As many of you know I am based here in Austin, TX. I wanted to give you an update on things down here on how Texas is planning to deal with a few things related to football.
I work closely with the Athletics department here at UT and serve on an advisory board for the AD where we focus on in game atmosphere and trying to revamp the Texas football experience for fans.
First some context: At the end of Mack Brown's tenure the program hit a low point that they still have really not recovered from. The team has squeaked by the past few years having gone through Charlie Strong and now in year 2 under Tom Herman. Strong and Franklin started the same time under very similar circumstances. One program went up the other down. I have a very high level of appreciation for Franklin because I saw how he built PSU while also watching how Strong tried to build Texas.
The university also is no on their 4th AD in 6 years. New AD Chris Del Conte came from TCU and is a ball of energy. Aggressive fundraiser and wants to really get Texas back. I like him, but he has rubbed some donors the wrong way.
Many of you haven't been to a Texas football game here in Austin. I will be very honest with you all. The atmosphere sucks. They have completely sold out. The reason why Texas athletics revenue is so high is not only because of the brand contracts they have and a 100,000 person stadium, it's because every two seconds of the game is an advertisement. Someone of the field promoting something. They even have a weather man from a local weather station who comes on the field says the same thing every game and thinks he is the man. They paid for him to get that air time in the station. It's awful.
My first game at UT 6 years ago I stood up on a big 3rd down in the 1st quarter and was told to sit down. No one was standing. No noise. Dead atmosphere.
The band plays maybe 4 pieces because they were given no time due to all the advertisements and at that time they were thrown in the endzone far away from the fans.
Texas vs Notre Dame in Strong's last year was a great atmosphere and a ton of fun. Stadium was sold out. Texas was pre season ranked 24. ND was #10. First game of the year. Texas won in OT. It was electric. And everyone said wow look at this this is awesome. The next 3 home games the student section was half full. 20,000 unsold season tickets. No one showed up. Texas and ND both turned out to be pretty bad that year when it was all said and done. Strong was gone.
Students don't come to games. There's very little tailgating like what you know at Penn State. No big fields. No RV lots. The university has limited parking so many people park off site and ride in on shuttles, ubers or walk from downtown.
As you know ticket sales are down across the country outside the perennial top contenders and blue bloods like PSU, Ohio State, Nebraska, Alabama, UGA, Clemson, etc.
First off the south endzone of UT is not enclosed and has a tiny fraction of seats where they used to put the band. Its a nothing area. There are no concessions. Terrible bathrooms and it's just there to support the huge jumbo screen. See below:
The team runs out of the center of the south endzone and their locker rooms are in the connecting small athletics building behind the score board.
Here is the first design of what we will be doing to the south endzone:
$140M renovation. If we were to completely enclose the south endzone and add seats all the way around the stadium would hold 130,000. They can't fill 101,000 so we aren't trying to add a ton more seats and have huge sections of empty seats, plus people like to see the city skyline during games.
Addition of field level suites like you see at the Cowboy Stadium and U Washington. Suites up next to the big screen. Concessions in the walk way behind the seats plus new bathrooms. We are also discussing adding a fan experience where you can be in the tunnel like you see with pro teams and hockey. This would be for recruits and high end donors. Here's what we have so far:
These are party decks and mini beer gardens (yes we sell beer in the stadium). They will flank both sides of the south endzone. You can also see the suites going up the tower with their own side balconies and indoor out door seating.
Here's a look at the location of the field level suites. Notice too we carved out the Longhorn logo into the stadium so no seats in that area and it will be back lit making quite the call image especially for night games. That will glow heavily when the team is about to come out of the tunnel.
Here is the team tunnel next to the recruits and donor areas under the seating. Glass private lounges with high end experiences for those in the suites. This space will also be used for private events hosted by the university throughout the year.
Here's a field level look at the dedication to Bevo. Currently Bevo sits in a little pen and it's a bit sad. This will allow him to have a larger area plus that tunnel entrance which is used for ambulance entrance to the field will have an awesome dedication to him.
In stadium we are lowering costs of drinks and food. We have some great food options and beer in the stadium. Local austin craft beers and austin based restaurants so the food scene is quite good.
Outside the stadium we are discussing shutting down the main street and having no parking so imagine Curtin Rd at PSU and creating a festival type atmosphere outside with tons of food trucks and a huge concert stage bringing in big names each week focused on the students. I brought that direct from PSU with how we have some of those carnival trucks on Curtin as you walk to the stadium. We want to shut down the whole street to make a "Grove" type atmosphere where it's tailgating and food trucks all the way to the stadium. Austin is known for food trucks and live music so we want to create an insane atmosphere outside the stadium to draw students and fans to tailgate and hang early.
The AD messaging around this is we have 6 home games and each should be a celebration of the university. He wants to make these weekends a can't miss event for everyone.
Now I will say that winning is the ultimate driver of fans to games. So with all of these efforts we need to have a strong showing on the field to really make this impact.
As college football dollars continue to grow and the fan expectation grows we are trying to deal with this head on, however, I feel that the culture here at UT is just different than the B1G and SEC. Hopefully infusing some B1G thinking and culture can help UT get to the level that we are used to up north.
