Alan has a link to the 2nd part of a 3 part article on UNT dealing with the lack of success in the stands after moving in to Apogee Stadium. Going back to the first article this caught my attention:

UNT sold 3,900 season tickets for the 2015 season, according to school officials.

A study conducted by UAB listed UNT’s season ticket sales for the 2014 season at 4,285. That total ranked 13th out of the 14 teams in C-USA, ahead of only Rice.

Link to first article http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/sports-he...-is-on.ece

Here's a link to the third and final article of the series: http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/sports-he...sition.ece

It's mostly a wrapup of the issues mentioned in the first two articles in the context of the Mean Green fans hoping that a new university president and athletics director will improve their results, popularity and financial success.

Some tidbits:

Quote:UNT has enjoyed only one winning season in the past 11 years in football, the program that attracts the most attention at the school. UNT’s men’s basketball program hasn’t posted a winning season in four years, while its women’s basketball team is riding a streak of 10 straight losing seasons.

...

UNT’s Mean Green Club membership totaled 1,124 in 2015. That figure trailed key rivals Texas-San Antonio (2,203) and SMU (3,541) by significant margins, according to a study published by Houston this summer.

...

UNT’s attendance for five home football games last season averaged only 13,631 fans, the lowest total since 1998.

...

UNT has a student body of more than 36,000 and thousands of graduates living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Great quote

“I dropped my commitment because of a lack of commitment by the school,” Robertson [UNT season ticket holder and donor] said. “We are content to be what we are, which is irrelevant. We were told we were going to get all those big teams in here, and it hasn’t happened.”

Perhaps there is something to having an AD named "Rick".

Yet another perfect example of why facilities, EZFs and new stadiums don't make a lick of a difference.

Yet there seems to be at least one year's data indicating the EZF has made a difference in recruiting. Granted that is not attendance, etc.

But the bump in recruiting after 2008 resulted in 2012-14 . . .

(07-19-2016 09:52 AM)Antarius Wrote:  Yet another perfect example of why facilities, EZFs and new stadiums don't make a lick of a difference.

Clearly they make SOME difference. Look at our recruiting this year. I think what you mean is facilities don't make the program, it takes lots of pieces.

(07-19-2016 10:37 AM)cr11owl Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 09:52 AM)Antarius Wrote:  Yet another perfect example of why facilities, EZFs and new stadiums don't make a lick of a difference.

Clearly they make SOME difference. Look at our recruiting this year. I think what you mean is facilities don't make the program, it takes lots of pieces.

It's kind of a chicken/egg argument. I don't know of any successful program that doesn't have at least decent facilities.

(07-19-2016 10:37 AM)cr11owl Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 09:52 AM)Antarius Wrote:  Yet another perfect example of why facilities, EZFs and new stadiums don't make a lick of a difference.

Clearly they make SOME difference. Look at our recruiting this year. I think what you mean is facilities don't make the program, it takes lots of pieces.

Rice was a top 5 program in Baseball without Reckling.

Facilities help sustain success. You are correct that they don't make the program. They don't save a program either.

(07-19-2016 10:53 AM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 10:37 AM)cr11owl Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 09:52 AM)Antarius Wrote:  Yet another perfect example of why facilities, EZFs and new stadiums don't make a lick of a difference.

Clearly they make SOME difference. Look at our recruiting this year. I think what you mean is facilities don't make the program, it takes lots of pieces.

Rice was a top 5 program in Baseball without Reckling.

Facilities help sustain success. You are correct that they don't make the program. They don't save a program either.

I don't think its really fair to compare college baseball in the 1990's to college football in the 2010's. Not many college baseball programs had great baseball facilities during Rice's rise to baseball prominence, and Rice dramatically improved its facilities just as many other schools were also doing so. The facilities race began earlier with college football and Rice is well behind the curve, instead of comfortably within the curve.

(07-19-2016 08:17 AM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  Alan has a link to the 2nd part of a 3 part article on UNT dealing with the lack of success in the stands after moving in to Apogee Stadium. Going back to the first article this caught my attention:

UNT sold 3,900 season tickets for the 2015 season, according to school officials.

A study conducted by UAB listed UNT’s season ticket sales for the 2014 season at 4,285. That total ranked 13th out of the 14 teams in C-USA, ahead of only Rice.

