(12-07-2013 09:48 PM)fortheplayers Wrote:  My favorite part is how we beat your a@&

Ok...now that is funny, And congrats Rice.

Here are some interesting numbers for those who keep dwelling on attendance.

RICE
Stadium capacity: 70,000*
11/30/13 attendance: 20,048 (vs. Tulane)
Stadium occupancy: 28.6%

MARSHALL
Stadium capacity: 38,016
11/30/13 attendance: 25,117 (vs. ECU)
Stadium occupancy: 66.1%

Now switch the stadium capacities and recalculate occupancy!

RICE (with a smaller stadium)
Stadium capacity: 38,016
11/30/13 attendance: 20,048 (vs. Tulane)
Stadium occupancy: 52.7%

MARSHALL (with a larger stadium)
Stadium capacity: 70,000
11/30/13 attendance: 25,117 (vs. ECU)
Stadium occupancy: 35.9%

So, if Marshall played in a stadium as large as Rice's, Marshall would fill about 36% of it. Is that so much different than Rice's 29%? It's roughly a third in either case! This means that the issue that some cannot get past here is not Rice's attendance but the size of Rice Stadium. I say that, if you have a problem with the size of Rice Stadium, you will just have to get over it. Rice Stadium's size is a testament to the history of Rice's program (and the history of Houston) as well as Rice's aspirations. I'm proud that Rice has big damn stadium. It's unique; nobody would build a stadium like it for a small school nowadays. It's an irreplaceable resource. Can Rice work on attendance? Yes. Do we want empty seats on TV? No. Do we want to host "big time" football crowds in the future? YES--as does every other school in C-USA. Are we working towards that? YES--as is every other school in C-USA.

Can we stop beating this dead horse now?

*not the number of seats currently but indicative of the size of the stadium

There are only two numbers that matter when discussing the game that was played between the oft talked about stands.

I also think that what people are forgetting is that the view that they were getting was the visitor side of the stadium, so most of those seats were supposed to be taken by the visiting team's fans.

Here is a partial shot of the UTSA crowd at Rice last year.

(12-08-2013 12:40 AM)Caelligh Wrote:  Here are some interesting numbers for those who keep dwelling on attendance.

RICE
Stadium capacity: 70,000*
11/30/13 attendance: 20,048 (vs. Tulane)
Stadium occupancy: 28.6%

MARSHALL
Stadium capacity: 38,016
11/30/13 attendance: 25,117 (vs. ECU)
Stadium occupancy: 66.1%

Now switch the stadium capacities and recalculate occupancy!

RICE (with a smaller stadium)
Stadium capacity: 38,016
11/30/13 attendance: 20,048 (vs. Tulane)
Stadium occupancy: 52.7%

MARSHALL (with a larger stadium)
Stadium capacity: 70,000
11/30/13 attendance: 25,117 (vs. ECU)
Stadium occupancy: 35.9%

So, if Marshall played in a stadium as large as Rice's, Marshall would fill about 36% of it. Is that so much different than Rice's 29%? It's roughly a third in either case! This means that the issue that some cannot get past here is not Rice's attendance but the size of Rice Stadium. I say that, if you have a problem with the size of Rice Stadium, you will just have to get over it. Rice Stadium's size is a testament to the history of Rice's program (and the history of Houston) as well as Rice's aspirations. I'm proud that Rice has big damn stadium. It's unique; nobody would build a stadium like it for a small school nowadays. It's an irreplaceable resource. Can Rice work on attendance? Yes. Do we want empty seats on TV? No. Do we want to host "big time" football crowds in the future? YES--as does every other school in C-USA. Are we working towards that? YES--as is every other school in C-USA.

Can we stop beating this dead horse now?

*not the number of seats currently but indicative of the size of the stadium

I think thats the issue at hand. Rice Stadium is an inappropriate venue size for any CUSA team, especially the one with the smallest enrollment and alumni base. Its essentially a school owned version of Legion Field or the Super Dome.

I believe I've heard talk of renovations. Maybe the solution is to take down the upper decks and one of the endzones. That should reduce capacity to ~30,000. Or maybe sort of emulate Tulane and Houston and tear down the entire stadium and build anew on the same site to a capacity 30-35,000.

Short of Rice joining the SEC or Big 12, attendance will always look bad in that stadium.

Thanks for the input. It will be given the consideration it deserves.

No offense, but demolishing one of the best viewing stadiums in football because you guys (who weren't there) don't think it looks good on tv sure does smack of sour grapes. We've had 35,000+ on numerous occasions, and even 45k. 70% of the stadiums in CUSA don't even hold that many.

