Pavlovs Eagle

Big upgrade! Thanks for organizing this.

What is the average age of these SMU Billionaires? It has to be mid 70's at this point... I say that emphasizing that you better hope they each leave a $100m to each SMU NIL Collective in their estates because the average SMU graduate these days probably considers themselves lucky not to graduate with $200k in student loans and a nice $55k-60k a year job at graduation. So, for example, an SMU degree may get you an interview at a Big 4 office in Dallas quicker than a UNT degree might, but most of these SMU kids as scrapping their way along the same corporate ladder to middle management in the same way UNT students are. With the increased cost of everything, donating to the NIL collective so your top Running Back recruit can drive a Range Rover when he's 19 may not resonate with a middle aged family man SMU grad with 2.5 kids, a 2022 $650k "starter home" mortgage at 6%, and two Toyota SUV payments.

Last I saw him he was driving a very nice new Ford F-150 Raptor.

Us club seat holders put our pants on one leg at a time too... Can't speak for the suite holders though, I assume they have a tailor sew them a pair each morning.

To this day, with the exception of walking from the Riverwalk to the Alamo KFC Dome, Charlotte made us walk a mile from non-season ticket holder parking to the stadium only to find out there was only 3k Charlotte fans there for the UNT at Charlotte game. I have a hot take that this project will actually hurt SMU home game attendance. I'd guestimate there's a measurable amount of people that go there just to sit in the grass... or they go because their kids can entertain themselves by running up and down the grass.

It does look decent. Better than the Covid year gifts of "we're going digital with your tickets but forgot to not print the plastic ones, so here's commemorative physical game tickets!"

We didn't get back from the beach till last night. As a season ticket holder, will someone be mailing me my off-brand UNT Yeti cup or am I blessed enough to be able to purchase it now at full price? Sounds like the same story as the Dallas coaches roadshow event at the brewery a few weeks ago.

Date/Time/Streaming Service?

We've traveled to most of the Littrell era away games. To the point that we had people asking us "who's your kid?"... which goes to show that except for SMU/UTSA/Rice/LA Tech and maybe one exotic P5 home game a year, our fan base NEVER travels unless they have a child playing. There is NEVER and organization of a UNT official hotel block or anything for our games. For some of the bigger away games the Athletic Department will come up with travel packages but they won't release it till 3-4 weeks prior to the game. Look at the folks on GMG.com going to UNLV... many of us have already booked hotels (in a city that is highly unlikely to sell out of hotel rooms) and some have already booked plane tix. The Cal game was another great example. There were a decent amount of us there, imagine if they had corraled 75 of the 100 green guys in the same hotel! I think 2-3 weeks before the game the Ath Dept tried to get people to stay 20 miles inland in Walnut Creek away from Berkley and SF where all the energy is. And the great embarasment of the FAU CUSA championship game in Boca without as much as coordination of a 10x10 Academy pop-up tent and some free water and Lite with UNT koozies in the giant FAU parking lot campus. You'd think there'd be some travel agent that would be happy to try to coordinate some of that stuff as soon as the football schedule comes out.

Don't they usually replace it right before football season starts? I've seen the school or the AD call it out at least once or twice on social when it happens.

Selfishly I will miss the short drive from Plano to Frisco when we are playing at Dickies Arena in Ft Worth in a few years.

I booked Fri-Sun through our MGM account at Bellagio. There were already some decent comps available. If the market goes 101% to hell long term after a 75bp or 100bp rate hike at Wednesday's Fed meeting they may be giving away hotel rooms by Sept on the Strip. At minimum make sure you can cancel your hotel reservation so you can rebook for a cheaper rate.

When the MGSF people are saying they basically have only 1k donors (I feel like I've heard this a few times recently), I'd only pay attention to the deeper pockets too. Hopefully I'm misunderstanding the 1k active donors number?

So what'd everyone think? It's obvious Grant is a great speaker and motivator. Seth almost has me believing (don't know why I keep letting that happen). And I feel bad that I don't support Women's BB better. Saw the same 25-40 people that are at every similar Dallas or Collin County event. Not sure how many people that didn't work for the University that were there and under 40 years old. We can't just have a bunch of guys who are at or beyond retirement supporting the program. I know even the great SMU struggles with this, but it's as evident as ever.

...says the Washington Post, NPR, NYT, and misc other blue check marks on Twitter who are all laser focused on hit pieces about her at the moment. I hope to read more about the other 650+ District Court Judges once they're done trying to ruin her life.

I'm going on my 5th season of having tickets in CL, and the regular hand shaker and baby-kisser crew from the AD/MGSF/Ticket Sales (not sure which one, but it's the same few men year after year), has never once come by our seats to ask for even $50 more bucks in donations, etc. Considering how few people have club tickets, combined with the usual declining attendance as the season progresses the last few seasons, you'd think someone would eventually get around to a table touch on our seats at least just to say "hi" and "thanks for being a season ticket holder, have you thought about giving..." Or even "do you have basketball tickets too?". I have gotten harder sales pushes from some random undergrad kid calling me to attempt to get me to donate another $100 towards the University endowment than I've gotten from the Athletic Dept to buy more/better tickets to a sport I already have tickets in, additional tickets to sports I don't have tickets in, and/or to donate additional money to MGSF or their next special project. Some of the people at the AD remind me of the wives of partners in law firms downtown who work 20hrs a week at Neiman's to get their husbands a few thousand dollars off their next $10k Brioni suit. It seems like a fun job where they get to watch sports while chasing 5 to 10 donors who would probably write a big check even if they didn't work there.

We'll probably do all of the away games this year with the exception of the UTEP Sun Bowl in late August... although Sept 17th in Las Vegas may not be much cooler. Wish we were playing FAU in Boca. While their stadium is a great example of how to cheaply build a sizeable football stadium, the rest of Boca is 💯. Also very interested in seeing the new UAB stadium. Haven't been to a game in Bham since some UAB Homer tried to fight us for sitting with family that are UAB fans on the home side a few years ago. The old stadium was a derelict disaster in an awful neighborhood.

No Athletic Dept yard sale right? I saw the gates open at 10:30. I assume they're done by noon? I'm a bit under motivated to schlep up to Denton for this one.

He's too heavy. And time isn't on his side as all of us know... He's going to get heavier unless he gets a good trainer and nutritionist. He reminds me of Zion. All hype in college and then has missed over 50% of his NBA starts because of injuries that are probably related to weight.

MAYBE in Dallas... In the entire state? No. For every SMU grad I've met who knew how to navigate the social and professional circles of SMU alums, I've met 5 who will brag of the worth of their SMU degree from their entirely average or below average job that they could have gotten with a piece of paper from Tarleton State. I interviewed a SMU grad a few years ago now for a entry level staff Finance Analyst job. He bragged about how he interned at Nike in Oregon and was interested in our job but that it was an absolute after thought if Nike called. Fair enough... I offered him a position and he started asking for 10's of thousands more and equity in the company because SMU and did you know he interned at Nike? I hired a kid from UTD and as far as I know the SMU guy spent so long trying to get a finance job that he SUDDENLY had a high interest in going back for his Masters at ole SMU. Unemployment will do that to you.

Maniacs didn't get an overview of what a layup is...

Did Stone Cold score????

It's pretty underwhelming inside only 10 mins out. Far less seated than at LA Tech game.