What Happened

[Big Poppa]

You think selling 15k more tickets would offset the loss of income from charging for parking?

Why not look at it this way. Get a good RCAF director and get 15k more members and fill up the parking lots with productive members. The problem is they’ve had a hard time getting someone good to stay in that role. They all tend to get better opportunities.

[ZoomZoom]

Get a good RCAF director and get 15k more members...

That’s the funniest thing I’ve read on RP so far this year.

[JamesTheJeweler]

You guys are all trying very hard to figure out this problem. I commend your efforts, but none of these are the answer. If you want attendance to go up, paint the stadium purple and gold, put a Walmart next to the stadium, and serve corn dogs, and......voila! You'll have every casual NPC there to pack out the stadium! Problem solved!

[CajunSaint08]

13-1 and finished ranked in the Top 20.

I'll be a Negative Nancy about other things here, but I won't look at last season in a negative light. That team deserved 30k+ average attendance at Cajun Field and deserved an Acadiana community behind it.

Totally agree. If the prior 3 seasons under Napier can't fill the stands, then nothing will. I always thought there were 2 ways to draw 40k+.

1. Play a major P5 school at their field and beat them handily. Then it wouldn't matter who you were playing at home, even Comeaux High, the crowds would still come out to see the school that just beat the P5 at their place.

2. Play the major P5's at home....Alabama, GA, Clemson......that would fill the stadium.


HOWEVER, not sure either of those two scenarios would even work now. It's really pitiful this community doesn't support this university. It's really embarrassing.

[jaxmc1023]

The university didn’t put the mid week games on tv the conference did. When Hud was here the parking lots were full across the street and behind the Hilton and no one was complaining about walking across the street back then. You could buy a ticket this year for 10 dollars. Something definitely changed. But it’s not about parking or ticket prices.

I'm not saying it's all UL's fault..

It's not their fault the conference _____d out Tuesday night games for a wink from ESPN..

It's also not their fault that they announced their ambitious facilities expansion plans right into the teeth of another oilfield and local economy collapse.

I never minded the walk to the stadium because I'd be rewarded with a cold beer from one of several tailgating spots.. Those spots disappeared though when they hiked prices and added tons of restrictions.

[jaxmc1023]

I always thought there were 2 ways to draw 40k+.

1. Play a major P5 school at their field and beat them handily. Then it wouldn't matter who you were playing at home, even Comeaux High, the crowds would still come out to see the school that just beat the P5 at their place.

2. Play the major P5's at home....Alabama, GA, Clemson......that would fill the stadium.

Because in the past, there was this naive idea that winning either of #1 or #2 above would get your school some attention and respect..

Then we actually do #1, finished ranked, and get rewarded with a game against a 4 loss CUSA team.

Next year team loses one game to a P5 team, again finishes ranked, and get a game against a 5 loss Marshall team.

Casual fans figured out that G5 football carries no more weight than minor league baseball.. It's something to do if you get free tickets, the weather is perfect, and there's no festivals or monster trucks in town

[KajunKrazy]

I'm not saying it's all UL's fault..

It's not their fault the conference _____d out Tuesday night games for a wink from ESPN..

It's also not their fault that they announced their ambitious facilities expansion plans right into the teeth of another oilfield and local economy collapse.

I never minded the walk to the stadium because I'd be rewarded with a cold beer from one of several tailgating spots.. Those spots disappeared though when they hiked prices and added tons of restrictions.

I have been having the same spot between the back side of the mechanical building and the paved road that runs through the grass field since the mid 90s. Of course one can expect to pay more over the years as every thing goes up. But I am not sure what restrictions you are talking about? The rules have been the same as always to my knowledge.

[jaxmc1023]

That's just the explanation I was given.. "It's too expensive and they added a bunch of rules". Person may have been full of it

[cajun4life]

For years we had 30k people outside the stadium partying all day, and the struggle was convincing them to come in to the game. That was tough to do when the team sucked but Hudspeth's community involvement + better quality of play put butts in seats.

Then we..

- Raised ticket prices
- Raised tailgating prices
- Quadrupled down on mid-week games to get on TV
- Forced people to park away from the stadium then walk THRU the empty stadium lot
- Added food/drink options but chronically understand concessions, even with 10k people
- Blast PA music between plays that 90% of those old fans don't enjoy, in hopes of getting thousand more students to show up

List goes on and on

Oh….and grew our athletic budget from $17M to over $35M before Covid.

So, ____ it! Let’s go back to the good ole days.

[jaxmc1023]

Oh….and grew our athletic budget from $17M to over $35M before Covid.

True.. That should help us to expand and build even more empty seats!