how many people were at smu ucf this year? 300?

Everyone wants to cry about the poor showing at the cusa championship game. It's an 11 am game in December against a team we played at home two weeks prior.

Lots of teams here have crap attendance. Tulane probably avg 3000 fans in the seats for years. Memphis had some bad years. Ucfs stadium was half full when they were bad.

Ill take results over TV potential any day.

I guess that if I want a quality education in Connecticut I will have to attend that private school in New Haven. What is its name? Yale! But sadly I guess that I will be missing ladies and men's basketball games at a local public regional school, but I assume that I am attending university to get a quality education and successful career rather than basketball.

(02-17-2014 12:18 PM)Savacool Wrote:  Adding Tulane was a great move by the AAC. It is one of the premier academic universities in the nation ranked number 52 nationally, significantly the highest in the AAC. It belongs unlike most of the schools in the AAC to the prestigious Association of American Universities, composing the leading research universities in the USA and Canada. Its international reputation is known worldwide, particularly throughout Latin America. It is the largest employer in one of the most unique historic tourist visited cities in our country,New Orleans. Did you see the NBA All Star game held there last night? It has under construction a 73m new football stadium funded by cash gifts of alumni and friends and has approximately over 120 m invested recently in its physical plant with a state of the art baseball stadium and basketball training facility. Coach Curtis Johnson last season had a winning season and took Tulane football to its first bowl game in many years. Tulane's endowment over 1 billion dollars is the largest in the AAC. Would you like any more reasons U Conn poster?

SMU's endowment is over $200,000,000 larger than that of Tulane's

(02-17-2014 03:31 PM)panicstricken Wrote:  how many people were at smu ucf this year? 300?

Everyone wants to cry about the poor showing at the cusa championship game. It's an 11 am game in December against a team we played at home two weeks prior.

Lots of teams here have crap attendance. Tulane probably avg 3000 fans in the seats for years. Memphis had some bad years. Ucfs stadium was half full when they were bad.

Ill take results over TV potential any day.

a counter to your argument solely for playing devils advocate

every team with bad attendance are the teams that don't win, tulsa was winning and still had bad attendance
every other team in our league with tulsa resume is doing 29k atleast (including tulane and memphis)
and tulane was never that bad. playing in a 75k stadium made it look dramatically worse

You are incorrect. SMU's endowment is about 1.17 billion about equal with Tulane.SMU is ranked 60th academically nationally by US News and World Report where Tulane is higher ranked at 52. In my opinion two great sister private universities in two exceptional cities,New Orleans and Dallas, and we mirror each other as assets to the AAC. I really wish Rice would become a member of the AAC, but since we already have the University of Houston it would not add to our market share and TV revenue.

(02-17-2014 03:51 PM)Savacool Wrote:  You are incorrect. SMU's endowment is about 1.17 billion about equal with Tulane.SMU is ranked 60th academically nationally by US News and World Report where Tulane is higher ranked at 52. In my opinion two great sister private universities in two exceptional cities,New Orleans and Dallas, and we mirror each other as assets to the AAC. I really wish Rice would become a member of the AAC, but since we already have the University of Houston it would not add to our market share and TV revenue.

We don't need anymore small private schools unless we want to have CUSA steal bowl slots from us. The only advantage CUSA has over the AAC is that nearly all their schools are large public institutions. If we get too many small schools we are going to struggle attracting better bowls.

(02-17-2014 03:51 PM)Savacool Wrote:  You are incorrect. SMU's endowment is about 1.17 billion about equal with Tulane.SMU is ranked 60th academically nationally by US News and World Report where Tulane is higher ranked at 52. In my opinion two great sister private universities in two exceptional cities,New Orleans and Dallas, and we mirror each other as assets to the AAC. I really wish Rice would become a member of the AAC, but since we already have the University of Houston it would not add to our market share and TV revenue.

