This is not to complain about attendance, but to brainstorm ways to remove any barriers that may prevent students from wanting to go.

This may be a failed effort since I am not a student (went to games in G Rollie which was like a 2 minute walk when i lived on campus) and there may be NO students on this board. But I'll try anyway.

I don't know how students get tickets or seats currently, I'm completely in the dark. Just going off things I've heard on Texags that make students not want to go. Students are the best fans to have in a seat, and getting more of them - event at the expense of some olds like me - improves gameday experience.

Challenges:

• Students don't know where they will sit
• Students are turned away
• Students have no where to park
• Few students live close to Reed arena
• Bad weather and no parking combine to keep students away
• Students have poor sections reserved for them

Possible solutions:

• Ticket draw. Assigned seats early in week.
• If you draw a ticket and don't like your seat, seamless way to put it "back in the pot" for another student to grab
• Shuttle busses from north side and southside dorm areas to get students to the game
• Shuttle bus from a parking lot where it is free to park, or from apartment rich area
• Rewards system to get better seats the more games you attend
• Rewards system for discounted concessions
• Door prizes for students
• Seamless way for season ticket owners who can't attend, even if last second, to throw their seats into a pot the students can grab from
• Reserve better sections for the students. First 20 rows of all lower level sections other than the 3 courtside section (120-122,104-106)? Last 10 rows of all lower level sections?

t-rex said:

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No way the students that don't come to games should rewarded with the best seats in the arena

A less emotional response might ask how the athletic department would replace revenue by displacing the seats that generate the highest donation and ticket prices.

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Did not include the "best" seats in the arena in the proposals. Did propose better seats.

It could cost the AD some revenue, for sure. The crowds are pretty dead for many games, could students make it more exciting? Would season tickets still sell in areas students now have reserved seats?

Woof - I just happened to check in on the 12th Man ticket website for the Tennessee game and they've opened up a few rows in the student section in sections 210 and 216 for sale for $25 to the general public.

Good news if you don't want to pay the secondary market prices right now - and you should probably act quickly if that's the case.

Bad news for students and I assume it's the result of what we saw on Saturday vs Arkansas. I'd be very worried about students getting turned away for this game (which has already happened for a few games this year) - which I think further works against building a fanbase amongst students.

I get why the AD would want to monetize potentially empty seats, just don't think this is the game to do so.

Some good news here is they're already moving the football ticket pull virtual next year and I'm sure that's going to cost a fortune so now's the time to tack on a solution for basketball.

Yes, I have heard many say "I was turned away, don't want to repeat that". So anything that can get them a guaranteed, assigned seat might help if that complaint is valid for many.

What's funny is what I'm basically proposing is a digital version of the system we had back then.

Lance Uppercut said:

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Feels like I just woke up in 2008.

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It may be people's selective memories of big games only, but I've seen quite a few state student attendance at the end of BCG's run into Turgeon's era was quite a bit better than now. I don't think the ticket draw/seat assignment was any different, I don't think the sections were different, and I don't think there were student dedicated shuttle busses - but I'm still interested in why students choose not to attend currently.

Arkansas is a decent A&M rival, Calipari a famous coach, A&M with a high ranking - poor student attendance. It was a solid crowd otherwise. If that's just due to 11AM then nothing we can really do about that. Let's see what the Tennessee crowd is like at 11AM.

The system was even dumber back then. Up until 2009 (or so? I know at least through 2008) you could go get a physical ticket at Kyle Field to guarantee your entry, but it was still general admission. So for big games there'd be two lines. You'd get in line for a ticket at Kyle and then get in line (or camp out) for seats at Reed.

This lead to the infamous 2008 Texas ticket pull where some people skipped the midweek game against Iowa State to get in line to pull tickets for the game against Texas. That cluster**** is what led to the first lottery style ticket pull.

Not for nothing, but they put that Texas ticket pull lottery together in like 48 hours so I don't see why it would be hard to implement some kind of opt-in system.

Hand them $1 every quarter they are there

I'm joking.

Maybe discount loyal attenders somehow

Does A&M still have the 12th Man Rewards Program for students?

The more non-football games you attend, the more perks, free merchandise you get?

Have it be both. Basically you can "level up" your class pull by attending other sports. Seniors can still pull on senior day, but so can juniors who earned XX points the year before or whatever. I'd have the first tier be relatively few points to encourage freshman to attend the early soccer and volleyball games so they can pull as sophomores early in the football season.

I'm ignorant on how they do the current system.

When can you pull? How early before the game?

Do you get an assigned seat within the student section or is it all GA and pulling only guarantees you a ticket?

When students are all lining up before the game is that to get a ticket or get a better seat?

Do they allow guest passes for basketball?

I'm joking, but we had this same discussion during the tenures of BCG, Turgeon, Kennedy and now Buzz. With some of the same people (hi Bob) as well.

Our rank, opponent rank, opponent name, and game time have all factored into attendance at Reed during that whole time period. 11 am Texas or Kansas or top ranked Alabama? Sell out. 11 am, unranked 4-7 Arkansas? Get ready for a Texags attendance thread.

I like the discussion about solutions, and pre-old me would be joining in the indignation…but the past 20 years of personal observation do not make me optimistic about avoiding this same topic in the future.

Ag13 said:

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bobinator said:

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Some good news here is they're already moving the football ticket pull virtual next year and I'm sure that's going to cost a fortune so now's the time to tack on a solution for basketball.

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I'd be a fan of letting non-football sports attendance influence when students are able to pull for football games. Rewarding the biggest sports fans with the best seats to the biggest sport honestly makes a lot more sense to me than the class year system, although I'm sure many will disagree because tradition.

