• The KillerFrogs

The Disappearance of Amon G. Carter's Home Field Advantage and Ways to Fix It.

Eight

Eight

Member
Frog-in-law1995 said:
Win 12 regular season games again?
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this times two or three.

in 2008 win the frogs won 10 games for the 5th time in 7 years they average just over 30,000 a game in attendance

2009 they were over 38,000 and 2010 the frogs were well over 40,000 but the utah game in 2009 was the only game over 50,000 and the next biggest was baylor in 2010 just over 47,000
 
Zubaz

Zubaz

Member
I'm curious when this ostensible "home field advantage" in terms of fan ratio existed? Everyone points to the 2009 Utah game that broke all records, but forget that the rest of the season were solidly in the 30,000 range (New Mexico was the only other game that broke 40,000). In 2010, our "best season ever", you could literally walk in to the stadium for free with an expired year old Student ID and sit in the student section. Any advantage we had in that era wasn't a function of seating or season tickets, it was a function of being 600 miles away from our nearest conference mate and nobody traveled to see us, so most of the fans were local Frog fans. When we did have a big nonconference game against a local opponent, the stadium looked much the same as it does today. 2006 Tech was a good example of this.

Meanwhile, after the renovation, when we are winning games the Frog fans show up in droves. 2014 Kansas State, which in my eyes is neck and neck with the Utah game for atmosphere during the Patterson era, is the perfect example. See also 2015 WVU and Baylor, or most of the 2017 season. Yeah, people from OU, Texas, and Tech buy more tickets than people from UNLV, Wyoming, and San Diego State (and you are kidding yourself if you don't think the same seats would be available to them under the old configuration), but beyond that the atmosphere has far more to do with our fan base than anyone else buying the tickets.

(I do wish they'd fix the lower west bowl though. I'll never understand what happened there).
 
W

Wexahu

Full Member
The stadium is simply too large for our fan base. It would take 60% of all TCU alums around the world to fill that stadium. Think about that. UT's stadium is twice as large but they have over 6x the alumni. If we had 225k alums we could probably fill our stadium regularly, that's the same ratio.

When we aren't a winning program that the general public wants to see, filling that stadium up is an impossible task. It's unfortunate a major college football atmosphere can't be created with a 25,000 seat stadium but honestly that would be just about right. Mostly filled to capacity for the majority of the games and standing room only and major supply/demand issue for the big matchups, but what's wrong with that?
 
W

Wexahu

Full Member
Todd D. said:
Any advantage we had in that era wasn't a function of seating or season tickets, it was a function of being 600 miles away from our nearest conference mate and nobody traveled to see us
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I think our biggest advantage in that era was being bigger, stronger, faster and better than most every team we played.
 
Eight

Eight

Member
Wexahu said:
The stadium is simply too large for our fan base. It would take 60% of all TCU alums around the world to fill that stadium. Think about that. UT's stadium is twice as large but they have over 6x the alumni. If we had 225k alums we could probably fill our stadium regularly, that's the same ratio.

When we aren't a winning program that the general public wants to see, filling that stadium up is an impossible task. It's unfortunate a major college football atmosphere can't be created with a 25,000 seat stadium but honestly that would be just about right. Mostly filled to capacity for the majority of the games and standing room only and major supply/demand issue for the big matchups, but what's wrong with that?
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first, until 2004 you had to have a stadium that was capable of seating 30,000 to be division 1.

second, the frogs aren't in the big 12 with a 25,000 seat stadium which is fine if you are good with staying in the mwc, but if that is the case gary most likely has moved on as i think one big key in keeping gary at tcu is the goal to work back to a major conference.

you can't depend on alumni to fill the stadium and in the case of many schools they don't depend upon alumni. until the nfl came to dallas the frogs didn't have an issue with attendance nor did rice in houston before the oilers.

now it is a matter of competing for attention and as many have pointed out it simply isn't a matter of convincing someone that going to a game on saturday is better than a game on sunday.

why spend the money for the tickets, spend the money for the parking, concessions etc... when you can stay at home and not only watch that game but multiple others in the comfort of your home with the food and drink of your choice.

either you go because you love the school or you love the experience.
 
