A&M broke our SEC attendance record....

[droner]

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/11686868/ole-miss-vs-texas-sets-sec-attendance-record

[73Volgrad]

Texas A&M is bucking the trend of most schools.  Rather than decrease the stadium capacity to "increase the fan experience" (Can someone explain that one?), they have increased the size to cram more fans in. As long as they are winning or remain competitive, the fans will come. Also, the Texas economy is booming and the A&M fan base is loaded for the most part.

UT's attendance has plummeted not because the fan experience is down, but it has fallen IMO because the teams have been crappy and the costs have gone through the roof. When Hamilton decided you had to be a "contributor" to get the best seats and hang tradition of having the same seats for years, that left a bad taste in fan's mouths. Also, I can for a fact tell you that engineering firms and their vendors used to buy a lot of season tickets to pass out (I used to get seats that way so I did not have to buy them). That stopped when the economy started declining way back in the early 2000s even before 2007. So as corporate seat buying and contributions declined, fans were driven away by Hammy's callous treatment of the fan base. When you treat your customers poorly and demand is low, attendance drops.

That and the poor teams Fulmer put on the field in his last 5 years as a whole. Do not give me that 1990s bull crap because as the SEC got better, Fulmer floundered when Cutcliffe left. Cutcliffe was the best coach Fulmer had because he ran the offense and was the real head coach keeping the kids in line and focused. What happened when Cut left was this team could not score enough to beat people as SEC defense got better and team discipline declined. Fulmer just could not bring himself to fire bad coaches and it cost him his job. That is the bottom line.  Then in his brilliance, Hammy hired a quitter that recruited thugs and then a part time coach that could not recruit the best.

When UT starts winning again and competing for championships, the fans will return in mass. Look for the AD to demand more money to buy the best seats though.

[BanditVol]

I don't think Hart will make Hammy's mistake, at least I hope not.

Yes, Hammy did many things that may have helped the bottom line short term, but were really stupid in the long run.

Making the students pay for tickets in spite of already paying an activities fee might have brought in ~ $1M a year, but it was a horrible PR disaster.  I thought it was incredibly asinine, for the amount that it brought it.

Basically he gave the university a black eye and probably alienated almost all, if not all, the students just to enhance revenue ~1%.  All while he let the product on the field decline.

Penny wise, pound foolish...

And while we did decline from 2001 on, I think the fanbase also grew accustomed to success.  10-3 just wasn't getting it anymore, while in the early 90s it would have been considered a good if not great year.

[murfvol]

1) I don't think Hamilton understood it was vital to UT's interest to have one of the two or three largest stadiums in the country. That's a huge recruiting tool.

2) Corollary to #1, filling a massive facility creates a buzz. Doing that should be the goal, because TV revenue pays the bills. Goosing prices is great short-term profits, but a bad long term play because it gets people out of the habit of going to games.

3) Related to #2, make it affordable. Most on this board grew up going to games with $18 tickets. Salaries haven't tripled since 1990. It's good to see prices easing back down, but it's vital to UT's long-term interest for new generations to go to games. As a side note, fans will be less critical if they don't have to drop $280 for four tickets.

Obviously having a quality on-field product is key, but the above were detrimental.