The attendance last season at TDECU started well, with the Cougars selling out the first game, but attendance dropped during the rest of the season, and crossed 30,000 just three times all season. | Courtesy of UH Athletics
Among speculation of the Big 12 looking toward expansion, Houston supporters have expressed a desire to see the Cougars selected for membership.
While UH seems to be the sensible decision in expansion, rumors indicating that Houston is a candidate have sent Cougar supporters into a fever pitch.
But as we’ve seen in the past, Bob Bowlsby, the Big 12 Conference commissioner, and the Conference aren’t exactly in a rush to expand.
Despite all the indications that the Big 12 is set for the time being, rumors have still swirled, and support for a move for the Cougars soars.
The biggest question: does a move to the Big 12 make sense?
Athletically, the Cougars have suffered from a series of difficult years on the football field, with just 21 wins in the past three seasons, but the hiring of Tom Herman has brought excitement back to the program.
But Houston making the leap into the Power 5 isn’t just about wins and losses, because when it comes to football, money and the Big 12, it’s so much more than a game.
Arguably the biggest thing working against the Cougars is the market share Houston would add to the Big 12. Despite the Cougars location in one of the largest cities in the nation, the Big 12 might look to add a new market to up revenues with expansion into cities like Orlando or Cincinnati.
Let’s ignore all that for a moment though and just look at numbers we can see.
Football reigns in the south, and will factor largest into which team will join the Big 12.
One of the critiques from the past season for UH was that the stadium seemed half-empty more times than full last season. Houston averaged 28,311 fans per game, putting them sixth in conference in average attendance.
If we look at percentage of the max capacity, UH filled 71 percent of their stadium on average, which bumps their ranking up to fifth in the AAC.
Now, let’s take a look at the numbers from the Big 12, Houston’s prospective new home.
Each school in the Big 12 averages at or above 90 percent with the exception of Kansas, who averaged just 68 percent filled this past season. Additionally, the average size of stadiums in the Big 12 is 61,777 seats, putting UH at about a 21,000 seat deficit.
Based on average attendance per game, Houston would have ranked last in the Big 12 last season, trailing 10th place Kansas by 5,766 seats filled, and league-leading Texas by 65,792.
Should UH join the Big 12, fans might turn out more because they’d see the Cougars playing against better competition, but what happens if the Cougars start losing?
The teams of the Big 12 are at a completely different level of competition from those in the AAC, and when the losses and poor play started to add up for Houston last year, attendance started to drop.
The Cougars sold out just one game last season: the home-opening loss.
The following week, attendance dropped to barely over 30,000 fans, and UH cracked 30,000 just one more time last season, the homecoming loss against Tulane, which saw an attendance numbers of 32,205.
Look at the numbers of another slumping Texas school from last season in the University of Texas Longhorns.
UT was first in the Big 12 last season, with an average attendance of 94,103, but tied for sixth with a percentage of capacity at 94 percent.
All these numbers don’t mean that UH doesn’t belong in the Big 12, but just that they don’t belong in the Big 12 right now.
Houston is striving for notoriety both on and off the field, and have a good chance to prove that they are here to stay this year.
A strong performance by Tom Herman and Houston, including a run at a conference championship and a strong bowl game would go a long way to furthering the Cougars’ cause.
But, after all, it’s just a game, right?
I’m thinking the figures would be different if we were competing in a P5 conference much like the Bears and Frogs.
I have seen the crowds first hand when UH was up against Big 12 teams and others. First, the other teams in Texas bring 20-45,000 fans of their own in addition to UH turning out more. Remember the Bowl game at Reliant when we played TCU? TCU brought 12,000. The other 40,000 were UH fans in red. If we are in a major conference (SEC, ACC, Big 12 or similar), the problem would be not enough seats, not empty seats.
To the writer of this article, yes you are correct our attendance average was 28,000 and yes that was after the disastrous opening game debacle as well as the Tulane flop at home. Let’s have this discussion at the end of this year!!!!!
The editor should be fired for allowing this drivel to be published. I dare you to go tell Tom Herman or Renu Khator we don’t belong in the Big 12. If we were in the Big 12 the attendance issue would solve itself.
Really? How long have you been a Houston Cougar fan?
How long have you been an anti cougar fan?
I’m not an ‘anti cougar fan’, just realistic. I don’t think joining the Big-12 will solve anything. We need fans showing up to support our team. Fans like Cougar1, who show up in good times and bad, to see the Cougars not just who they’re playing.
I don’t know what that has to do with anything, but I attended my first UH football game in ’98. I have attended every UH home game since 2000 including every home game in the 0-11 season.
Awesome. You are a true fan. I’ve only been going since 2006, and I have to admit I’ve missed a few home games since then.
Got you beat been to nearly every cougar home game since 1971 when I was a student.
Last season’s poor attendance was brought to us by the one, the only, Tony Levine. He wasn’t the right hire to succeed Kevin Sumlin and the buck stops with Renu who wanted to go cheap instead of hire a quality head coach. Thank God she learned her lesson and let the BOR step in and bring Tom Herman to UH.