BrewingFrog

BrewingFrog

Was I supposed to type something here?
Eight said:
so if not the ticket brokers who do you want tcu to sell those tickets to or are you okay with unsold seats?
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I would rather TCU weed out the StubHub sellers and allow the fans who regularly attend games to fill back into the better seats. Yes, I know it is rank fantasy, but that's my desire.

Win games, and the seats take care of themselves.
 
W

Wexahu

Full Member
Eight said:
first, until 2004 you had to have a stadium that was capable of seating 30,000 to be division 1.

second, the frogs aren't in the big 12 with a 25,000 seat stadium which is fine if you are good with staying in the mwc, but if that is the case gary most likely has moved on as i think one big key in keeping gary at tcu is the goal to work back to a major conference.

you can't depend on alumni to fill the stadium and in the case of many schools they don't depend upon alumni. until the nfl came to dallas the frogs didn't have an issue with attendance nor did rice in houston before the oilers.

now it is a matter of competing for attention and as many have pointed out it simply isn't a matter of convincing someone that going to a game on saturday is better than a game on sunday.

why spend the money for the tickets, spend the money for the parking, concessions etc... when you can stay at home and not only watch that game but multiple others in the comfort of your home with the food and drink of your choice.

either you go because you love the school or you love the experience.
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I understand the stadium has to be as large as it is for the reasons you point out, but the problem in getting it filled close to capacity on a regular basis is that it is too large for our school size and fan base. I think the issue with too much supply and not enough demand is something that is damn near impossible to fix. It's a numbers game and we don't have the numbers (alums/fans) to take up the supply that is built. Winning cures everything so when we are a winning team the problem mostly goes away. When we aren't, no amount of marketing or creative ticket selling is going to fix it.
 
texas_sicilian

texas_sicilian

Full Member
Eight said:
this times two or three.

in 2008 win the frogs won 10 games for the 5th time in 7 years they average just over 30,000 a game in attendance

2009 they were over 38,000 and 2010 the frogs were well over 40,000 but the utah game in 2009 was the only game over 50,000 and the next biggest was baylor in 2010 just over 47,000
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Wait, are you saying that there’s a correlation between winning and attendance?
 
Gehörnter Frosch

Gehörnter Frosch

Tier 1
As others have noted, the Utah game was lightning in a bottle. Average Fort Worth Joe and his family (and beyond) turned out for that game. While that should be the benchmark, it isn't realistic.

As for StubHub, how does revoking tickets and letting other people buy them from TCU guarantee that the next owners don't sell them? Are you going to create ID-check stations and punch-card system for each game, and require buyers to turn in proof that you and you alone sat in those seats? It's absurd, and anyone should be able to buy and re-sell tickets if they want.

If there were really all these die-hard TCU fans ready, willing and able to fill the seats between the 20s, then they'd be buying them on StubHub as it is. Opposing fans buy them, so why not our fans? I guarantee you that the cost of buying an end-zone season ticket from TCU, plus the StubHub cost of the individual game(s) you want to sit between the 20s, is pretty much the same as what that season ticket holder paid for that seat. Sorry that you don't get it directly from TCU...but if you continue buying a large number of endzone tickets, and upgrading every year, you'll eventually get out of there and inch closer to where you want to be. It's not going to happen overnight.

I promise you that, over time, no re-seller is profiting from buying and selling TCU football tickets. Sure, there might be a game here or there, but overall it's budget neutral.

The bottom line is that we just don't have the number of fans as a big public school, and we don't have an entire city cornered (like Baylor). As a result, unless enrollment is doubled, we're never going to routinely fill a 50K seat stadium with an overwhelming majority of TCU fans. It is what it is.
 
texas_sicilian

texas_sicilian

Full Member
82 Frog Fever said:
Home field advantage is only as strong as the product on the field.
They are somewhat mutually dependent.
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We have not “protected the Carter” lately.