The link contains the market values of university endowments at the end of FY2013 - this was released in late January 2014.
http://www.nacubo.org/Documents/Endowmen...232014.pdf

65 Southern Methodist University TX 1,268,079 1,177,176 7.7
79 Tulane University LA 1,047,813 960,972 9.0

That being said, Tulane is a great academic institution and I nearly attended Tulane instead of SMU. Tulane and SMU are very similar institutions in that they provide a top-notch academic experience for students in a small, personal learning environment, with access to the conveniences of a large metro area. I'm not hating on Tulane at all - just pointing out facts

Tulane and Tulsa IMO are not "bad" additions as much as they probably were not the best additions. Tulane was added as a last ditch effort to keep the Big East together as they were viewed as similar to the C7 schools. As we now know that backfired miserably as Tulane was voted in then the Big East splintered.

The biggest drawbacks to Tulane and Tulsa (I will have to include ECU only because they were the last or second to last full member to be added) are not of their own doing: the issue is they make the AAC look too much like CUSA. If you trade those three for three other teams the new league only has 6 members who were ever in CUSA, and only 4 recent members, as opposed to 9, the league has a much different feel. That, more than anything else, is where all three become problematic. For arguments sake if those three were replaced by UMass, Buffalo, and Army, you drastically shift the geography back to the Northeast, and retain some of the original geography of the Big East, which probably changes the perception. Or if you replace them with three western teams, say Boise St, San Diego State, and Air Force, for example, you have the national conference originally sought.

I want to add this is nothing against ECU, when I say this. Location, history, and football attendance, etc, make them far different from Tulane and Tulsa. However after Memphis was added, any additional former CUSA team more or less labels the conference as CUSA 2.0 out of the gate, would drag USF and Cincy back into being looked at as former CUSA schools as opposed ot former BCS schools. Which meant ideally, at least at the onset, none of the three should have been added. It harmed the conference' effort to brand itself as something similar to the Big East and forever labeled it as CUSA. Whether it was one (ECU) or all three wouldn't have mattered much, although adding only one would have been far better. Thus the conference needed to either add more NE teams, or western teams to have any chance of appearing to be something else. If that was not to be done, I am not sure it mattered that Tulane and Tulsa were the next ones added as it doesn't seem to matter at that point.

(02-17-2014 03:45 PM)pesik Wrote:  

(02-17-2014 03:31 PM)panicstricken Wrote:  how many people were at smu ucf this year? 300?

Everyone wants to cry about the poor showing at the cusa championship game. It's an 11 am game in December against a team we played at home two weeks prior.

Lots of teams here have crap attendance. Tulane probably avg 3000 fans in the seats for years. Memphis had some bad years. Ucfs stadium was half full when they were bad.

Ill take results over TV potential any day.

a counter to your argument solely for playing devils advocate

every team with bad attendance are the teams that don't win, tulsa was winning and still had bad attendance
every other team in our league with tulsa resume is doing 29k atleast (including tulane and memphis)
and tulane was never that bad. playing in a 75k stadium made it look dramatically worse

It really wasn't that much better than the 3,000 number panicstricken threw out there (and he was exaggerating for effect just like he did with his first line about the SMU-UCF game) as can be seen from the turnstile numbers in this article: http://www.tulanehullabaloo.com/tulane-p...wJ7RfldU1I

But Tulane is taking action to right the ship in terms of attendance:

1) Curtis Johnson appears to have the program on the path to winning
2) Yulman Stadium is being built on campus (I can't wait to get to see it)

There is another factor besides winning that all of our schools have to overcome: We are in a conference that is not seen as relevant in football. That means that we have an increased burden when attracting fans from the local area as well as from our own students and alumni. If you have no connection to the school other than living in the local area, why pay money to see a game that is irrelevant when you can stay home, save money, and watch Alabama vs. LSU on one TV and Stanford vs. Oregon on another TV? If you are a student, why go to your school's game when you can stay in the frat house, drink, and watch the game on TV while following along with the action happening at your high school friends' schools and talk about everything on Twitter? If you are an alumnus, why go to your alma mater's game when it's not relevant when you could listen to it on the radio or watch on TV while saving money that will allow your kids to go to college when they grow up?