Link to first article http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/sports-he...-is-on.ece

UNT has a enrollment of 37,000 students. Apples and oranges......

This is UT's current locker room, which many UT people are saying is behind the times and a replacement is in the works.

Our NEW locker room is not going to be that much nicer than UT's current one.

I've been in A&M's locker room, and they have TV's in the bathroom mirror, a barber shop, a food and drink bar that is fully staffed, etc...

(07-19-2016 11:22 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  This is UT's current locker room, which many UT people are saying is behind the times and a replacement is in the works.

Our NEW locker room is not going to be that much nicer than UT's current one.

I've been in A&M's locker room, and they have TV's in the bathroom mirror, a barber shop, a food and drink bar that is fully staffed, etc...

They (UT) have so much money, their facilities are constantly upgraded. They had a top ten recruiting class w this facility AND a losing record(
IIRC)

(07-19-2016 11:30 AM)HawaiiOwl Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:22 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  This is UT's current locker room, which many UT people are saying is behind the times and a replacement is in the works.

Our NEW locker room is not going to be that much nicer than UT's current one.

I've been in A&M's locker room, and they have TV's in the bathroom mirror, a barber shop, a food and drink bar that is fully staffed, etc...

They (UT) have so much money, their facilities are constantly upgraded. They had a top ten recruiting class w this facility AND a losing record(
IIRC)

I know... Just using it as an example. Antarius brought up Rice winning a national championship in baseball, so we should look at the schools that fund their program to win a national championship.

Look at Clemson, Bama, Ohio St, etc. and you will see similar.

IIRC, one of the reasons we built Reckling was to have a facility that could host Regionals. We wanted to be able to host because that makes the Road to Omaha just a bit easier, playing at home.

Facilities are not the whole answer. They are a piece of the puzzle, maybe even a corner piece. But achivement can be done without top facilities (see rice baseball before Reckling) and facilities alone don't maintain a program (se rice baseball currently).

I am not sure where the anti-facilities bias is coming from or what they are trying to say. I think the better the facilities we have, the better off we are. I don't think anybody here thinks just putting up buildings makes us NC contenders.

(07-19-2016 11:21 AM)tramile12 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 08:17 AM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  Alan has a link to the 2nd part of a 3 part article on UNT dealing with the lack of success in the stands after moving in to Apogee Stadium. Going back to the first article this caught my attention:

UNT sold 3,900 season tickets for the 2015 season, according to school officials.

A study conducted by UAB listed UNT’s season ticket sales for the 2014 season at 4,285. That total ranked 13th out of the 14 teams in C-USA, ahead of only Rice.

Link to first article http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/sports-he...-is-on.ece

UNT has a enrollment of 37,000 students. Apples and oranges......

And Houston's population vs Denton's is ......? I wasn't looking to making a comparison, but simply numbers and rankings I had not seen before. Quite frankly I am surprised we were on the bottom. Thought we would be towards the bottom but that UAB would be last.

(07-19-2016 01:06 PM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:21 AM)tramile12 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 08:17 AM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  ... Going back to the first article this caught my attention:

UNT sold 3,900 season tickets for the 2015 season, according to school officials.

A study conducted by UAB listed UNT’s season ticket sales for the 2014 season at 4,285. That total ranked 13th out of the 14 teams in C-USA, ahead of only Rice.

UNT has a enrollment of 37,000 students. Apples and oranges......

And Houston's population vs Denton's is ......? I wasn't looking to making a comparison, but simply numbers and rankings I had not seen before. Quite frankly I am surprised we were on the bottom. Thought we would be towards the bottom but that UAB would be last.

Here's this list (and its 2015 published link), which gave C-USA season ticket data for 2012-14: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2015/0...tera.html/

(07-19-2016 01:55 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 01:06 PM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:21 AM)tramile12 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 08:17 AM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  ... Going back to the first article this caught my attention:

UNT sold 3,900 season tickets for the 2015 season, according to school officials.

A study conducted by UAB listed UNT’s season ticket sales for the 2014 season at 4,285. That total ranked 13th out of the 14 teams in C-USA, ahead of only Rice.

UNT has a enrollment of 37,000 students. Apples and oranges......

And Houston's population vs Denton's is ......? I wasn't looking to making a comparison, but simply numbers and rankings I had not seen before. Quite frankly I am surprised we were on the bottom. Thought we would be towards the bottom but that UAB would be last.

