UTEP fans: Generation has been lost

I'm sticking to my theory on why UTEP's football attendance is down. And it's not the record because 4-4 is respectable; and it's not unpopular tail-gate rules enforced by the university.

The team isn't averaging even 30,000 a home game when, in previous years, a  team as good as this would be drawing 45,000.

It's because UTEP has lost a generation of fans due to not having its road games televised - on a  regular basis , and on a channel most households can receive.

Note: This Saturday's 1:30 p.m. game is listed to be shown on Fox Sports Southwest, which IS available on the basic Time Warner package (Ch. 27). This is great, but rare these days.

Personal experience: As a young boy my dad took me to a Braves game, my first major-league game. To this day it's my biggest sports thrill. I'd followed the Braves on TV, and listened on the radio. Hank Aaron was my favorite player, and I liked Eddie Mathews, Spahn ...

The TV whet my appetite forbig-league baseball. Then, when I first walked through the little tunnel from the concession area to the outside ... and down on the field were the REAL  in-person Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews ... LIVE, IN PERSON. Heaven.

I sure wanted to go to more games. And my Dad took me a couple of times each season (200 mile-mile round trip).

I'm betting it's the same with the Miners. Your kids first need to see the Miners on TV.Being kids, they'll choose favorite players. Then when they see a real, live college football game, with the players out there IN PERSON, they become fans for life.

But if the Miners aren't on TV? Then they're not first on a young boy's list of things to do in person. Much of sports is having favorite players, then going to see them in person.

It's NOT national TV, as UTEP claims, when your game is on some off-shoot of some big network's off-shoot. Example, Conference USA has a new TV deal with Fox Sports. Great. But the UTEP-at-Tulane  game was shown on Fox Sports Central. We get Fox Sports Southwest on our basic cable. Why could it not have been shown here, too?

And CBS College Sports? What's that? You need a dish or a special package.

A UTEP game was on ESPN 3. That's not household. You've got to have a fancy TV  package.

You can watch games on your laptop. What the? How many people sit around watching a laptop game over somebody else's shoulder?

Real national TV is one of the four networks, ESPN, ESPN 2 and Fox. The World Series was on Fox, not Fox Sports Southwest or Fox Sports Central (or Fox western-southeastern.)

The good days were when our local CBS, NBC and ABC stations could go out and sell ads for a game, and put them on household TV for El Pasoans on a Saturday. Kids saw the Miners, and got interested. That went away when networks started to invoke heavier (financial) penalties on local stations for breaking into national programming.

Only the big conferences get regular national network coverage, as has always been the case. Lately ESPN has signed contracts with not only the big conferences, but the smaller conferences, but the smalls often have to play on days other than Saturdays. That's not too bad.

But where Is UTEP on TV?

I understand some, or most, of you posters are adults who earn a living and can afford watching at a sports bar (which has all the TV packages), or you have enough in your home package to get the Miners when they're on some exotic channel.

UTEP still has about 25,000 loyal fans. But  when loyalists get too old to go to games? As we're seeing now, there isn't the next generation to take their place.

UTEP's present conference (C-USA) isn't going to get the Miners on easy-to-see TV. UTEP must work in town, obviously with Time Warner Cable, to sell a package featuring it's  road football and basketball games.

TV does not hurt attendance. TV creates the fan base that grows  attendance.

Comments

[Miner Backer]

Well Joe, for onde I agree. A fan base is established by being able to view one's team on TV or live. We need Miners on the tube! Are you listening Bob and Diana!!

[SoggyCat]

With the advent of the BcS, UTEP football is now in one of the minor leagues. How many BcS conference member teams has UTEP hosted in the past 10 years??

I remember a few years ago reading about one of the PAC-12 teams and seeing the details of their new radio contract. Just the contract for radio was nearly equal the entire UTEP athletic budget.

And then there is the abandoning of the traditional rivalries by moving to CUSA. Notice that good ole WAC foe CSU drew over 30,000, as opposed to 'best in CUSA - top 25' S Miss (24,900).

And finally, too much disposable income is still going into the gas tank of the average 'Joe' (Jose?) here in town...a lot of restaurant owners are also wondering why 'attendance' is down 25% versus a few years ago.

