How are ticket sales for Saturday's game? Anything less than 33k is a dissappointment. There are still some upper deck tickets available.
Ticket sales for Saturday?
- Thread starter Houston Eagle
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I went to the Southern Miss website earlier to view tickets via the stadium view. Plenty of tickets left. The upper deck on the home side is wide open. The endzone is sold out but you can still buy good seats in the lower decks. I'm guessing about 24,000 actual people in stadium.
That would suck big time. Up against opening dove season, last vacations, and it's not even at night. If it were at night add 7k easy.
And as our esteemed AD said, "we're not the most important thing in town."
And as our esteemed AD said, "we're not the most important thing in town."
Hunting season, kids soccer tourneys, area football fans attend games at other universities, huge impact of Cable / ESPN showing marquee games all day every saturday, and the emergence of Friday night high school football in Mississippi as a serious money and time investment pas people spread pretty thin on weekends. Too many options on weekends vs. our terrible C-USA home schedule.
In short, it takes a big fanbase to fill a football stadium. At USM, we haven't been able to grow the fanbase over the 15 years.
"This could be your seat!""Fill it to the top!" I'll make up my own....9-2-17 or U....SEC...M.....or the Black and SEC Blue Bowl...add your own...
Did the university not promote this game? You would think with all of the WalMart SEC fans would be chomping at the bit to go. This game should go down as the SEC will never come to Hattiesburg slayer. I rememver Todd Monken & co handing out pizza to students in line.
Anyone know how season ticket sales stand in comparison to previous years? That's the tale of the tape.
I'm not going to beat the dead horse anymore, but younger people that follow the Golden Eagles simply do not understand how big of a deal it is getting an SEC team OUTSIDE of Mississippi to play in Hattiesburg. The arrogant former SEC commisioner stated that no SEC teams were even allowed to play in Hattiesburg. I'm glad the old goat had to eat his words. I remember the days of maybe 4 home games, games in Jackson, and ALL games against SEC opponents ON THE ROAD. Pecos Bill took every big payday offered which is why USM defeated FSU in Jacksonville and not Hattiesburg. Remember what Coach Underwood said that USM played 14 SEC games and 16 were on the road!
That's just it..."young people who follow the Golden Eagles"...those young people will likely be at the game. But there aren't enough of them. Our program(s) have not succeeded in regenerating each new group of fans. And the biggest hindrance is the C-USA schedule.
Our University, as a whole, continues on a downward trend.
Just got the email from Dr. Bennett about a record class enrollment of Freshmen. That's all great and good, but if you read the entire article you will see a continuing trend of all decline.
Per the announcement, overall enrollment at all of USM is 14,479 this fall. Last fall (2016) enrollment was 14.552. So overall enrollment is down 73 students from last year.
Another trend, which I believe will continue to negatively affect our fan base are these facts. Enrollment at Gulf Park is up from fall 2016 by 291 students. So if you add the Gulf Park increase of 291 to the overall decrease of 73, you realize that the Hattiesburg campus is down by 364 students from fall 2016. This same trend happened last year. I don't remember exact numbers from 2016, but it was in the neighborhood of an increase on the coast of 300 students and a decrease in Hattiesburg of 300.
Guys, that means over two years we have lost 600 students from our main campus. Those are the people who are most likely to support the athletic programs in the future. I just don't see hardly anyone who gets a degree from GP who has any emotion or ties to the main campus athletic programs. Most of them get a degree, hang it on the wall, get a better job, and move on in live with no real attachment or emotional ties to the University.
This is part of the decline in our younger fan base and it lasts for a lifetime. We are not dead yet, but we are in very bad shape.
Just got the email from Dr. Bennett about a record class enrollment of Freshmen. That's all great and good, but if you read the entire article you will see a continuing trend of all decline.
Per the announcement, overall enrollment at all of USM is 14,479 this fall. Last fall (2016) enrollment was 14.552. So overall enrollment is down 73 students from last year.
Another trend, which I believe will continue to negatively affect our fan base are these facts. Enrollment at Gulf Park is up from fall 2016 by 291 students. So if you add the Gulf Park increase of 291 to the overall decrease of 73, you realize that the Hattiesburg campus is down by 364 students from fall 2016. This same trend happened last year. I don't remember exact numbers from 2016, but it was in the neighborhood of an increase on the coast of 300 students and a decrease in Hattiesburg of 300.
Guys, that means over two years we have lost 600 students from our main campus. Those are the people who are most likely to support the athletic programs in the future. I just don't see hardly anyone who gets a degree from GP who has any emotion or ties to the main campus athletic programs. Most of them get a degree, hang it on the wall, get a better job, and move on in live with no real attachment or emotional ties to the University.
This is part of the decline in our younger fan base and it lasts for a lifetime. We are not dead yet, but we are in very bad shape.
If our main campus was on the coast we'd be in the AAC and a top option to move on up, have a 50k seat stadium, enrollment of 30k, and law, medical and real engineering.
Back in the early 90s, this journalism major interviewed the AD at the time, Bill McLellan for a Student Printz story. He basically told me that exact same thing. Said he wished more than anything that Southern Miss' main campus was on the coast and we wouldn't have many of the issues we have.
Camielle/Katrina would have taken care of it. I've had hurricanes on the brain lately...
