(07-24-2015 10:51 PM)NTXCoog Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 04:14 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 03:17 PM)Artifice Wrote:  If the MAC relegated themselves to FCS they'd be giving up that CFP money. That makes it hard to envision. That said, it would mean another $200-$225k or so (using 2014 payouts) to every G5 school. That'll pay some bills.

Every school on the list is in trouble, not just those in the MAC. Think about Idaho, San Jose St, UNLV, NMSU, ULM etc. Ten years from now, many of those schools may not have football. Even in the worst of days, I don't think Rice's average attendance ever dipped below 14,000. I mean, how can you survive in any G5 if your attendance is below 10,000? Those are dire straights for the schools on the list. It's sad. It's criminal what has happened to those of us on the outside.

2009 - 13,552
2007 - 13,353
2005 - 10,072

If Rice didn't have UH or UT at Rice/Reliant Stadium during those years, Rice didn't average 15k. In 2005, 3 of their 5 home games were under 10k. Thank goodness for the Navy game and the season high attendance of 12.7k or the average would have been well under 10k.

In 2007, even Texas Tech coming to town with 21.5k attendance didn't help Rice get over 14k. In 2009, Vanderbilt coming to town with 19.7k didn't help Rice get over 14k.

Rice has improved on the field and in the stands since then, but even last year, Rice was only at 18.5k in an 8-5 season, coming off a conference championship, and a 3rd bowl in a row, still 24th from the bottom. Rice has it's special challenges, but luckily it has enough fans with enough money to have a baseline of season ticket holders.

It's funny the lenths some people here will go to to show someone their wrong. I'm no attendance nazi, but it certainly never felt like there have ever been fewer than 13 or 14 thousand in the stands. And Rice will always be okay in football because there's more than $3 billion in the endowment, meaning they'll always be able to afford it.

But as a UH alum, it disappoints me that our own attendane is so anemic considering we are a public university and that we have thousands and thousands of alums in Houston. Shameful. We are the reason we aren't P5. At least Rice has a good excuse.

(07-26-2015 06:51 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 10:51 PM)NTXCoog Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 04:14 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 03:17 PM)Artifice Wrote:  If the MAC relegated themselves to FCS they'd be giving up that CFP money. That makes it hard to envision. That said, it would mean another $200-$225k or so (using 2014 payouts) to every G5 school. That'll pay some bills.

Every school on the list is in trouble, not just those in the MAC. Think about Idaho, San Jose St, UNLV, NMSU, ULM etc. Ten years from now, many of those schools may not have football. Even in the worst of days, I don't think Rice's average attendance ever dipped below 14,000. I mean, how can you survive in any G5 if your attendance is below 10,000? Those are dire straights for the schools on the list. It's sad. It's criminal what has happened to those of us on the outside.

2009 - 13,552
2007 - 13,353
2005 - 10,072

If Rice didn't have UH or UT at Rice/Reliant Stadium during those years, Rice didn't average 15k. In 2005, 3 of their 5 home games were under 10k. Thank goodness for the Navy game and the season high attendance of 12.7k or the average would have been well under 10k.

In 2007, even Texas Tech coming to town with 21.5k attendance didn't help Rice get over 14k. In 2009, Vanderbilt coming to town with 19.7k didn't help Rice get over 14k.

Rice has improved on the field and in the stands since then, but even last year, Rice was only at 18.5k in an 8-5 season, coming off a conference championship, and a 3rd bowl in a row, still 24th from the bottom. Rice has it's special challenges, but luckily it has enough fans with enough money to have a baseline of season ticket holders.

It's funny the lenths some people here will go to to show someone their wrong. I'm no attendance nazi, but it certainly never felt like there have ever been fewer than 13 or 14 thousand in the stands. And Rice will always be okay in football because there's more than $3 billion in the endowment, meaning they'll always be able to afford it.