I work closely with the Athletics department here at UT and serve on an advisory board for the AD where we focus on in game atmosphere and trying to revamp the Texas football experience for fans.
First some context: At the end of Mack Brown's tenure the program hit a low point that they still have really not recovered from. The team has squeaked by the past few years having gone through Charlie Strong and now in year 2 under Tom Herman. Strong and Franklin started the same time under very similar circumstances. One program went up the other down. I have a very high level of appreciation for Franklin because I saw how he built PSU while also watching how Strong tried to build Texas.
The university also is no on their 4th AD in 6 years. New AD Chris Del Conte came from TCU and is a ball of energy. Aggressive fundraiser and wants to really get Texas back. I like him, but he has rubbed some donors the wrong way.
Many of you haven't been to a Texas football game here in Austin. I will be very honest with you all. The atmosphere sucks. They have completely sold out. The reason why Texas athletics revenue is so high is not only because of the brand contracts they have and a 100,000 person stadium, it's because every two seconds of the game is an advertisement. Someone of the field promoting something. They even have a weather man from a local weather station who comes on the field says the same thing every game and thinks he is the man. They paid for him to get that air time in the station. It's awful.
My first game at UT 6 years ago I stood up on a big 3rd down in the 1st quarter and was told to sit down. No one was standing. No noise. Dead atmosphere.
The band plays maybe 4 pieces because they were given no time due to all the advertisements and at that time they were thrown in the endzone far away from the fans.
Texas vs Notre Dame in Strong's last year was a great atmosphere and a ton of fun. Stadium was sold out. Texas was pre season ranked 24. ND was #10. First game of the year. Texas won in OT. It was electric. And everyone said wow look at this this is awesome. The next 3 home games the student section was half full. 20,000 unsold season tickets. No one showed up. Texas and ND both turned out to be pretty bad that year when it was all said and done. Strong was gone.
Students don't come to games. There's very little tailgating like what you know at Penn State. No big fields. No RV lots. The university has limited parking so many people park off site and ride in on shuttles, ubers or walk from downtown.
As you know ticket sales are down across the country outside the perennial top contenders and blue bloods like PSU, Ohio State, Nebraska, Alabama, UGA, Clemson, etc.
First off the south endzone of UT is not enclosed and has a tiny fraction of seats where they used to put the band. Its a nothing area. There are no concessions. Terrible bathrooms and it's just there to support the huge jumbo screen. See below:
The team runs out of the center of the south endzone and their locker rooms are in the connecting small athletics building behind the score board.
Here is the first design of what we will be doing to the south endzone:
$140M renovation. If we were to completely enclose the south endzone and add seats all the way around the stadium would hold 130,000. They can't fill 101,000 so we aren't trying to add a ton more seats and have huge sections of empty seats, plus people like to see the city skyline during games.
Addition of field level suites like you see at the Cowboy Stadium and U Washington. Suites up next to the big screen. Concessions in the walk way behind the seats plus new bathrooms. We are also discussing adding a fan experience where you can be in the tunnel like you see with pro teams and hockey. This would be for recruits and high end donors. Here's what we have so far:
These are party decks and mini beer gardens (yes we sell beer in the stadium). They will flank both sides of the south endzone. You can also see the suites going up the tower with their own side balconies and indoor out door seating.
Here's a look at the location of the field level suites. Notice too we carved out the Longhorn logo into the stadium so no seats in that area and it will be back lit making quite the call image especially for night games. That will glow heavily when the team is about to come out of the tunnel.
Here is the team tunnel next to the recruits and donor areas under the seating. Glass private lounges with high end experiences for those in the suites. This space will also be used for private events hosted by the university throughout the year.
Here's a field level look at the dedication to Bevo. Currently Bevo sits in a little pen and it's a bit sad. This will allow him to have a larger area plus that tunnel entrance which is used for ambulance entrance to the field will have an awesome dedication to him.
In stadium we are lowering costs of drinks and food. We have some great food options and beer in the stadium. Local austin craft beers and austin based restaurants so the food scene is quite good.
Outside the stadium we are discussing shutting down the main street and having no parking so imagine Curtin Rd at PSU and creating a festival type atmosphere outside with tons of food trucks and a huge concert stage bringing in big names each week focused on the students. I brought that direct from PSU with how we have some of those carnival trucks on Curtin as you walk to the stadium. We want to shut down the whole street to make a "Grove" type atmosphere where it's tailgating and food trucks all the way to the stadium. Austin is known for food trucks and live music so we want to create an insane atmosphere outside the stadium to draw students and fans to tailgate and hang early.
The AD messaging around this is we have 6 home games and each should be a celebration of the university. He wants to make these weekends a can't miss event for everyone.
Now I will say that winning is the ultimate driver of fans to games. So with all of these efforts we need to have a strong showing on the field to really make this impact.
As college football dollars continue to grow and the fan expectation grows we are trying to deal with this head on, however, I feel that the culture here at UT is just different than the B1G and SEC. Hopefully infusing some B1G thinking and culture can help UT get to the level that we are used to up north.
