Why Doesn't TCU Sell Out Football Games?

The city of Fort Worth is one of the nicer places in the US. It’s fast growing with plenty of business opportunity for professionals. There are roughly 6.2 million people that live in DFW. Fort Worth alone has a population of 730,000 (Tarrant County ~ 2 million). The city often gets overlooked by its larger neighbor Dallas but is just as nice if not nicer. The people of Fort Worth (and Tarrant County) seem to be very proud of their city and support most things in and around it. Needless to say Fort Worth has a lot going for it and is an excellent place to call home.

So the question here is why doesn’t the city of Fort Worth (and greater DFW) support TCU football more than it currently does? When you compare Fort Worth to Austin the two cities have roughly the same population. However, when you look at the greater metro areas there is no comparison. DFW is over four times larger than greater Austin. One would think that with such a huge population in TCU’s back yard attendance at home football games would average at least 50,000 (instead of its current average of 38,000) considering the success of the program over the last decade. The University of Texas averages over 95,000 fans each home game and they do so in a metro area that doesn’t compare to DFW. Below I will briefly touch on some of the reasons that TCU doesn’t have higher attendance numbers.

TCU doesn’t have the long football tradition that UT, OU and others have

TCU has a tradition of winning but when you compare it to that of UT or OU it doesn’t match up well. However, if TCU continues on their current path (and it looks like they will) they will slowly gain more recognition for a strong football tradition.

Unlike Austin, Norman (etc.), in DFW there are many other options when it comes to sports

This is the one of the few down sides to being in the 4th largest metro area in the United States. Competing with the Dallas Cowboys will always be a losing battle in DFW. In addition to the Cowboys you have the Rangers, Mavericks, Stars, Vigilantes, FC Dallas and many minor league hockey and baseball teams. The good news is the more TCU wins the better they can compete for attention.

TCU is a private university with a smaller alumni base than large public universities

This is one they can’t really help. It stands to reason that UT averages 95,000+ fans a game partly because it’s the largest university in the nation. TCU has roughly 9,000 students compared to UT’s 55,000. However, I would also like to point out that Notre Dame averages over 80,000 and they too are a private university of the same size. In addition Notre Dame isn’t in the middle of a metro area with 6.2 million people.

TCU is in the Mountain West and not a major BCS conference

The Mountain West is the best of the non BSC conferences. As a matter fact it is likely stronger in football than the Big East. Unfortunately UTAH is leaving the conference and BYU is threatening to go independent. Granted Boise State is set to join but will they follow through if BYU leaves. TCU might want to start looking for a new conference. Maybe they will finally get the Big 12 invite they should have received over Baylor to begin with.

TCU has not done a very good job of getting its merchandise sold in a variety of retail outlets

When you go to the store you will likely see UT, OU, Texas Tech and A&M merchandise filling the shelves. Unless you are close to the TCU campus it’s not always easy to find TCU merchandise. The schools that have made their merchandise available to the masses not only benefit financially but also get young fans hooked early. As any parent can tell you if your kids want to go see a certain team play you likely will find yourself at one of their games in the near future. If TCU can get more distribution for its merchandise it can get more young fans interested and some of them may turn into lifelong fans.

TCU may be the best college football program in DFW but they aren’t the only one -- UNT & SMU also compete for fans in the area

While SMU and UNT can’t compete with TCU on the field they do compete for attention. UNT is a large public school with a large student body (36,000) and an alumni base that primarily stays in DFW. SMU may not be as dominant as they were in the 80s but they are much improved under current coach June Jones. The more SMU improves the more attention they will get and they are on the Dallas side of DFW where more than half of the 6.2 million live. TCU needs to more aggressively market its football team which brings me to my last point.

TCU needs to do a better job of marketing the football program to the community

While large public universities may be able to rely solely on their alumni base to fill the stadium small private schools don’t have that luxury. TCU needs to take advantage of the population base outside its door. If TCU was in a town of 100,000 people it wouldn’t have to do much marketing to get noticed. However as I mentioned in an earlier point there are many other sports options for people in DFW. A more aggressive marketing campaign could generate the interest needed to fill Amon G. Carter Stadium.