re: aTm fans, how often does Kyle sell out?

A&M started selling out two or three years ago (prior to the SEC affect). Since that, it has consistently sold out, and there is now quite a long list for season tickets.

Prior to that, A&M lacked the branding to get "t-shirt fans," a large enough alumni base to just sell out with alumni, and was far enough from major urban areas to make it hard to sell out with locals.

Chuck Carlton and the Dallas Morning News need new researchers.

A&M had 42 sellouts at Kyle Field during the time period of 1999-2012 (14 seasons).

EDIT: Technically these are "at or above capacity" crowds. Not necessarily "sellouts".

I bet the DMN got their numbers from someone within A&M AD, from part of the group that wants to keep the new stadium on the smaller side (95K or so).

If you only call it is sellout if we sold every available ticket (including scattered singles or tickets within extra areas that were opened up beyond capacity - like temporary seats on the track), then we have fewer sellouts.

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I didn't take into account any "political" stuff going on at the athletic department.

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A little insight, por favor?

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I bet the DMN got their numbers from someone within A&M AD, from part of the group that wants to keep the new stadium on the smaller side (95K or so).

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The Athletic Director is that person. Hyman said that.

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A little insight, por favor?

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I have no special knowledge of anything at A&M's AD. I worded that poorly.

I would normally take stats like 24 sellouts in 36 years at face value from the Athletic Department (from the DMN is a different story, but everyone here says that number is straight from the Athletic Director).

It had not entered my mind that hypothetically there were factions that would put out contrasting numbers as part of an agenda to control stadium expansion.

Because that sounds far-fetched.

Every school counts differently... Some schools count concession people, security, recruits media etc to come up with these over capacity numbers... No SEC school sells SRO tix that I'm aware of, so over capacity are people working etc...

At UGA we have 92,746 tickets, those are all that's counted. I know Bama does the same with 101,821 seats.

If Bama & UGA used the methods some schools Bama would routinely be prolly 105,000 & UGA 95,000...

A&M's numbers vary so much because of the current craptastic design of the stadium. We throw seats on the old track and in temporary bleachers that aren't official capacity but are revenue bearing tickets. The new Kyle will eliminate all of that. That's not to say we can't still count folks in the press box or whatever but it won't vary the attendance as greatly as it has. We actually pushed above 90k for the Nebraska game in '10 by breaking fire codes and putting way too many people on the track which resulted in the mass of folks on the field immediately after the game. It made for a great scene but it could have been very dangerous and thus they won't let capacity get over about 87,500 until the rebuild.

I think the "politics" going on is you have some folks with different views on the capacity of the stadium. Some think 95k would be fine and leave the option to add on later. The thought process is you increase demand and virtually guarantee sellouts. Others think we go big now while interest rates are low so you aren't doing a very expensive addition in 10 years. You may not sell out every game immediately but you will eventually and in the meantime you sell out the big games now and Kyle is "done" for a good long while. You have economic arguments on both sides and lots of history of attendance on both sides. There is also some argument that some of this is about tempering expectations for those that want Kyle to be 150k or to motivate folks who are supportive but haven't yet voted with their wallets yet by committing to a major donation.

The momentum has been with the "bigger" crowd but in the end the BoR vote in May will tell the tale, that is when everything will be officially approved.

per the NCAA you can count attendance one of three ways. Which do y'all use...

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Attendance figures for official box scores and/or NCAA reports can be calculated by #1, turnstile count(total number of people in stadium including but not limited to, tickets sold, participants, employees & gratis entry), #2, actual tickets sold or #3, an estimate by the host school when turnstile or tickets sold quantity isn't available.

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The factors are NOT debatable. It's a shrinking economy that is effecting ALL sporting events. That doesn't seem to effect A&M. Demand is definitely there. Don't sit there and act like it's not.

If we're gonna dump HALF A BILLION frickING DOLLARS into a revamp job, somebody needs to be projecting the future over the next 30 years. Our alum base is one of the fastest growing in the U.S. Is NOBODY thinking about that, and the 10,000 new ones we graduate every year? Surely our AD has considered that issue, right?

If the AD is making projections, I want to see them. What are they? Over how long a period of time? Will it be cheaper to do all the renovation in a short period of time or wait until demand is way up in 5 years?