Despite the H.A. Chapman Stadium crowd being announced as 18,206 in paid attendance, the turnout was substantially smaller, particularly on the mostly empty east side. - Tulsa World
Attendance Dismal
- Thread starter Babe the Blue Ox
- Start date
Our attendance would be about the same regardless of if we'd won the last two or not. Tulsa has really let the university down in regard to support.
BUT we sure as heck didn't give people much of a reason to be excited about anything this season with that performance yesterday.
BUT we sure as heck didn't give people much of a reason to be excited about anything this season with that performance yesterday.
TU's new marketing initiative isn't gonna amount to a hill of beans when the team gets plowed under by Tulane and New Mexico. Can't put lipstick on a pig...
It's too hot on the east side for afternoon games. That must be the problem.
Had a great "Night Game" crowd against BYU years ago. Shoot out with Chris Chamberlain knocking the poon tang out of BYU's tight end. Now TU let's TV dictate when their September games kick off. All September home games should be played at night, period.
"TU lets tv dictate when their September games kick off"
Are you kidding me? Of course we let tv dictate kickoffs... EVERY CONFERENCE DOES. If we didn't... we wouldn't receive money from the conference via media partners... then you can kiss big time athletics goodbye.
I don't know about you, but I'm not fond of TU moving down to D3 just so we can have a 6:15pm kickoff every game to accommodate a whiny few. We already have enough trustees that hate athletics... we don't needs fans that share their sentiments as well.
2 of the 3 home games were on ESPN3. Does the host school have any input on those kickoff times or are they also dictated by the network.
Espn3 game times are typically left up to the host institution. If there's an argument here, it's with game times for espn3 events not national broadcasts.
That's what I thought but I wasn't sure. So why did you guys get all over Lump for making a suggestion for more September night games when it sounds like 2 of those 3 games could have been played at night if we had wanted to.
If TU has control of the game time that's one issue, but if they don't, there is no reason for complaining.
For September, I know they started one game at 12:30... which made quite a few angry, but in reality it was to coincide with the Alzheimer's walk that the Montgomerys support. The event on campus was supposed to end a little before the game in hopes that those who attended the walk, would attend the game.
The New Mexico game was set at 3:00 in hopes that it would help attendance since it wouldn't interfere with OU later that evening. You know just as well as I do that people in Tulsa will choose OU over TU no matter what. So trying to ensure that game times we control don't happen at the same time or overlap with an OU or OSU game seems smart to me... especially if you're trying to attract average sports fans.
Just seems like everyone complains about everything all the time around here. And usually those complaining the most know the least about what's going on with the program... they just like to complain.
I'd love to see a league think different. If a football league tells a TV network how a football game should be run, it would be great for fans. Watching on TV, attending the game, whatever. If all the major European "football" leagues can rake in billions of dollars without a 3 minute break every 5 minutes, I'm sure we can figure it out in a game with natural breaks.
Touchdown, extra point - then a natural break
Timeout - break
Injury - break
End of QT - break
Halftime - break
Official review - break
All told, that's easily 45 minutes of natural commercials during the game. Take a 4-5 hour event back down to a 3 hour event. Add in advertising during the game on sideboards, end zones, corner of the screen, whatever. Again - if they can make billions off of that everyone else in the world, we can figure it out.
More people would watch (choice between two equal games, one is crushed with ads, the other is not). More people would go to games (cheeeeer, sit do nothing for 5 minutes, cheeeeeer). TiVo becomes less useful. Channel surfing goes down. What's the point of trying to skip commercials if they are only a minute or two long each?
Dare to be different.
But it won't be the AAC that dictates this to ESPN...it will be the SEC or B1G that insist the model be changed. The AAC would get away with this if it had an exclusive broadcast partner, i.e. something like Amazon or Netflix producing original games and content. Netflix could use some of the breaks to promote their original content movies and shows. At some point this is where we are headed. Aresco has mentioned this type of deal before.
BTW, the Big XII and other conferences are also subject to the crappy time slot football games. OU complains almost as much about their start times.
Thanks for the explanation. That sounds better than "we have to drop to D3 if we want to control the schedule".
Does anyone know how much longer the AAC has a contract with ESPN? I like the ESPN3 arrangement. Makes it much easier to catch the games living out of state even though the in-game commentary is usually watered down with the bottom of the barrel personnel. I hope the longhorns network is an aberration and doesn't become the norm. The discrepancy between have and have-not teams is going to shift geometrically if that becomes a trend.
It's a little harsh but I know quite well that we have trustees that would like to see football go away and all other sports drop to D3...
Expires in 2019-20, up for renewal in 2020-2021.
Yes... athletics is in a constant battle at TU for funds/survival. It makes it all the more amazing that we have the success we do considering the hurdles we have to clear not only externally but internally as well.
I did find it promising when they brought Largent on the board... one more pro-athletics trustee to balance out some of the old crotchety ones.
Who do you think was largely influential in the renovations to the locker rooms getting delayed, that same contingent
With that approach among the trustees, we might as well be ORU 2.0
What a bunch of backwards thinking troglodytes
The 2007 BYU game was broadcast nationally by the CBSSports TV network which had the CUSA contract at the time. The game was a sellout. Easily half of the people there were there to see BYU. Probably the biggest compliment paid to TU football by the pollsters in awhile was them losing to us and still finishing ranked #14 while we went unranked. Although it has been awhile since we have beaten a non-conference opponent that was ranked at the time, they finished the season ranked. It was Graham's best game, by far.
I agree - that was one of the funnest home games I've attended. Highlight after highlight from that game... so much energy, great crowd, and put us on our way to a 10 win season and the biggest bowl margin of victory in history.
That was a great game, but I don't remember it being a sellout. According to the football records, the crowd was 24k and was the third largest home crowd of the year behind OU and Houston.
I think it felt like more because the crowd was so into the game.
It’s been that way quite a while.
Donaldson tried to kill it.
But it’s a culture at TU these days. It seems like every tweet or FB post I get from the university is some kind of liberal egghead enviro junk that is really out of step with where the school is located. I think football represents a culture of male dominance in opposition to their gender neutral desires.
You're 100% right... I still find it funny (sad) that TU refuses to acknowledge that successful/visible athletics contributes to overall appeal of the school to incoming freshmen... and since TU is struggling to hit enrollment goals, it seems like common sense that athletics would be FULLY SUPPORTED rather than the half ass job they do now, but I'm afraid some trustees would rather bang their heads against the wall than embrace reality.
I’m still trying to figure out how much revenue and student participation that the performing arts center creates.
The contract expires at the end of the 2019-2020 academic year (5/31/20). It is already being negotiated though formal talks have not yet begun with ESPN. AAC may very well be the first conference to go with Amazon for streaming. There are production costs for ESPN3 games that still make them a net loss. The AAC contract factors in net losses for a large portion of the basketball broadcasts, the Olympic sports on ESPN3, and other loss leaders to get the rights to football. There is growing evidence that ESPN may seek to pick and choose sports going forward and off load low or no revenue streaming to services like Amazon who are willing to eat the loss to build their empire.
