Our program is dying a slow, painful death
And it doesn't seem like anyone at USM cares. For decades we've struggled to build up our fanbase, slowly but surely growing to the point of averaging 32k+ under a few years of Fedora. But ever since he left, it has plummeted. There were times pre-2012 that we could play some random school from who knows where and draw 30k+ to open the season. TWENTY-TWO THOUSAND. For an SEC school in Hattiesburg. Are you kidding me? That's absolutely atrocious. But the worst part is, that crowd was a picture of how our administration has viewed USM Athletics for the past few decades.
1. Our staff is absolutely lazy. They have no idea how to sell a product, to go out into the community and meet people and get tickets sold. So what they inevitably do is think of some "hip" social media idea to spam people with instead of actually making money. Instead, they pay IMG to do their job, selling advertisements and season tickets for them (and poorly I might add), then pay IMG a percentage of those sells, so we end up making less money than we should because our own people aren't doing their jobs.
2. Our Gameday atmosphere is awful. It feels like a library. We've complained about speakers since before I graduated high school and they still have not fixed them. And today, when we host one of the biggest name teams on our schedule in recent years, we have them where you can't hear anything. I play music in my car louder than they had it going. And instead of filling commercial time with games and interactive videos to get the crowd involved, we just sit there and show another ad for some random business, probably one of the same five that repeat all game. Why are there only five videos (some of which are USM videos)? See point #1.
3. We make safe hires instead of trying to fire up our fanbase. When we have a coaching opening in a major sport, we've recently gone for the calm, relaxed hire that's safe to get you six wins each year instead of shooting for an exciting young guy. The one time we broke from this gave us Fedora, who excited our fanbase like I haven't seen in a long time and had us recruiting top tier players and winning big games.
4. Eagle Club memebership continues to shrink. This should be so easy to grow. Get a list of all alumni 200+ miles away. Call them up and explain how you understand they can't make every game because of distance, but that if they joined the EC, they'd be helping provide scholarships to our student athletes. And if they can make it to town for a game, to call the AD and they'd get them free tickets. There is an entire untapped piece of our alumni who would love to help, but need to be asked. They can't do season tickets, but they could do this. But once again, a lack of creativity and laziness kills desire to do this.
I could go on. I sat in that stadium today wondering how many games I was going to attend this year. I can handle mediocre offense if we're winning games, but everything was so boring. We are in the business of entertainment and we don't do it. Growing a fanbase takes building an atmosphere. We have to put on a show. We don't do that. It was so dead inside that stadium today, against an SEC opponent. It's no wonder people graduate and leave to never return. We live one life, why waste time at a boring atmosphere when you can go to the one down the street and enjoy an entire experience?
I haven't been around as long as most of you. Many of you have watched us become what we are today. I'm still a young gun. But this is so incredibly obvious to me that it's mind boggling. I had a friend graduate high school a few years after me. He'd grown up a USM fan and had applied, but planned to go to Ole Miss. I was wondering why because I had never seen him even hint at like TSUN. His answer? "Because when I get older and have a family, I want to be able to bring them to campus and have a great time and enjoy the experience. USM does nothing." We can say he's wrong and list some things we do right, but he hits at a very good point and one we shouldn't ignore. We have no experience, no atmosphere, nothing. And we can blame fans all day, but athletic department and it's leadership have let us down time and time again. I can't justify spending $100+ coming to watch us play Southern next week. It's not fun. And I have a feeling I'm far from the only one questioning how much they can justify giving to a group that has shown incompetence and laziness time and time and time again. Because I care, and I know some of you will say nothing will change if I don't give/go to games, but going for the past decade hasn't changed anything at all. It's only gotten worse and there's no end in sight. We need leadership and someone who will put people to work. We need someone who cares about the success of our athletic department, not just sitting around collecting a paycheck. Until that happens, 22,000 may become the new norm. It may become the new high...
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