SFA Crowd/GameDay Environment Thread

28,608 Views | 183 Replies | Last: 1 yr ago by PurpleOut
TallTexan
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Have noticed a lot of discussions breaking out for in game threads about improvements/suggestions/complaints about the gameday environment, attendance, and our crowd.

I'm creating this as a catchall for those types of posts. That way we can make suggestions, track improvements, etc. Can also be used to highlight things opponents are doing well(and feel free to take potshots at the 17 Sam fans at every event).

And if any Athletic Department Employees are ever perusing our multitudinous thoughts of genius, they'll have one central spot to read about gameday environment or crowd improvements.
No-look
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We need to talk to the GCU people behind the scenes
TallTexan
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No-look said:

We need to talk to the GCU people behind the scenes
Yall see the Texas Tech crowd videos from this weeks basketball game? They were going ham.

To me, we can't so much compare ourselves to the numbers of attendance at other schools, though we can definitely do better.

But if we have a crowd of 500 it should be the loudest 500 people you've ever heard.
TallTexan
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Regarding GCU/NMSU/others attendance, let's talk ticket prices and attendance and our ticket pricing strategy.

Background: Nac/Lufkin/East Texas are not wealthy areas.Sure, some of us are middle class, some upper, but as a whole, the area is closer to the poverty line than most. The median family income in Nac is 37k as of the 2010 census. I'm gonna assume some inflation in wages & strong economy there, so let's say 40K for the median.

Personally, I'm of the belief that we have priced out a lot of our local community members & alumni from being able to regularly attend games. My wife and I have white collar jobs and while we're not living like kings, 36 bucks for a football game + driving to Nac and two meals gets pretty pricey.

Our single game ticket prices for football:
Chairbacks: $25
Reserved: $18
GA: $15

For basketball(with fees):

Men's
Centercourt: 25
Reserved: 21
Corners: 18
Baseline: 15


Women's:
Centercourt: 20
Reserved: 18
Corners: 15
Baseline: 13

Now you're probably thinking, ok sure, we could have looked these all up ourselves, why are you telling us this? So I put these numbers in a spreadsheet, made some assumptions about the type of each ticket, number of season ticket holders, amount of concessions sold per person on average, and generated a revenue game day number.

I'll spare you the math details & assumptions, as I think it's the principle that counts. So here's why the gameday revenue number matters, once I calculated that, I can mess around with the pricing and then see how much attendance has to increase in order to make the same topline general revenue number for a single game.

In short, how much does attendance have to increase to make sure we make the same amount as we did before per game?
TallTexan
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Let's start with football.

Based on 8500 average attendees per game this year, an average ticket price of 15.25 per game, & $2 in concessions per person:

Gameday Revenue: $136,903

So here's our current football ticket prices:
Chairbacks: $25
Reserved: $18
GA: $15

For my calculations, I suggest these prices instead:
Chairbacks: $20
Reserved: $15
GA: $10
Visitor Side: $5

That gives us a weighted average ticket price of 10.75 (some demand assumptions are built in based on type of ticket). With our concessions rev, that's 12.75 per person.

So to match our original 135k in gameday revenue for football, we would need an average crowd of 10,500 for football. An increase of rougly 2k from our usual average.

But by decreasing the cheapest price from 15 to 5 for visitor side seating(and also filling out the side the TV camera sees) and decreasing the home side pricing by $5 a seat as well, I think we might be able to add a thousand or 2 fans a game.

Really helps us build our place in the community by making it affordable for the entire community.
TallTexan
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Now let's look at Basketball.

So we currently average 3200 for men's and 1400 for women's per game, with the following pricing for single tickets.
Men's
Centercourt: 25
Reserved: 21
Corners: 18
Baseline: 15


Women's:
Centercourt: 20
Reserved: 18
Corners: 15
Baseline: 13

The average price per game for season tickets is 4.75, which is a heck of a deal if you can afford to prepay for them all.

