Charlie is 1,000% right!

[Ned A Starr RIP]

5 hours ago, IBulleve said:

I was there, dehydrated, sun burnt, and 2.99 sheets to the wind. Wouldn’t trade it for the world. Come fill one of those red seats one time

No thanks, I enjoy the games in my luxuary suite, with leather recliners, open bar, delious food, and fast forwarding.   It’s also nice not having to fry your brain, bake your skin, drinking $4+ bottle water, or deal with obnoxious drunks...17 years of going to the stadium as a season ticket holder was more than enough for a lifetime.   

[Brad]

13 hours ago, Bausfkid said:

This is not a new topic.  It's been well documented the apathy of the Tampa area to embrace USF.  There are 3M people in the entire market and we can't get 30K (.001% of the population) to consistently attend a game.  The big excuse is consistently the opponent.  We should be way past that excuse in our life cycle.

No doubt.

I live in Phoenix, home to nearly 5 million people in the metro area.  ASU won a game against a struggling Mich State team and the town is afire with ASU talk.  This, in a town with MLB, NHL, NFL, NBA, and some sort of soccer.  

The big difference is they talk about their teams.  They have pride in them.  They like them.  They'll criticize when need be, but they want success because they live in the area.  They don't try to put down one or the other.  They don't feel  having an alliance to one serves them better.  They don't show indifference either.  The radio guys, at least, are grown up, mature people.  One thing great with the sports people out here is they are not putting down any of the teams, including the smaller schools.  

Tampa likes to consider itself big time sports-wise.  Before that comes to fruition, they'll need some big time sports coverage of ALL sports.  TBT hanging on to the destructive inbreds does the effort no good

[SpeedBull]

7 hours ago, puc86 said:

And yet no one knows, it’s like a tree falling in the forest with no one around. Win, lose or draw it’s all the same, if it’s that important to you just tell everyone we won. Not one person will care enough to fact check you other than to look up if the AAC is in fact a real conference.

Puc86 - I just read this entire thread and you are absolutely killing me. What world are you living in? All you do is crap on the AAC. Why do you waste your time watching the Bulls and posting 50 times each thread about a team in such a loser conference?

You say the conference is “beneath us” and yet we’ve never won it. That statement alone is the most ignorant thing I’ve ever read on this board.

Nothing worth having is given...it’s earned. What has USF Football done to earn a spot in a better conference?

What has the program accomplished to prove that the conference is beneath them? 

My 8 year old son understands that to get to the next level in ANYTHING you must first win at the level you’re at.

For the love of God, enough with the insanity.

[puc86]

21 minutes ago, SpeedBull said:

Puc86 - I just read this entire thread and you are absolutely killing me. What world are you living in? All you do is crap on the AAC. Why do you waste your time watching the Bulls and posting 50 times each thread about a team in such a loser conference?

You say the conference is “beneath us” and yet we’ve never won it. That statement alone is the most ignorant thing I’ve ever read on this board.

Nothing worth having is given...it’s earned. What has USF Football done to earn a spot in a better conference?

What has the program accomplished to prove that the conference is beneath them? 

My 8 year old son understands that to get to the next level in ANYTHING you must first win at the level you’re at.

For the love of God, enough with the insanity.

What world are you living in? A USF first one

Why do you waste your time watching the Bulls and posting 50 times each thread about a team in such a loser conference? I am a fan of my University and not the conference we have had the misfortune of being stuck in for now.

What has USF Football done to earn a spot in a better conference? Be a large University with a huge student body and rapidly growing alumni base in a large and attractive television market in a large and attractive state while being one of the only three teams left behind in the conference reshuffle, the only preeminent university in the state not p5 and having rapidly rising academic standing on par with the P5 programs.

What has the program accomplished to prove that the conference is beneath them? see above

[puc86]

My 8 year old son understands that to get to the next level in ANYTHING you must first win at the level you’re at.

NCAA conferences aren’t a relegation league where winning has anything to do with who ends up where. Teach your 8 year old to know what the rules of the game he is playing are before determining he is winning. Maybe it’s golf and higher scores lose. Why I think we deserve to be in a P5 is because winning has nothing to do with it (although in the past 36 games we have done it more than everyone but 5 teams who you guessed it are P5 teams).

[MikeG]

15 hours ago, Bausfkid said:

This is not a new topic.  It's been well documented the apathy of the Tampa area to embrace USF.  There are 3M people in the entire market and we can't get 30K (.001% of the population) to consistently attend a game.  The big excuse is consistently the opponent.  We should be way past that excuse in our life cycle.

Go Bulls!

we draw 1% of the population(30,000/3,000,000) , not .001% -- which equals 30 people

 

also-- 1000% seems excessive. He might be too right.

[MikeG]

15 hours ago, Bulls On Parade said:

Looked myself it was around 40k or so...Im afraid it will take a big win to get people back on band wagon and it starts next year beating Wisconsin at home.

lower bowl-- without any corner seat covers-- holds a little over 41,000 seats.

It was probably around 31K-33K people there

[MikeG]

15 hours ago, Grateful Dad said:

It's not the students.  You could have a wall to wall student section and that would only be ~15k, IIRC. 
The rest of the stadium would look very red. 

The culture is changing.  Older people?  Mostly Yankees who eschew any college sports and will not sit in 100 degrees for anything.  Younger people?  Even at the game (outside of the student section)  head down, texting, Facebooking, selfies, etc.  Attention span is shot.

We need to consistently offer big name wins.  Older fans (and sports writers) might remember declaring USF the new Cinderella, only to have USF lose to a lesser opponent and making them look like fools.  Some are gunshy to climb on the wagon at this point.  We have to prove ourselves all over again.  And, dare I say - a lot of fans don't even know what conference we are in, so a conference championship will not draw them in.  A win that has the sportsworld buzzing will get their attention.  But this is a tough market.  Just ask the Rays.

the 15K number- iirc - was available back when we opened up both upper decks. Many of those seats were on the ends of the upper decks (or just the east side maybe-- can't recall)

Also-- we had the band in the corner and not in the middle of the student section back then-- freeing up an entire section down low.

I'm not sure if they will still allow 15K in-- probably would and just let them sit where they could find a seat I guess. It would be an interesting problem to have to find a solution for.

[Bausfkid]

3 hours ago, MikeG said:

we draw 1% of the population(30,000/3,000,000) , not .001% -- which equals 30 people

 

also-- 1000% seems excessive. He might be too right.

Correct on the math Mike.  An embarrassment at best for the lack of fan base.

[Bausfkid]

What's really amazing is the who's who that gushed over Dr. Genshaft's accimplishments at her retirement and praised USF as a leading university, but publically at least, have done nothing to show support or been vocal about community engagement for the Bulls.

I used to see Pam Iorio (USF grad) consistently at sporting events and she used her position to influence community leaders. 

Today, these folks will gladly use USF for their financial footprint and gain, but I'd like to see it reciprocated.

Go Bulls!