Here's this list (and its 2015 published link), which gave C-USA season ticket data for 2012-14: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2015/0...tera.html/

Code:

Team             2012      2013      2014
1. USM          20,910    16,361    15,587
2. ODU          14,613    15,037    14,699
3. UTSA         13,646    14,556    13,867
4. UTEP         14,126    13,332    13,167
5. Marshall     13,361    12,444    12,638
6. FIU          10,569    12,036     8,537
7. WKU             –       8,452     7,588
8. UAB           7,008     6,294     6,233
9. La. Tech      6,324     6,613     6,081
10 Charlotte       –       6,090     5,641
11 Middle Tenn.  5,342     5,679     5,025
12 FAU           3,445     4,426     4,462
13 N. Texas      4,535     4,468     4,285
14 Rice          4,856     4,424     4,165

The AD also stated that those numbers were significantly lower than internal numbers and that Rice had increased seasons tickets from 2012-2014, not decreased.

(07-19-2016 11:45 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:30 AM)HawaiiOwl Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:22 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  This is UT's current locker room, which many UT people are saying is behind the times and a replacement is in the works.

Our NEW locker room is not going to be that much nicer than UT's current one.

I've been in A&M's locker room, and they have TV's in the bathroom mirror, a barber shop, a food and drink bar that is fully staffed, etc...

They (UT) have so much money, their facilities are constantly upgraded. They had a top ten recruiting class w this facility AND a losing record(
IIRC)

I know... Just using it as an example. Antarius brought up Rice winning a national championship in baseball, so we should look at the schools that fund their program to win a national championship.

Look at Clemson, Bama, Ohio St, etc. and you will see similar.

Just look at UVA.

They went from nothing to something when they (and John Grisham) threw a ton of money at their program, bought them a sweet coach, and built some new digs and it paid off.

It is not a guarantee, but at the time, when it seems like every program across the country is trying their darndest to succeed in football, basketball, and baseball, you will almost undoubtedly fall behind and fail if you don't try and keep up with the Jones'. The path to success will not be guaranteed by addressing the superficial aspects of one of those three big sports programs nowadays, but you are almost guaranteed to fail if you do ignore them.

I mean, just look at what Tom Herman is saying about how they view these upgrades as ways to compensate their players since they cannot be paid - I bet you every coach used that against us when there was mold in our locker rooms and the ceiling tiles were falling down. The coach could point at that and say - see, they don't actually care about you or winning. The good thing is, those opposing teams don't have that ammo anymore.

(07-19-2016 02:54 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:45 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:30 AM)HawaiiOwl Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:22 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  This is UT's current locker room, which many UT people are saying is behind the times and a replacement is in the works.

Our NEW locker room is not going to be that much nicer than UT's current one.

I've been in A&M's locker room, and they have TV's in the bathroom mirror, a barber shop, a food and drink bar that is fully staffed, etc...

They (UT) have so much money, their facilities are constantly upgraded. They had a top ten recruiting class w this facility AND a losing record(
IIRC)

I know... Just using it as an example. Antarius brought up Rice winning a national championship in baseball, so we should look at the schools that fund their program to win a national championship.

Look at Clemson, Bama, Ohio St, etc. and you will see similar.

Just look at UVA.

They went from nothing to something when they (and John Grisham) threw a ton of money at their program, bought them a sweet coach, and built some new digs and it paid off.

It is not a guarantee, but at the time, when it seems like every program across the country is trying their darndest to succeed in football, basketball, and baseball, you will almost undoubtedly fall behind and fail if you don't try and keep up with the Jones'. The path to success will not be guaranteed by addressing the superficial aspects of one of those three big sports programs nowadays, but you are almost guaranteed to fail if you do ignore them.

I mean, just look at what Tom Herman is saying about how they view these upgrades as ways to compensate their players since they cannot be paid - I bet you every coach used that against us when there was mold in our locker rooms and the ceiling tiles were falling down. The coach could point at that and say - see, they don't actually care about you or winning. The good thing is, those opposing teams don't have that ammo anymore.

We have so many examples of winners who have both a good coach and facilities. We have lots of examples of teams with facilities and no coach who are losers. I am yet to see an example of facilities making a major difference without a good/great coach. Please share.

No one has ever argues that better facilities are bad. Simply put, the ROI on 30 million dollars is far higher elsewhere.