But I would argue for us to be truly great again, the mindset needs to be way more aggressive than merely protecting it.
 
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tcumaniac

tcumaniac

Full Member
Gehörnter Frosch said:
As others have noted, the Utah game was lightning in a bottle. Average Fort Worth Joe and his family (and beyond) turned out for that game. While that should be the benchmark, it isn't realistic.

As for StubHub, how does revoking tickets and letting other people buy them from TCU guarantee that the next owners don't sell them? Are you going to create ID-check stations and punch-card system for each game, and require buyers to turn in proof that you and you alone sat in those seats? It's absurd, and anyone should be able to buy and re-sell tickets if they want.

If there were really all these die-hard TCU fans ready, willing and able to fill the seats between the 20s, then they'd be buying them on StubHub as it is. Opposing fans buy them, so why not our fans? I guarantee you that the cost of buying an end-zone season ticket from TCU, plus the StubHub cost of the individual game(s) you want to sit between the 20s, is pretty much the same as what that season ticket holder paid for that seat. Sorry that you don't get it directly from TCU...but if you continue buying a large number of endzone tickets, and upgrading every year, you'll eventually get out of there and inch closer to where you want to be. It's not going to happen overnight.

I promise you that, over time, no re-seller is profiting from buying and selling TCU football tickets. Sure, there might be a game here or there, but overall it's budget neutral.

The bottom line is that we just don't have the number of fans as a big public school, and we don't have an entire city cornered (like Baylor). As a result, unless enrollment is doubled, we're never going to routinely fill a 50K seat stadium with an overwhelming majority of TCU fans. It is what it is.
Click to expand...

This post is absolutely ridiculous and just full of all kinds of nonfactual statements. Let's breakdown everything you said, and why it is wrong:
  • "As for StubHub, how does revoking tickets and letting other people buy them from TCU guarantee that the next owners don't sell them? Are you going to create ID-check stations and punch-card system for each game, and require buyers to turn in proof that you and you alone sat in those seats?" According to my suggestion, if you sell your tickets for every game on stubhub, you lose those seats. This exact thing is done all the time in both professional and collegiate sports to make sure good seats aren't being controlled by ticket brokers. Once those seats are released, they are most likely picked up by someone during the upgrade process that intends to sit in them. If for some reason the new person decides to sell those seats all season too, then they obviously also lose them. Unlike the current situation, there would be consequences for buying tickets only to resell, and for the most part, people would stop doing it. Tracking the online resell of tickets is extremely easy. To sell a ticket on stubhub, you have to upload the barcode, which has a digital footprint that is tracked by TCU. Sure, people could still give them or sell them on their own, but this would get rid of the chronic stubhub seller, which is the biggest culprit of our problem.

  • "If there were really all these die-hard TCU fans ready, willing and able to fill the seats between the 20s, then they'd be buying them on StubHub as it is. Opposing fans buy them, so why not our fans? " Umm no. Our core fans are buying season tickets. That's why opposing fans buy their tickets on stubhub. They aren't season ticket holders.

  • "I guarantee you that the cost of buying an end-zone season ticket from TCU, plus the StubHub cost of the individual game(s) you want to sit between the 20s, is pretty much the same as what that season ticket holder paid for that seat." Your "guarantees" clearly have very little value behind them. Each endzone seat is $300. A good seat on the east side on the 50 yard line and fairly low down is $375. Stubhub fees are 15% to the buyer. I can actually guarantee you that it would not even be close to the same cost as what the season ticket holder selling his seats paid to do that.

  • "but if you continue buying a large number of endzone tickets, and upgrading every year, you'll eventually get out of there and inch closer to where you want to be." Ah. What a brilliant solution. Just tell everyone to buy up large numbers of endzone seats @ $300 a pop that they don't intend to sit in so that they can slowly catch up to the stubhub resellers that have been buying extra seats and reselling them for years.

