Low UH home game attendance rates are one of the concerns students want to see addressed during UH President Renu Khator’s 100 Days survey initiative, Athletics Department officials said.
Athletics Director Dave Maggard said attendance has improved but the athletics program still has a lot more work left and he’s not satisfied with attendance rates.
Over the past four seasons, men’s basketball’s average paid attendance has fluctuated: 4,245 in 2004-2005; 4,907 in 2005-2006 3,999 in 2006-2007; and 4,509 this season. Hofheinz Pavilion has a maximum capacity of 8,500. The attendance at last season’s Texas vs. Baylor game in Austin had a paid attendance of 15,458.
Athletics Director of Marketing and Promotions Lee De Leon said he understands there is a hierarchy in sports at UH, which always puts football and men’s basketball at the top of the ladder. Trying to get students involved in other sports is where the challenge begins.
"We have a target market for every sport," De Leon said. "If we’re pushing this hard for football, we can’t be hitting the students at the same time for soccer and volleyball because it’s all going on at the same time. We just don’t really focus our marketing efforts as much for students on some of the smaller sports because we don’t really think the interest is there."
Maggard and De Leon said the department has spent more money on marketing to attract fans to attend games.
"At every football game, we’ve got yard signs all over campus We’ve got banners at four different entrances on campus, and we’ve got a banner at the (University Center) and the Satellite all week long, so people know," De Leon said. "We do everything to get students there because they’re our priority. It’s frustrating when they don’t respond."
Other than matchups against Rice University, football has also had attendance problems. UH sophomore offensive lineman Jaryd Anderson said a large turnout could help spur the team to greater heights.
"Attendance makes a very big difference in every game," Anderson said. "The bigger the crowd, the easier it is to get pumped-up, and playing is a lot more fun when everybody is screaming and yelling for you."
Maggard said the Athletics Department hasn’t requested higher percentage student fees above what it received last year of about $4 million.
De Leon said the University could help expand event promotions through major social networking Web sites, which marketing has already established.
"We have Facebook pages for every sport," De Leon said. "We invite thousands of people on Facebook to the event. They can RSVP, they can invite their friends, we can send them messages about it.
"We send e-mail blasts to the entire student body population. Unfortunately, not a lot of people check those e-mails, but we do send them for pretty much every home game."
Additional reporting by Ronnie Turner, Nicole Vaiana and Teraisha Warren
