If we can beat Texas or Arkansas, next week after the game at home. Will Tulsa appear to support the Golden Hurricane?
Will we see a sell out game this season at Skelly Field?
- Thread starter 918vsErbody
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After we beat Notre Dame we came home and played in front of 17k people the following week... so I wouldn’t hold your breath.
We have to be consistent in order to draw big crowds, we started getting fans back in 2016, but that dropped after last year, we are going to have to have more than 1 good year to pack our stadium, we need to get back in the top 25
I wouldn’t expect a sellout until we see the national exposure return on our investment in science projects, renovating LaFortune Hall into a palace because Tulsa’s enrollment is supposed to be down but there isn’t sufficient space on campus after filling five dorms and all those apartments, attending other school’s rowing competitions back east, and basketball coaches nobody else wanted.
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I think there may be some nostalgia getting involved here. I wasn't here then, so I was curious if attendance is a new issue or an old one. Lets look at a couple of high points.
1964 ended with a televised bowl win over Ole Miss, one of 8 teams to end the season with a bowl win and one of two televised bowl games on December 19th. We ended the season ranked after 6 straight wins. The stadium was renovated/expanded to a capacity of 40,235.
In 1965 Tulsa was on year 4 of 5 year run and chucking the ball to All Americans. We beat Houston on TV in game one, we were the first televised football game of the year, on NBC, and the only football game on that day. That season we also beat Cinci, Louisville, Memphis State, and Colorado State, ending with rank of 18 (coaches poll). We again played in one of 8 bowl games in the nation.
We had four home games:
Memphis State - 25,315
Cincinnati - 24,867
Louisville - 35,783
Colorado State - 29,631
https://tulsahurricane.com/sports/2015/6/3/footballarchive.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_Tulsa_Golden_Hurricane_football_team
To recap- in the middle of a really good run. Stadium just expanded. Getting national attention. Ended the previous season ranked as one of four teams to win a bowl on national TV. Started the season as the only team to play on TV that weekend and beating Houston. Most weekends there were only a few football games on TV, so if you wanted to watch football... you showed up. There were only 4 home games, all against well known schools.
And we still averaged less than 30,000 people a game.
In fact, our best attended year was 1991.
http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools.../2013-14/misc_non_event/2013FootballGuide.pdf
In 1991 we beat Oklahoma State at home for game #2. That year we also beat #15 Texas A&M at home. We then played #2 Miami at home. We ended the season 10-2, ranked #23, and made it to a bowl game as an independent.
Again, we played Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, and Miami... at home, all in the same season, at a time when far fewer college games were on TV, and we beat Oklahoma State and Texas A&M. And we averaged just over 31k.
While our current attendance is considerably lesser, I'm guessing the other variable come into play. I will let you draw your own conclusions, but I found the above interesting.
Unfortunately that’s how things go around here... there’s a lot that goes into it, but until the city starts treating TU like a D2 school, get used to being embarrassed.
Even if we are really good the city won’t support by putting butts in the seat. We had our lowest attendance of the season after we beat Notre dame. It would take consistent years of being in the top 25 to even sniff constant good crowds. I’ve stopped stressing about it and just worried more about the team and my own enjoyment at games now.
Don’t expect a return to big attendance until cable/satellite TV disappears and you have one OTA station broadcasting the college football game of the week.
Could we attract more people with in stadium activities,
concerts before/after the game,
meet and great previous/current athletes.
Craft and junque sales.
concerts before/after the game,
meet and great previous/current athletes.
Craft and junque sales.
We could locate Elvis and have him perform at halftime of a season opener and nobody would know until it was announced midway through the second quarter.
I might have over exaggerated by saying "nobody". I'm sure the 3 people that happened to open their GHC email that miraculously didnt go into the spam folder whom was already planning on going to the game might have noticed
Also at play in 1991:
OSU lost every game but one (which they tied) that season and they lost a lot of them by double digits.
Thank you Pat Jones.