Tulane was admitted unanimously by all of the Big East members including votes of all of its Catholic basketball schools for all sports because of its top academic reputation similar to most of the Catholic schools such as Georgetown etc and it is located in a 90 percent Catholic fantastic historic destination city New Orleans with great recruiting potential. Disagreement on dollars and the big differential between a basketball and a football school caused the breakup, not Tulane,ECU or Tulsa.

(02-17-2014 04:30 PM)CalallenStang Wrote:  

(02-17-2014 03:45 PM)pesik Wrote:  

(02-17-2014 03:31 PM)panicstricken Wrote:  how many people were at smu ucf this year? 300?

Everyone wants to cry about the poor showing at the cusa championship game. It's an 11 am game in December against a team we played at home two weeks prior.

Lots of teams here have crap attendance. Tulane probably avg 3000 fans in the seats for years. Memphis had some bad years. Ucfs stadium was half full when they were bad.

Ill take results over TV potential any day.

a counter to your argument solely for playing devils advocate

every team with bad attendance are the teams that don't win, tulsa was winning and still had bad attendance
every other team in our league with tulsa resume is doing 29k atleast (including tulane and memphis)
and tulane was never that bad. playing in a 75k stadium made it look dramatically worse

It really wasn't that much better than the 3,000 number panicstricken threw out there (and he was exaggerating for effect just like he did with his first line about the SMU-UCF game) as can be seen from the turnstile numbers in this article: http://www.tulanehullabaloo.com/tulane-p...wJ7RfldU1I

But Tulane is taking action to right the ship in terms of attendance:

1) Curtis Johnson appears to have the program on the path to winning
2) Yulman Stadium is being built on campus (I can't wait to get to see it)

There is another factor besides winning that all of our schools have to overcome: We are in a conference that is not seen as relevant in football. That means that we have an increased burden when attracting fans from the local area as well as from our own students and alumni. If you have no connection to the school other than living in the local area, why pay money to see a game that is irrelevant when you can stay home, save money, and watch Alabama vs. LSU on one TV and Stanford vs. Oregon on another TV? If you are a student, why go to your school's game when you can stay in the frat house, drink, and watch the game on TV while following along with the action happening at your high school friends' schools and talk about everything on Twitter? If you are an alumnus, why go to your alma mater's game when it's not relevant when you could listen to it on the radio or watch on TV while saving money that will allow your kids to go to college when they grow up?

3000 and 17000-18000 is a huge difference, and 20,000 last year (and had 2 28k+ games in 2012) their new stadium will be 30k, its is going to look packed for most of the games especially if they keep winning. honestly speaking there biggest down fall was playing in a 75k stadium.

and to answer your question: representation. most high school games are irrelavent but just 3 months ago a texas HS game had 55k attendance because people from those city want someone to represent them and look to be part of something bigger than them. tulane is the "New Orleans teams" in college if the start winning, even if the games are vs no names the fans will show up to support

Tulane has to compete with two pro teams, the Saints and Pelicans and to a certain extent LSU A&M. Plus there is always mega music festivals and food festivals every weekend in New Orleans. Tulane alumni live across the country particularly in the Northeast and the world. It is not like regional public schools such as UL-L where their fans base lives in a sixty mile radius of Lafayette. If we continue to win fans will come because it is a family sporting event at a reasonable price unlike the NFL and NBA.

(02-17-2014 05:06 PM)pesik Wrote:  3000 and 17000-18000 is a huge difference, and 20,000 last year (and had 2 28k+ games in 2012) their new stadium will be 30k, its is going to look packed for most of the games especially if they keep winning. honestly speaking there biggest down fall was playing in a 75k stadium.

I don't disagree with your conclusion, but you may have missed this:

Quote:Through the decades, the Wave fan base has dwindled substantially. During the last five seasons — from 2008 through the Wave’s Oct. 13 game against Southern Methodist University — Tulane averaged 5,485 in turnstile attendance, a number that, until now, has not been released to the public.

That being said, they are on the upswing and I fully expect attendance to improve drastically at Yulman Stadium.

