UTEP would rank near the bottom of attendance in AAC & MWC

[JCorona]

http://www.scout.com/college/arkansas-state/story/1674387-2015-g5-attendance

It was not that long ago that UTEP was known for its good attendance numbers despite a near decade of losing seasons. While we are ranked third in CUSA we would be 10th in the AAC and 8th in the MW.

Those are bad places to be at for a school that aspires to improve their conference affiliation. Hopefully with NMSU and Army at home we can draw early crowds of 40k plus and set us up to be above the 30k mark at the conclusion of the upcoming season.

 

[MinerInWisconsin]

http://www.scout.com/college/arkansas-state/story/1674387-2015-g5-attendance

It was not that long ago that UTEP was known for its good attendance number despite a near decade of losing seasons. While we are ranked third in CUSA we would be 10th in the AAC and 8th in the MW.

Those are bad places to be at for a school that aspires to improve their conference affiliation. Hopefully with NMSU and Army at home we can draw early crowds of 40k plus and set us up to be above 30k mark at the conclusion of the upcoming season.

Last years attendance was the lowest for UTEP in 12 years. I did not like the way the scheduled laid out to start the season with road games at Arkansas and Texas Tech right out of the gate. Getting clobbered in both of those games really took the starch out of the fan base. Hopefully the Miners can beat NMSU and Army and also show well vs Texas. Attendance should be much better with that scenario.

 

[Minerforlife]

Last year's attendance I chalk up to worst schedule in fbs. Attendance was also not helped by two nationally televised drubbings and a rain soaked homecoming.

I think we will be back over 30k this year. We could be averaging 40k after the first three games. The important game will be the game against the whorns. There will be 35k for nmsu, getting over 40 k for army will depend on how things go in Austin. I dont think we have to necessarily win but we have to avoid being curb stomped. In Kugler's fourth year we should be competitive with middle of the road power 5 schools. They will be on a short week after a big game.

 

[MinerInWisconsin]

Last year's attendance I chalk up to worst schedule in fbs. Attendance was also not helped by two nationally televised drubbings and a rain soaked homecoming.

I think we will be back over 30k this year. We could be averaging 40k after the first three games. The important game will be the game against the whorns. There will be 35k for nmsu, getting over 40 k for army will depend on how things go in Austin. I dont think we have to necessarily win but we have to avoid being curb stomped. In Kugler's fourth year we should be competitive with middle of the road power 5 schools. They will be on a short week after a big game.

Would love to see 40k for the NMSU game but it is Labor Day weekend so lots of people will be out and about for the weekend plus the Chihuahuas have a home game scheduled at the same time which could take away some fans.

 

[nattybry]

http://www.scout.com/college/arkansas-state/story/1674387-2015-g5-attendance

It was not that long ago that UTEP was known for its good attendance numbers despite a near decade of losing seasons. While we are ranked third in CUSA we would be 10th in the AAC and 8th in the MW.

Those are bad places to be at for a school that aspires to improve their conference affiliation. Hopefully with NMSU and Army at home we can draw early crowds of 40k plus and set us up to be above the 30k mark at the conclusion of the upcoming season.

Last year was not the Norm!

 

[jdubb66]

Our attendance would be a lot better if we were playing teams like Boise St., Air Force, Houston and Louisville. Or UNM and San Diego St. in basketball. so there's that.

 

[e-rick]

Tailgating rules have killed attendance! Lots of families, like ours, take their children and grand children. We had around 25-30 families in our group. We would all park together and have a family outing. BBQ, play games, hang out, and if kids wanted to go to game we would (we all had tickets, season ticket holders) go early, 1st qtr, and or at half time! If we wanted to leave the game early, we would return to our tailgate party and hang out until time to get kids in bed or whatever! Since the implementation of the new tailgating rules, all but 4 families quit going! It is no longer fun for the kids and for us , the adults! We had been tailgating as a group since the 70's.

 

[LaserCoog]

Anybody have an accurate (official) count of sold season tickets?

 

[JCorona]

We could come up with hundreds of reasons why attendance is low. Part of it is the days of seeing 40k plus in the sun bowl might be gone for good. For that matter all G5 teams. Only four out of 62 teams hit 40k or more.

Regardless of what everyone else is doing we do have an attendance problem arising. UTEP should always stay around the 30k mark. Either a few thousand below or above it. (28-32k)

Oct 3rd 2015. After an impressive come from behind over time victory over our most hated rival UTEP would finally play it's first home game in the Sun Bowl. The opponent was a complete unknown. As most had no idea Incarnate Word even fielded a football team. That should not matter. We were playing our first home game of the season and a freshman qb from Andress was set to start. With an opportunity to even our record at .500 and the chance to build on last weeks momentum the Sun Bowl should have been rocking with at least 27,000. Unfortunately only 22,322 showed up.