But as a UH alum, it disappoints me that our own attendane is so anemic considering we are a public university and that we have thousands and thousands of alums in Houston. Shameful. We are the reason we aren't P5. At least Rice has a good excuse.

So if someone makes an incorrect statement, is it wrong to point that out? If I said that UH averaged 50k the last 10 years, would it be improper for a Rice fan to say that was incorrect and post actual average attendance to back up his comment? I don't think so.

The statement was that Rice never averaged less than 14k. They did and more than once. Maybe I went into too much detail, but I thought it was appropriate to put into context why they averaged <14k only every other year instead of every year during that time frame, not currently.

I was looking at TV ratings for some 2015 sports events and recently added CUSA schools are good for TV ratings (percentage of homes, not raw numbers- info from sportstvratings.com):
Womens World Cup Final USA Japan: Richmond #7 and Norfolk (both are ODU markets) and West Palm Beach #9 in viewership
NBA Finals game 3: Norfolk #7
NBA Finals Game 1: Norfolk #5, Fort Lauderdale #6, Richmond #10
NFL Draft: Norfolk #8, Charlotte #9
NBC Boxing (first episode): Norfolk #1, Fort Myers #5
The Masters day 1 on ESPN: West Palm Beach #1, Charlotte #7, Norfolk #10

These results tell me that this conference has been wise with its expansion choices and is poise with violable, attractive TV markets that want sports programming.

(07-26-2015 02:48 PM)ESE84 Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 10:51 PM)NTXCoog Wrote:  Rice has improved on the field and in the stands since then, but even last year, Rice was only at 18.5k in an 8-5 season, coming off a conference championship, and a 3rd bowl in a row, still 24th from the bottom. Rice has it's special challenges, but luckily it has enough fans with enough money to have a baseline of season ticket holders.

Knew this post had to come from a Coog.

Last year Rice played four home games at 11 am for television, and the fifth game was on Friday night. Attendance needs to get better, but those kick-off times were of no help.

All six of the Rice home games are televised again this year. So far we have three 2:30 Saturday kick-offs (Wagner, Southern Miss, and Charlotte), one at 1:30 Saturday (Western Kentucky), one at 7:00 pm on Friday (Louisiana Tech), and one to be determined (Army).

And last year UH had two Friday games, one Thursday game, one 11 AM game, one 2:30 game, one FCS game, and one optimal FBS 7PM game. Does UH get a pass then if Rice gets one? At least 80% of your games were on Saturday. Only 57% of our games were on Saturday. But I don't see anyone giving UH slack and I don't see any UH fans asking for any.

We shouldn't get any slack at all. You're right. Our attendance has always been wanting. UH fans are the biggest fairweather bunch I know of. We've always been that way.

(07-26-2015 09:20 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  We shouldn't get any slack at all. You're right. Our attendance has always been wanting. UH fans are the biggest fairweather bunch I know of. We've always been that way.

And yet you're accepting of Rice attendance and all of their excuses.

(07-26-2015 10:14 PM)NTXCoog Wrote:  

(07-26-2015 09:20 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  We shouldn't get any slack at all. You're right. Our attendance has always been wanting. UH fans are the biggest fairweather bunch I know of. We've always been that way.

And yet you're accepting of Rice attendance and all of their excuses.

They aren't excuses. It's a fact that Rice has a small, international enrollment of 3,900 students. They aren't supposed to draw well. It's not 1960 and they aren't the only game in town anymore. They do pretty well despite that.

(07-26-2015 07:53 PM)NTXCoog Wrote:  And last year UH had two Friday games, one Thursday game, one 11 AM game, one 2:30 game, one FCS game, and one optimal FBS 7PM game. Does UH get a pass then if Rice gets one? At least 80% of your games were on Saturday. Only 57% of our games were on Saturday. But I don't see anyone giving UH slack and I don't see any UH fans asking for any.