With my assumptions on type of seating, % of season ticket holders that make up the crowd, concessions, etc, I got the following gameday revenue numbers:

Men:$35,000
Women's: $13,000

And I used these single game ticket prices as my suggested price:

  • Centercourt Reserved:$10 (This one is blended, 12 on weekends, 8 on weekdays)
  • Reserved GA:$8
  • Baseline(behind basket): $5

So our season ticket per game price would be roughly half of the ticket and you get specific seats for centercourt reserved. For regular reserved, it just guarantees you a seat in that section, first come, first served.

So how many new fans do we need to hit those revenue numbers per game?

For men's: 4580
For women's: 1810

Now that's a decent jump on the men's side, 1300 new fans. 400 for women's.

But, as before, it makes each game more affordable for all fans in the local area, which should allow a decent increase in attendance. If you knew you can bring your family of 4 for $20 bucks, you might drive over from Lufkin or Tyler more often than you would than if it's $60 for everyone to get in.

Just my two cents. I made a lot of assumptions so don't call Ivey and say we're making 135k a game for football. But I think the ratios/logic work pretty well.

I personally I feel like we've priced out atleast half of our potential East Texas fan base from regular attendance. And that's going to hamper the growth of our PLF donors, our crowd attendance, and our homecourt advantage.
SFASawmillGuy
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I think we need to market better to East Texas. If we can put money in to get tv spots, online ads, radio spots all advertising the hell out of SFA as East Texas's college, maybe we can be the pride of East Texas and draw larger crowds.

As far as the atmosphere, we need to encourage rowdiness. When I was a student there were several groups who would paint themselves, get loud, straight up get personal with the opposing players when screaming. It was an aggressive crowd and I think it made SFA a harder place for visitors. Energy is contagious so we need the "Jack hammers" or whatever the student leaders are to work harder. We need people in the crowd to act as leaders and get the crowd going.
Ljacks&Longnecks
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Texan, I believe you are spot on about pricing out the locals. The Nac area is statistically below average income and higher prices will keep some retirees and families away. Of course there are locals that would never show for various reasons but fans that could be had with lower pricing have to vote their wallets.
Most locals will likely find the new paid parking for BB to be another slap in the face. I heard Keller trying to defend it on Monday night because you have to pay for parking everywhere else but to less affluent locals it just appears to be another way for SFA to fleece the locals. I understand that SFA "needs more revenue" but less fans coming in will not add to any revenue stream. Nacogdoches is not the Big City. It might do well for SFA to recognize their potential audience, the realities of their expendable dollars and then think and act in accordance.
I appreciate all the time Texan (and others on here) put into thinking of ways to build the fanbase. That said I do believe that the apathy or complete disinterest of a large part of the student body and the overall lack of wealth in the surrounding areas severely limits the ceiling on more butts in seats .But I welcome Texan to keep fighting the good fight.
PurpleOut
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Staff
Just general comment around the and in particular students. Sometimes it's quality over quantity. When I was in school attendance was terrible for basketball. But you know what? The 20 or so Hecklers we had were 100x louder and more energetic than the larger student crowds we have today.

Same goes for football actually. This season we were having around 1,500 or so students scan into the stadium. But who knew? Other than the ones tailgating (very few of those were actually paying attention), the rest were sitting over in the corner quietly. Remember how loud it was having 30-40 PHA members with axe handles behind the visiting bench?

We need to figure out how to get really good, organized student leaders. Like we said in a different thread, pay these leaders for each sport based on how many students they get to attend AND sit in a real student section.

And not only just organized leaders, kids that are knowledgeable in athletics and want the type of environment that we are describing. We have PHA leaders, but again, who would know? I didn't see one at the football games that I was at. If they are signing up to be leaders who's job is basically only a student athletic section...why wouldn't they be out in the tailgate area close to the action? I would have LOVED to have that opportunity as a student.