[CaliMiner]

i agree joe...i live in california and trying to find utep is hard...ive been lucky this past weekend and hope to be lucky next weekend when they play Rice...but yes we do need more exposure....I love UTEP i have family ties with the school, and UTEP is a part of el paso!...WE need a fan base and we need to start a tradition! Utep puts el paso on the map when it succeeds! Also its sad to compare the big schools to this one!...but no matter the budget of schools, this school is my school and its a part of my home...we need that support, also the bcs i think hinders utep any chance for a championship...get rid of the bcs and give utep a chance to go to the big game no matter how realistically impossible it may seem, all you need is a chance and see what utep can do...it will generate interest

[Ernesto]

It doesn't have anything to do with TV, it has to do with money and nobody seems to bring it up. When I started at UTEP ticket prices for general admission was anywhere from 10-12 for general admission. Student guest tickets were 5.00, since we went to a couple of bowls, tickets started going almost every year increasing by as much as 100% and in some cases more! General Ad is now 20.00 and student guest tickets are 11 or 12.00. It used to cost a family of four $40.00 to go see a game, now it cost that same family $80.00. We had another increase this season and UTEP expects more people to come? I went 5 years without missing a single game, now I have my family and they have priced me right out. Next year when the prices goes up again, i can promis attendance will continue to drop.

[LoyalMiner]

This blog is so right on. It is absolutely pathetic at UTEP games these days. The tailgating is a joke, fan attendance and overall fun of games are gone. UTEP is to busy trying to be a Tier 1 school that it forgot about the rest of the city. If Natalicio and the "higher ups" really wanted more exposure, they would do a better job of filling the stands and TV sets. I remember being a kid watching the Miners, both Basketball and Football on local stations. It was great. It really is disturbing to have the biggest game next to the pros be some empty and not very supported game by the "shot callers" at UTEP. Bob Stull is a fool. He is to blame just as much as his counterparts. He has done nothing to promote this school's athletics outside of El Paso. He can make his claims all day long, but at the end of the season, attendance is still low, the football team was right were it was the year before and the Miner fun is gone. Get a more enthusiastic, harder working AD in here and let's see what happens.

[Eddie V]

It's sad to watch a UTEP football game on TV with an empty Sun Bowl. The students have never really supported the football and basketball games the past 20 + years. It has always been the citizens, family and players parents of El Paso that you see at the games, and now that is looking pretty sad. For the money, location and conference, you will not find a better coach, so don't even go there. This is probably the best football team UTEP has put together in years, and El Paso does not support. Wake up El Paso! Your lack of support looks bad on the City of El Paso. Who wants to visit a city that wont support their University? With the Miners on TV, it is a great way to show everyone that El Paso supports it's University and advertise El Paso as the place you want to come play sports. Go to the UTEP games and fill the stadium!

[Marcelo Navarro]

Joe is correct. As a teenager in the late eighties and early nineties, I was able to watch all the raod football and basketball games. Now, since I have the Dish, I can view a miniscule amount of games from home. This is a huge disadvantage to those of us who have small children and can't attend a bar. Also, my 15 year-old son is a big Texas Longhorns fan, because he gets to see all their games on TV. It is almost impossible to make him a UTEP fan, since he never gets to know the players on television. UTEP is losing out, and they need to react sooner rather than later, or a generation will be truly lost.

[ernesto v]

Just drive the point home, the fist year Mike price was here, we had no games televised because we were still in the WAC....and still had 45k in the stands. The difference was tickets were affordable back then.

[rj]

It could also be the fact many "younger" fans who grew up in EP following UTEP are leaving for school, better jobs, etc. Lets be honest, many teens are forced to either go to college now or the armed forces to make a living and if you are attending UTEP great, but if you're not, then the chances of you returning to El Paso to start a career or family are slim.

I went to every home game growing up and will be a UTEP fan for life, but I moved away 10 years ago for college. I still make it back once a year for a home game and used make every UTEP game (bball or fball) when I lived in Dallas. Now I live in San Antonio and am really missing catching a game live.

I remember seeing UTEP on local TV and it was great so Joe has a point there. It's a shame what has happened to the fan base because u could always expect at 30k for home games, but its evident those numbers have dropped.

I can't say much for marketing and promotions because I don't see it first hand, but maybe the Ath dept needs to come up with new ways to get fans back, a younger generation of fans.

[John]

I have done some research to figure this out, and in the 5 years with the new tailgating rules, the attendance is actually a bit higher on average than the preceeding 5 years.

But then again those dismal years of 02 and 03 (Nord's last 2-10 seasons) really dropped it off quite a bit.

A lot of people are upset at the tailgating rules. But I also think it is combination of the lack of exposure on TV, marketing of the games, and the higher ticket prices.

Better to sell out at ten bucks a ticket, than have 18,000 in the stands at 20 dollars!