You are correct on one point. Bill Powers, Steve Patterson and many Texas fans showed NO loyalty to Mack Brown. It is and was wrong.
However, the rest is where you are incorrect. The college football product is not the same as the professional sports product. The vast majority of college football fans only care about their school. Most season ticket holders have some tie to UT. There are some diehard ticket holders with no ties to UT, but they are not that many. Those with no UT ties are almost certainly people living in Texas and have lived here for quite some time.
UT is not the professional sports team of Austin. Austin people with no UT ties do not care very much about UT sports. Sure they'll go to one game a year for the spectacle of going to a college football game. Then they get over it and move on to the next thing. They really are not going to care enough to go if UT is bad. How do I know? I am a young professional in Austin that spends time with the many young professional that have moved here.
UT's core ticket buyers are UT alumni, students and those that have been buying tickets forever. When those people go, there are no replacements other than graduating students. Here is the thing, recent grads do not have that kind of money, and most do not want to buy tickets. Why do they not want to buy? Because the event staff in the student section treats students like pieces of garbage. I sat on the west side until I got to UT. I was shocked going from nice event staff on the west side to the student section where every student was treated like garbage. Im not talking about the drunks. Im talking about everyone, including the sober kids trying to sit in their correct seats. If we do not take care of our students now, they will not be interested buyers in the future. Unfortunately of my UT social circle (which was 95% football, basketball baseball attendance in college), less than 5% buy season tickets. Actually, 5% is a generous exaggeration. It's bad.
I also am shocked at the alumni dropping out. My older brother's fraternity brothers who made all the games in the 90s, all the rose bowls, ohio state, etc are dropping out. Family friends who have gone to home and away games forever are dropping out. My father who has gone for decades (since the 70s!) is considering dropping. I've gone to UT games since I was 4. I had only missed 3 UT home games in my life since I started going (two were for high school football games I had to play in because apparently skipping those was frowned upon by the coaches). I've gone to most OU games. I was there for all the OU blowouts. I was there for Route 66. I was there for the infamous Missouri weather delay game in 1996. I was there for the BYU and TCU blowouts. I was there for 12-7. I was there when Colt got injured against Bama. I was there to see us lose against Iowa State in 2010. I was also there when Phil Dawson beat Virginia, when Ricky set the record, when Mack kicked off his career by taking down Mississippi State in the cotton bowl. I was there for the NC State kickoff classic. I was there for the nebraska wins in Austin, the loss in San Antonio, our shocking blowout win in 2003 and the last victory (Gilbert's best game) in Lincoln in 2010! I was there for all the games against (insert Louisiana sun belt team) and the new mexico teams. I was there for the North Carolina Cole Pittman game. I was there to see Vince Young lead us to victory over Kansas State and Chance Mock bring us back to victory against Texas Tech. I was there for the greatest comeback ever led by Vince against Oklahoma State. I was there for 05 and the destruction of colorado. I'll never forget Texas scoring 52 in one half against Kansas after the fatman ran his mouth off the year before. I was there (sitting in the end zone of the OU section) for the bomar game. I was there to see Vince Young, Mack Brown and the Texas longhorns win the rose bowl twice! I was there for #1 Ohio State and #2 Texas. I was there for the no defense game against Tech in 2007. I was in El Paso in 08 to see the horns play in the sun bowl for the first time in forever. I was there for 52-10 against Arkansas in Austin. I was there for 45-35 against OU and the 08 Missouri game which is the loudest, best environment I have ever seen at DKR. I was in college station to see us win there in 2005, 2009, and I was there in the all aggy middle of the 12th man on the 50 when justin tucker kicked that ball through those uprights. You've never seen 80,000+ screaming aggy get so quiet so fast. I was there for West Virginia which was probably the second loudest I've heard DKR up until Ash fumbled. I was there to see Case knockoff OU in a game "we could not win." I was there to see Ash lead us to victory against Oregon State and bid Mack Brown farewell against Oregon. I was there last year to see us kick the snot out of West Virginia and Charlie Strong get his first big win.
Honestly, I am going this year, but despite how much of my life I have invested into UT sports, I am very ambivalent. I do not know if I will go to all the games this year as I will no longer be living in Austin. We'll see if I buy next year. The fact of the matter is a lot of people I know have dropped out. They are not going to be there to see and I cannot tailgate because I have not paid $2,000 for a spot. How many more will drop out next year if we have a bad season? I am just paying a ridiculous amount of $ to endure I-35 for hours, park in a parking garage, watch us lose in a half empty stadium devoid of energy, endure BS on the speakers which is played louder than the band, then sit in a parking garage awhile again before enduring more I-35. I'd still glady do all the above by myself, but at some point there is a price where it is not worth it for the biggest diehards... especially when they take our tailgating away.
Also I sat in the north end zone club a few times last year. It's the WORST. Most of the people are socializing in the club and not paying any attention to the game. (That's why the seats are always empty if anyone in other parts of the stadium wonders why.) What is the point of paying that kind of money to have a social hour if you are not going to watch the game? Eventually, those people are going to drop too.
Anyway, enough personal BS, here are the facts:
2010 … 84,500
2011 … 81,600
2012 … 78,800
2013 … 76,300
2014 ... 57,230
2015 ... 52,823
There has been a huge drop in season ticket holders so obviously people are not lining up to pay that much for tickets.
Is UT a for-profit institution? No it is not. It is not taxed as such either. College athletics has become quite perverted where programs are being run like businesses. It's wrong and it's gotten so out of hand we are about to change the rules to pay players. Hell "cost of attendance" is BS. Sorry, but everyone else doing wrong behavior does not justify it at the University of Texas for me. It's something a sooner would say.
If UT is being run like a business, it's a terribly managed business. Look at the contracts we have with our coaches. Any business that makes such ridiculous contracts (6 years at $3 million guaranteed, $5 million for a brand new coach, ridiculous assistant salaries) would be out of business pretty quick. Save me the "business" nonsense.
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Last edited: Jun 27, 2015