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Yes, I like the idea of a rewards system that rewards our most rabid fans. Not only is it an incentive for students it turns those students into rabid fans who spend money on Aggie sports the rest of their lives.

You could also just argue we allocate fewer seats to students and sell them super cheap online. I'd prefer students be in as many seats as possible, they make for a rowdy and fun crowd, but would like to improve butts in seats if possible.

Definitely a strong argument to say "nothing new, always been like this" ..... because it has. But I do see other schools, not all blue bloods, with more students in seats - or at least in more visible seats on broadcasts - and I wonder if there are any barriers to student attendance that can be lifted.

Unless it's changed in the last couple of years there's no pre-pulling anything. You show up, swipe in, and sit down. That's how most schools do it to be honest.

Aggie Therapist said:

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Does A&M still have the 12th Man Rewards Program for students?

The more non-football games you attend, the more perks, free merchandise you get?

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They recently introduced a new one a few years ago. It's a shadow of what it was and the rewards are mostly cheap trinkets.

For the most part I don't care anymore, like you said and others say all the time, you could probably create a formula based on our ranking, the opponent and the day and time of the game and be pretty close.

But Arkansas is the first time I remember a game being sold out online for like a whole week for the general public but then the student section only being like 75% full.

I think it was maybe similar for the Vandy game in 2016 but I think I remember spring break starting the next week.

More bike racks

Free scooter rides an hour before game if ride ends at Reed

One free chicken nugget per student

I don't know, let's get creatively crazy

I think we need to get creative on EXCUSES for the students. Sure we can blame weather or whatever, I'm going to blame the TikTok ban. A&M can't promote games on tiktok and it's killing student attendance. PROVE ME WRONG.

what about a local tv blackout?

With Tennessee and Auburn being 2 of the last 3 home games of the year, this would have been a good year to have an online ticket pull/registration for those games based on previous game attendance. IE for Tennessee game:

Tuesday - students who attended 75%+ of home basketball games get first pick of tickets
Wednesday - students who attended 50-75%
Thursday - students who attended 25-75%
Friday - any other sports pass holder could get whatever is left

But this system relies on being good throughout the year (honestly rare) and having top tier opponents or Texas at the end of the season (hard to control) to encourage attendance earlier in the season.

Complete Idiot said:

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t-rex said:

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No way the students that don't come to games should rewarded with the best seats in the arena

A less emotional response might ask how the athletic department would replace revenue by displacing the seats that generate the highest donation and ticket prices.

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Did not include the "best" seats in the arena in the proposals. Did propose better seats.

It could cost the AD some revenue, for sure. The crowds are pretty dead for many games, could students make it more exciting? Would season tickets still sell in areas students now have reserved seats?

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My bad, I see you excluded the lower rows, I misread it. Sorry about that

Ag13 said:

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Woof - I just happened to check in on the 12th Man ticket website for the Tennessee game and they've opened up a few rows in the student section in sections 210 and 216 for sale for $25 to the general public.

Good news if you don't want to pay the secondary market prices right now - and you should probably act quickly if that's the case.

Bad news for students and I assume it's the result of what we saw on Saturday vs Arkansas. I'd be very worried about students getting turned away for this game (which has already happened for a few games this year) - which I think further works against building a fanbase amongst students.

I get why the AD would want to monetize potentially empty seats, just don't think this is the game to do so.

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Glad they are opening up those seats, but I think there has only been two games this year where student section were full and anyone would have been turned away.

Would be great to find a solution to get more students out, agree with the premise on this entire discussion.

aggiebones said:

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Hand them $1 every quarter they are there

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so they get zero since there aren't quarters in MBB

I love the idea of incorporating attendance at other sports into ticket pull for football. No matter how you do it, that's low-hanging fruit that will move the needle and be beneficial for all sports. I would love if the "check-in" portal/website/whatever would go live towards the end of the game so there's extra incentive to stay the entire time.

I also love the idea of students checking in a week out and using that data to make decisions on how many public tickets are made available. We had the same issue we had Saturday when I was in school (2016). After the (awesome) disaster that was the LSU/Ben Simmons game, the AD set aside the top corners as student sections for the bigger games, but they sat empty because so many students were scared of being turned away. Absolutely can't have that happen.

I think the OP hit on a lot of the current challenges, but the biggest one to me is that basketball games just don't feel like a big event. They've tried to incorporate a "fan zone", but it's kind of sad and only accessible if you've already entered the arena. I'd love to see that expanded with food trucks, big screens with other games on, live music, etc. Right now, there's no incentive to getting to the arena early, and that contributes to the huge traffic jams with everyone showing up with 10 minutes until tip off. In an ideal world, this could also be the hangout spot for the students that did not win a ticket lottery for a big game to hang out and have a "second chance" drawing for empty seats throughout the arena.

Biggest thing though, ditch the sports pass requirement for everything but football and maybe baseball. All students should be able to get in with just their ID. That system is already operated at a huge loss if you look at the value of equivalent football tickets on the West side of Kyle, so why are we worried about students "paying" their way into basketball, softball, soccer, volleyball, etc.?

Lance Uppercut said:

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Feels like I just woke up in 2008.

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In 1980…which was a VERY GOOD basketball year…we whined about the empty west-side seats in Jolly Rolly…

it is hard to believe any excuses can be made for not supporting your number 7 ranked men's basketball team. this ain't water polo its men's basketball. we have 70k students. i don't know what needs to be done but it is sad this is an ongoing conversation. selling out any of the big three men's sports on a regular basis shouldn't be a problem especially if those teams are ranked in the top 10.