Sorry that ended up more as a rant.
SFA Jack Fanatic
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PurpleOut said:



We need to figure out how to get really good, organized student leaders. Like we said in a different thread, pay these leaders for each sport based on how many students they get to attend AND sit in a real student section.

And not only just organized leaders, kids that are knowledgeable in athletics and want the type of environment that we are describing. We have PHA leaders, but again, who would know? I didn't see one at the football games that I was at. If they are signing up to be leaders who's job is basically only a student athletic section...why wouldn't they be out in the tailgate area close to the action? I would have LOVED to have that opportunity as a student.


Out of all of the suggestions I've seen offered up on this thread and on others, I think Purple's idea about using "commission-based" student leaders to rally the on-campus kids would be best, at least in the near term. There have to be more than a handful of students who would jump at the chance to do that. I think a process like that would provide the biggest (and fastest and easiest-to-accomplish) bang for the buck. They could even start a compensated competition between these leaders to see who gets the most students to games. Maybe use business school students to do it and/or tweak the process. How the success of such a process would be tracked and the student leaders compensated would be a whole other issue. But people smarter than me could figure it out.
nacluth
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I've gone through the math before, but in the last decade (even more so in the 90's), community members turn out to games in a huge proportion to our population compared to other schools of similar size. I'm not saying you can't incentivize or convince more to show up. Underwood era success proves that. But, for a baseline crowd, locals are doing their part.

Student growth has to be the most accessible form of number increase though I know they don't bring measurable revenue increase. Personally I think the parking is ridiculous. I walked through football fields of an open parking lot now that only the final third of the lot is free. There has been no advertising that you can buy parking passes anywhere - just a lot you can't get in.

I'm really not ranting. My point (which may be separate from the thread) is: SFA needs more sports revenue. Locals have been a great support of SFA sports despite living in an extremely poor county. Riding the lines between paying a fair price and milking the locals is a fine line - especially when it seems little is done from the campus side. We have to find relatable analogies to similar universities in similar towns to see how we stack up.
PurpleOut
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The last tweet from PHA was in August.

The "axeperience" people have not tweeted since Jack Madness.

We're going in the opposite direction.
TallTexan
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SFA_03 said:

I think we need to market better to East Texas. If we can put money in to get tv spots, online ads, radio spots all advertising the hell out of SFA as East Texas's college, maybe we can be the pride of East Texas and draw larger crowds.

As far as the atmosphere, we need to encourage rowdiness. When I was a student there were several groups who would paint themselves, get loud, straight up get personal with the opposing players when screaming. It was an aggressive crowd and I think it made SFA a harder place for visitors. Energy is contagious so we need the "Jack hammers" or whatever the student leaders are to work harder. We need people in the crowd to act as leaders and get the crowd going.
I'm with ya there. I think The Official College of East Texas has a lot of potential. For drawing fans, for increasing enrollment, for regional pride, etc.
TallTexan
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PurpleOut said:

Just general comment around the and in particular students. Sometimes it's quality over quantity. When I was in school attendance was terrible for basketball. But you know what? The 20 or so Hecklers we had were 100x louder and more energetic than the larger student crowds we have today.

Same goes for football actually. This season we were having around 1,500 or so students scan into the stadium. But who knew? Other than the ones tailgating (very few of those were actually paying attention), the rest were sitting over in the corner quietly. Remember how loud it was having 30-40 PHA members with axe handles behind the visiting bench?

We need to figure out how to get really good, organized student leaders. Like we said in a different thread, pay these leaders for each sport based on how many students they get to attend AND sit in a real student section.

And not only just organized leaders, kids that are knowledgeable in athletics and want the type of environment that we are describing. We have PHA leaders, but again, who would know? I didn't see one at the football games that I was at. If they are signing up to be leaders who's job is basically only a student athletic section...why wouldn't they be out in the tailgate area close to the action? I would have LOVED to have that opportunity as a student.