Resorting to percentage of seats filled to attempt to bolster weak numbers is sad. BYU doesn’t have attendance issues and they are not in a power 5 conference. ECU is in the same conference as Houston and they average over 45,000. And the comments her are damning as well… “If we were in a good conference, the fans of the other schools would fill our stadium for us…” Over he last 5 seasons you have not been able to average a meager 30,000 fans collectively. Three of those 5 seasons you had winning records and went to bowls, including a 13-1 season… ad you still couldn’t sell out your stadium or average 30,000 fans collectively. Houston has no business even thinking about joining the Big 12 until you fans, YOURSELVES, start caring enough to show up for games regardless of who you play. Real fans of real programs go to games to watch THEIR team, regardless of the opponent. The Houston market already belongs to the Big 12 and SEC. Houston doesn’t add anything to the conference we don’t already have except a program whose own fans admit they need fans of other programs to carry their attendance numbers for them.
Low attendance at UH games is only in a small part due to fan apathy. If there was an NFL team in Austin, attendance at UT football games would drop by 50%. Also, UT has a much larger student body (enrollment = 70,000) and they have a lot more living alumni than UH. All that adds up to a larger attendance.
70,000? UT has 39,000 undergrads, and UH has 33,000. The size of the graduate school is irrelevant, or we should discuss harvard and cal-berkley grad school attendance as well.
It really gets old hearing that the Big 12 and SEC owns the Houston market. They do not. You can’t schedule Rice every other year with a stadium half covered with a tarp and claim you own this market. They were hurt by our recruiting this year, which proves that they don’t own this market. As Coach Tom Herman says, that’s just the beginning. It doesn’t take a mental giant to understand that the paradigm changes with Houston in a P5 conference. The Big 12 is probably hoping that never happens because it would impact their recruiting efforts here quite seriously, plus they couldn’t dodge us anymore. We only need some marquee opponents on our schedule to fill the stadium with our own people.
One name says it all: Levine
Levine is the reason the fans voted with their feet last season When you look at his underwhelming coaching staff that lost in blow out fashion to the likes of UTSA and Tulane after previously losing to Texas State in their first every D1 FBS game and we were lucky to average 28,000. Also, if we were playing a Big 12 schedule we would draw better. Have the Big XII schools not names UT or OU play an ACC schedule and lets see how their numbers hold up.
When Bill Yeoman was our coach, we didn’t have a problem filling the Astrodome, particularly when we played Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Texas Tech or strong OOC opponents. TCU and Rice were pretty much bottom feeders and an automatic W for us. With the competition in the Big 12th as it is today, the coaches we have in place, and a stadium expandable to 60,000, we would have that appeal to fill it. And we are already circling the wagons on the recruiting around here, just ask the Big 12. Of course those schools would have to play us and perhaps be concerned about getting beat. To quote Art Briles about Houston, “If they get in a P5 conference…watch out.”
Texas did bring fans, but far more Houston fans showed up because of the opponent. The Texas Tech and Oklahome State games also packed Robertson, mostly with UH fans. Last year the opening loss along with all of those thursday night games really hurt attendance.
Very good comparison. I agree, UH doesn’t belong in the B-12 for the very reasons stated above. We have far too many fair-weather fans.
Show up and stay. Be an example to fellow fans. Stay until the game is over- win or lose.
This.
I couldn’t have been more ashamed of my peers at the UTSA game last year. The stadium went from capacity to almost empty by third quarter.
You are taking todays statistics and applying then to the Big 12. We need to take into account what will happen if we get in. Attendance will sky rocket and we will have more money to compete. We are a sleeping giant, once we get admitted to a P5 we will reatin most of Houston’s talent. Look back at the SWC days, we competed with the big boys. Look what happened to TCU’s program. Look how many people we had opening day last year. I think we can compete with any football conference minus the SEC if we are playing on a level playing field again, which we will once we get into a P5
You wont get good attendance till you play bigger teams, get into the conference will solve that
All of the Thursday night games also hurt attendance.
Here are the REAL Numbers Houston Fans should be concerned with concerning Big 12 Expansion 63,000, 45,000 $17.4 million and $10.2 million
Why are those number relevant to considering the University of Houston for Big 12 expansion?
This is a Football Only issue, it is not driven by academics, not driven by basketball and it is not driven by theory. Big 12 expansion is about MONEY.
There are two way in whcih expansion candidates can impact the Big by (1) adding value to the conference or (2) taking value away from the conference.
It is obviously up to the Big 12 Presidents to decide how to judge potential expansion candidates in those two categories but here are some real numbers that help clarify who ranks in the two highest position of adding Value.
relative to UH average attendance for 2014 (28,000)
2014 Attendance and Ticket Revenue compared to UH.
BYU Average Attendance 57,000 Ticket Sales (based on avg ticket price of $100) $34.2 million ($17.4 million more than UH)
ECU Average Attendance 45,000 Ticket Sales (based on avg ticket price of $100) $27 million ($10.2 million more than UH)
UH Average Attendance 28,000 Ticket Sales (based on avg ticket price of $100) $16.8 million
That is why UH will not be given serious consideration for Big 12 expansion. Doesn’t matter who you are (BYU, Cincinnati, UH) until you have 45,000 – 50,000 dedicated fans you get no seat at a Power 5 table.
Houston is a non-starter for Big 12 membership. They never were heavily supported during their Southwest Conference years when they had championship teams. The Big 12 blew it when Louisville was not embraced for membership when West Virginia was admitted. That made total sense, but DeLoss Dodds in Austin blew that one and then retired. BYU is one team the conference should admit and then figure out who makes the most sense for a 12th member school.