Want Big 12, UCF fans? Buy more tickets.
Running off at the typewriter …
In past columns, we’ve discussed how UCF’s football team and administration as well as local politicians and business leaders need to do everything in their power to make the Knights as attractive as possible to the Big 12.
Now let’s talk about how UCF’s fans must step to the plate, too.
Hey, UCF fans, the season opener is a week away; are you going to show up? Are you going to buy tickets to the games? Are you going to show the big-boy conferences that you’re not a small-time fan base?
“The better our metrics look, the more attractive we become,” UCF athletics director Danny
White told me recently. “Certainly, one of the biggest metrics is our attendance at football games and our season-ticket numbers. … There was a time when we had more than 20,000 season-ticket holders when we opened up the on-campus stadium 10 years ago. We need to get back to that and we need to get there quickly.”
Why? Because the Big 12 is keeping score, that’s why. We can brag ad nauseam about UCF
being the second-largest school in the country and Orlando being the biggest TV market in the nation without an NFL team, but what do those factoids really mean if UCF fans aren’t going to games?
There should be no excuses next week for the first game of the Scott Frost era. With a new coach, a new offense and new uniforms, the stadium should be packed. If it’s not and there are thousands of empty seats, then UCF fans have no right to complain if the Big 12 passes them by. …
SHORT STUFF: My buddy Buckeye Rob on the Dolphins playing the Falcons in an NFL preseason game on Thursday night at the Campground: “It was good to finally have a sporting event in that stadium that didn’t end in a tie.” ... Hey, Buckeye Rob, you just gave me a great idea. Maybe our local MLS team should change its name to Orlando Ci-tie. … And did you see where new Orlando City coach Jason Kreis said he won’t have any extra motivation on Sunday when the Lions host NYCFC — the expansion team that last year fired him after only one season? And if you believe Kreis, I have a surf shop in Boise I’ll sell you. …
The city had to add some extra padding to the Campground turf on Thursday to pass the NFL’s concussion protocol. Question: If a stadium doesn’t pass concussion protocol, does it start forgetting past games it hosted? … Did you see where Ryan Lochte’s accomplice — American swimmer Jimmy Feigen — had to pay a $10,000 fine before he could leave Rio? Sounds to me like the swimmers were robbed, after all. … As a morbid motivational tool, Ole Miss players held a fake funeral for coach Hugh Freeze the other day. I’m just wondering if six NCAA investigators were brought in to be the pallbearers. … CBSSports.com fantasy football guru Jamey Eisenberg tells me our boy Blake Bortles will be a better real quarterback this year but a worse fantasy quarterback. …
The U.S. women’s soccer team suspended goalkeeper Hope Solo for six months after she called the Swedish team “a bunch of cowards” after it ousted Team USA from the Olympics. Of course, Team USA has no significant matches for the next six months. This is the international soccer version of Urban
Meyer suspending his best player from the season opener against Al’s Barber College. … My concept for the new George O’Leary statue at UCF: GOL riding Pegasus bareback into the Big 12. … By the way, I’m willing to bet all of those national media members who think O’Leary doesn’t deserve a statue have never covered a single game at UCF and have no idea what the dark ages of the program looked like before O’Leary built the foundation and the facilities. … Hard to believe 20 Major League Baseball teams are confirmed to attend Tim Tebow’s workout in Los Angeles. I guess they want his autograph . ... Personally, I think the Tampa Bay Rays should sign Tebow and automatically double their home attendance.
LAST WORD: “Relationships are a lot like algebra. Have you ever looked at your X and wondered Y?”