Sorry that ended up more as a rant.
I think this is spot on for quality vs quantity.

It's also why I wish we could have a rowdy olds section. 10-15 of us yelling the whole time would be a start. Hell, Grant alone can get the entire crowd going for a Defense chant better than the cheerleaders can.
TallTexan
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nacluth said:

I've gone through the math before, but in the last decade (even more so in the 90's), community members turn out to games in a huge proportion to our population compared to other schools of similar size. I'm not saying you can't incentivize or convince more to show up. Underwood era success proves that. But, for a baseline crowd, locals are doing their part.

Student growth has to be the most accessible form of number increase though I know they don't bring measurable revenue increase. Personally I think the parking is ridiculous. I walked through football fields of an open parking lot now that only the final third of the lot is free. There has been no advertising that you can buy parking passes anywhere - just a lot you can't get in.

I'm really not ranting. My point (which may be separate from the thread) is: SFA needs more sports revenue. Locals have been a great support of SFA sports despite living in an extremely poor county. Riding the lines between paying a fair price and milking the locals is a fine line - especially when it seems little is done from the campus side. We have to find relatable analogies to similar universities in similar towns to see how we stack up.
I think you and LJacks are spot on regarding our fanbase. I know the athletic dept needs money. But I also feel like we're entering an the gray area where we're nickle and diming our fanbase.

What prompted the initial analysis was paying 36 for two GA football tickets felt steep, and Marla and I do decently well for East Texas. And I figured if I hesitated on pulling the trigger on two tickets for a game that I was already in Nac for, that well, we're probably pricing out a lot of potential fans who can't even consider it. Then Pilot Girl mentioned that their A&M basketball tickets were actually cheaper face value than the SFA ones.

Student growth is a great potential area, from both a noise and numbers standpoint. Heck, we have center court seats and there were 8 season ticket holders in the first four rows. And the rest was students who filled in and made noise. Not technically where they were supposed to sit, but hey I won't complain when our corporate neighbors won't ever show up.

And I want to reward locals as much as boost attendance with this pricing. Anyone within 30 minutes of Nac, which is a population nearly the size of Tyler should be considered to be a potential target for a midweek game. That's 166k people to pull from.

But with the current pricing, even though you get to watch high level basketball, is pricing more befitting Austin or College Station than it is Nacogdoches. Lots of folks priced out. You can take your kids to the movies cheaper than watching the Cardiac Jacks.
BigJack85
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nacluth said:

I've gone through the math before, but in the last decade (even more so in the 90's), community members turn out to games in a huge proportion to our population compared to other schools of similar size. I'm not saying you can't incentivize or convince more to show up. Underwood era success proves that. But, for a baseline crowd, locals are doing their part.

Student growth has to be the most accessible form of number increase though I know they don't bring measurable revenue increase. Personally I think the parking is ridiculous. I walked through football fields of an open parking lot now that only the final third of the lot is free. There has been no advertising that you can buy parking passes anywhere - just a lot you can't get in.

I'm really not ranting. My point (which may be separate from the thread) is: SFA needs more sports revenue. Locals have been a great support of SFA sports despite living in an extremely poor county. Riding the lines between paying a fair price and milking the locals is a fine line - especially when it seems little is done from the campus side. We have to find relatable analogies to similar universities in similar towns to see how we stack up.


I think you're right, Ryan. I've been to games in San Marcos, Huntsville, HBU, UofH and more. We are very well represented by the general populace. The 100% focus needs to be higher turnout from the undergraduate population. We should have 2,000 undergrads (minimum) at every game.
Pilotgirl
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To compare, tickets for the WBB game against Houston are $2 more than our game against A&M in College Station. That's crazy to me. Especially since we all know no one will show up to the women's games even though they are awesome & entertaining. We need to price it where people will show up!