Well, since you brought up UH attendance I will just say your 2014 attendance problem wasn't the date of the Friday opener against UTSA, as much as the result of that game.

Houston fans talking attendance smack? That's hilarious. In a city/area of 3 million or more, you can't sell out your stadium and your b'ball attendance is atrocious. I watched you guys play a few games at home and if there were more than 1500 fans at both games, your AD was lying their ass off. lol!

(07-26-2015 10:35 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  

(07-26-2015 10:14 PM)NTXCoog Wrote:  

(07-26-2015 09:20 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  We shouldn't get any slack at all. You're right. Our attendance has always been wanting. UH fans are the biggest fairweather bunch I know of. We've always been that way.

And yet you're accepting of Rice attendance and all of their excuses.

They aren't excuses. It's a fact that Rice has a small, international enrollment of 3,900 students. They aren't supposed to draw well. It's not 1960 and they aren't the only game in town anymore. They do pretty well despite that.

I would guess our attendance to enrollment ratio is top ten.

(07-27-2015 08:43 AM)SVHerd Wrote:  Houston fans talking attendance smack? That's hilarious. In a city/area of 3 million or more, you can't sell out your stadium and your b'ball attendance is atrocious. I watched you guys play a few games at home and if there were more than 1500 fans at both games, your AD was lying their ass off. lol!

The Houston MSA is 6.2 million, not 3 million, thank you very much.

(07-27-2015 08:43 AM)SVHerd Wrote:  Houston fans talking attendance smack? That's hilarious.

Smack? An incorrect post was made about Rice's attendance. Since when is correcting an incorrect statement smack? I didn't say Rice attendance sucked. I didn't even say UH had higher attendance than Rice. I just corrected a statement that Rice never had <14k which they did several times recently.

If Rice poster doesn't put an incorrect statement out there or if someone else had pointed out the error, I don't even post on this thread.

So, there's 7 teams that draw fewer than we do. Woo-hoo! My standards are pretty low :)

(07-27-2015 09:41 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(07-26-2015 10:35 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  

(07-26-2015 10:14 PM)NTXCoog Wrote:  

(07-26-2015 09:20 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  We shouldn't get any slack at all. You're right. Our attendance has always been wanting. UH fans are the biggest fairweather bunch I know of. We've always been that way.

And yet you're accepting of Rice attendance and all of their excuses.

They aren't excuses. It's a fact that Rice has a small, international enrollment of 3,900 students. They aren't supposed to draw well. It's not 1960 and they aren't the only game in town anymore. They do pretty well despite that.

I would guess our attendance to enrollment ratio is top ten.

Sure it is. As soon as Rice renovates the stadium and gets the game atmosphere/presentation up to speed, things should pick up even more.

Regarding NIU's attendance, the numbers are real. EMU's numbers are definitely inflated, they have a deal with Pepsi buying tickets, etc.

NIU has had a few things combine to explain a lot of the low attendance, most of which have been mentioned here. We typically have our biggest conference games (e.g. against Toledo) at the end of the year when it's cold (November), but it's also at night, so it's colder, and hard to get to for people from Chicago and environs by gametime. Doing this repeatedly for years on end I'm sure has prevented people from buying season tickets. Add to that our horrific OOC scheduling thanks to our 2 previous ADs who put us with 5 home games at least every other year with the only OOC home game being against FCS. It has completely sucked. The MAC schedule we can do little about but if we played on Saturday afternoon I'm sure attendance would be better. But the MAC has sold out to E$PN.

We did have good attendance back in the 2003-2006 timespan. And 2014 was particularly low, with the weather particularly poor. The economy in the rust belt starting in 2008 probably hurt, but IMO shouldn't be an issue right now. It's still puzzling we can't get more people for such a successful team.

NIU fan: "Hey, wanna go to a football game?"
Friend: "Who are you playing?"
NIU fan: "[cough] Presbyterian [cough]. In the rain. On Thursday night."
Friend: [crickets]