Quote:just 3 months ago a texas HS game had 55k attendance because people from those city want someone to represent them and look to be part of something bigger than them.

If you live in Texas you know that the 5A Division 1 State Championship game is akin to the national championship game in college football. It's huge: it's statewide bragging rights. It's the opposite of irrelevant.

(02-17-2014 05:20 PM)Savacool Wrote:  Tulane alumni live across the country particularly in the Northeast and the world.

This is a big factor and one that many do not recognize. When you look at Tulane, SMU, and probably Tulsa as well (not sure), you are looking at schools whose local alumni bases are smaller proportionally than they would be otherwise. In SMU's case, there are only 40,000 SMU alumni in Greater Dallas, and many of them went to SMU for graduate school and have ties to other institutions where they did their undergraduate work and thus have stronger ties to other schools. Undergraduate alumni, who usually are more tied into sports fandom, at these private schools are spread around the country. It is what it is.

(02-17-2014 04:30 PM)CalallenStang Wrote:  

(02-17-2014 03:45 PM)pesik Wrote:  

(02-17-2014 03:31 PM)panicstricken Wrote:  how many people were at smu ucf this year? 300?

Everyone wants to cry about the poor showing at the cusa championship game. It's an 11 am game in December against a team we played at home two weeks prior.

Lots of teams here have crap attendance. Tulane probably avg 3000 fans in the seats for years. Memphis had some bad years. Ucfs stadium was half full when they were bad.

Ill take results over TV potential any day.

a counter to your argument solely for playing devils advocate

every team with bad attendance are the teams that don't win, tulsa was winning and still had bad attendance
every other team in our league with tulsa resume is doing 29k atleast (including tulane and memphis)
and tulane was never that bad. playing in a 75k stadium made it look dramatically worse

It really wasn't that much better than the 3,000 number panicstricken threw out there (and he was exaggerating for effect just like he did with his first line about the SMU-UCF game) as can be seen from the turnstile numbers in this article: http://www.tulanehullabaloo.com/tulane-p...wJ7RfldU1I

But Tulane is taking action to right the ship in terms of attendance:

1) Curtis Johnson appears to have the program on the path to winning
2) Yulman Stadium is being built on campus (I can't wait to get to see it)

There is another factor besides winning that all of our schools have to overcome: We are in a conference that is not seen as relevant in football. That means that we have an increased burden when attracting fans from the local area as well as from our own students and alumni. If you have no connection to the school other than living in the local area, why pay money to see a game that is irrelevant when you can stay home, save money, and watch Alabama vs. LSU on one TV and Stanford vs. Oregon on another TV? If you are a student, why go to your school's game when you can stay in the frat house, drink, and watch the game on TV while following along with the action happening at your high school friends' schools and talk about everything on Twitter? If you are an alumnus, why go to your alma mater's game when it's not relevant when you could listen to it on the radio or watch on TV while saving money that will allow your kids to go to college when they grow up?

I believe the solution to the problem of attendance for "The American" just like any other business you have to do cooperative advertising the milk and orange juice business understand this the, P5 don't have to do it , they have the name brands but "The American" need to create those name brand's.

(02-17-2014 03:33 PM)Savacool Wrote:  I guess that if I want a quality education in Connecticut I will have to attend that private school in New Haven. What is its name? Yale! But sadly I guess that I will be missing ladies and men's basketball games at a local public regional school, but I assume that I am attending university to get a quality education and successful career rather than basketball.

American ATHLETIC Conference

Your athletics are irrelevant so all you Tulane fans do is crow and crow about your AAU/Academic status. You speak of how being associated with Tulane will bring academic advantages to the conference schools. We have been in the same conference as you for 18 years now, PLEASE list ANYTHING tulane has done for an AAC/CUSA school in academics, i honestly would like to know

Do we really need to rag on other conference members?

(02-17-2014 10:21 PM)fishpro1098 Wrote:  Do we really need to rag on other conference members?

When a sheep gets away, have to put it back in its place

But I agree... No need to fume other AAC members