The weather sucked and we had 20,000 people there. I don't care what you think it looked like on TV. What it looked like to me was a convincing conference championship victory over a very good Marshall team.

(12-08-2013 01:36 AM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote:  I also think that what people are forgetting is that the view that they were getting was the visitor side of the stadium, so most of those seats were supposed to be taken by the visiting team's fans.

Here is a partial shot of the UTSA crowd at Rice last year.

That's a lot of UTEP fans

(12-08-2013 03:23 AM)randaddyminer Wrote:  

(12-08-2013 01:36 AM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote:  I also think that what people are forgetting is that the view that they were getting was the visitor side of the stadium, so most of those seats were supposed to be taken by the visiting team's fans.

Here is a partial shot of the UTSA crowd at Rice last year.

That's a lot of UTEP fans

32-13 says otherwise!

(12-07-2013 02:29 PM)MonarchCAM Wrote:  I understand it's a bad situation... short week, really bad weather... but to a neutral observer, on flipping on ESPN 2 it looks like a nearly empty stadium at a Championship game. It's embarrassing for conference.

The play is embarrassing for Marshal... not sure which is worse.

Spelling Marshall with one "l" instead of two is far worse......lol.

We will never convince people that our crowds are really as big as we say, due to the bad camera angle, the size of the stadium, and the lack of understanding about the size of our concourses. For regular season games, there is some merit to this, since season ticket holders are counted whether there physically or not. It's tickets sold, not butts in seats.

But for the game yesterday, the two are about the same. All of the tickets sold were sold to people who planned to be there and knew about the weather forecast. I would estimate that 90%+ of the sold tickets translated to a butt in a seat - or standing inn the concourse, or drinking in the Roost, or many other places not shown on TV. So my estimate of actual attendance would be 18-19K. Appearances can be deceiving, and it is unfortunate that the appearance is so bad.

Not a lot we can do about it. The stadium was built in 1950, and so TV angles were not the primary consideration; the viewing of the game by the attendees was. One thing we can do is get more fans there, and yesterday was a step on that road. I can remember sitting in empty stadiums at TCU and Baylor. Build it (the program) and they will come. We are building it. Pardon our construction.

I invite all of you to come to Houston with your teams. I guarantee you will be on TV, representing your school in your colors.

Attendance smack is what the team that lost always does. Ignore em.

(12-07-2013 01:29 PM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  

(12-07-2013 01:05 PM)MasMack Wrote:  

(12-07-2013 12:42 PM)IceJus10 Wrote:  

(12-07-2013 12:36 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  ...on ESPN3.

That is incorrect. The American contract specifies the number of games on network (ABC) and national cable channels (of which only ESPN & ESPN2 meet in household numbers) and coverage of all games on a variety of platforms... that was the feature that made it shocking that ESPN matched NBC. Beyond the 2-3x as many national broadcasts, the rest of the conference slate can appear on ESPN U, News, and Watch ESPN.

As for crowd size today... TELEVISION coverage makes it easy for fans of any of these teams to watch from home and avoid the cold.

Ok since you obviously read the contract, and since it specifies the number that will be on ABC and the number that will be on ESPN and ESPN2, please enlighten us and tell us those numbers!?

I'll wait for your answer.

He can make up whatever numbers he wants because he doesn't know that in reality the contract says ESPN will televise x number on one of their outlets, but the outlets include espnnews and espn3. They are going to be very disappointed but hey, they do make 600k more money each on their tv contract. Nice but no big deal.

FYI--ESPN-3 doesn't count as "televised". What you are failing to understand is that the AAC did not originally sign with ESPN. They signed with NBC. My understanding is that ESPN offered more money, but less exposure. The AAC signed with NBC because NBC offered a ridiculous amount of exposure. The current ESPN offer allowed ESPN the chance to match a competitors offer and they did. In order to match--they had to match or beat every item in the contract including exposure. NBC doesn't have an ESPN-3 equivalent and ESPN-3 is not the same as NBC or NBC-Sports. So ESPN-3 is not a "match" for any NBC network.

That said, the new AAC agreement does allow ESPN to sell some games to other networks. If I recall correctly, about 15 games have been sold off to CBS-Sports. The final result will be about 90% of AAC games on national networks and 10% of AAC games being on regional carriers. Of the national games, none will be on ESPN-3 and more games will be on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN-2 than the current contract. That said, the increased exposure on those networks is probably minimal. I would also expect plenty of the games on the best 3 ESPN networks to get crappy time slots. I still figure lots of games wont be on the best ABC/ESPN/ESPN-2 venues and will appear instead on ESPN-News or ESPN-U. Additionally, there will also be a significant chunk on CBS-Sports. Despite this, the games will be far more visible than they are now and it will be a significant improvement over the exposure currently in place.