  • "I promise you that, over time, no re-seller is profiting from buying and selling TCU football tickets. Sure, there might be a game here or there, but overall it's budget neutral." Goodness. Just another blatant lie. I, unlike you, don't just pull stuff out of my ass and claim it as true. I've spent years following this and speaking in depth with people in the ticket office. TCU not only tracks what tickets are sold, they also track how much it sold for. I also personally know people who have bought and resold tickets for years. Let's just say I have it on very good authority that there are people that VERY MUCH make a profit reselling seats.

  • "As a result, unless enrollment is doubled, we're never going to routinely fill a 50K seat stadium with an overwhelming majority of TCU fans." This was never my premise. Sure. We will never fill a stadium with 50k TCU fans, but we could do a MUCH better job ensuring the TCU fans that do attend are occupying our best seats and doing our best to keep opposing fans high up and in the corner seats.
 
N

NORMLFROG

Full Member
tcumaniac said:
This post is absolutely ridiculous and just full of all kinds of nonfactual statements. Let's breakdown everything you said, and why it is wrong:
  • "As for StubHub, how does revoking tickets and letting other people buy them from TCU guarantee that the next owners don't sell them? Are you going to create ID-check stations and punch-card system for each game, and require buyers to turn in proof that you and you alone sat in those seats?" According to my suggestion, if you sell your tickets for every game on stubhub, you lose those seats. This exact thing is done all the time in both professional and collegiate sports to make sure good seats aren't being controlled by ticket brokers. Once those seats are released, they are most likely picked up by someone during the upgrade process that intends to sit in them. If for some reason the new person decides to sell those seats all season too, then they obviously also lose them. Unlike the current situation, there would be consequences for buying tickets only to resell, and for the most part, people would stop doing it. Tracking the online resell of tickets is extremely easy. To sell a ticket on stubhub, you have to upload the barcode, which has a digital footprint that is tracked by TCU. Sure, people could still give them or sell them on their own, but this would get rid of the chronic stubhub seller, which is the biggest culprit of our problem.
  • "If there were really all these die-hard TCU fans ready, willing and able to fill the seats between the 20s, then they'd be buying them on StubHub as it is. Opposing fans buy them, so why not our fans? " Umm no. Our core fans are buying season tickets. That's why opposing fans buy their tickets on stubhub. They aren't season ticket holders.
  • "I guarantee you that the cost of buying an end-zone season ticket from TCU, plus the StubHub cost of the individual game(s) you want to sit between the 20s, is pretty much the same as what that season ticket holder paid for that seat." Your "guarantees" clearly have very little value behind them. Each endzone seat is $300. A good seat on the east side on the 50 yard line and fairly low down is $375. Stubhub fees are 15% to the buyer. I can actually guarantee you that it would not even be close to the same cost as what the season ticket holder selling his seats paid to do that.

  • "but if you continue buying a large number of endzone tickets, and upgrading every year, you'll eventually get out of there and inch closer to where you want to be." Ah. What a brilliant solution. Just tell everyone to buy up large numbers of endzone seats @ $300 a pop that they don't intend to sit in so that they can slowly catch up to the stubhub resellers that have been buying extra seats and reselling them for years.

  • "I promise you that, over time, no re-seller is profiting from buying and selling TCU football tickets. Sure, there might be a game here or there, but overall it's budget neutral." Goodness. Just another blatant lie. I, unlike you, don't just pull stuff out of my ass and claim it as true. I've spent years following this and speaking in depth with people in the ticket office. TCU not only tracks what tickets are sold, they also track how much it sold for. I also personally know people who have bought and resold tickets for years. Let's just say I have it on very good authority that there are people that VERY MUCH make a profit reselling seats.

  • "As a result, unless enrollment is doubled, we're never going to routinely fill a 50K seat stadium with an overwhelming majority of TCU fans." This was never my premise. Sure. We will never fill a stadium with 50k TCU fans, but we could do a MUCH better job ensuring the TCU fans that do attend are occupying our best seats and doing our best to keep opposing fans high up and in the corner seats.
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What a scheissing pillow fight! Must be the offseason.

NF
 

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