profit from the playoff will disagree.
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Peacefrog
Degenerate
My first question to a league before signing my kid up is about the saturday schedule in the fall. ULL doesn’t play games on TCU home game Saturday’s. So my kid plays baseball or he doesn’t play a sport in the fall. His choice. Kind of.
Big Frog II
Active Member
The attendance slide in college football has mostly to do with games lasting way too long, and also games being played during the wrong time of the day. Commercial breaks 2 minutes 45 seconds in length and way too many of them. Why is half time 20 minutes long and in the pros it's 12 minutes? Fans are losing interest. Another huge problem especially in the South is playing games at 11 and 2:30 in September and October. It's too hot! Nothing will probably change until the next TV contract, but those should be negotiating points.
PurpleBlood87
Active Member
From where I sit in the upper end zone can't really see the front of the yard markers.
geezer
Colonel, USAF (Retired)
Like for "get off my lawn".