Another perspective.

I've seen estimates that the student attendance reached 3k. I don't believe that. It looked more like 2k to me. But if true then that represents almost 80% of our undergrads. Let's say there were only 10k of our alums there in the cold and wind. That's almost 25% of our living alums world-wide. If any of these schools talking attendance smack could hit those percentages they would get an SEC invitation.

the one thing I think Rice needs to do when they renovate their stajium is put in big wide chairs in a really large section of the stajium with cup holders and nice arm rest and maybe have a slight space between each one like a couple of inches so everyone has plenty of elbow room and a nice comfortable seat to kick back in

otherwise the stajium is really sweet and a great place to watch a game

How many bowl game tie-in's for the MWC, AAC and CUSA next year and thereafter?

I have no idea about that comparison list, but of those 3 conferences who has the best bowl arrangements in the near future?

(12-08-2013 03:40 AM)BamaScorpio69 Wrote:  

(12-07-2013 02:29 PM)MonarchCAM Wrote:  I understand it's a bad situation... short week, really bad weather... but to a neutral observer, on flipping on ESPN 2 it looks like a nearly empty stadium at a Championship game. It's embarrassing for conference.

The play is embarrassing for Marshal... not sure which is worse.

Spelling Marshall with one "l" instead of two is far worse......lol.

The other L was stripped and and returned for a TD by Rice.

(12-09-2013 10:51 AM)MonarchCAM Wrote:  

(12-08-2013 03:40 AM)BamaScorpio69 Wrote:  

(12-07-2013 02:29 PM)MonarchCAM Wrote:  I understand it's a bad situation... short week, really bad weather... but to a neutral observer, on flipping on ESPN 2 it looks like a nearly empty stadium at a Championship game. It's embarrassing for conference.

The play is embarrassing for Marshal... not sure which is worse.

Spelling Marshall with one "l" instead of two is far worse......lol.

The other L was stripped and and returned for a TD by Rice.

lol well played.

(12-08-2013 10:43 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  We will never convince people that our crowds are really as big as we say, due to the bad camera angle, the size of the stadium, and the lack of understanding about the size of our concourses. For regular season games, there is some merit to this, since season ticket holders are counted whether there physically or not. It's tickets sold, not butts in seats.

But for the game yesterday, the two are about the same. All of the tickets sold were sold to people who planned to be there and knew about the weather forecast. I would estimate that 90%+ of the sold tickets translated to a butt in a seat - or standing inn the concourse, or drinking in the Roost, or many other places not shown on TV. So my estimate of actual attendance would be 18-19K. Appearances can be deceiving, and it is unfortunate that the appearance is so bad.

Not a lot we can do about it. The stadium was built in 1950, and so TV angles were not the primary consideration; the viewing of the game by the attendees was. One thing we can do is get more fans there, and yesterday was a step on that road. I can remember sitting in empty stadiums at TCU and Baylor. Build it (the program) and they will come. We are building it. Pardon our construction.

I invite all of you to come to Houston with your teams. I guarantee you will be on TV, representing your school in your colors.

+1000

(12-08-2013 11:05 AM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  Another perspective.

I've seen estimates that the student attendance reached 3k. I don't believe that. It looked more like 2k to me. But if true then that represents almost 80% of our undergrads. Let's say there were only 10k of our alums there in the cold and wind. That's almost 25% of our living alums world-wide. If any of these schools talking attendance smack could hit those percentages they would get an SEC invitation.

This is one of the most encouraging things to me. We've all done a lot of hand-wringing about student support. Let's hope the students that came out had a great time and intend to make a habit of it.

(12-08-2013 12:14 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  the one thing I think Rice needs to do when they renovate their stajium is put in big wide chairs in a really large section of the stajium with cup holders and nice arm rest and maybe have a slight space between each one like a couple of inches so everyone has plenty of elbow room and a nice comfortable seat to kick back in

otherwise the stajium is really sweet and a great place to watch a game

This has been discussed on the Rice board. I think it's a good solution - reduce capacity a bit, but do it by improving the game time experience.

(12-09-2013 12:07 PM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(12-08-2013 12:14 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  the one thing I think Rice needs to do when they renovate their stajium is put in big wide chairs in a really large section of the stajium with cup holders and nice arm rest and maybe have a slight space between each one like a couple of inches so everyone has plenty of elbow room and a nice comfortable seat to kick back in

otherwise the stajium is really sweet and a great place to watch a game

This has been discussed on the Rice board. I think it's a good solution - reduce capacity a bit, but do it by improving the game time experience.

So when I get my season tickets, I should ask for the Fat Ass section?