For this weekend, I'm staying in another town because Nac hotels were just too steep for the weekend (based on quality). So I'm down 250 now, plus gas, food...easily up to 400. I was lucky to get tickets from fellow Sawmillers or I would be out another $80. Easily $500+ to attend 2 games. I'm lucky in that I can afford that on occasion but I know that's a privilege.

We need community support at games and this ain't it.
Pilotgirl
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Well, gosh darn it...talk to me about the parking issue. I use handicap, so is that still in the front lot? How much to park there?

Man, honestly, this may be my first and last weekend in Nac for games.
TallTexan
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Pilotgirl said:

Well, gosh darn it...talk to me about the parking issue. I use handicap, so is that still in the front lot? How much to park there?

Man, honestly, this may be my first and last weekend in Nac for games.
I believe that's still the front lot.

I'm gonna guess that there's no charge for parking with a placard, but I'd message Ivey just to be sure.
nacluth
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Handicapped is up front and free.
SFAJack_76
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Ticket revenue to date is meaningfully higher than any full year ever. The community is buying tickets.
TallTexan
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SFAJack_76 said:

Ticket revenue to date is meaningfully higher than any full year ever. The community is buying tickets.
Is that from significantly higher season ticket sales or at the gate tickets?
sfajack05
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Parking is $10?
nacluth
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If you want to park in the middle third of the commuter lot.
SFA Jack Fanatic
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Pilotgirl said:

Well, gosh darn it...talk to me about the parking issue. I use handicap, so is that still in the front lot? How much to park there?

Man, honestly, this may be my first and last weekend in Nac for games.
Come on, Pilot. They're your Ladyjacks. You aren't allowed to abandon them. I'm coming to town for tonight's UH game and staying through Sunday for the men's game. If I can persevere, you can, too.
PurpleOut
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Staff
Here is the updated parking map. Due to increased amount of donor passes, they've changed it slightly. Also because construction and everything else has moved some of our Level I donors from behind the Coliseum to the main lot.

Level III was expanded for additional donors, as well as single game parking for $10 (a $250 PLF donation gets you a pass here).

Level IV, Hall 20 and the spots along East College are still free.


sfajack05
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PurpleOut said:

Here is the updated parking map. Due to increased amount of donor passes, they've changed it slightly. Also because construction and everything else has moved some of our Level I donors from behind the Coliseum to the main lot.

Level III was expanded for additional donors, as well as single game parking for $10 (a $250 PLF donation gets you a pass here).

Level IV, Hall 20 and the spots along East College are still free.



I guess I need to contact PLF about a parking pass for basketball. I got one for football but not basketball.
sfajack05
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PurpleOut said:

Just general comment around the and in particular students. Sometimes it's quality over quantity. When I was in school attendance was terrible for basketball. But you know what? The 20 or so Hecklers we had were 100x louder and more energetic than the larger student crowds we have today.

Same goes for football actually. This season we were having around 1,500 or so students scan into the stadium. But who knew? Other than the ones tailgating (very few of those were actually paying attention), the rest were sitting over in the corner quietly. Remember how loud it was having 30-40 PHA members with axe handles behind the visiting bench?

We need to figure out how to get really good, organized student leaders. Like we said in a different thread, pay these leaders for each sport based on how many students they get to attend AND sit in a real student section.

And not only just organized leaders, kids that are knowledgeable in athletics and want the type of environment that we are describing. We have PHA leaders, but again, who would know? I didn't see one at the football games that I was at. If they are signing up to be leaders who's job is basically only a student athletic section...why wouldn't they be out in the tailgate area close to the action? I would have LOVED to have that opportunity as a student.

Sorry that ended up more as a rant.
If I remember correctly during those years there wasn't a purple haze association but a few students who were involved in SGA, Jack Camp, OL leaders, etc. and they really lead the charge for getting students to the football games. They were good at gathering/recruiting students to go to the games.

