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Road to a bowl (continued)

I have a few ideas, post game firework shows for night games(last two firework shows 29k and 33k), better/cheaper concessions, oh and beer sales. But let's stick with the same old same old
 
Concessions aren't as bad as some other places, i.e. Drillers, BOK, etc. And TU tried the beer thing. It didn't help increase attendance OR concessions sales in the 2-3 years they did it.
 
Concessions aren't as bad as some other places, i.e. Drillers, BOK, etc. And TU tried the beer thing. It didn't help increase attendance OR concessions sales in the 2-3 years they did it.
Beer certainly helped SMU basketball. Can't really judge how it affected football attendance since they're so terrible this year.
 
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1995 and 1996 seasons....So 20 years ago. And comparing our concessions to the BOK and the Drillers is laughable, only place in this area that has worst concessions than us is the fairgrounds. One of the worst moves we also made was fencing in our whole entire campus to make it look like a damn country club, no wonder the rest of the community feels like a damn outsider when they come to our games.
 
If the boogie men/women from the bad neighborhoods around TU wanted to come rob, molest, or kill TU students, a fence would not stop them. Silly premise.
 
I'm just saying, if someone really think the fence (that you can walk right past) makes TU seem elitist, then those people are ridiculous.
 
Area around campus has improved over the years.

Go TU!!!!
 
1995 and 1996 seasons....So 20 years ago. And comparing our concessions to the BOK and the Drillers is laughable, only place in this area that has worst concessions than us is the fairgrounds. One of the worst moves we also made was fencing in our whole entire campus to make it look like a damn country club, no wonder the rest of the community feels like a damn outsider when they come to our games.

I think the fences are to prevent people without tickets from getting into the bleachers. They don't have event staff posted at concourse entrances to validate tickets / seating, so they authenticate at the various choke / entry points.
 
The fences also make it a lot more difficult for nare-do-wells to enter and leave campus. They're not going to be able to still much from the apartments / classrooms and run off into an adjacent neighborhood very easily.

Anyways... Beer + winning = more people than just winning. I mean, when we were winning championships under Graham and BB we weren't drawing nearly as many as we could have.
 
The fences were put in around the apartments mainly to make it more difficult for the smash and grabbers to get in and leave without going through very specific points of access. When the apartments came so did the easy targets of parked cars. They didn't want individuals to be able to slip back into the neighborhoods so easily. The area has improved and that has a lot tondo with TU investing in the Kendall Whittier area, especially along 6th St.

As for beer, I thought it was there when Burns was there. My comparison on concessions was more along the price points. The worst part about TU concessions is the slowness off the volunteer crews working them. Worse than a Wal Mart Express line.
 
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Beer was only available during the 1995 season. We were close to bringing it back in 2006 but decided against it at the last minute.
 
There were tax and liability issues after the 1995 season and during the mid 2000s that are no longer present. Thats all I can give you in this forum. If they wanted to bring beer back, they could. Right now, it is a draw for the high revenue suites. Until the numbers show they will make more at the tap pouring to us wahoos, they won't give up that amenity. Judging by the number of people standing in line for tall boys during halftime just off property in front of the Reynolds Center, that won't be anytime soon. I have no problem with people coming to tailgate and leaving. FSU is rarely full, even when they are number one and playing a ranked opponent. They routinely attract upwards to half a million people for some tailgates. Thats a lot of tax revenue that gives them leverage with the city on other issues. If you want TU to be Tulsa's team, you need to invite the whole city, even if they don't buy a ticket. Their kids will grow up wanting to play for TU and it will pay off in the end. That was Bowden's strategy and it worked pretty well. Boise pretty much the same thing, but they added in a professional marketing wing to specifically target what locals would buy in terms of merchandise.

As for the fence, it is what it is. If you want to compete against Tulane, SMU, Creighton and others for students, you need to match and exceed their amenities. That includes an enclosed campus that has some sort of architectural plan. You can't have it both ways. If you want to be elite, you need to act like it. If you want to sell degrees to people with money who want their kids close to home and don't want them going to Stillwater and Norman because deep down inside they know junior will party and fail out if the leash is too long, then feel free to build your campus around record stores, biker bars, and let the slum lords collect the rent from crappy apartments. Or you can buy the apartments, demolish the surrounding competing market, and keep the money. Your call.
 
There were tax and liability issues after the 1995 season and during the mid 2000s that are no longer present. Thats all I can give you in this forum. If they wanted to bring beer back, they could. Right now, it is a draw for the high revenue suites. Until the numbers show they will make more at the tap pouring to us wahoos, they won't give up that amenity. Judging by the number of people standing in line for tall boys during halftime just off property in front of the Reynolds Center, that won't be anytime soon. I have no problem with people coming to tailgate and leaving. FSU is rarely full, even when they are number one and playing a ranked opponent. They routinely attract upwards to half a million people for some tailgates. Thats a lot of tax revenue that gives them leverage with the city on other issues. If you want TU to be Tulsa's team, you need to invite the whole city, even if they don't buy a ticket. Their kids will grow up wanting to play for TU and it will pay off in the end. That was Bowden's strategy and it worked pretty well. Boise pretty much the same thing, but they added in a professional marketing wing to specifically target what locals would buy in terms of merchandise.

As for the fence, it is what it is. If you want to compete against Tulane, SMU, Creighton and others for students, you need to match and exceed their amenities. That includes an enclosed campus that has some sort of architectural plan. You can't have it both ways. If you want to be elite, you need to act like it. If you want to sell degrees to people with money who want their kids close to home and don't want them going to Stillwater and Norman because deep down inside they know junior will party and fail out if the leash is too long, then feel free to build your campus around record stores, biker bars, and let the slum lords collect the rent from crappy apartments. Or you can buy the apartments, demolish the surrounding competing market, and keep the money. Your call.
Huffy's right on the campus plan. I was a part of many of those meetings regarding security, building more apartments, and how to market them. The number of students living on campus, including local kids who are not required to live on campus for 2 years is a very high percentage compared to similar size and caliber schools.
 
Beer would be ok if they exclude the end zone, lots of kids. We sat there in '95 with 3 of our kids as two 20 something guys got drunk enough to let every four letter word they knew out as loud as they could. I got then tossed but man was I mad. At the time it was called the family fun zone. Can't please everyone I know but at least have an area for people with kids.
 
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If they decide to sell beer only do it on the east side so maybe we can get people there and it will look better on TV
 
then feel free to build your campus around record stores, biker bars, and let the slum lords collect the rent from crappy apartments.

I'm still sad that we ran off Starship. It was the place to be back in the day. It's just not the same on Lewis.
 
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I'm still sad that we ran off Starship. It was the place to be back in the day. It's just not the same on Lewis.

I bought "Highway Companion" by Tom Petty from them on vinyl my first year of grad school. By the next semester, it was razed flat. So I got my one piece of memorabilia from it before it became something better (TU apartments).
 
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