I Guess The Students Won the Fight

[Jacob81]

I said “you’ll” which means you will be. If you attend free entry sports only to attend from now on you will become part of the problem.

It’s been talked about forever here. People in Acadiana area either want something for free or want a discount for everything as it pertains to Cajuns sports.

You can’t have success without financial support from your fan base.

Basketball went to the dance last year
Football bowling 6 straight years and about to get a new stadium
Baseball and softball both in regionals last year.

But women’s basketball and volleyball are the sports that care about winning. Just so happens they’re free entry. How convenient for you.

I’m not sure how old you are, and maybe there should be discounts for long lasting ticket holders.

Thank you for supporting as long as you have. Maybe a bowl win and shiny new stadium will draw you in again. Or when we win the conference next year in the “rebuild year”

[Louisiana84]

Return on Investment: If the rich people they are building this stadium for don't buy the players we need to win, we will not win. It's a gamble that I hope pays off for Louisiana.

[Esqueleto]

The fan base didn’t support at our programs peak. Now we will blame the product on the field for the fans not showing up?

One of the reasons we couldn’t keep billy was because he went 34-5 in 3 years and never played in front of 30k at home in a regular season game. Any smart person in college athletics knows you can’t sustain success without fan support/money. If we had 30k in the stands and an NIL pool maybe we’d retain some top talent and not be struggling on the field now.

Fact is we won and Acadiana didn’t care.

So does the Acadiana area really deserve a winner….

100% correct. Acadiana doesn't care.

[cajun55]

100% correct. Acadiana doesn't care.

We need to do so much more to draw in fans from around Acadiana but we also had the misfortune to have our best years with Napier at the height of covid. The SBC Championship was a good crowd, Highest attendance for a Sun Belt Championship game if I recall.

[Jacob81]

We also had the misfortune to have our best years with Napier at the height of covid. The SBC Championship was a solid crowd.

Absolutely correct. Like some have said. People realized through Covid years how nice it is to watch the game at home. Cost is obviously less, time spent is probably half. It’s nice watching road games at home. It takes a certain kinda person to go to Cajun field and watch a 4 hour game in that environment. Not many of them around either. Can we find 25k of them consistently?

[cajun55]

Absolutely correct. Like some have said. People realized through Covid years how nice it is to watch the game at home. Cost is obviously less, time spent is probably half. It’s nice watching road games at home. It takes a certain kinda person to go to Cajun field and watch a 4 hour game in that environment. Not many of them around either. Can we find 25k of them consistently?

Yes if we can get tailgating back to what it used to be and improve the gameday atmosphere overall.

People love attending softball/baseball in large part because it is a unique and fun atmosphere with tradition. We used to have that with basketball as well.

Hoping we can roll out the new renovated stadium with an improved game atmosphere. It all starts with the students though, have to get them involved and back into it, that is the key for basketball & football.

Improve in some vital areas and we can get fans to attend consistently, at least 20-25k. This is realistic in my opinion.

[Turbine]

Can we find 25k of them consistently?

Consistency requires consistency.

If all games were consistently at 6pm on Saturday people would adjust their lifestyle for known/known events.

Moving games around all over midweek lets people get in the mode of opting out of games. This opt out mode spills into Saturdays.

[Esqueleto]

Consistency requires consistency.

If all games were consistently at 6pm on Saturday people would adjust their lifestyle for known/known events.

Moving games around all over midweek lets people get in the mode of opting out of games. This opt out mode spills into Saturdays.

That's likely true, but UL has no control over game days and times.

[fanof71]

Yes if we can get tailgating back to what it used to be and improve the gameday atmosphere overall.

People love attending softball/baseball in large part because it is a unique and fun atmosphere with tradition. We used to have that with basketball as well.

Hoping we can roll out the new renovated stadium with an improved game atmosphere. It all starts with the students though, have to get them involved and back into it, that is the key for basketball & football.

Improve in some vital areas and we can get fans to attend consistently, at least 20-25k. This is realistic in my opinion.

You can start with getting rid of PA Tuna.other than citing the 2 Cajuns with intercepts and that Lawson sack, he never mentioned who made tackles for UL defense.not one. His schtick has grown old along with everything else cascading from the press box.

[HelmutVII]

Now let’s get something straight. We’re not getting students to the game because they left campus for the holidays. But then again other weeks low attendance because we don’t have enough students in the dorms and we’re a commuter school.

I agree MH can do a much better job encouraging student participation at football games.

I’m encouraged and planning to improve my seating with so many giving up their premium seats.

My point was. There were fewer students in town this weekend than on a normal weekend. It looks like the twilight zone. So the low number of students at the game was no surprise to me. They are going home to momma. The seniors are getting ready for graduation. They have been taking photos on campus wearing caps and gowns for a few weeks now.

[cajunref]

You can start with getting rid of PA Tuna.other than citing the 2 Cajuns with intercepts and that Lawson sack, he never mentioned who made tackles for UL defense.not one. His schtick has grown old along with everything else cascading from the press box.

Agreed, he is terrible.

[Duckster]

Consistency requires consistency.

If all games were consistently at 6pm on Saturday people would adjust their lifestyle for known/known events.

Moving games around all over midweek lets people get in the mode of opting out of games. This opt out mode spills into Saturdays.

Totally agree with you, kick off times being jerked around is a factor in suppressing attendance, especially at G5 schools. Our games are the TV undercard to the heavyweight games of the day. Since 'TV windows' now dictate game times for Power 5 and G5, it seems all schools traditional kick off times have been set aside to accommodate the TV audiences. Does Louisiana at least petition the conference that our number one preference is Saturday night kick off times? Maybe we'll get a few more Saturday night kick off times. Most years we're stuck with a mid week game. Maybe the exposure is worth it, but doesn't seem like it.

[Big Poppa]

Less than 100 students at the game.

No. MH won they got exactly what they’ve been trying to achieve all year.

[R1Letterman]

Maybe one year they’ll figure out Thanksgiving weekend crowds at UL are not that great.

Maybe we could volunteer to always play this game in monroe, in exchange for an extra home game against other conference foes

[zeppelincajun]

The fan base didn’t support at our programs peak. Now we will blame the product on the field for the fans not showing up?

One of the reasons we couldn’t keep billy was because he went 34-5 in 3 years and never played in front of 30k at home in a regular season game. Any smart person in college athletics knows you can’t sustain success without fan support/money. If we had 30k in the stands and an NIL pool maybe we’d retain some top talent and not be struggling on the field now.

Fact is we won and Acadiana didn’t care.

So does the Acadiana area really deserve a winner….

Support for football was up in Billy’s final year, even with the CCG excluded. Maybe not at the percentages we would have like, but it was up. Some people think that’s just because Acadiana doesn’t care. They are entitled to that opinion. I think it’s because our admin doesn’t care. We thought winning would be a magic wand that we could wave to solve all our problems. Problem is gameday operations, ticketing, marketing, merchandising, tailgating, parking, etc etc were all a bust in this timeframe, which minimized the gains we could have seen. You want an idea of why things will never change here: look at this interaction between Jay (the voice of the admins) and a fan asking the admins to try at their job next season.

https://x.com/tmon3y_72/status/1728742060704854429?s=46