Hey Cyclones! Excited to get up to Ames this weekend and check out Iowa State for the first time.
Just wanted to drop in and make a quick comment. I noticed several posts about attendance. A couple things--first, the Texas game was not only a sellout, over 3,500 "standing room only" tickets were sold and the attendance was the second-largest in stadium history. Every seat was full at kickoff (11 am) and there were people packed around standing and watching from the concourses. It is absolutely true that, up 37–0 several minutes before half, a lot of folks left and tailgated through halftime and the second half. It's not a good look for TV, but it's part of the culture and over 48k went through the gates that Saturday into a stadium that seats 45k. TCU actually sold out of season tickets in July, so the only tickets that remain for sale for any games (excluding secondary market, of course), were tickets that were returned to TCU by visiting teams (only UT and Baylor sold out the allotments TCU was required to hold by Big 12 rule). Each of the 3 games (SFA, SMU, UT) sold out and standing room tickets were sold.
Second, as a bit of context: it's important to keep in mind that TCU's entire living alumni base is a tad under 80,000. Current undergrad population has grown quite a bit in the past 15 years, but it's currently only around 8,500 students (with no plans to grow it further) --- and 60% of the students are female (the only negative of this being they don't sports as much as guys).
So TCU is a school of 8,500 undergrads + 80,000 alumni with a stadium seating 45,000. 50% of our worldwide alumni base + undergrads wouldn't even fill the stadium. By comparison, UT has over 475 living alumni and 50,000 current undergrads. It would only < 9% of their alumni+undergrads to fill our stadium and < 20% of their alumni+undergrds to fill their own stadium. So over the years TCU has worked to adopt a lot of non-alumni/student fans to support the small, private school, located in the DFW metroplex where many other schools have larger alumni bases (UT, A&M, Tech, Baylor, OU, OSU, UNT, SMU, etc.).
I don't buy the "pro town" argument that some of our fans make – college sports fans are different than pro sports fans. Sure you have some anomalies out there like Austin (population 885,00 with no pro teams) and even Lubbock (population 240,000 w/ no college or pro team within 4 hours' drive) where the college team is the dominant team in a large population base, but that's not the norm. Most college fans are alumni and have a unique loyalty and passion that pro fans don't.
Anyways, thought y'all might be interested in the numbers. Please don't take this as an "excuse" post--I wish our fans stuck around from kick to 00:00, and I know that enrollment and alumni numbers can't be used as an excuse--TCU has to pull its weight to prove it belongs in a conference like the Big 12 no matter how many students it has (a completely voluntary choice the school makes). But I think the numbers help show that TCU does very well and has one of the most loyal student and alumni bases by %.
PS: please feel free to loudly/publicly shame us about basketball attendance. It's atrocious and embarrassing (much like our annual non-conference basketball schedule and, quite honestly, the program's history).
