One more time - What will it take???

[jbgood57]

Other than baseball, attendance at Tech's athletic events has to be at an all-time low.
The posted attendance figures are a joke - based on tickets sold I guess.
I'd like to see true buts in the seats numbers for events.
MBB & WBB are doing great to have 500 in actual attendance.

Granted weather was often an issue for football but with maybe 1,500 on a good day on the student side that is until half-time, then they disappeared (taking out the band who are required attendance). The west side maybe 5,000? Not easy to do a head count when you're sitting on that side.
Heck - Ruston High football draws more than Tech

Hopefully, we'll see an increase in attendance in softball this year - they deserve our support!

As far as students go - anyone have any ideas as to how we get them back involved?

[Blue Dawg]

The solutions have been discussed many times.

Doesn't even matter if they're good solutions, but the admin continues to double down on the bad ones.

[techman05]

More than solutions. I think it’s students in general. Out of 12-13,000 students when I was at Tech, 2,000-2,500 was probably the most I ever saw. Still more than we ever have now. Huge schools like Texas and TAMU have 50,000 students and probably 8-10,000 at games are students. In years long past, I think the percentage of the student body attending sports at any school was probably much higher. Also, the average fan has found other things to do with their families. Attendance is down at a lot of schools. Personally, we have put a lot of money into land we own and a boat and other toys which, in the long run, provide much better opportunities for us to spend time together. I’m not sure there are solutions worth implementing in order to attract 12,000 fans when they can save the money and still have 10,000 fans.

[Blue Dawg]

More than solutions. I think it’s students in general. Out of 12-13,000 students when I was at Tech, 2,000-2,500 was probably the most I ever saw. Still more than we ever have now. Huge schools like Texas and TAMU have 50,000 students and probably 8-10,000 at games are students. In years long past, I think the percentage of the student body attending sports at any school was probably much higher. Also, the average fan has found other things to do with their families. Attendance is down at a lot of schools. Personally, we have put a lot of money into land we own and a boat and other toys which, in the long run, provide much better opportunities for us to spend time together. I’m not sure there are solutions worth implementing in order to attract 12,000 fans when they can save the money and still have 10,000 fans.

The benefit/cost of attending a game has to be higher than the benefit/cost of doing any other given thing.

There are many things to do on a nice Saturday and if there's a significant barrier to dropping by the game, people will choose otherwise. It's that simple.

[Dixonfor6]

Be a consistent top 25 program is the recipe. Winning doesn’t matter as much. Ya gotta beat teams with a pulse, consistently

[techman05]

If we build stadiums that seat fewer people and then stay in top 25, we can fill the stadiums.

[Exes&Ohs]

Other than baseball, attendance at Tech's athletic events has to be at an all-time low.
The posted attendance figures are a joke - based on tickets sold I guess.
I'd like to see true buts in the seats numbers for events.
MBB & WBB are doing great to have 500 in actual attendance.

Granted weather was often an issue for football but with maybe 1,500 on a good day on the student side that is until half-time, then they disappeared (taking out the band who are required attendance). The west side maybe 5,000? Not easy to do a head count when you're sitting on that side.
Heck - Ruston High football draws more than Tech

Hopefully, we'll see an increase in attendance in softball this year - they deserve our support!

As far as students go - anyone have any ideas as to how we get them back involved?

We had six home games in 2021-2922 season with total ticket sales of just over $600,000 or $100,000 per game. An average ticket price of even $20 means we had no more than 5,000 paid attendance for each.

[jbgood57]

We had six home games in 2021-2922 season with total ticket sales of just over $600,000 or $100,000 per game. An average ticket price of even $20 means we had no more than 5,000 paid attendance for each.

"no more than 5,000 tickets sold" - I'm guessing from that there were only one-third, or half at most that actually showed up.

[revf]

Consistently winning solves a lot of attendance woes. Right now our two best programs: Baseball and (hopefully Softball this year) should have good attendance. People buy in when there is excitement. These are programs that are really engaged in seriously competing for conference championships year in and year out. The Baseball fans will tell you it took several years to build what they are enjoying now.

Unlike our other programs Football, MBB, and WBB, whose coaches have talked about competing but have rarely if ever actually done so. Point being your actions speak louder than your words. Brook Stoehr has been here 7 years, and has yet to win a conference championship, conference tournament, or anything else. You really think people are showing up for average basketball even when they are giving tickets away for free?

We are not asking these coaches to win the SEC or even beat a Big-12 team. We are asking them to compete against C-USA schools.

Baseball and Softball have shown us that this is possible. It is time to expect more from our "big programs" which have far more funding than Baseball and Softball.

[HogDawg]

Consistently winning solves a lot of attendance woes. Right now our two best programs: Baseball and (hopefully Softball this year) should have good attendance. People buy in when there is excitement. These are programs that are really engaged in seriously competing for conference championships year in and year out. The Baseball fans will tell you it took several years to build what they are enjoying now.

Unlike our other programs Football, MBB, and WBB, whose coaches have talked about competing but have rarely if ever actually done so. Point being your actions speak louder than your words. Brook Stoehr has been here 7 years, and has yet to win a conference championship, conference tournament, or anything else. You really think people are showing up for average basketball even when they are giving tickets away for free?

We are not asking these coaches to win the SEC or even beat a Big-12 team. We are asking them to compete against C-USA schools.

Baseball and Softball have shown us that this is possible. It is time to expect more from our "big programs" which have far more funding than Baseball and Softball.

Good post.