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Keep in mind that a lot of the SLC felt the effects of both Rita and Katrina this past year from SHSU having to cancel a TV game due to Rita to McNeese's stadium and community being wrecked by Rita (which shot McNeese down a good deal) and Katrina hitting the SELA/Nicholls community...

2005 Attendance

Avg NCAA I-AA Attendance (excluding neutral sites and the I-AA Championship Game) - 7,699

SLC Schools (and where they rank amongst I-AAs)
16. Texas State - 10 games, 12,875
36. Sam Houston State, 4 games, 9,269
42. Stephen F Austin, 6 games, 8,472
45. Northwestern State, 5 games, 8,383
48. McNeese St, 3 games, 7,896
53. Southeastern Louisiana, 4 games, 7,347
72. Nicholls State, 4 games, 5,580

55 Central Arkansas, 6 games, 7,326 (if placed amongst 2005 I-AAs)

Thanks for the info TT.

My #1 rule of collegiate athletics is that it is best to have just a few too many seats.

Tight seating means greater chance of selling season tickets and greater chance of donors seeking ticket and parking priority.

If you are selling season tickets for $100 then a $500 donor is worth an extra 5 season tickets sold, except that money is in the booster club and not subject to many of the restrictions imposed on general revenue (ie. in Arkansas ticket revenue can't go to supplement a coach's salary above the state maximum but booster club money can).

I'd hope UCA would have plans in place to get from 8,500 to 15,000 in seating either in one phase or two.

The biggest priority I saw today though at my nephew's graduation is a severe lack of press box space.

anyone think they could add an auxillary press box on the East side like they used to have before the renovations occured?

In recent years the old auxillary box was not used regularly. It was a REAL dump.

I'm not sure there is a need for the press box on the east side. Besides, I had much rather see a new press box for baseball than a press box on the east side of Estes Stadium.

Burly Bear

Dang right!!!!

AMEN, Brother!!!!

Burly Bear

I may be way off, but I don't think your SLC opponents are going to bring a ton of fans to Estes. I would imagine that initially you are going to see somewhat of a lag in interest until people become familiar with the new teams.

To the average fan in AR, SAU is more of a known quantity than McNeese St.

As much as I or any other Bear fan hates to admit it you are probably right. Hell, UCA students barely turn out to see Harding play at Estes and they are from right down the road. They don't know who McNeese, Nichol's or anyone else is-so you are probably correct.

One thing to note...


McNeese typically sells around 7,000 season tickets and averages around 14-15,000 in most normal seasons in home attendance. Rita took a BIG bite out of that last year, when two home games were canceled and two more were played on the road instead of at home.


A typical McNeese road crew consists of between 2,500 to 3,000 vs a team of your distance, unless it was one of our two National Championship games in Chatanooga where we brought about 7,500 in 1997 and 9,000 in 2002.

We brought about 6,500 to our game against Northwestern in 2002.

We have on occasion out numbered MOST teams in their home stadiums.

We look forward to tailgating in Conway and the LE area.

you bring your average road crew against us, you'll have brought the most fans into our stadium not named ark. tech. I am looking forward to SLC schools bringing their fans, hopefully it will jump start some of our own to show up on a more consistant basis.

You first have to market the team in the community and the Atheletic Dept. doesnt do that very well! Hell that can't do that campus!

BINGO!!!! Try to google the capital city classic. The only things that aren't from previous years are from HSU.