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re: A&M fans: How soon do y'all give up the Thanksgiving night game nonsense?

Posted on 10/14/14 at 2:42 pm to
Posted by twk
Wichita Falls, Texas
Member since Jul 2011
2180 posts
Posted on 10/14/14 at 2:42 pm to
quote:

A&M fans: How soon do y'all give up the Thanksgiving night game nonsense?Because of that request both LSU and A&M will have to either play 11 straight weeks or take the bye before the short week. How dead set are y'all on that time slot?
Serious answer here:

A&M normally sets aside 32,000 seats for students (we have more this year because of the expansion, but that number should gravitate back to 32k next year, or soon thereafter). That's more than anyone else in the country by a long shot. Filling those seats is one of the primary reasons why we wanted to play LSU that final weekend, and why we want the game on Thanksgiving.

Regardless of who you play that final weekend, getting students and non-students on campus for a game that weekend can be a chore. So, it needs to be an attractive game. That's why we wanted LSU.

As to the date, you've got 3 options that weekend: Thanksgiving Day/Night; Black Friday; or, Saturday.

When it comes to getting students on campus for that game, either you have to plan on them staying in town, or getting them to come back to town early.

Black Friday is the absolute worst day for students--we had a couple of games against the sips where several thousand student tickets went unclaimed and were sold, at the last minute, to whoever wanted to buy them (way too many sips). Unless you're talking about kids who live within an hours drive or so, if they go home for Thanksgiving, they aren't making the game on Black Friday. For the non-students, it still cuts into your Thanksgiving unless you live extremely close to College Station. We had to fight Disney to get the Texas game off that date and aren't interested in going back with a different opponent.

Saturday is slightly more viable in that you are still allowing students an opportunity to go home, if they live close enough where they can turn around and come back on Friday, or even on Saturday morning if they live close, and non-students also get to spend a good portion of Thanksgiving at home. Of course, Saturday is also when the Iron Bowl and several other attractive games are played, so, from the TV perspective, its kind of a waste to pile on yet another potentially good game on that day.

With a Thanksgiving game, you're just asking students to stick around an extra day, and they still get a 3 day weekend. You do have NFL games as competition, but I would imagine that playing this game on Thanksgiving will get it more exposure than it would buried under the avalanche of other big games that are played on Saturday.
Posted by Wolfhound45
Hanging with Chicken in Lurkistan
Member since Nov 2009
120000 posts
Posted on 10/14/14 at 2:45 pm to
quote:

twk


Excellent breakdown. Thanks.
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