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

No "fibbing" involved, it's just a bit more complicated of a question than at most schools. A&M is a conundrum of unusual circumstances.

To start, no other major school experienced the growth A&M did in terms of culture and student body we did from the late 60's to the early 80's. We went from an intensely loyal and die hard following from a predominantly all male and military school with well under 10k students to a nearly 50/50 split (gender) with less than 5% ROTC and over 40k students in 15 years. Now A&M is over 50k cranking out 12k grads a year. Half the people that have graduated from A&M ALL TIME have graduated since I was in school in the early 90's. When you consider that most people that buy season tickets are 40 and above, esp luxury tickets, it has a profound effect on many things.

Most schools, esp SEC schools, have had very modest growth over time and relatively minor cultural changes by comparison. Thus the growth has been much more stable and predictable in terms of stadium capacity. There are a few schools that have grown as much as A&M did but most of them are commuter schools that don't emphasize athletics to nearly the same degree.

There are also other factors. The quality of seating in the configuration of the stadium and what a "sellout" is defined by. Is it really that different when you have a few thousand seats "available" that you can barely see the field and are the least expensive seats in the stadium and go unfilled? What is a sellout anyway? A&M's official capacity is 82k and we had many games above that number that were not "sellouts" because off of the temporary and even track seating didn't sell. Prior to the Zone being built in '99 you had almost no sellouts at Kyle in spite of a capacity of 76k because you had the horseshoe seats that were abominable. They were at a terrible angle a LONG way from the field and you didn't even have a Jumbotron really to see the game. Many of those seasons A&M had a great team but a horrific schedule as well with the last few years of the SWC and the conference games being pretty terrible.

You can also add to the complexity of it all that Texas and BCS have exploded in the the last 25 years. Both have almost doubled in population and are continuing to trend upward. There are just a lot more potential customers now than there used to be.

The biggest issue of course has been the craptastic product we put on the football field in the '00s. I only missed a couple of games at home in that decade but damn it was not always fun. The Tennessee folks can probably relate to this the most, it's really tough when you go through a lengthy period of being really good like we were in the '80s and '90s and then just being so mediocre. People will always support a winner but A&M probably has a strong of a base of "no matter what" support as anyone and we were certainly tested.

Quality of schedule certainly plays into this as well. The SEC move definitely improved the schedule and sets it up well for the future. SEC teams also travel whereas Big 12 Teams really didn't outside of a couple. Having LSU and Bama on alternating years at home helps to balance things in terms of having a "feature" home game guaranteed every year. Long term I think the Texas game comes back as well to alternate out every other year and that provides another "anchor" along with the SEC schedule.

That's where it gets complicated. Can A&M sell out a 104k stadium if we are 6-6? No, but who can if we are talking about a multi year period of suckage? The key is that if you have a stadium that size and facilities to go with it you shouldn't suck and the payoff from selling out that kind of stadium is enormous both from a revenue and a PR perspective. Any way you slice it though it is a risk. If you build it will they come? There is strong evidence that they will. One thing we have learned though is the most expensive decision is to go half way. You are far better off going for the brass ring and rallying people toward that goal as opposed to going for being "pretty good" and expecting people to pay for a Top 10 program. You either commit all the way or you might as well go home, esp in the SEC.