I know one of them still works for SFA so maybe they should reach out to him.
PurpleOut
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Staff
sfajack05 said:

PurpleOut said:

Just general comment around the and in particular students. Sometimes it's quality over quantity. When I was in school attendance was terrible for basketball. But you know what? The 20 or so Hecklers we had were 100x louder and more energetic than the larger student crowds we have today.

Same goes for football actually. This season we were having around 1,500 or so students scan into the stadium. But who knew? Other than the ones tailgating (very few of those were actually paying attention), the rest were sitting over in the corner quietly. Remember how loud it was having 30-40 PHA members with axe handles behind the visiting bench?

We need to figure out how to get really good, organized student leaders. Like we said in a different thread, pay these leaders for each sport based on how many students they get to attend AND sit in a real student section.

And not only just organized leaders, kids that are knowledgeable in athletics and want the type of environment that we are describing. We have PHA leaders, but again, who would know? I didn't see one at the football games that I was at. If they are signing up to be leaders who's job is basically only a student athletic section...why wouldn't they be out in the tailgate area close to the action? I would have LOVED to have that opportunity as a student.

Sorry that ended up more as a rant.
If I remember correctly during those years there wasn't a purple haze association but a few students who were involved in SGA, Jack Camp, OL leaders, etc. and they really lead the charge for getting students to the football games. They were good at gathering/recruiting students to go to the games.

I know one of them still works for SFA so maybe they should reach out to him.

Yeah I don't remember exactly when it became an "association" but Purple Haze back then was seemingly only a football student section.

Several years ago, the "association" part is what started to become an issue. PHA required memberships, and a lot of students thought that meant that you couldn't sit in that section if you weren't an official member. That part changed...but it's just another sticking point with how difficult we have made this.
SFA Jack Fanatic
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I guess they had to even things out. I got one for basketball but not football.
SFAJack_76
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sfajack05 said:

PurpleOut said:

Here is the updated parking map. Due to increased amount of donor passes, they've changed it slightly. Also because construction and everything else has moved some of our Level I donors from behind the Coliseum to the main lot.

Level III was expanded for additional donors, as well as single game parking for $10 (a $250 PLF donation gets you a pass here).

Level IV, Hall 20 and the spots along East College are still free.



I guess I need to contact PLF about a parking pass for basketball. I got one for football but not basketball.
Ticket office. Wally or Chris.
SFAJack_76
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TallTexan
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SFA Jack Fanatic said:

I guess they had to even things out. I got one for basketball but not football.
I got them for both but I think it's just because they like my jokes.
TallTexan
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PurpleOut said:




Yeah I don't remember exactly when it became an "association" but Purple Haze back then was seemingly only a football student section.

Several years ago, the "association" part is what started to become an issue. PHA required memberships, and a lot of students thought that meant that you couldn't sit in that section if you weren't an official member. That part changed...but it's just another sticking point with how difficult we have made this.
2013.

Which I thought was astounding because I just assumed they were official in 2009-11 when I was there. They were ubiqitious.

To me, Purple Haze should just be the student body at sporting events/tailgating. If they need an official mechanism for accepting donations & appointing leaders, so be it, but it should be as informal as possible for any student who wants to be part of a raucous student section.
Pilotgirl
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SFA Jack Fanatic said:

Pilotgirl said:

Well, gosh darn it...talk to me about the parking issue. I use handicap, so is that still in the front lot? How much to park there?

Man, honestly, this may be my first and last weekend in Nac for games.
Come on, Pilot. They're your Ladyjacks. You aren't allowed to abandon them. I'm coming to town for tonight's UH game and staying through Sunday for the men's game. If I can persevere, you can, too.


I can persevere but my bank account can't Lol

I'm going to the A&M game, one or two at end of Nov/Dec & then to Lamar. (This semester at least).

BTW, Steph sent me a great picture for the fathead so I just need to get it ordered. She's excited about it!
 
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