Oct 10, 2015. Here we were sitting at 2-2 just as most expected after playing two tough P5 teams and two beatable teams. The start of CUSA season would also provide a clean slate to our conference record. An 1-0 start is crucial if we want to be in the conversation for the West title. To top it all off we had UTSA visiting El Paso. A team we have stared to form a rivalry with after UH and SMU left the conference. I understand we had some horrible rain that led to delays but the actual tickets sold of 25,951 is still low for such an important game. We should have had at least 30k tickets sold.

Oct 24, 2015. A rough start saw the team at 2-4 with FAU coming into town. A name most aren't familiar with. FAUs record of 1-5 also didn't help sell many tickets. The announced crowd of 22,468 is acceptable for the point in the season we were in.

Nov 6, 2015. At 3-5 UTEPs back was getting closer and closer to the wall. A defeat to 4-4 Rice and our season would be just about cooked. RICE is an opponent we should have familiarity with. Having played each other for over 20 years in two different conferences. Fans should have been coming out in force to put an end to RICEs dominance over UTEP as they had beat us 8 out of the last 9 games. The city did respond by producing the biggest crowd of the season. All 23,031 saw UTEP in thrilling back and forth game that was separated by one FG in UTEPs favor. Too bad we didn't have an extra 5,000 come out to witness this event.

Nov 21, 2015. After losing a game we had control of against ODU we returned to the Sun Bowl with our season on the line. At 4-6 we needed to beat La Tech at home and do the same in Denton the following week to earn a bowl appearance. Once again I understand it was a cold wet day and the game was on TV. At 7-3 La Tech was the best team that had visited the Sun Bowl all season. It was all senior night and a crucial game for not only the season but Kuglers overall performance. A nice healthy crowd of 30,000 minus all the no shows could have been the difference maker. Instead we rewarded the team with a crowd in similar size (22,286)to the Incarnet Word game. Sad overall.

We did go on to beat North Texas and finished the season at 5-7. Had we beat UTSA or and La Tech we would have spent the holidays in Tucson. Could we have beat them with bigger crowds at hand? Probably we will never know.

One thing is true of successful teams. The fans show up regardless if we are fighting to stay out of last place or if we are competing for a conference title.

 

[Tribalwarriorx]

Marketing. Marketing. Marketing.

I'm not talking bobble-head weekend giveaways either. The marketing program has to be consistent, often and pretty much unconventional.

 

[CubsFan81]

I think Kuglers power run game and bland offense has also hurt attendance. Personally I don't mind watching it, but people are use to seeing these pass happy high octane offenses and they get bored watching a power run game. Pease was hired for a reason and I think he is going to be given a green light to open up the offense this season.

 

[MinerInWisconsin]

Last year was not the Norm!

Right. UTEP would have finished no lower than 4th in the 5 previous years in the mwc. That 5th time UTEP would have been 5th in attendance. And that is with mediocre attendance in the 28-29k range. If the Miners ever get it going well consistently, they would finish number 1 in the mwc attendance race and they have proven they can do that in previous years.

Using the ncaa attendance figures for the past 10 years, UTEP is averaging about 31k per year which includes last years 12 year low of 23k.

 

[FeralFelidae]

Tailgating rules have killed attendance! Lots of families, like ours, take their children and grand children. We had around 25-30 families in our group. We would all park together and have a family outing. BBQ, play games, hang out, and if kids wanted to go to game we would (we all had tickets, season ticket holders) go early, 1st qtr, and or at half time! If we wanted to leave the game early, we would return to our tailgate party and hang out until time to get kids in bed or whatever! Since the implementation of the new tailgating rules, all but 4 families quit going! It is no longer fun for the kids and for us , the adults! We had been tailgating as a group since the 70's.

I really think this is a big part of it. It was a big part of the experience for the casual fan.

 

[Tribalwarriorx]

I think Kuglers power run game and bland offense has also hurt attendance. Personally I don't mind watching it, but people are use to seeing these pass happy high octane offenses and they get bored watching a power run game. Pease was hired for a reason and I think he is going to be given a green light to open up the offense this season.

Hoping so. Surely if Kug's offense, even grounding and pounding it like it was a 50lb chuck steak, was blowing people out, attendance would increase. People forget, the object of the game is to win, but we live in a microwave society that expects high scoring and physical play. Having said that I hope the OC is able to be creative with his formations, situational substitutions, and play calling. I'm an avid believer if UTEP wins, people will come. But they won't come if no one markets them winning; their brand of football, and the excitement it generates.