Pickens' help has really helped OSU and hurt Tulsa. I kind of wonder if Pickens has something against T-Town.
OSU lost every game but one (which they tied) that season and they lost a lot of them by double digits.
Thank you Pat Jones.
Pickens' help has really helped OSU and hurt Tulsa. I kind of wonder if Pickens has something against T-Town.
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Who remembers the holiday song recorded just for OSU that year... "O-TenandOne".
I can't fault someone for coming to tailgating and pregame activities and then leaving to watch it at home. The games are for the TV audience with excessive TV timeouts that really kill the flow of the game. Don't tell me that the TV audience isn't more important than people at the stadium because I remember standing in the rain at 2:30 a.m. watching the guy in the red hat stand on the field for a TV timeout. That was ridiculous and sent a message to me about who really matters.
In order to get 30K into the stadium it will take the trifecta of things to get it done. First, a consistently good team (more than one season) and improving. Second, a quality opponent from either a nationally respected team and/or a really good conference rival competing for the championship against Tulsa. Preferably Houston because everybody hates them. Third, the pregame atmosphere needs to be something special that has a reputation around town for being a really fun time. I really like the way things are headed in the pregame department and the components are there if we start drawing more people.
I think we sell out against OSU regardless.
In order to get 30K into the stadium it will take the trifecta of things to get it done. First, a consistently good team (more than one season) and improving. Second, a quality opponent from either a nationally respected team and/or a really good conference rival competing for the championship against Tulsa. Preferably Houston because everybody hates them. Third, the pregame atmosphere needs to be something special that has a reputation around town for being a really fun time. I really like the way things are headed in the pregame department and the components are there if we start drawing more people.
I think we sell out against OSU regardless.
I can blame them. If you’re a REAL fan, you don’t come all the way to campus, tailgate, then leave just because you want to throw a tantrum and stick it to the university.
Tulsa's population
1960s- 275,000
1990s- 367,000
2017- 404,000
The lack of marketing is atrocious over the last three decades. As a small school and private Tulsa needs to sell itself to the city. Consistent winning would help but there needs to be a connection to the city that isn't present at the moment.
A metropolitan area of one 1,000,000 should be able to fill up 25,000-30,000 seat stadium. We are doing something wrong.
1960s- 275,000
1990s- 367,000
2017- 404,000
The lack of marketing is atrocious over the last three decades. As a small school and private Tulsa needs to sell itself to the city. Consistent winning would help but there needs to be a connection to the city that isn't present at the moment.
A metropolitan area of one 1,000,000 should be able to fill up 25,000-30,000 seat stadium. We are doing something wrong.
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No. Our discussions took place when Boone announced his gift and the facility upgrades were started. Geo didn’t think the money would have a significant effect on OSU’s football program because it had been consistently poor and that track record was too hard to overcome. I thought he was minimizing the effects of state of the art facilities would have on a program.
Can we get a home and home with p5 powers and play our home game at a neutral site with a larger stsdium, like Norman, stillwater, dallas?
Since our stadium is too small for return visits.
Since our stadium is too small for return visits.
I thought our problem with home and home was we could not offer the guarantee because we did not have enough capacity.
Then why didn't we get a home game with Ohio st or notre dame.
Are texas or Arkansas comming here?
The size of our stadium does in fact effect our ability to attract home games with P5 teams. Attendance obviously effects payout ability. Of course, since we struggle to get mid 20k the 30k capacity is less of a factor than actual attendance.
OSU and OU play in Tulsa for alumni and recruiting reasons. We haven’t had a P5 school (outside of the two state schools) play in Tulsa in years and have zero currently scheduled in our OOC aside from one game against OSU.
Iowa state was our last P5 home game not from OU or OSU. I don’t know how we can’t get Kansas down here. At least it might draw some alumni in. I mean they’re playing @ Coastal Carolina for Christ’s sake.
We could have tried to get Illinois through our connections with Lovie. At least it’s a big 10 program.
We could have tried to get Illinois through our connections with Lovie. At least it’s a big 10 program.
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